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 4
 
 THE 
 
 LIFE AND WORKS 
 
 OF 
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 
 
 EDITED BY ROBERT CHAMBERS. 
 
 IX FOUR VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. III. 
 
 EDINBURGH: 
 WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. 
 
 1852.
 
 EDINBURGH : 
 PRINTED BY W. AND R. CHAMBERS.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 *** The Italic letters indicate the publication in whicla the several compositions 
 respectively appeared : see note prefixed to the Contents of Volume I. Pieces which 
 have not appeared in any previous edition of the poet's works are marked n. The 
 letter O refers to the authorised edition of the Letters to Clarinda, Edinburgh, 18-13. 
 
 ELLISLAND. 
 June 1788— December 1791. — (continued.) 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Letter to John M'Mwdo, Esq., 9tli Jan. 1789, - - 13 
 Letter to Professor Diigald Stewart, 20th Jan. (e) Fragment 
 
 of the Poei's Pro^rress. ... Creech satirised, - /i M 
 Creech's relation to Burns, - - - - IG 
 Letter to , 22d Jan. Virtues difficult to some, com- 
 pared with others. Good -writing requires care and pains, n 17 
 Extempore to Captain Riddel, on returnin(j a Neicspaper, - h 18 
 Letter to Captain Riddel. Sends some idle rhymes, - 7i 18 
 Burns's Jealous Feelings. Ode on Mrs Oswald, - - c 19 
 Burns and Pegasus at Wanlockhcad. To John Taylor, - j 20 
 Letter to Bishop G'eddes, 3d Feb. His marriage and prospects, e 21 
 Letter to Mr James Barnes, 9th Feb. Family matters, - i 22 
 Visit to Edinburgh : racking of accounts witli Creech, - 24 
 William, a younger brother of Burns. Letter to him, - 2-i 
 Letter to Clarinda, 9th March, defending Ids conduct, - o 25 
 Letter from the Rev. P. Carfrac, about a friend's poems, - 2G 
 Letter to il/?s Dunlop, 4th March. Jlortified feelings, c 27 
 Letter to the Rev. P. Carfrae, about his friend's poems, - e 28 
 Letter to Mr Peter Hill, Bookseller. A present of a cheese. 
 
 Whimsical proposal, - - - - - e 29 
 Letter to Dr Moore, 23d March. Introduces Eev. LIr Niclson, 
 
 and gives an account of his Ode on Mrs Oswald, - e 31 
 
 Dr Moore's Answer, - - - . . 33 
 
 Letter to Mr William Burns, 2ot\\ JNIarch, - - *;t 33
 
 Vi CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A Parish Library. Letter to Mr P. Ilill, 2d April. Frugality, c 33 
 Letter to Mrs Dunlop, •Itli April, enclosing Sketch of Charles 
 
 James Fox, - - - - - - c So 
 
 Letter to Mrs M'Murdo, 2(1 Slay. Courteous gratitude, j 37 
 
 Letter to Mr Cunninc/ham, 4th IMay, enclosing Verses on a 
 
 Wounded Hare, - - - - - e 38 
 
 Burns's Antipathy to Field-Sports. His dogs, - - 39 
 
 Delia, an Ode, ...--- 39 
 
 Dr Gregory's Criticism on the Verses to a Hare, - - 40 
 
 On Seeing a Wounded Hare Limp hy me, final copy, - c 42 
 
 Letter [in verse] to James Tennant of Glenconner, - </ 43 
 
 Letter to Mr Richard Brown, 21st May. Good wishes, - 44 
 
 Letter to Mr James Hamilton, 26th May. Sympathy with his 
 
 Misfortunes, ..... A 45 
 
 Burns gives new Poems to Creech. Letter to Creech, 30i.li May, h 45 
 Address to the Toothache, - - - - - e 4G 
 
 Letter to Mr M'Auley of Dumbarton, 4th June. His domestic 
 
 circumstances. Favourite Psalms, - - e 47 
 
 Letter to Mr Ixobert Ainslie, 8th June. Serious thoughts on 
 
 Matrimony, - - - - - - /t 48 
 
 Dunscore Church, and its Minister. Letter to Mrs Dunlop, 21st 
 
 June. Eeligious Views, - - - - e 49 
 
 Coi-respondence with Helen-Maria Williams. Criticism on her 
 
 poem, The Slave Trade, - - - - - 
 
 Letter to Mr John Logan, 7th Aug. The Kirk's Alarm, 
 The Kirk's Alarm, . . _ . . 
 
 Freit on inhabiting Ellisland, . . - . 
 
 Bums's Family extending. Procures a nomination as excise- 
 
 ofBcer of the district, - . - . - 
 
 Correspondence with Mr Peter Stuart, of the Star newspaper. 
 Letter to Mrs Dunlop, 6th Sept. Keligion a comfort. 
 Song — Willie hreiced a Peck o' Maut, 
 Date, Locality, and Circumstances of the above Song, 
 Affair of the Whistle Contest, . . . _ 
 
 Letter to Captain Riddel, 16th Oct., requesting franks. 
 The Whistle, ------ 
 
 Question as to the presence of Burns at the Contest, 
 Anniversary of Mary Campbell's Death, . . - 
 
 To Mary in Heaven, . . . _ _ 
 
 Speculations on tlie date of the above Poem, - - - 
 
 Poetical Correspondence with Dr Blackloclc, 
 Captain Grose the Antiquary meets with Burns, 
 
 e 
 
 50 
 
 J 
 
 54 
 
 y 
 
 55 
 
 
 59 
 
 
 CO 
 
 e 
 
 CO 
 
 e 
 
 62 
 
 d 
 
 C4 
 
 
 65 
 
 
 66 
 
 h 
 
 67 
 
 c 
 
 68 
 
 
 70 
 
 
 72 
 
 d 
 
 73 
 
 
 73 
 
 e 
 
 75 
 
 
 78
 
 CONTENTS. VU 
 
 PAGE 
 
 On Captain Grose's Peregrinations thi-ough Scotland, - c 79 
 
 Epitaph on Captain Grose, - - - - - 80 
 
 Letter to Francis Grose, Esq., introducing him to Professor 
 
 Stewart, - - - - - - A 81 
 
 Written in an Envelope enclosing a Letter to Captain Grose, e 81 
 
 Burns's Excise Business overtasking. His humanity, - 82 
 
 Letter to Mr Robert Ainslie, 1st Nov. Excise business, h 84 
 
 Letter to Mr Richard Brown, 4th Xov. A meeting difficult, 85 
 
 Letter to Mr William Barns, 10th Nov. A bankruptcy, - n 85 
 Burns's kindness to liis younger Brother, - - - 86 
 
 An Election Contest. Song — The Laddies hy the Banks o' Nith, 87 
 Letter to Robert Graham, Esej., 9th Dec. The Excise business, 
 
 and verse-making, - - - - - e 88 
 
 The Five Carlines, ----- i^ 89 
 
 Sickness. Letter to Mrs Dunlop, 13tli Dec. Eeligious feelings 
 
 and views, - - - - - -e92 
 
 Transiency of Burns's Serious Feelings, - - - 94 
 
 Letter to Ladi/ Winifred Maxwell Constable, IGth Dec. Jacobit- 
 
 isni. His Jacobite Ancestors, - - - - i 94 
 
 IjCttcr to Provost Maxwell of Zochinaben, 20th Dec. - j 95 
 
 The Minister of Lochmaben a friend of Burns, - - 96 
 
 Song — Tlie Blue-eyed Lassie, - - - - c? 96 
 
 Miss Jeffrey, the Blue-eyed Lassie ; her history, - - 97 
 
 Song — When first I saw fur Jeanie's face, - - * ?* 98 
 
 iMter to the Countess of Glencairn. Gratitude. Satisfaction 
 
 with his situation, ..... 99 
 
 Sketch— New Year's Bay [I7d0^— to Mrs Dunlop, - e 100 
 
 Theatricals at Dumfries. Letter to Gilbert Burns, 11th Jan. 
 
 1790, e 101 
 
 Prologue at Dumfries Tlicatre, .... g 102 
 
 Letter to Mr William Dunbar, 14th Jan. Anxious to keep up 
 
 correspondence. Excise business. His children. Hojics of 
 
 a better world, - - - - - /j 103 
 
 Letter to Mrs Dunlop, 25th Jan. Old Scottish Songs. Falconer, 
 
 author of The Shipwreck, .... e 105 
 
 Clarinda Correspondence temporarily renewed. Apologj' for 
 
 deserting her, ..... 
 Song — Mij Lovely Nancy, . - . - 
 
 Prologue for Mr Sutherland's Benefit, 
 Third volume of .7rt/(?7,soH'.s il/H,sc«w published, - 
 Songs by Burns in that volume, - - . 
 
 Burns's care in Song-writing, lursty Flint, - 
 
 
 
 105 
 
 c 
 
 lOG 
 
 <J 
 
 107 
 
 - 
 
 108 
 
 'd 
 
 108 
 
 - 
 
 115
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 h 
 
 117 
 
 Is, A 
 
 117 
 
 - 
 
 118 
 
 h 
 
 119 
 
 - 
 
 119 
 
 n 
 
 120 
 
 to 
 
 
 vill CONTEXTS. 
 
 Letter to 2Ir Peter Ilill, 2d Feb. Miss Burns's case, 
 
 Letter to Mr W. NicoJ, 9th Feb. His mare dead. Theatricals, A 
 
 Peg Nicholson, ------ 
 
 Letter to . Dr M'Gill's case, _ - . 
 
 William Burns asks advice of Robert, 
 
 Letter to Mr William Burns, 10th Feb. Advices, - 
 
 Correspondence with Mr Peter Stuart. Versified Letter 
 
 him. A gratis newspaper, - - - - -121 
 
 Letter to Mr Cunningham, 13th Feb. Miss Burnet. Happiness 
 
 and INIisery. Reflections on Immortality, - - e 123 
 Letter to Mr P. Hill, 2d March. Orders for books. Deplores 
 
 that selfishness is unavoidable, ... e 125 
 
 Burns's character revealed in his letters, - - - 126 
 Letter to MrsDunlop, 10th April. Scotland overlooked in public 
 
 proceedings. Ethical Views. Mackenzie's Writings, e 126 
 
 Letter to Dr Moore, lith July. Proposes to criticise Zeluco, e 128 
 Election Contest, described in an Epistle to Mr Graham of 
 
 Fintry, - - - - - - - *j 12^ 
 
 Letter to Mr Murdoch, IGth July. Recommends his brother 
 
 WUliam, - - - - - - A 133 
 
 Elegy on Captain Mattheiu Henderson, - - - c 134 
 Letter to Mrs Dunlop, 8th Aug. Has been offended by a friend, e 138 
 Letter to Mr Cunningham, 8th Aug. Much busied. Inde- 
 pendence, ------ e 138 
 
 Occupations of Burns ; his household at EUisland, - 139 
 
 Petty business matters — James Halliday, - - - 141 
 
 Visit of Mr Ramsay of Ochtertyre to Burns, - - 142 
 
 Visit of Egerton Brydges to EUisland, . . - 143 
 
 A hopeful time with Burns. Ironical Letter of Nicol, - 144 
 Dr Anderson's Bee. Correspondence of Blacklock and Burns 
 
 respecting that work, . . _ . h 145 
 
 Death of Mr William Burns, - - - - 146 
 
 Burns in an Excise prosecution. A business paper by him, n 146 
 
 Letter to Collector Mitchell. The same Excise case, - j 149 
 
 Letter to Crauford Tait, Esq. 15th Oct. - - h 149 
 
 Visit of ]Mr Robert Ainslie to EUisland. A kirn dance, - 151 
 
 Tarn 0' Shunter, - . . - . *c 152 
 
 Letter to Francis Grose, Esq. Legends of Alloway Kirk, - *h 159 
 
 The real personages of Tam 0' Shanter, - - . I6I 
 
 Domestic afflictions of Mrs Dunlop, - - >- IGl 
 
 Letter to Mrs Dunlop. Birth of her grandchild, - e 1G2 
 
 Stanzas on a Posthumous Child, - - - - e 162
 
 CONTENTS. IX 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Subsequent history of the Posthumous Child (M. Henri), - 163 
 
 Letter to Mr William Dunbar, 17th Jan. 1791. Good wishes, 16-1: 
 Letter to Mr Peter Hill, 17th Jan. Sends money to account. 
 
 Poyerty. Wealth excuses offence, - - - e 16i 
 Pecimiary Circimistances of Bums at, this time. He acts as 
 
 an accommodator or creditor, - - - - 165 
 
 The Books ordered by Burns from Hill, - - - 167 
 
 Letter to ^Mr Cunningham, 23d Jan. Elegy on Miss Burnet, e 167 
 Letter to the Rev. Archibald Alison, 14th Feb. Kemarks on the 
 
 Association theory of Beauty, - - - e 168 
 Letter to Mrs Graham of Finlry. Hopes that liis poetry will 
 
 outlive his poverty, - - - - -el 70 
 
 Lament of Mary Queen of Scots on the approach of Spring, *c 170 
 Letter to Dr Moore, 28th Feb. Remarks on his own recent 
 
 poems. His prospects, - - - - e 173 
 Carelessness in distributing his Compositions ; wUl not write 
 
 for money, ------- 173 
 
 Letter to Rev. Mr Baird. Michael Bruce's poems, - e 17-i 
 Letter to Mr Cunningham, 12th ISIarch. Always likes his own 
 
 poems at first. Song — Tliere'll never be Peace tillJamie comes 
 
 Hame, ------ e 174: 
 
 Lament for James, Earl of Glencairn, - - - c 176 
 
 Lines to Sir John Whitefoord, - - - - - 178 
 
 Letter to Mr Alexander Dalzell, 19th March. The Glencairn 
 
 family, ------- h 178 
 
 Letter to Lady E. Cunningham, enclosing the Lament, e 170 
 Burns breaks his right arm. Janet Little, the i)oetical milkmaid. 170 
 
 Letter to Mrs Dunlop, 7th April. His son Francis, - c 170 
 
 Birth of Burns's third son, . - . - ISO 
 Letter to Mrs Dunlop, 11th April. Good qualities of a rustic 
 
 spouse, - - - - - - -e 180 
 
 Correspondence with A. F. Tytler on Tarn o' Shanter, - 181 
 Letter to Lady W. Maxwell Constable, 11th April. Acknow- 
 ledges a present, - - - - -el 84 
 
 Letter to Mr P. Hill. Severe remarks on Mr Miller, - n ISi 
 Letter to Mr Cunningham, 11th June. Recommends ]\Ir Clarke, 
 
 a teacher. ' O to be a sturdy savage,' &c., - - e 185 
 
 Source of the bitter feelings of Bums, - . - 187 
 
 Literary Scolding, ------ 188 
 
 Third Epistle to 2L- Graham of Fintry, - - - c 188 
 
 Letter to Mr P. Hill: jocular, - - - n 190 
 
 Burns visited by two English gentlemen. His punch-bowl, 191
 
 X CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Letter to Mr Thomas Sloan, 1st Se-pt. Consolation. Sale of Crop, A 192r 
 Correspondence -with the Earl of Buchan on the Inauguration 
 
 of Thomson's Bust, _ _ . _ _ 
 
 Address to the Shade of Thomson, - - - 
 
 Letter to Colonel FuUarton, 3d Oct. Compliments, ^ - ^ 
 
 Burns becomes acquainted ■with Miss Davies. Letter to her, 
 Songs — Lovehj Davies; the Bonnie Wee Thing, 
 Letter to Miss Davies. Disparity between our wishes and our 
 
 powers. Inequalities of life, ... 
 
 Sad history of Miss Davies, .... 
 
 Whimsical Letter to Charles Sharpo of Hoddam, in the 
 
 character of a vagrant fiddler, ... 
 
 Sharpe presents Burns with a mason's apron, 
 Letter to Sir John Sinclair; the Monkland Library, 
 To Mr Maxwell of Terraughttj on his Birthdaij, 
 Account of Mr Maxwell, .... 
 
 Letter to Mrs Dunlop, 17th Dec, enclosing Song of Death, ■ 
 Burns's circumstances and prospects. Gives up his farm, 
 
 and removes to Dumfries, - - . - 
 
 Fourth Epistle to Mr Graham of Fintry, 
 
 e 
 
 193 
 
 c 
 
 194 
 
 h 
 
 195 
 
 
 19G 
 
 d 
 
 197 
 
 e 
 
 198 
 
 
 199 
 
 e 
 
 200 
 
 
 202 
 
 e 
 
 203 
 
 h 
 
 204 
 
 
 205 
 
 e 
 
 205 
 
 
 20G 
 
 e 
 
 207 
 
 DUMFRIES. 
 
 December 1791— July 1796. 
 
 Description of Dumfries, ----- oqq 
 
 Sotting the bane of country towns, - . - - 209 
 
 Burns kindles to French revolutionary politics, - - 210 
 
 Letter to Mr Ainslie. Sufferings from a debauch, - e 211 
 
 A last visit of Burns to Edinburgh^Sces Clarinda once more, 211 
 Eenewed Correspondence with Clarinda, then about to leave 
 
 Scotland, .-.„.. 212 
 
 Song — Sweet Sensibiliti/ how charming, - - e 212 
 
 Song — Ae Fond Kiss, and then we sever, - - - 7i 214 
 Other Songs on Clarinda, ... - 214-217 
 
 Letter to Mr James Clarke, Moffat, 10th Jan. 1792, • n 218 
 
 Burns becomes acquainted with Maria Woodley, Mrs Riddel, 218 
 
 Letter introducing her to Smellie, 22d Jan. - - - 220
 
 CONTENTS. XI 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Letter to Mr P. Hill, otli Feb. Payment of Fergusson's 
 
 Monument, - - - - - - n 220 
 
 Letter to Mr James Clarke, IMoffat, 17tli Feb. A Victory, n 222 
 Letter to Mr William Nicol, 20th Feb. Ironical, - - e 222 
 
 Capture of a Smuggler. Burns's present of cannon to the 
 
 French government, . - - - _ 223 
 
 Song — Tlie DeiVs aica ivl' the Exciseman, - - d 22-i 
 
 Note to Mr Samuel Clarke, orf/aiiist, l(jth July, - - /* 227 
 
 Letter to Mrs Dunlop, 22d Aug. Miss Lesley Baillie. Hopes 
 
 of a future life, - - - - - - e 227 
 
 Song — Bonnie Lesley, ----- e 228 
 
 Letter to Mr Cunningham, 10th Sept. IMatrimony, - e 230 
 
 Mr George Thomson of Edinburgh opens a correspondence 
 
 with Burns on Scottish Songs, - - - . 232 
 
 Burns to Mr Thomson, 16th Sept. Agrees to contribute songs 
 
 for Mr Thomson's work, - - - - c 233 
 
 Fourth volume of Johnsoiis Museum published. Songs by 
 
 Burns, 234-248 
 
 Mrs Henri's painful situation in France, - - 248 
 
 Letter to Mrs Dunlop, 24th Sept. Farming life. His children, e 248 
 Birth of a daughter to Burns, - _ . 
 
 Mrs Eiddel and Smellie, . - - - - 
 
 Mr Thomson to Burns, 18th Oct. . - - 
 
 Lurns to ]\fr Thomson. The Lea-riff. Remarks on songs, 
 Ljciter to Mrs Dunlop. Death of her daughter, Mrs Henri, 
 Burns to Mr T/iomson, 8th Nov. M>/ Wife 's a icinsome Wee 
 
 Thinr/, ------- 
 
 Burns to Mr Thomson, 14th Nov. Iliffhland Mary, 
 
 Dumfries Theatre. Miss Fontenelle, 
 
 77(6 Ilii/hts of Woman, an Occasional Address, spoken ly Miss 
 
 Fontenelle, ------ 
 
 Letter to, and Epiffram on, Miss Fontenelle, 
 
 Letter to Mrs Riddel. Low spirits, - - - 
 
 Letter to , recommending an actor, 
 
 Letter to Mrs Riddel. ' Novemberish,' 
 
 Source of Burns's mental gloom at this time. A domestic tale, 
 
 Mr Thomson to Burns, Nov. - - _ . 
 
 Burns to Mr Hiomson, 1st Dec. The Lea-riff, 
 
 Burns to Mr Thomson, 4th Dec. Auld Rob i\forris. Du can 
 
 Gray, ------. 
 
 Burns's residence and manner of life in Dumfries, 
 Clarinda's return from the West Indies, - 
 
 
 249 
 
 
 249 
 
 
 250 
 
 c 
 
 251 
 
 e 
 
 253 
 
 e 
 
 253 
 
 e 
 
 254 
 
 
 25G 
 
 e 
 
 2->6 
 
 k 
 
 257 
 
 e 
 
 25S 
 
 e 
 
 258 
 
 e 
 
 259 
 
 
 2(J0 
 
 
 2G1 
 
 e 
 
 2G3 
 
 c 
 
 2G4 
 
 
 26C 
 
 
 2C8
 
 XU COXTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Letter to Sfiss Marij Peacocl; respecting Clarinda, Gth Dec. - 268 
 
 Political Crisis of 1792, ----- 269 
 
 Burns's political manifestations, - - _ . £70 
 
 Letter to Captain Johnstone, Nov. 13. Orders the Gazetteer, m 270 
 Song on the reforming leaders — Here's a Health to them that's 
 
 awa, ...... fi 271 
 
 Letter to Mrs Diinlop, 6th Dec. Melancholy reflections on the 
 
 death of friends. His daughter. Qiiotations, - - e 272 
 
 Burns's politics adverted to by the Excise Board, - - 274 
 
 Letter to R. Graham, Esq. on being informed against, - h 274 
 
 Question as to the severity of the rebuke, - - _ 275 
 Letter to Mrs Dunhp, 31st Dec. Has become silent on 
 
 politics, - - - - - - e 276 
 
 Letter to Mrs Dunhp, 5th Jan. 1793. Praises the amiable 
 
 circle at Dunlop. A Whigmaleerie cup, - - e 276 
 
 Anecdote of a baptism in Burns's house, - - _ 278 
 
 Burns to Mr TJwmson. Songs— Puirtith Cauld, Gala Water, e 279 
 
 Sonnet written on the 25th January, - - - e 281 
 
 Mr Thomson to Burns, 20th Jan. ... 281 
 
 Burns to Mr Thomson, 2Gth Jan. Anecdotes of Scotch songs, e 283 
 
 Lord Gregory, . . . . . g 284 
 Letter to Clarinda. Congratulation on her retm'n. Forbids 
 
 advice, - - - - - - - o 285 
 
 Letter to Mr Cunningham, 3d March. A seal. David Allan, e 286 
 
 Burns to Mr Thomson, 20th March. Mary Morison, - e 287 
 
 Wandering Willie, - - _ . _ e 288 
 
 Letter to Miss Benson, 21st March, - - - e 288 
 
 Anecdote of Burns at Arbigland, - _ - . 289 
 
 Burns and the education of his boys, ... 289 
 
 Letter to the Dumfries magistrates for a privilege, - h 290 
 
 Burns to Mr Thomson. Open the door to me, oh ! - e 290 
 
 Burns to Mr Thomson. Young Jessie, - - e 291 
 
 Letters with copies of new edition of liis poems, - - 291 
 
 Mr Thomson to Burns, 2d April, _ _ . . 293 
 Burns to Mr Thomson. Song — The Soldier's Return. Meg o' the 
 
 Mill, - - - - - . - c 294 
 Burns to Mr Thomson,'7th. .Lpril. Anecdote of 77^6 Lass o' 
 
 Patie's Mill, ...... e 297 
 
 Escapes of Political Feeling. Dumourier, . . h 299 
 Letter to Mr Er shine of Mar, 13th April. The Excise Board's 
 
 Kebuke. Assertion of his independence, - - h 300 
 
 Mr Thomson to Burns, April, - - - . 302
 
 COIsTEKTS. XIU 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Burns to Mr Tliomson. Dislike of proposed changes on Eam- 
 
 say's songs, - - - - - - e 303 
 
 Burns to Mr Thomson. The Last Time I came o'er the Moor, e 301 
 INIr Thomson to Burns, 2Cth April. Disapprobation of some 
 
 of Eamsay's songs, . . _ _ - 305 
 Letter to Mr Robert Ainslie, 26th April. Cannot answer a 
 
 letter. Spunkie, - - - - - /t 30G 
 
 Removal to a better house, ----- 307 
 
 Letter to Mr Peter Hill. Distresses arising from the War, n 308 
 Burns to Mr Thomson, June. These accursed times. Eraser, 
 
 Hautboy-player. Song — Blithe ha'e I been on yon Hill, e 303 
 Burns to Mr Thomson, 25th June. Logan Braes. gin vij/ 
 
 Love were yon Bed liose, - - - - e 309 
 
 Mr Thomson to Burns, 1st Jidy. A Present of Money, - 312 
 
 Burns to Mr Thomson, 2d July. Bonnie Jean, - - e 312 
 Burns to Mr Tliomson. Hurt by the pecuniary parcel. Spurns 
 
 remuneration for his Writings, - . - e 314 
 Burns's Eefusal to -write for money, though Ms circumstances 
 
 at the time y^ere straitened, - - - - 316
 
 LIFE A^'D WORKS 
 
 OP 
 
 E B E E T BURNS. 
 
 ELLISLAND. 
 
 June 1788— December 1791— (continued.) 
 
 Among the gentlemen of Nithsdale by whom Burns had been 
 kindly received was Mr M'Murdo, chamberlain to the Duke of 
 QueensbeiTy. This gentleman, with a fine young family, which 
 included some blooming daughters, resided i he ducal mansion 
 of Drumlanrig, a few miles from the poet's farm ; and he had 
 there entertained our bard with the most distinguished kindness. 
 
 TO JOHN M'MURDO, ESQ. , 
 
 Ellisland, 9th Jan. ITS!)- 
 Sir — A poet and a beggar arc in so many points of view alike, 
 that one might take them for tlic same individual cliaracter under 
 different designations ; were it not that, thoiigli, with a trifling poetic 
 licence, poets may be styled beggars, yet the converse of the propo- 
 sition does not hold, tliat every beggar is a poet. In one particular, 
 however, they remarkably agree ; if you help cither the one or the 
 other to a mug of ale or the picking of a bone, they will very will- 
 ingly repay you with a song. This occurs to me at present (as I 
 have just despatched a well-lined rib of J. Kilpatrick's Highlander ;i 
 
 ' Kilp.itrick was the n.anio of a ncii,'hboiirin!; blacl;smith. Burns alliulcs tn a 
 piece of IIii,'hl;iml mutton, which souifhow may have been obtained thiuugh tlio 
 medium of Mr M'Murdo fiuni tlus persunagc.
 
 14 LIFE AND WORKS OF BUKXS. 
 
 a bargain for -vvliich I am indebted to you), in tlie style of our ballad- 
 printers, 'Five Excellent New Songs.' The enclosed is nearly my 
 newest song, and one that has cost me some pains, though that is but 
 an equivocal mark of its excellence. Two or three others Avhicli I 
 liave by me shall do themselves the honour to wait on your after- 
 leisure : petitioners for admittance into favour must not harass the 
 condescension of their benefactor. 
 
 You see, sir, what it is to patronise a poet. 'Tis like being a 
 magistrate in Pettyborough ; you do them the favour to preside iu 
 their council for one year, and your name bears the prefatory 
 stigma of bailie for life. 
 
 With not the compliments, but the best wishes, the sincerest 
 prayers of the season for you, that you may see many happy yeai's 
 with Mrs M'JIurdo and your family — two blessings, by the by, to 
 which your rank does not entitle you — a loving wife and fine family 
 being almost the only good things of this life to which the farm- 
 house and cottage have an exclusive right — I have the honour to be, 
 sir, your much indebted and very humble servant, 
 
 E. BURNS.^ 
 
 TO PROFESSOR DUGALD STEWART. 
 
 Ellisland, S0(7t Jan. 1789. 
 
 Sir — The enclosed 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 pro- 
 ductions, those for v/hicli I am indebted to the Nithsdale Muses. 
 Tiie piece inscribed to K. 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 ; 
 Init I do not intend it shall be my last essay of the kind, as you will 
 see by tlie Poefs 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,' &c. I have not shewn to man living, till I wow send it 
 you. It forms the postulata, the axioms, the definition of a charac- 
 ter, 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 tliis trouble to a gentleman who has 
 treated me Avith such marked benevolence and peculiar kindness ; 
 
 ' The original of this letter is in possession of Mr John Gibson, post-master, 
 Wliitfchaven.
 
 SATIEICAL SKETCH OF 2IE CREECH. 15 
 
 ■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 bo ever ambitious of being known. The native 
 genius and accurate discernment in Mr Stewart's critical stric- 
 tures ; the justice (iron justice, for he has no bowels of compassion 
 for a poor poetic sinner) of Dr Gregory's remarks, and the delicacy 
 of Professor Dalzell'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. 
 
 We learn from the above letter to Mr Stewart, that he meditated 
 a laborious poem, to be entitled The Poet's Proc/ress, probably of 
 an autobiographical nature. He enclosed various short pieces 
 designed to form part of this poem, but none have been preserved 
 except the following : - — 
 
 A SKETCH. 
 
 A little, upright, pert, tart, tripping wight, 
 And still his precious self his dear delight ; 
 Who loves his own smart shadow in the streets, 
 Better than e'er the fairest she he meets. 
 A man of fashion too, lie made his tour. 
 Learned vive la bagatelle, et vive V amour ; 
 So travelled-monkeys their grimace improve, 
 Polish their grin, nay, sigh for ladies' love. 
 Much specious lore, but little understood ; 
 Veneering oft outshines the solid wood : 
 His solid sense — by inches you must tell, 
 But mete his cunning by the old Scotch ell ; 
 His meddling vanity, a busy fiend. 
 Still makintj work his selfish craft must mend. 
 
 o 
 
 It is painful to come to the conclusion, from a remark and 
 quotation in a subsequent letter, that this selfish, superficial wight 
 was — Creech — the same ' Willie ' whom he described in such 
 affectionate terms in May 1787, and to whom he then wished ' a 
 pov/- as auld's Methuselam.' The dally ings of the witty biblio- 
 pole over his accounts, his keen tenacity towards his own mterests 
 in every transaction, and the essential stinginess which Im-ked 
 under a complaisant manner, had combined to disgust Bums 
 
 1 Dalzcll was professor of Greek in the Edinbursh University. 
 
 2 It is not unlikely that the linos on 'William Smcllic, already introduced, were 
 intended to form a part of Tlic Pud's Progress.
 
 IG LIFE AND WOKKS OF BURNS. 
 
 entirely with one whom he originally looked upon as a kind 
 patron, and a man of agreeable talents and character. I could 
 not pretend to say to what extent there was any solid justification 
 of the antipathy of Burns, or even to what extent our poet was 
 prepared for a serious and open avowal of such opinions regard- 
 ing his publisher. It will be seen that on a second settlement of 
 accounts in February, Burns was satisfied with the measure of 
 justice extended to him by the bookseller; and in May he 
 addressed him a civil letter. Afterwards he resumed his expres- 
 sions of disgust and antipathy, but again became reconciled ; and 
 this state of things existed at the time of his death. On the 
 whole, it is probable that Creech acted too much according to his 
 wonted instincts towards Burns, although with such a show of 
 fairness as occasionally disarmed the poet of his resentment. If 
 some of his old associates in the literary trade are to be credited, 
 it was not in his nature to have treated Burns with justice. On 
 the other hand, Dr Currie seems to Iiave been convinced that 
 there was no cause to blame the publisher. lie says, in a letter to 
 Messrs Cadell and Davies, Dec. 30, 1797 : ' It is true there was 
 a difference between our high-souled poet and Mr Creech, and 
 some of Burns's friends have a notion that Mr Creech did not 
 use him liberally. For my own part, I have found the correspon- 
 dence among Burns's papers, and I can see no proof of any ill-usage. 
 The bard indulged occasionally in sarcasms against men of charac- 
 ter ; yet I can discover that his deliberate opinions were the result 
 of a judgment profound and nearly unbiassed, and differing much 
 from the effusions of his sensibility. Among the Edinburgh cha- 
 I'acters drawn by him, I think I can discover that of our friend 
 Creech (for the names are not given at length in his diary), and if 
 I do not deceive myself, it is a capital likeness, and on the whole 
 favourable.'^ I have heard that the letters of Burns to Creech — 
 many of them bearing intemperate charges and insinuations against 
 the publisher — were finally submitted to Mrs Play (Margaret Chal- 
 mers), who exerted her influence to have them destroyed ; which 
 was done. Dr Currie, a few days after the above date, wrote to the 
 same gentlemen — ' Mr Creech informs me that whatever little diffe- 
 rence subsisted between Burns and him had been made up long 
 before the bai-d's death, and that he shall do everything in Ids 
 power to serve the family.' 
 
 ' Manuscripts in possession of Josepli Mayer, Esq., LiverpooL We mu3t differ 
 With l)r Cumu as to tlio favourableness of tlie sketch.
 
 LETTER TO . 17 
 
 TO 
 
 Ellisland, 22d January 17G9.1 
 Sir — Tlicre are two things ■uliich, I believe, the blow that termi- 
 nates my existence alone can destroy — my attachment and propen- 
 sity to poesy, and my sense of what I owe to your goodness. There 
 is notliing in the different situations of a Great and a Little man that 
 vexes me more than the case with which tlie one practises some 
 virtues that to tlie other are extremely difficult, or perhaps Avholly 
 impracticable. A man of consequence and fashion shall richly 
 repay a deed of kindness with a nod and a smile, or a hearty shake 
 of the hand; while a poor fellov,- labours under a sense of gratitude, 
 which, lilcc copper coin, though it loads the bearei', is yet of small 
 account in the currency and commerce of the world. As I have the 
 lionour, sir, to stand in the poor fellow's predicament with respect to 
 you, will you accept of a device I have tliought on to acknowledge 
 these obljirations I can never cancel? ilankind in g-cnoral ajrree 
 in testifying their devotion, th.eir gratitude, their friendship, or their 
 love, by presenting whatever they hold dearest. Everybody who is 
 in the least acquainted with the character of a Poet, knows that 
 there is nothing in the world on which he sets so much \_value as his 
 verses. I have resolved, sir, from time^] to time, as she may bestow 
 her favours, to present you with the productions of my humble 
 Muse. The enclosed are the principal of her works on the banks of 
 the Nith. The Poem insci-ibed to R. G. Esq. is some verses, accom- 
 panying a request, which I sent to Mr Graham of Eintry — a gentle- 
 jnau who has given double value to some important favours he has 
 Ijestowed on me by his manner of doing them, and on whose future 
 patronage likewise I must depend for matters to me of the last 
 conseciuence. 
 
 I have no great faith in the boasted pretensions to intuitive pro- 
 priety and milaboured elegance. Tlie rough material of Fine Writ- 
 ing is certainly the gift of Genius ; but I as firmly believe that the 
 workmanship is the united effort of Pains, Attention, and Ilepeated- 
 trial. Tlie piece addressed to Mr Graham is my first essay in that 
 did;ictic, epistolary way; which circumstance I hope Avill bespeak 
 your indulgence. To your friend Captain Erskine's strictures I lay- 
 claim as a relation ; not, indeed, that I have the honour to be akiu 
 to tlie peerage, but because lie is a son of Parnassus.'' 
 
 I intend being in Edinburgh in four or five weeks, when I shall 
 certainly do myself tlie honour of waiting on you, to testify with 
 vliat respect and gratitude, &c. 
 
 This letter appears to have been addressed to some Edinburgh 
 
 ' Misdated in tl>e orijin.al ITfiS. 
 
 2 Supplit'd on cDnjecliiie, to make up a blank in the original. 
 
 3 Allusion is hero made to ('iii)tiiin Andrew Krskine, brother to the Earl pf Kelly, 
 a poet and musical amateur rehiding in Ediubui:;h. 
 
 VOL. III. U
 
 18 LIFE AXD "WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 friend of the xipper class. Thougli written with evident effort — 
 even the handwriting having a laboured air — it contains some 
 striking expressions, and is valuable for a repetition of the poet's 
 just and sound opinion on what is necessary to excellence in 
 literary composition. 
 
 On returning a newspaper which Captain Riddel had sent to 
 him for his perusal, containing some strictures on his poetry, 
 I^urns added a note in impromptu verse, exhibiting that wonderful 
 facility of diction which he possessed even under the greatest 
 rhymmg-difficulties : — 
 
 ox RETURNING A NEWSPAPER. 
 
 Ellisland, Monday Evening. 
 Your news and review, sir, I 've read through and through, sir, 
 
 "With little admiring or blaming ; 
 The papers are barren of home-news or foreign, 
 
 No murders or rapes worth the naming. 
 
 Our friends, the reviewers, those chippers and hewers, 
 
 Are judges of mortar and stone, sir ; 
 But of meet or unmeet, in O: fabric complete, 
 
 I '11 boldly pronounce they are none, sir. 
 
 My goose-quill too rude is to tell all your goodness 
 
 Bestowed on your servant the poet; 
 Would to God I had one like a beam of the sun, 
 
 And then all the world, sir, should know it ! 
 
 TO CAPTAIN RIDDEL. 
 
 Ellisland, 17?9. 
 
 Sir — I wish from my inmost soul it were in my power to give you 
 a more substantial gratification and retiirn for all the goodness to 
 the poet, than transcribing a few of his idle rhymes. However, 
 * an old song,' though to a proverb an instance of insignificance, is 
 generally the only coin a poet has to pay with. 
 
 If my poems which I have transcribed, and mean still to tran- 
 scribe, into your book, were equal to the grateful respect and high 
 esteem I bear for the gentleman to whom I present tliem, they would 
 be the finest poems in the language. As they are, they will at least 
 be a testimony with what sincerity I have the honour to be, sir, your 
 devoted humble servant, E. B. 
 
 The irritable genius of Burns led him often to view persons and
 
 SATIRE ON SIRS OSWALD. 1^ 
 
 tilings very much, as tliey affected himself. The same lord, gentle- 
 man, or lady, who, receiving him with urbanity, became the theme 
 of his kindest feelings, might have come in for the eternal stigma 
 of his satu-e, if, by a slight change of circumstances, he or she 
 had been a cause of personal annoyance to him, or awakened his 
 jealous apprehensions regarding his own dignity. In the course 
 of the present month, an example of this infirmity of temper 
 occm'S. Let himself be the recorder of the incident, it being 
 premised that the lady whom he thus holds up to execration was 
 one fairly liable to no such censure :— 
 
 ' In Januaiy last, on my road to Ap-shire, I had to put up at 
 Bailie "Wliigham'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 Mrs Oswald,^ 
 and poor I am forced to brave all the terrors of the tempestuous 
 night, and jade my horse — my young favourite horse, whom I 
 had just christened Pegasus — farther on through the wildest hills 
 and moors of Ayrshire to the next inn ! The powers of poetry 
 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 doAvn and wrote the 
 enclosed ode.' 
 
 ODE, 
 
 SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF .MKS OSWALD. 
 
 Dweller in yon dungeon dark, 
 
 Hangman of creation, mark ! 
 
 Who in widow-weeds appears. 
 
 Laden with unhonoured years, ■* 
 
 Noosing with care a bursting purse. 
 
 Baited with many a deadly curse ! 
 
 STROPHE. 
 
 View the withered beldam's face — 
 
 Can thy keen inspection trace 
 
 Aught of humanity's sweet melting grace ? 
 
 Note that eye, 'tis rheum o'crflows. 
 
 Pity's flood there never rose. 
 
 See these hands, ne'er stretched to save, 
 
 Hands that took— but never gave. 
 
 ' Doc. 6, 1788, died, at her house in Croat George Street, AVeBtminstcr, Mrs 
 Oswald, widow of Hicliara Obwald, Es(i., of Auchincruive.— .Vcit/a^JHC Ohiluary.
 
 20 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Keeper of Mammon's iron chest, 
 
 Lo, there slie goes, unpitied and unblest 
 
 She goes, but not to reahiis of everlasting rest ! 
 
 ANTISTROPHE. 
 
 riundcrer of armies, lift thine eyes 
 
 (Awhile forbear, ye tort'ring fiends) ; 
 
 Seest thou whose step, nnwilling, hither bends ? 
 
 No fallen angel, hurled from upper skies ; 
 
 'Tis thy trusty quondam mate. 
 
 Doomed to share thy fiery fate, 
 
 »Shc, tardy, hell-ward plies. 
 
 ERODE. 
 
 And are they of no more avail, 
 
 Ten thousand glittering pounds a year ? 
 
 In other Avords, can JIammon fail. 
 
 Omnipotent as he is here ? 
 
 O bitter mockery of the pompous bier. 
 
 While down the wretched vital part is Jriv'ii ! 
 
 The cave-lodged beggar, vv-ith a conscience clear, 
 
 Expires in rags, unknown, and goes to heav'ii. 
 
 There is a pleasanter memorial of one of his Ayrshire journeys. 
 To quote a narrative first presented by Allan Cunningham — ' He 
 had arrived at "VVanlockliead on a winter day, -when the roads were 
 slippery Avith ice, and Jenny Geddes or Peg Nicolson [more 
 likely, Pegasus] kept her feet with difficulty. The blacksmith 
 of the place was busied witli other j^i'essing matters in the 
 forge, and could not spare time for frosting the shoes of the 
 poet's mare ; and it is likely he would have proceeded on his 
 dangerous journey, had he not bethought himself of propitiating 
 the son of Vulcan with verse. He called for pen and ink, and 
 ■wrote these verses to John Taylor, a person of influence in 
 Wanlockhead : — 
 
 TO JOHN TAYLOR. 
 
 With Pegasus upon a day, 
 
 Apollo weary Hying, 
 Through frosty hills the journey lay, 
 
 On foot the way was plying. 
 
 Poor slip-shod giddy Pegasus 
 
 Was but a sorry walker; 
 To Vulcan then Apollo goes, 
 
 To get a frosty calkcr.
 
 LETTER TO BISHOP GEDDES. 21' 
 
 Obliging Vulcan foil to work, 
 
 Threw Ly his coat and Lounet, 
 And did Sol's business in a crack ; 
 
 Sol paid him with a sonnet. 
 
 Ye Vulcan's sons of Wanlockhead, 
 
 I'ity my sad disaster ; 
 My Pegasus is poorly shod — 
 
 I '11 pay you like my master. 
 K.vMAGz's, 3 o'ciod:. 
 
 'When he liad done, a gentleman of the name of Sloan, who 
 at-companied him, endorsed the note in prose in these words : — 
 •• J. Sloan's best compliments to Mr Taylor, and it would be doing 
 him and the Ayrshire Bard a particular favour if he would oblige 
 them instanter with his agreeable company. The road has been 
 so slippery, that the riders and the brutes were equally in danger 
 of getting some of their bones broken. For the Poet, his life and 
 limbs are of some consequence to the world ; but for poor Sloau 
 it matters very little what may become of him. The whole of 
 this business is to ask the favour of getting the horses' shoes- 
 sliarpened." On the receipt of this, Taylor spoke to the smith, 
 and tlie smith flew to his tools, and sharpened the horses' shoes. 
 It is recorded that Burmvnn lived thirty years to say " he had 
 never been weel paid but ance, and that was by a poet, who paid 
 liim in money, paid him in drink, and paid him in verse." ' 
 
 TO BISHOP GEDDES.l 
 
 Elmsland, 3d Feb. 1/89. 
 A'F.N'r.RABLE Fatiikr^As I am conscious that, wherever I am, 
 you do mo the honour to interest yourself in )ny welfare, it gives me 
 pleasure to inform you that I am hero at last, stationary in tho 
 serious business of life, and have now not only the retired leisure, 
 l)Ut the hearty inclination, to attend to those great and important 
 (liicstions — what I am, where I am, and for wluit I am destined. 
 
 la that first concern, the conduct of tlie man, tliere was ever but 
 one side on which I was habitually blameable, and there 1 have 
 
 ' Alcxnnder fii,'<lilcs, born at Arradowl, in r.anfl'shire, in 1737, was ronrcfl as a 
 (•:iili(.li«j cler.'viiiaii, and Imik' ofliciutf.i in that capacity in liis native coimty and 
 j'lHi'whcre. As hnnil)ly l)arn as Hi;rns,Iie i)orisi':-hcd niiit-h (.i'liis .stninijand ('(■(vntric 
 ;;t-niu» ; and it i.i nut Knr|ii-isinK tliat lu' ami the Ayrsliiro Hard shculd have hcconio 
 friends. After 17ailhiH life was .sjient in London, eliietly nnderthe fosterinj; patronage 
 ^^f :< itonoroiis t'ntholie nobleman, Lord Tetre. Tile heterodox opinionHof l>r (ieddes, 
 liis extraordinary attempts to translate the Hihle, and his nnnierons fus'itive i)ub- 
 lieations on tontroversial divinity, made nuieh noise at tin; time; but lie is now 
 only remembered for some s'leeessfiil Seoteh verses. This singular man died in 
 J.ondon, February iO, lliui, in tbu sixtyfifth year of his age.
 
 22 LIFE AND WOKKS OF BUKXS. 
 
 secured myself in tlie 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 encumbrances, which a species of prudence would 
 bid liim shun ; butM'hen the alternative was, being at eternal warfare 
 with myself, on account of habitual follies, to give them no v/orse 
 name, whicli 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 tliough the salary be comparatively small, it is luxui'v 
 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 chai'acter- 
 istical trade is not forgotten. I am, if possible, more than ever 
 an enthusiast to the Biases. 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 wortli 
 preserving. 
 
 You vvill see in your book — which I beg your pardon for detaining 
 so long^ — that I have been tuning my lyre on the banks of Mth. 
 Some large poetic plans tliat are floating in my imagination, or 
 partly put in execution, I shall impart to you when I have the plea- 
 sure of meeting v/ith you, which, if you are then in Edinburgh, I 
 shall have about the beginnino; of March. 
 
 That acquaintance, Avorthy 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. E. B. 
 
 TO MR JAMES BURNES. 
 
 Ellisland, 9th Fi-h. 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, enter- 
 ing on untried scenes of life, all combined, you will save mc the 
 
 ' A copy of Burns's Poems, belonging to Dr Gcddcs, into wliicli the poet had 
 transferred some of his more recent verses.
 
 VISIT TO EDrSBURGH, FEE. 1789. 23 
 
 trouble of a bluslmig 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 con- 
 tinued 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 Xith, 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 pleased ; but how it may turn out is 
 just a guess, and it is yet to improve and enclose, &c. ; however, I 
 have good hopes of my bargain on the wliole. 
 
 My wife is my Jean, with whose story you are partly acquainted. 
 I found I had a much-loved fellovz-creature's happiness or misery 
 amou"- 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 a very 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 heyday of my fame, a gentleman, whose name 
 at least I daresay you know, as his estate lies someM'lierc 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 dutj', or be a 
 penny the better for it, is what I do not know ; but I have the com- 
 fortable 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 3d 
 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 mc, 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 siie be quite woman-grown, and fit for better service. 
 She is one of the cleverest girls, and has one of tlic most amiable 
 dispositions I have ever scen.i 
 
 All friends in this county and Ayrshire arc well. Eemembcr mo 
 to all friends in the nortli. My Avifc joins mc in compliments to 
 JIrs C and family. I am ever, my dear cousin, yours sincerely, 
 
 K. B. 
 
 ' This young woman afterwards married a brother of 3Irs Bums.
 
 2-4 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 About the end of February Burns paid liis proposed visit to 
 Edinburgh, in order to have a further ' racking of accounts ' with 
 Creech. He would now be entitled to receive payment in respect 
 of sales effected during the last half of the year 1787 and the 
 iirst half of 1788 : from an expression dropped in one of his letters, 
 the sum appears to have been about £50 ; and it further appears 
 that Burns was satisfied with the degree of justice measured out 
 to him by the publisher. 
 
 Burns had a younger brother named William, who had been 
 brought up as a saddler, and was now in search of employment. 
 This youth had visited the poet at the Isle early in the preceding 
 month, and had been kindly treated. There is something inte- 
 resting in the conduct of Bnnis towards this young relative, so 
 different from himself in an intellectual respect and in importance 
 in the world's eye, yet possessing a claim of equality as another 
 child of the same parents. "William appears to have paid a visit 
 to his brother about the end of 1788, and spent some weeks with 
 Irim. The young man had then proceeded to Longtown, in search 
 of employment m his business, whicli he had readily obtained. 
 Though his education Avas greatly inferior to that of Robert and 
 Gilbert, and his highest ambition was to be a good journeyman 
 saddler, he seems to have had some small share of that natural 
 readiness and propriety of diction which so remarkably distin- 
 guished liis elder brothers, and the eldest particularly. We find 
 him tluis addressing the poet'(15th February 1789) : — ' I know 
 not how it happened, but you were more shy of your counsel than 
 I could have wished the time I stayed with you : whether it was 
 because you thought it would disgust me to have my faults freely 
 told me while I was dependent on you, or whether it was because 
 you saw that, by my indolent disposition, your instructions would 
 laave no effect, 1 cannot determine ; but if it proceeded from any 
 of these causes, the reason of withholding your admonition is 
 done away, for 1 nov/ stand on my own bottom, and that indolence 
 which I am very conscious of, is something rubbed off, by being 
 called to act in life whether I will or not ; and my inexperience, 
 which I daily feel, makes me wish for that advice which you are 
 so able to give, and which I can only expect from you or Gilbert, 
 since the loss of the kindest and ablest of fathers.' 
 
 Isx-E, 2d March 1739i 
 
 My dear William — I arrived from Edinburgh only the nighi 
 before Inst, so could not answer your epistle sooner. I congratulate 
 you on the prospect of employ ; and I am indebted to you for one of
 
 TINDICATOr.Y LETTER TO CLARINDA. 2o 
 
 the best letters that has been written by any mechanic-lad in Nitlis- 
 dale, or Annandale, or any dale on either side of tlie border, tliis 
 twelvemonth. Not that I would have you always affect the stately 
 stilts of studied composition, but surely writing a handsome letter is 
 an accomplishment worth courting;; and, with attention and prac- 
 tice, I can promise you that it will soon be an accomplishment of 
 yours. If my advice can serve you — that is to say, if you can 
 resolve to accustom yourself not only in reviewing your own deport- 
 ment, manners, &c. but also in carrying your conseriuent resolutions 
 of amending the faulty parts into practice — my small knowledge and 
 experience of the world is heartily at your service. I intended to 
 have given you a sheetful of counsels, but some business has pre- 
 vented me. In a word, learn taciturnity ; let that be your motto. 
 Though you had the wisdom of Newton, or the wit of Swift, garru- 
 lousness would lower you in tlie eyes of your fellow-creatures. I'll 
 ])robably write you next week. — I am your brother, 
 
 Robert Burxs.i 
 
 The union with Jean had of course closed the liopes of Clarinda. 
 The lady heard of the event wath indignation, having had all 
 possible reason to hope that Burns might sooner or later be her 
 own. In a letter to Burns, which has not been preserved, she 
 appears to have expressed her opinion of his conduct in the 
 plainest terms. He made this answer, at once justilicatory of 
 himself, and preserving due respect towards the lady : — 
 
 TO CLARIXDA. 
 
 9lh March 17P.0. 
 
 Madasi — The letter you wrote me to Heron's carried its own 
 answer in its bosom ; you forbade me to write you, unless I was 
 willing to plead guilty to a cci'tain indictment tliat you were pleased 
 to bring against mo. As I am convinced of my own innocence, and, 
 thouirh conscious of liic-h imprudence and egregious follv, can lav mv 
 hand on my breast and attest the rectitude of my licart, you will 
 pardon me, madam, if I do not carry my c()m])laisancc so far as 
 liu'nbly to acquiesce in the name of Villain, merely out of compli- 
 ment 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 period of 
 time alluded to, I was not imder the smallest moral tic to Mrs 
 I'urns ; iu)r did I, nor could I tlicn know, all the powerful ciixum- 
 stances that onmij)otcnt necessity was busy laying in wait for mo. 
 AVhen yon call over the scenes that luu'o j)assed between us, you 
 will survey tiie conduct of an honest man, struggling successfully 
 with temptations, the most powerful that ever beset humanity, and 
 
 ' Tlic original of this letter is in possosBion of Mrs Begg.
 
 2G LIFE AND T\'ORKS OF EUEXS. 
 
 preserving untainted honour, in situations ■vvlicre 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 sensihility 
 and passion, could have encountered without ruin ; and I leave you 
 to guess, madam, hov/ such a man is likely to digest an accusation of 
 perfidious treachery. 
 
 Was I to blame, madam, in being the distracted victim of charms 
 which, I affirm it, no man ever approached with impunity ? Had I 
 seen the least glimmering of hope that these charms could ever have 
 
 been mine ; or even had not iron necessity But these are 
 
 unavailing words. 
 
 I would have called on j'ou when I was in town ; indeed I could 
 not have resisted it, but that Mr Ainslie told me that you were deter- 
 mined to avoid your windows while I was in town, lest even a glance 
 of me should occur in the street. 
 
 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. 
 
 A Eev. Mr Carfrae, a friend of Mrs Dunlop of Dunlop, had 
 addressed the following letter to Burns : — 
 
 2d January 1789. 
 Sir — If you have lately seen Mrs Dunlop of Dunlop, you have cer- 
 tainly heard of the author of the verses which accomjiany this letter. 
 He was a man highly respectable for every accomplishmcut and virtue 
 which adorns the character of a man or a Christian. To a great de- 
 gree of literature, of taste, and poetic genius, was added an invincible 
 modesty of temper, which prevented, in a great degree, his figuring in 
 life, and confined the perfect knowledge of his character and talents 
 to the small circle of his chosen friends. He was untimely taken 
 from us a few weeks ago by an inflammatory fever, in the prime of 
 life ; beloved by all who enjoyed his acquaintance, and lamented by 
 all v>'ho have any regard for virtue or genius. There is a wo pro- 
 nounced in Scripture against the pei-son whom all men speak well 
 of J if ever that v.-o fell upon the head of mortal man, it fell upon 
 him. He has left behind him a considei'able number of compositions, 
 chiefly poetical ; sufficient, I imagine, to make a large octavo volume. 
 In particular, two complete and regular tragedies, a farce of three 
 acts, and some smaller poems on different subjects. It falls to my 
 share, who have lived on the most intimate and iminterrupted friend- 
 ship with him from my youth upwards, to transmit to you the verses 
 he wrote on the publication of your incomparable poems. It is 
 probable they were his last, as they were found in his scrutoire, 
 folded up with the form of a letter addressed to you, and, I imagine, 
 were only prevented from being sent by himself, by that melancholy 
 dispensation which we still bemoan. The verses themselves I will not 
 pretend to criticise, when writing to a gentleman whom I consider as 
 entirely qualified to judge of their merit. They are the only verses
 
 ADVICE RESPECTING A BROTIIEE-POET. 27 
 
 he seems to have attempted in tlie Scottish style ; and I hesitate not 
 to say, in general, that they will hring no dishonour on the Scottish 
 muse : and allow me to add, that, if it is your opinion they are not 
 imworthy of the author, and will be no discredit to you, it is the 
 inclination of Mr Mylne's friends that they should be immediately 
 published in some periodical work, to give the world a specimen of 
 what may be expected from his performances in the poetic line, 
 which, perhaps, will be afterwards published for the advantage of his 
 
 family 
 
 I must beg the favour of a letter from you, acknowledging the 
 receipt of this, and to be allowed to subscribe myself, with great 
 regard, sir, your most obedient servant, P. Carfeae. 
 
 In a letter which Burns addressed to Mrs Dunlop immediately 
 after his return from Edinburgh, he adverts to Mr Carfrae's 
 application : — 
 
 TO MRS DUNLOP. 
 
 Ellisland, itfi 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 glorj- of this -world, I hate j-oii ! ' 
 
 When I must skulk mto 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 whac demerit have I had, in 
 some state of pre-existcnce, 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 tlie victim of pride ?' 
 I have read somewhere of a monarch (in Spain I think it Avas), wlio 
 was so out of humour with the Ptolenifean system of astronomy, that 
 lie said, had he been of the Creator's council, lie could have saved 
 him a great deal of labour and absurdity. I will not defend tins 
 lilasphemous speech ; but often, as I have glided with humble stealth 
 through tlie pomp of Princes Street, it has suggested itself to me, as 
 an improvenieut on the present human figure, that a man, in propor- 
 tion to liis own conceit of his consequence in the world, could have 
 pushed out the longitude of his common size, as a snail pushes out 
 his liorns, or as we draw out a prospect-glass. This trifling alteration, 
 not to mention tlie prodigious saving it would be in the tear and 
 wear of the neck and limb sinews of many of his majesty's licge- 
 subjccls, in the Avay of tossing the head and tiptoe strutting, would 
 evidently turn out a vast advantage, in enabling us at once to adjust 
 the ceremonials in making a bow, or nuiking way to a great man, and 
 that too within a second of the precise spherical angle of reverence, 
 tr an inch of the particular point of respectful distance, which tho
 
 28 LIFE AND VTOEKS OF BUKXS. 
 
 important creature itself requii'cs ; as a measuring -glance at its 
 towerina: altitude would determine the aftair like instinct. 
 
 You are riglit, madam, in your idea of poor Mylue's poem, which 
 he has addressed to me. The piece has a good deal of merit, but it 
 has one great faidt — it is Ijy far too long. Besides, my success has 
 encouraged sucli 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 ti-y 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 Mylnc'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 mean- 
 time, allow me to close tliis epistle with a few lines done by a friend 
 
 of mine I give you them, that, as you liave 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 charmin; * * * *, seem. 
 
 Straight as the foxglove, ere her hells disclose. 
 
 Mild as the maiden-blushing hawthorn biows, 
 . Fair as tlie 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'uing envy must approve.' ' 
 
 KB. 
 
 TO THE REV. P. CARFRAE. 
 
 [Ellislan-d, March 17P9?] 
 PiEV. Sir — I do not recollect that I liave ever felt a severer pang 
 of shame, than on looking at the date of your obliging letter which 
 accompanied Mr Mylne's poem. 
 
 I am much to blame : the honour T\Ir Slylne has done me, 
 greatly enhanced in its value by the endearing, tliough melancholy 
 circumstance of its being the last production of his muse, deserved a 
 better return. 
 
 I liave, as you liint, thought of sending a copy of the poem io 
 some periodical publication ; but, on second thoughts, I am afraid 
 that, in the present case, it would be an improper step. My success, 
 perhaps as much accidental as merited, has brought an inundation of 
 
 ' These beautiful lines, we have reason to believe, are the production of the lady to 
 whom this letter is addressed. — Cukrie.
 
 COMIC LETTER RESPECTING A CHEESE. 29 
 
 nonsense under the name of Scottish poetry. Rubscription-bills for 
 Scottish ])oems have so dunned, and daily do dun tlie public, that 
 the very name is in danger of contempt. For these reasons, if pub- 
 lishinf,^ any of Mr Mylnc's poems in a magazine, &c. be at all jiru- 
 dent, m my opinion it certainly should not be a Scottish poem. The 
 profits of the labours of a man of frenius are, I hope, as honourable 
 as any profits whatever ; and Mr Mylne's relations are most justly 
 entitled to that honest harvest which fate has denied himself to reap. 
 But let the friends of Mr Mylne's fame (among whom I crave the 
 lionour of ranking myself) always keep in eye his respectability as a 
 man and as a poet, and take no measure that, before the world 
 knows anything about him, would risk his name and character being 
 classed with the fools of the times. 
 
 I have, sir, some experience of publishing ; and the way in which 
 I would proceed with Mr Mylne's poems is this: — I will publish, in 
 two or three English and Scottish public papers, any one of his Eng- 
 lish poems which should, by private judges, be thought the most 
 excellent, and mention it at the same time as one of the produc- 
 tions of a Lothian farmer of respectable character, lately deceased, 
 whose poems his friends had it in idea to publish soon by subscrip- 
 tion, for the sake of his nimierous family; not in pity to that family, 
 but in justice to what his friends think the poetic merits of the 
 deceased ; and to secure, in the most effectual manner, to those 
 tender councctious, whose right it is, the pecuniary reward of those 
 merits. li. B.i 
 
 TO MR PETER HILL, BOOKSELLER, EDINBERGH. 
 
 [Ei.LiSLAND, 3Iarch 1700 ?] 
 My de.vr IIiLL — I shall say nothing to your mad present- — you 
 have so long and often been of important service to me, and I snp- 
 ])Ose 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 Eoger 
 de (Joverley, because it lui])})ened to be a cold day in which he made 
 liis will, ordered his servants greatcoats for moui'uing; so, because 
 I have been this week plagued with an indigestion, I have sent you 
 by the carrier a fine old ewe-milk cheese. 
 
 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 tlie sight of 
 successful knavery, and sicken to loathing at the noise and non- 
 sense of self-imj)ortant folly. When the hollow-hearted wretch 
 talics me by tiie han<l, the feeling spoils my dinner; the ])roud man's 
 wine so offends my palate, that it chokes me in the gullet; and the 
 pvlvilisc.d, feathered, pert coxcomb is so disgustful in my nostril, that 
 my stomach turns. ' 
 
 ' ' I'ocniH, consisting of MispoUancons Pieces, ^nd two Trnc;c(lios, liy the late Mr 
 Jlylne of I.ochell,' are luIvertiscJ l)y Mr ('reeeh as publishcil iu July 171)1.'. 
 - Mr Ilill bud sent the pout a prcaeut uf books.
 
 30 LIFE AND WORKS OF EL'RIsS. 
 
 If ever you have any of these disagreeable sensations, let me pre- 
 scribe 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 
 Smcllie— a man positively of the first abilities and greatest strength 
 of mind, as well as one of tlie best hearts and keenest wits that 
 I have ever met with ; when you see him — as alas ! he too is smart- 
 ing 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 riglit Oporto, you will see liis sorrows vanish like the 
 morning mist before the summer sim. 
 
 C'andlish, the earliest fi'iend, 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 best cheese would help 
 to rid him of some of his superabundant modesty, you would do well 
 to give it him. 
 
 David,! with his Covrant, comes, too, across my recollection, and 
 I beg you will help him largely from the said ev/e-milk cheese, to 
 enable him to digest those damned 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 tiling ; 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.^ 
 
 Among our common friends I must not forget one of the dearest 
 of them — Cunningham.'' The brutality, insolence, and selfish- 
 ness 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 Somerville, 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 of modest anecdotes which a certain 
 poet gave him one night at supper the last time the said poet was 
 in town. 
 
 Tliough I have mentioned so many men of law, I shall have 
 nothing to do with them professionally — 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 detesta- 
 tion of hypocrisy, are so proverbially notorious, as to place them 
 far, far above either my praise or censure.* 
 
 1 Mr David Ramsay, printer of the Edinburgh Evening CouranU 
 
 2 A club of choice spirits, already frequently alluded to. 
 
 3 Mr Alexander Cunningham.
 
 LETTER TO DK JICOUE. ol 
 
 I was going to mention a man of worth, wliom 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 
 Dumfrfesshire Whigs, to enable them to digest the Duke of Queens - 
 berry'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. So God 
 bless you. -P^- -'^• 
 
 TO DR MOORE. 
 
 Ellisland, 23d March 1789. 
 Sir — The gentleman who will deliver this is a Mr Ifielson, 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 Nielsen is on his way for France, to wait on his 
 Grace of Queensberry, on some little business of a good deal of im- 
 portance to him ; and he wishes for your instructions respecting the 
 most eligible mode of travelling, &c. 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 Scotchman is a letter of re- 
 commendation to you, and that to have it in your power to serve 
 such a character gives you much pleasure. 
 
 The enclosed 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 her 
 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 blamable. In January last, on my road to Ayr- 
 shire, I had put up at Bailie V/higham's, in Sanquhar, the only toler- 
 able inn in the place. Tlie frost was keen, and the grim evening 
 and howling wind were ushering in a niglit 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 foi-ccd 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, 
 througii tlie wildest moorg and hills of Ayrshire, to New Cumnock, 
 the next inn. The powers of poesy and prose sink under me when 
 
 1 TIio Reverend Edward Niclson, minister of Kirkbcan, in the Stewartry of 
 Kirkcudbright.
 
 32 I.IKIi; AND WORKS OF EURNS. 
 
 I would describe Avliat I felt. Suffice it to say, that v.lien a good firs 
 at New Cumnock had so far recovered iny frozen sinews, I sa,t down 
 and wrote the enclosed Ode. 
 
 I was at Edinburij;li lately, and settled finally with Mr Creech; and 
 I must own that at last he has been amicable and fair with me. 
 
 1{. B. 
 
 Dr Moore's answer to tlils letter was as follows : — 
 
 Clifford Stuket, ]()lh June 17S9. 
 
 Dear Sir — I thank you for the different communications you 
 have made me of your occasional productions in manuscript ; all of 
 which have merit, and some of them merit of a different kind from 
 v/hat appears in the poems you have published. You ought care- 
 fidly to in-eserve all your occasional productions, to correct and im- 
 prove them at your leisure ; and when you can select as many of 
 these as Avill make a volume, publish it either at Edinburgh or 
 London by subscription : on such an occasion it may be in my 
 power, as it is very much in my inclination, to be of service to you. 
 
 If I were to offer an opinion, it wonld be, that in your future pro- 
 ductions, you sliould abandon the Scottish stanza and dialect, and 
 adopt the measure and language of modern English poetry-. 
 
 The stanza which you r.se in imitation of Christ Kirk on the 
 Green, with the tiresome repetition of ' that day,' is fatiguing to 
 English ears, and I should tliink not very agreeable to Scottish. 
 
 All the fine satire and humour of your Ilohj Fair is lost on the 
 English; yet, witliout more trouble to yourself, you could have con- 
 veyed the whole to them. The same is true of some of your otiicr 
 poems. In your Epistle to J. Smith, the stanzas from that beginning 
 with this line, ' This life, so far's I understand,' to that which ends 
 with, ' Short while it grieves,' are easy, flowing, gaily philosophical, 
 and of Horatian elegance — the language is English, with a few 
 Scottish words, and some of those so harmonious as to add to the 
 beauty ; for what poet would not prefer gloaming to twilight ? 
 
 I imagine that, by carefully keeping, and occasionally polishing 
 and correcting those verses which the Muse dictates, you will within 
 a year or two have another volume as large as the first ready for 
 the press ; and this without diverting you from evei-y proper atten- 
 tion to the study and practice of husbandry, in wliich I understand 
 you are very learned, and which I fancy you will choose to adhere 
 to as a wife, while poetry amuses you from time to time as a mistress. 
 The former, like a prudent wife, must not shew ill-humour although 
 you retain a sneaking kindness to this agreeable gipsy, and pay her 
 occasional visits, v.-hich in no manner alienates your heart from 
 your lawful spouse, but tends, on the contrary, to promote her 
 interest. 
 
 I desired Mr Cadell to write to Mr Creech to send you a copy of 
 Zduco. This performance has had great success here ; but I shall 
 be glad to have your opinion of it, because I value your opinion, and 
 because I know you are above saying what you do not think.
 
 PARISH- LIBRAKY SCHEME. 33 
 
 I bej» you will oiFer ray Lest wishes to my very good friend Mrs 
 Hamilton, who, I understand, is your neij^hbour. If she is as happy 
 as I wish her, slie is happy enough. Make my compliments also to 
 Mrs Burns; and believe mc to be, with sincere esteem, dear sir, 
 yours, kc. 
 
 TO MR WILLIAM BURXS. 
 
 IsLK, 2cth March 1T83. 
 I HAVE stolen from my corn-sowing this minute to write a line 
 to accompany your shirt and hat, for I can no more. Write 
 me every opportunity — never mind postage. My head, too, is 
 as addle as an egg this morning with dining abroad yesterdaj'. I 
 received yours by the mason. Forgive this foolish-looking scrawl 
 of an epistle. I am ever, my dear William, yours, 11. B. 
 
 P. S. — If you are not then gone from Longtown, I '11 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 rasli step — return to us 
 in that case, and we will court Fortune's better humour, liemeniber 
 this, I charge you.i 
 
 It is a most creditable fact in Burns's life, that, long before the 
 time when the intellectual improvement of the humbler classes 
 liad become a national movement, he exerted himself to the 
 utmost in that cause, as far as his own locality was concerned. 
 Already, under the care of Captain Eiddel and that of the poet, a 
 parish library was about to be established in their neighbourhood. 
 Burns took the trouble of selecting and purchasing books. For 
 this purpose he opened a correspondence with a worthy young 
 bookseller named Hill, till lately the factotum of Creech, but now 
 in business for himself. During his negotiations with Creech, 
 liurns, while always feeling less and less favourably affected to 
 the principal, had at the same time become more and more 
 attached to the subaltern, by reason of liis pleasant manners and 
 geniality of nature. He now, therefore, regarded Hill as his 
 bookseller for Edinburgh. 
 
 TO MR PETER HILL. 
 
 Er.Lisr.ANn, 2(1 April 17^f>. 
 I AviLL make no excuse, my dear Bibliopolus (God forgive me for 
 murdering language!) that I have sat down to write you on this vile 
 paper, stained with the sanguinary scores of • thac cursed horse- 
 leeches o' the Excise.' 
 
 1 Printed in the Kilmnrnnck Jniirnn! (tlicncc first transferred to IIofrK nnd 
 Motherweirs edition) fniin tlio ori'jinal, wliich is described as ahcwn at the Red 
 Lion Tiivern, SUakapearc Square, Kdinburgli. 
 VOL. III. C
 
 34 LIFE AND WORKS OP BURNS. 
 
 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 our friend Eamsay,i for the assist- 
 ance of the author of the pretty little buttei-ing paragraphs of 
 eulogium on your thrice-honoured and never-enough-to-be-praised 
 Magistracy — how they hunt do\\Ti a housebreaker with the 
 sanguinary perseverance of a bloodhound — how they outdo a terrier 
 in a badger-hole in unearthing a resetter of stolen goods — how they 
 steal on a thoughtless troop of night-nymphs as a spaniel winds the 
 unsuspecting covey — or how they riot over a ravaged "' ■•" as a cat 
 does o'er a plundered mouse-nest — how they new vamp old churches, 
 aiming at appearances of piety, plan squares and colleges, to pass 
 for men of taste and learning, &c. &c. &c. ; while Old Edinburgh, like 
 the doting mother of a parcel of rakehelly prodigals, may sing 
 Hoolly and fairly, or cry Wae^s me that e'er I saw ye! but still must 
 put her hand in her pocket, and pay whatever scores the young dogs 
 think proper to contract. 
 
 I was going to say — but this parenthesis has put me out of 
 breath — that you should get that manufacturer of the tinselled 
 crockery of magistratial reputations, who makes so distinguished and 
 distinguishing a figure in the Evening Courant, 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 sm-touts ! thou old housewife, darning thy decayed 
 stockings Avith 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 hungiy 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 liis immediate 
 court of joys and pleasures ; where the sunny exposure of plenty, 
 and the hot walls of profusion, produce those blissful fniits 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 pro- 
 tection ! He daily bestows his greatest kindness on the undeserving 
 and the wortliless — assure him that I bring ample documents of 
 
 1 Mr David Ramsay, of the Edinburgh Courant.
 
 SKETCH, INSCRIBED TO C. J. FOX. 35 
 
 meritorious demerits ! Pledj^e 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 — what in the name of all the devils 
 at once have you done with my trunk ? Please let me have it by the 
 first carrier. 
 
 I want a Shcikspeare : let me know what plays your used copy of 
 Bell's Shakspeare wants. I want likewise an English dictionary^ 
 Johnson's, I suppose, is best. In these and all vaj'prose commissions 
 the cheapest is always the best for me. There is a small debt of 
 honour that I owe Mr Piobcrt 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 and me. There is another in emula- 
 tion of it going on at Closeburn, under the auspices of Mr Monteath 
 of Closeburn, which will be on a greater scale than ours. I have 
 likewise secured it for you. 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 Lounge?; Man of Feeling, Man of the World, Guthrie^s 
 Geographical Grammar, with some religious pieces, will likely be 
 our first order. 
 
 When T 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, 
 
 E. B. 
 
 TO MRS DUNLOP. 
 
 Ellisland, 4//i.^prJ21789. 
 
 I NO sooner hit on any poetic plan or fancy, but I wish to send it 
 to you ; and if knowing and reading these give half the pleasure to 
 you that communicating them to you gives to me, I am satisfied. 
 
 I have a poetic whim in my head, which I at present dedicate, or 
 rather inscribe, to the Riglit Hon. Charles James Fox ; but how long 
 that fancy may hold I cannot say. A few of the first lines I have 
 just rough-sketched as follows : — 
 
 SKETCH, 
 INSCmnKD TO CHARLES JAMES FOX. 
 
 How wisdom and folly meet, mix, and unite ; 
 How virtue and vice blend their black and their white j 
 How genius, tlie illustrious father of fiction. 
 Confounds rule and law, reconciles contradiction —
 
 56 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 I sing: if these mortals, the critics, should bustle, 
 I care not, uot I, let the critics go whistle. 
 
 But now for a Patron, whose name and whose glory 
 At once may illustrate and honour my story. 
 
 Thou first of our orators, first of our wits, 
 Yet whose parts and acquirements seem mere lucky hits; 
 "With knowledge so vast, and with judgment so strong, 
 No man with the half of 'em e'er went far wrong j 
 "VVith passions so potent, and fimcies so bright, 
 No man with the half of 'em e'er went quite right: 
 A sorry, poor misbegot son of the Muses, 
 For usi'ng thy name offers fifty excuses, i 
 
 [Good L — d, what is man? for as simple he looks, 
 Do but try to develop his hooks and his crooks ; 
 "With his depths and his shallows, his good and his evil, 
 ' All in all he's a problem must puzzle the devil. 
 
 On his one ruling passion Sir Tope hugely labours, 
 
 That, like th' old Hebrew walking-switch, cuts up its neighbours : 
 
 Mankind are his show-box— a friend, would you know him ? 
 
 Pull the string, ruling passion the picture will shew him. 
 
 "What pity, in rearing so beauteous a system, 
 
 One trifling particular, truth, should have miss'd him ; 
 
 Tor, spite of his fine theoretic positions, 
 
 Mankind is a science defies definitions. 
 
 "Some sort all our qualities each to its tribe. 
 
 And think human nature they truly describe ; 
 
 Have you found this, or t'other! there's more in the wind, 
 
 As by one drimken fellow his comrades you'll find. 
 
 But such is the flaw, or the depth of the i)lan, 
 
 In the make of that wonderful creature call'd man, 
 
 No two virtues, whatever relation they claim, 
 
 Nor even two different shades of the same, 
 
 Though like as was ever twin-brother to brother. 
 
 Possessing the one shall imply you've the other.- 
 
 But truce with abstraction and truce with the Muse, 
 Whose rhymes you'll perhaps, sir, ne'er deign to peruse : 
 ■yVill you leave your justings, your jars, and your quarrels. 
 Contending with Billy for proud-nodding laurels. 
 My much-honoured Patron, believe your poor Poet, 
 Your courage much more than your prudence you shew it: 
 
 > The verses following within brackets were added afterwards, 
 z The verses following this line were first printed from a manuscript of Burns, in 
 Pickering's edition.
 
 LETTER TO MRS M'MURDO, 37 
 
 In vain with Squire Billy for laiirels you struggle, 
 He'll have them by fair trade, if not he will smuggle; 
 Not cabinets even of kings would conceal 'em, 
 He'd up the back-stairs, and by G — he Avould steal 'em ! 
 Then feats like S(iuire Billy's you ne'er can achieve 'em. 
 It is not, outdo him — the task is, out-thieve him!] 
 
 On the 20th current I hope to have the honour of assuring you- 
 in person how sincerely I am, R. B, 
 
 In his letter to Mv Peter IIUl two days before, Burns had' 
 tlesired to learn as soon as possible tlie address of Stuart, pub- 
 lisher of the Star newspaper, but under secrecy. He probably 
 designed to send the above sketch to the Star. 
 
 Our poet had paid a visit this spring to Mr IM'Murdo at 
 Drumlanrig Castle, and had been charmed by the kindness of his 
 reception in that elegant circle. Having occasion soon after to 
 send to Mrs ]\I'^Iurdo a poem which he had recited to her ftimily 
 in an imperfect state, he accompanied it with a letter expressing 
 tliat courteous gi'atitude wliicli he always felt towards persons of 
 supei-ior rank who treated him with unaffected friendliness. 
 
 TO MKS M'MURDO, DRUMLANRIG. 
 
 Ellisland, 2d May 1789. 
 Madam — I have finished the piece which had the happy fortune t» 
 be honoured with your approbation ; and never did little miss with.- 
 more sparkling pleasure sliew her applauded sampler to partiab 
 mamma, than I now send my poem to you and Mr M'Murdo, if he is^ 
 returned to Drumlanrig. You cannot easily imagine what thin- 
 skinned animals, what sensitive plants, poor poets are. How do we- 
 siirink into the imbittered corner of self-abasement when neglected 
 or condemned by tliose to whom we look up!— and how do we, ia 
 erect importance, add another cubit to our stature on being noticed 
 and applauded by tlu)se whom we honour and respect! My late 
 visit to Drumlanrig lias, I can tell you, madam, given me a balloon 
 waft up Parnassus, wlierc on my fancied elevation I regard my 
 poetic self with no snnill degree of complacency. Surely, with all 
 liieir sins, the rliymiiig tribe are not ungrateful creatures. I recollect 
 your goodness to your humble guest — I see Mr ^I'^Iurdo adding to the 
 politeness of the gentleman tlie 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 wortldess creature, that we cannot sec real good- 
 ness and native wortli without feeling the bosom glow with sympa- 
 tlietic approbation. With every sentiment of grateful respect, I 
 liavc tlie honour to be, madam, your obliged and grateful, humblo 
 servant, li. B.
 
 38 LIFE AND WORKS OF BUEXS. 
 
 TO MR CUNNINGHAM. 
 
 Ellisland, ith May 1789. 
 
 My deab Sir — Your duty-free favour of the 26th 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 satis- 
 faction ; 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. 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. 
 
 Inhuman man ! curse on thy barb'rous 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 or verdant plains 
 
 To thee a home, or food, or pastime yield. 
 
 Seek, mangled innocent, some wonted form ; 
 
 That wonted form, alas ! thy dying bed ! 
 
 The sheltering rushes whistling o'er thy head. 
 The cold earth with thy blood-stain'd bosom warm. 
 
 Perhaps a mother's anguish adds its wo ; 
 
 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 ruthless wretch, and mourn thy hapless fate. 
 
 Let me know how you like my poem. I am doubtful whether it
 
 BURNS AND FIELD-SPORTS. 39 
 
 would not be an improvement to keep out the last stanza but one 
 altogether. 
 
 Cruikshank is a glorious production of the Author of man.i You, 
 he, and the noble Colonel - 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 
 * Thi'ee guid fellows ayont the glen.' E. B. 
 
 The tenderness of Burns towards animals is one of the feelings 
 most conspicuous in his verse after amatory passion : witness the 
 Farmer's Address to Ms Mare, the verses on The Winter Night, the 
 Address to the Mouse, and several other pieces. ^ He could treat 
 the passion of a Tarn Samson jocularly ; and I have been informed 
 that, when visiting j\Ir Bushby at Tinwald Downs, he would 
 accompany the gentlemen - visitors to the field to witness their 
 sport. His deliberate feelings regarding field - sports appear, 
 however, to be presented in The Brigs of Ayr : 
 
 ' The thundering guns are heard on every side. 
 The wounded coveys, reeling, scatter wide ; 
 The feathered field-mates bound by nature's tie. 
 Sires, mothers, children, in one carnage lie ; 
 (What warm poetic heart but inly bleeds. 
 And execrates man's savage, ruthless deeds !)' 
 
 There is no trace of his having ever personally engaged in field- 
 sports, and only one notice of his using the fishing-rod. 
 
 There is usually printed in Burns's works a little ode entitled 
 Delia, which from its deficiency of force and true feeling some have 
 suspected to be not his composition. Allan Cunningham tells a 
 feasible-enough-looking story regarding it. ' One day, when the 
 poet was at Brownliill, in Nithsdale, a friend read some verses 
 composed after the pattern of Pope's song by a person of quality, 
 and said: " Burns, this is beyond you. The Muse of Kyle cannot 
 match the Muse of London city." The poet took the paper, 
 
 1 Mr Cruikshank of the High School. Wo know a gentleman in mature life, who 
 lived as a boarder and pupil with Cruikshank, and to whom the character of the 
 man, in consequence of the severity of his discipline, appeared in a very dift'erent 
 light from what it did in the eyes of boon-companion Hums. Mr t'ruikshank died 
 in March 1795, thus predeceasing his friend the poet by upwards of a year. 
 
 2 Mr William Dunbar, W.S. 
 
 3 ' As dear to me as are the ruddy drops 
 That visit my sad heart.' — Julius Camr. 
 
 * Burns had a favourite collie at Ellisland, with thia legend on its collar : 
 • RoBKiiT Burns, 1'okt.'—A. Cunninyham. 
 
 ' His last doi{— a fine burly fellow, which survived him some time — was named 
 Thl'ki.ow, which I suppose the poet had bestowed on him in compliment to the 
 rough, manly character of the eliancellor. You remember Thurlow's famous reply 
 to the Duke of tirafton, in which he challenged comparison with the noble duke 
 as A MAN. This could not fail to take a strong hold of the feelings of liui-na.'— 
 R. Cariulhas' MS.
 
 40 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 liummed the verses over, and then recited DeUa, an Ode.'' Tliere 
 is not anything in this anecdote inconsistent with the fact, that 
 Burns sent the ode for insertion in a London newspaper. The 
 journal so honoured was the Star, the first of our daily evening 
 papers, set on foot very recently in consequence of the facilities 
 afforded by the new mail-system of Mr Palmer. The publisher 
 was Mr Peter Stuart, who had formed an acquaintance with Burns 
 some years ago, and seems to have been the correspondent who 
 addressed him in February 1787 with some absurd vituperation of 
 the Canongate magistrates for their alleged neglect of Fergusson.^ 
 
 ' Mr Printer — If the productions of a simple plougliman can merit 
 a place in the same paper with Sylvester Otway and the other 
 favourites of the Muses who illuminate the Star with the lustre of 
 genius, your insertion of the enclosed trifle will be succeeded by 
 future communications from yours, &c. E. Burns. 
 
 Ellislaxd, near Dumfries, ISth Map 17£9.' 
 
 helia. 
 
 Fair the face of orient day, 
 
 Fair the tints of op'ning rose ; 
 But fairer still my Delia dawns, 
 
 More lovely far her beauty shews. 
 
 Sweet the lark's wild warbled lay. 
 
 Sweet the tinkling rill to licar ; 
 But, Delia, more delightful still, 
 
 Steal thine accents on mine ear. 
 
 The flower-enamoured busy bee 
 
 The rosy banquet loves to sip ; 
 Sweet the streamlet's limpid lapse 
 
 To the sun-browned Arab's lip. 
 
 But, Delia, on thy balmy lips 
 
 Let me, no fragrant insect, rove ; 
 O let mc steal one liquid kiss, 
 
 For, oh .' my soul is parched with love ! 
 
 The poem on the Hare had been also sent by him to Dr Gregory 
 of Edinburgh, for whose critical judgment and general character 
 Burns, as we have seen, entertained a high veneration. He who 
 had been so lenient with Clarinda's versicles chose to be strict 
 with this piece of Burns. 
 
 1 Sec Volume II. , p. 45.
 
 DR GREGORY'S CEITICISH ON A POEM. 41 
 
 TO MR ROBERT BURNS. 
 
 EDiNBi'TirjH, 2(7 June 1789. 
 Dear Sir — I take the first leisure hour I could command to 
 thank you for your letter, and the copy of verses enclosed in it. As 
 there is real poetic merit — I mean both fancy and tenderness — and 
 some happy expressions in them, I think they well deserve that you 
 should revise them carefully, and polish them to the utmost. This I 
 am sure you can do if you please, for you have great command both 
 of expression and of rhymes : and you may judge, from the two last 
 pieces of JIrs Hunter's poetry i that I gave you, how much correct- 
 ness and high-polish enhance the value of such compositions. As 
 you desire it, I shall, wilh great freedom, give you my most rigoroiis 
 criticisms on your verses. I wish you would give me another edition 
 of them, mucii amended, and I will send it to Mrs Hunter, who, I 
 am sure, will have much pleasure in reading it. Pray give me like- 
 wise for myself, and her too, a copy— as much amended as you 
 please — of the Water-Fowl on Loch Twit. 
 
 The Woundt'd Hare is a \n-ciiy good subject, but tlic measure or 
 stanza you have chosen for it is not a good one : it does not flow 
 well; aiid the rhyme of tlie fourth line is almost lost by its distance 
 from tiie first, and the two interposed close rliymes. If I were you, 
 I would put it into a dift'orent stanza yet. 
 
 Stanza 1. Tlie execrations in the first two lines are too strong 
 or coarse, but they may pass. ' 3Iurder-aiming ' is a bad compound 
 epithet, and not very intelligible. ' Blood-stained ' in stanza iii. line 4, 
 lias the same fault : bleeding bosom is infinitely better. You have 
 accustomed yourself to such epithets, and have no notion iiow stiff 
 and quaint they appear to others, and how incongruous with poetic 
 fancy and tender sentiment?. Suppose Pope had written: 'Why 
 that blood-stained bosom gored,' how would you have liked it? 
 Form is neither a poetic nor a dignified, nor a plain common word : 
 it is a mere sportsman's word — unsuitable to pathetic or serious poetry. 
 • Man'ded ' is a coarse word. ' Innocent,' in this sense is a nursery 
 word ; but both may pass. 
 
 Stanza 4. ' Who will now provide that life a mother only can 
 bestow ?' will not do at all : it is not granunar — it is not intelligible. 
 Do you mean 'provide for tliat life which the mother had bestowed 
 and used to provide for V 
 
 There was a ridiculous slip of the pen, ' Feeling,' I suppose, for 
 'Fellow,' in the title of your copy of verses ; but even ' fellow ' would 
 be wrong — it is but a collo(iuial and vulgar word, unsuitable to your 
 sentiments. 'Shot' is improper too. On seeing a per.wn — or a 
 sportsman — wound a hare ; it is needless to add with what weapon ; 
 but if you think otherwise, you shoidd say trith afou-riiui-picce. 
 
 Let me see you when you come to town, and I will shew you 
 some more of Mrs Hunter's poems. 
 
 ' The wife of tlic celfbrat<-d surgeon, Jolin Hunter. Many of her fugitive poema 
 enjoyed at tl.at time a conaidcniblc reputation.
 
 42 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 * It must be admitted,' says Dr Currie, ' that this criticism is 
 not more distinguished by its good sense than by its freedom 
 from ceremony. It is impossible not to smile at the manner in 
 which the poet may be supposed to have received it. In fact it 
 appears, as the sailors say, to have thrown him quite aback. In a 
 letter which he wrote soon after, he says : " Dr Gregory is a good 
 man, but he crucifies me." And again : " I believe in the iron 
 justice of Dr Gregory ; but, like the devils, I believe and tremble." 
 However, he profited by these criticisms, as the reader will find 
 by comparing this first edition of the poem with that elsewhere 
 published.' 
 
 The piece, as the poet finally left it, is as follows : — ■ 
 
 ON SEEING A WOUNDED HARE LIMP BY ME, 
 
 WHICH A FELLOW HAD JUST SHOT. 
 
 Inhuman man ! curse on thy barb'rous 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. 
 
 Oft as by winding Nith I, musing, wait 
 The sober eve, or hail the cheerful dawn, 
 I '11 miss thee sporting o'er the dewy lawn. 
 
 And curse the ruffian's aim, and mourn thy hapless fate.^ 
 
 If any further criticism might be tolerated on so unimportant a 
 composition, we would express our dissent from the poet regarding 
 the second last verse of the first edition, and our regret that he 
 omitted it, as it appears to us that the image of the young ones 
 crowding round their wounded dam is one of the finest, if not the 
 only very fine one, in the poem. 
 
 1 Allan Cunningham mentions that the poor animal whoso sufferings excited 
 this burst of indignation on the part of the poet, was shot by a lad named James 
 Thomson, son of a farmer near Ellisland. Burns, who was near the Nith at the 
 moment, execrated the young man, and spoke of tiirowing him into the water. We 
 see here the same feeling at work which dictated his rebuke of John Blane, on his 
 running after the dislodged mouse.
 
 RHYMED EPISTLE. 45- 
 
 lETTER TO JAMES TENNANT OF GLENCONNER.l 
 
 Auld comrade dear, and britlier sinucr, 
 
 How's a' the folk about Glcnconner? 
 
 How do you, this blae eastlin wind, 
 
 That 's like to blaw a body blind? 
 
 For me, my faculties are frozen. 
 
 And ilka member nearly dozen'd. atupified 
 
 I've sent you here, by Johnnie Simson, 
 
 Twa sage philosophers to glimpse on; 
 
 Smith, wi' his sympathetic feeling. 
 
 And Eeid, to common-sense appealing. 
 
 Philosophers have fought and wrangled, 
 
 And meikle Greek and Latin mangled, 
 
 Till, wi' their logic jargon tir'd. 
 
 And in the depth of science mir'd. 
 
 To common-sense they now appeal. 
 
 What wives and wabsters see and feel. 
 
 But, hark ye, friend! I charge you strictly, 
 
 Peruse them, and return them quickly, 
 
 For now I 'm grown sae cursed douce, 
 
 I pray and ponder butt the house ; 
 
 My shins, my lane, I there sit roastin'. 
 
 Perusing Bunyan, Brown, and Boston ; 
 
 Till by and by, if I baud on, 
 
 I'll grunt a real gospel groan: 
 
 Already I begin to try it. 
 
 To cast my e'en up like a pyet, 
 
 When by the gun she tumbles o'er, 
 
 Flutt'ring and gasping in her gore : 
 
 Sae shortly you shall see me bright, 
 
 A burning and a shining light. 
 
 My heart-warm love to guid auld Glen, 
 
 The ace and wale o' honest men : _ choice 
 
 When bending down wi' auld gray hairs. 
 
 Beneath the load of years and cares. 
 
 May He who made him still support him, 
 
 And views beyond the grave comfort him ; 
 
 His worthy fam'ly far and near, 
 
 God bless them a' wi' grace and gear ! 
 
 My auld schoolfellow, preacher Willie, 
 The manly tar, my mason Billie, 
 And Auchcnbay, I wish him joy; 
 If he 's a parent, lass or boy, 
 
 > An old friend of the poet and his family, who assisted him in his choice of the 
 farm of EUisland.
 
 44 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 May ho be dad, and Meg the mithcr, 
 
 Just five-and-foi'ty years thegither! 
 
 And no forgetting wabster Charlie, 
 
 I'm told he offers very fairly. 
 
 And, Lord, remember singing Sannock, 
 
 Wi' hale breeks, saxpence, and a bannock ;l 
 
 And next my auld actiiiaintance Nancy, 
 
 Since she is fitted to her fancy; 
 
 And her kind stars hae airted till her directed 
 
 A good chiel wi' a pickle siller. 
 
 My kindest, best respects I sen' it, 
 
 To Cousin Kate and Sister Janet ; 
 
 Tell them, frae me, wi' chiels be cautions, lacls 
 
 For, faith, they'll aiblins fin' them fashions. possibly 
 
 And lastly, Jamie, for yoursel'. 
 
 May guardian angels tak a spell, 
 
 And steer you seven miles south o' hell : 
 
 But first, before you see heaven's glory, 
 
 May ye get mony a merry story ; 
 
 Mony a laugh, and mony a drink, 
 
 And aye eneugh o' needfu' clink. 
 
 Now fare ye weel, and joy be wi' you ; 
 For my sake this I beg it o' you, 
 Assist poor Simson a' ye can. 
 Ye '11 fin' him just an honest man : 
 Sae I conclude, and quat my chanter, 
 Yours, saint or sinner, 
 
 EoE THE Ranter. 
 
 TO MR RICHARD BROWN. 
 
 Mauchmne, 2lst 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 you would always set me down as jour bosom-friend 
 - — wishing you long life and prosperity, and that every good thing 
 may attend you — wishing Mrs Erown 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 j'ou at present — and, finally, wishing that, if there 
 is to be another state of existence, Mr B., Mrs B., our little ones, 
 and 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. Youi's, R. B. 
 
 ' 1 ' Fortune, if tliou 'II but gie me still, 
 
 Hale breeks, a scone, and whisky gill,' &c. 
 
 — Scotch Drink,
 
 FACILITY WITH CREECH. 45 
 
 TO MR JAMES HAMILTON. 
 
 Ellisland, 26lh Ma;/ 17S9. 
 
 Dear Sir— I would fain offer, my dear sir, a word of sympatliy 
 with your misfortunes; but it is a tender string, and I know not how 
 to touch it. It is easy to flourish a set of high-flown sentiments on 
 the subjects that would give great satisfaction to— a breast quite at 
 case • but as one observes who was very seldom mistaken in the 
 theory of life : ' The heart knoweth its own sorrows, and a stranger 
 interraeddleth not therewith.' 
 
 Amon'^' some distressful emergencies tliat I have experienced in 
 life, I ever laid tliis down as my foundation of comfort : That he icho 
 has lived the life of an homst man has hy no means lived in rain! 
 
 With every wish for your welfare and future success, I am, my 
 dear sir, sincerely yours, R> B- 
 
 Untlcr the temporary reconciliation produced by the amicable 
 settlement in February, Burns appears to liavc, with his usual 
 reckless carelessness about his compositions, sent some of the best 
 of his late productions to Creech, wlio at that time thought of 
 bringing out a new edition of the bard's works.! In those days, an 
 author in similar circumstances would deem himself entitled to 
 some certain requital for any additions he might make to a volume 
 which had been the subject of a distinct bargain with a publisher. 
 In the days of the Ayrshire bard such reckonings were less in 
 practice, and nothing of the kind seems to have been thought 
 of by either poet or publisher on this occasion. Having to 
 send in May for a few copies of his volume from the publisher, 
 Burns handed more of his recent compositions to Creech, and at 
 the same time addressed him with an effusion of terms more 
 appropriate to theii* former intimacy than to the business in 
 hand — 
 
 TO WILLIAM CREECH, T,sk. 
 
 Kr.i.rsr.AND, 30//t Ma;/ 17S9. 
 Str — I had intended to have troubled you with a long letter; but 
 at present the delightful sensations of an omnipotent toothache so 
 engross all my inner man, as to put it out of my power even to writo 
 nonsense. However, as in duty bound, I ajiproacli my bookseller 
 with an ofluriug in my hand— a few poetic clinL-hes and a song:— to 
 expect any otiier kind of offering from the rhyming tribe would be 
 to know them much less than you do. I do not pretend that there 
 is much merit in these morceaux, but I have two reasons for sending 
 
 J Creech to Mr C-ulclI, Strand, London, March 7, 1789 : ' llow do ynn stand with 
 regard to Ilurn.s'a I'ociiiM ? The aiithcjr lias given mo several beaiuiful new tliini,'» 
 for a new edition. 1-et nie know if I may put a new edition to press here, and 
 uhat n\uuber may be printed.'— iVS. iu i>osscssion of liobcrl Cole, Esij.
 
 46 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 them.— primo, they are mostly ill-natured, so are in unison with my 
 present feelings, while fifty troops of infernal spirits are driving post 
 from ear to ear along my jawbones ; and, secondly, they are so short 
 that you cannot leave off in the middle, and so hurt my pride in the 
 idea that you found any work of mine too heavy to get through. 
 
 I have a request to beg of you, and I not only beg of you, but 
 conjure you, by all your wishes and by all your hopes, that the Muse 
 will spare the satiric wink in the moment of your foibles ; that she 
 will warble the song of rapture round your hymeneal couch ; and 
 that she will shed on your turf the honest tear of elegiac gratitude ! 
 Grant my request as speedily as possible : send me by the very first 
 fly or coach for this place three copies of the last edition of my 
 poems, which place to my account. 
 
 Now may the good things of prose, and the good things of verse, 
 come among thy hands, until they be filled with the good things of 
 this life, prayeth K. B. 
 
 The sufferings of the poet from the ailment alluded to iii the 
 above letter drew from him at this time his — 
 
 ADDRESS TO THE TOOTHACHE. 
 
 My curse upon thy venom'd stang, 
 That shoots my tortur'd gums alang ; 
 And through my lugs gies mony a twang, 
 
 Wi' gnawing vengeance ; 
 Tearing my nerves wi' bitter pang, 
 
 Like racking engines ! 
 
 When fevers burn, or ague freezes, 
 Rheumatics gnaw, or cholic squeezes; 
 Our neighbour's sympathy may ease us, 
 
 Wi' pitying moan ; 
 But thee — thou hell o' a' diseases. 
 
 Aye mocks our groan ! 
 
 Adown my beard the slavers trickle ! 
 I kick the wee stools o'er the micklp, 
 As round the fire the giglots keckle, 
 
 To see me loup ; 
 While, raving mad, I wish a heckle 
 
 Were in their doup. 
 
 0' a' the num'rous human dools, sorrows 
 
 111 har'sts, daft bargains, cutty-stools, 
 
 Or worthy friends rak'd i' the mools, clods 
 
 Sad sight to see ! 
 
 The tricks o' knaves, or fash o' fools — trouble 
 
 Thou bear'st the gree. superiority
 
 AMENDMENT OF EARLY FAULTS. 47 
 
 Where'er that place be priests ca' hell, 
 AVlience a' the tones o' misery yell, 
 And ranked plagues their numbers tell, 
 
 In dreadfu' raw, 
 Thou, Toothache, surely bear'st the bell 
 
 Amang them a' ! 
 
 O thou grim mischief-making cliiel. 
 That gars the notes of discord squeel, 
 Till daft mankind afc dance a reel 
 
 In gore a shoe-thick!^ 
 Gie a' the faes o' Scotland's weal 
 
 A towmond's toothache ! year 
 
 TO MR M'AULEY, of DUMBARTON. 
 
 Ellisland, ith June 1789. 
 
 Dear Sir — Though I am not without my fears respecting my 
 fate at that grand, universal inquest of right and wrong, commonly 
 called The Last Day, yet I trust there is one sin which that arch- 
 vagabond Satan — who, I understand, is to be king's evidence — cannot 
 throw in my teeth ; I mean ingratitude. There is a certain pretty 
 large quantum of kindness for which I remain, and from inability I 
 fear must still remain, your debtor ; but though unable to repay the 
 debt, I assure you, sir, I shall ever warmly remember the obligation. 
 It gives me the sincerest pleasure to hear by my old acquaintance, 
 Mr Kennedy, that you are, in immortal Allan's language, ' Hale, and 
 weel, and living;' and that your charming family are well, and 
 promising to be an amiable and respectable addition to the company 
 of performers whom the Great Manager of the Dx'ama of Man is 
 bringing into action for the succeeding age. 
 
 AVith respect to my welfare, a subject in which you once warmly 
 and effectively intei-estcd yourself — I am here in my old way, 
 holding my plough, marking the growth of my corn, or the health of 
 my dairy, and at times sauntering by the delightful windings of the 
 Nith — on the margin of which I have built my humble domicile — 
 praying for seasonable weather, or holding an intrigue with the 
 Muses, the only gipsies with whom I have now any intercourse. As 
 I am entered into the holy state of matrimony, I trust my face is 
 turned completely Zion-ward; and as it is a rule with all honest 
 fellows to repeat no grievances, I hope that the little poetic licences 
 of former days will of course fall under the oblivious influence of 
 some good-natured statute of celestial prescription. In my family 
 devotion — which, like a good Presbyterian, I occasionally give to my 
 household folks— I am extremely fond of the psalm, 'Let not the 
 errors of my youth,' &.c. and that other, ' Lo, children are God's 
 lieritagc,' &c. in which last Mrs Burns — who, by the by, has a 
 glorious ' wood-note wild ' at either old song or i^salmody — joins me 
 with the pathos of Handel's Messiah. R. B.
 
 48 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Robert Ainslie used to relate that Burns often quoted with 
 great relish the verses from the 127th psalm in the Scottish 
 translation : 
 
 Lo, children are God's heritage, 
 
 The womb's fruit his reward : 
 The sons of youth as arrows ai-e, 
 
 For strong men's hands prepared. 
 O happy is the man that liath 
 
 His quiver filled with tliose ; 
 They unashamed in the gate 
 
 Shall speak unto their foes. 
 
 The rough, antique force of these verses, and the cheerful view 
 which they give of the natural character of tliat which modern 
 society has pei'verted into an encumbrance — were what made them 
 favourites with the bard. Mr Ainslie used to add, that a young 
 companion of his, who afterwards became a judge under the name 
 of Lord Cringletie, added gi-eatly to tlie amusement of a mirthful 
 company before which Burns had one evening repeated them, 
 when, with great simplicity, he praised them as verses of the 
 bard's own composition. 
 
 TO MR ROBERT AINSLIE. 
 
 Ellisland, Sth June 17R9. 
 
 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 taslc, 
 with sowing corn with my own hand, a parcel of masons, wrights, 
 plasterers, &c. to attend to, roaming on business through Ayrshire 
 — all this was against nie, and the very first dreadful article was of 
 itself too much for me. 
 
 13</<. — I have not had a moment to spare from incessant toil since 
 the Sth. Life, my dear sir, is a serious matter. You know by expe- 
 rience 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 shew 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 Avhatever which centre merely in the 
 individual. On the other hand, let no young, unmarried, rake- 
 helly dog among you make a song of his pretended liberty and
 
 EELIGIOUS VIEWS. 49 
 
 freedom from care. If the relations v,c stand in to king, country, 
 kindred, and friends, be anything but the visionary fancies of 
 dreaming metaphysicians ; if religion, virtue, magnanimity, gene- 
 rosity, 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 tlie helpless little innocents who are to be the men and women, 
 tlic 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, 
 earthborn wretch of our species, a renegade to common sense, who 
 ■would fain believe that the noble creatui-e 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 imexag- 
 gcrated 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 ray later manufacture. 11. E. 
 
 While residing at Ellisland, Burns with his family attended 
 worship at Dunscore churcli, three or four miles distant among 
 the hills. The mhiister, Mr Kirkpatriek, was a zealous Calvinist, 
 and therefore not a favourite with our poet. Burns seems tQ have 
 listened to his doctrines under a constant mental protest. 
 
 TO MKS DUN LOP. 
 
 Em.isi.an-d, ^\slJtmcl7H0. 
 Dear Madam — Will you take the cfi\isions,tlie miserable eft'nsions 
 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. 
 
 Mondaii Evening. 
 
 I have just licard Jlr Kirkpatriek preach a sermon. He is a man 
 famous for liis benevolence, and I revere him ; but from such ideas 
 of my Creator, good l.,ord, deliver me! lleligion, my honoured 
 friend, is surely a simj)le business, as it ecpially concerns the ignorant 
 and the learned, tlie poor and the rich. That there is an incompre- 
 hensible Great 13eing, to whom I owe my existence, and that ho must 
 
 VOL. ni. D
 
 50 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 be intimately acquainted with tlie operations and progress of the 
 internal machinery, and consequent outward deportment of this 
 creature which he has made — these are, I think, self-evident propo- 
 sitions. 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 afSrm that from the sublimity, excellence, and 
 purity of his doctrine and precepts, unparalleled by all the aggre- 
 gated 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. 
 
 V/hat 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 xxr^j ov/n mind, E. B. 
 
 Helen Maria Williams, who had been introduced to Bums by 
 Dr Moore, sent him, in June 1787, a letter enclosing some poems 
 which that gentleman had addressed to herself. She told Burns 
 that, her mother being a Scotchwoman, she had been competent 
 to understand the language of the Ayrshire bard, ' had read his 
 poems with satisfaction, and shared the triumph of his country in 
 producing his laurels.' She afterwards sent him a poem of her 
 own on the slave-trade. 
 
 TO MISS WILLIAMS. 
 
 Ellisland \_August'\ 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, xmtil 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
 
 CRITICIS3I ON ' THE SLAVE TRADE.' 51 
 
 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 v.'ill 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 shew 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. 
 
 I know very little of scientific criticism ; so all I can pretend to 
 in that intricate art is merely to note, as I read along, what passages 
 strike me as being uncommonly beautiful, and where the expression 
 seems to be perplexed or faulty. 
 
 The poem opens finely. There are none of those idle prefatory 
 lines which one may skip over before one comes to the subject. 
 Ycrses 9th and 10th in particular — 
 
 WTiere ocean's unseen bound 
 Leaves a drear world of waters round- 
 are truly beautiful. The simile of the hurricane is likewise fine; 
 and indeed, beautiful as the poem is, almost all the similes rise 
 decidedly above it. From verse 31st to verse 50th is a pretty eulogy 
 on Britain. Yerse 36th, 'That foul drama deep with wrong,' is 
 nobly expressive. Verse 46th, I am afraid, is rather unworthy of 
 the rest ; ' to dare to feel ' is an idea that I. do not altogether like. 
 The contrast of valour and mercy, from the 46th verse to the 50th, 
 is admirable. 
 
 Either my apprehension is dull, or there is something a little 
 confused in the apostrophe to Mr Pitt. Verse 55th is the antecedent 
 to verses 57th and 5Sth, but in verse 58th the connection seems 
 ungrammatical : — 
 
 Powers :): * * 
 
 * * * * 
 
 With no gradations marked their flight. 
 But rose at once to glory's height, 
 
 Ris'n should be the word instead of rose. Try it in prose. Powers 
 — their flight marked by no gradations, but [the same powers] 
 risen at once to the height of glory. Likewise verse 53d, 'For this,' 
 is evidently meant to lead on the sense of the verses 5i)th, 60th, 61st, 
 and 62d ; but let us try how the thread of comiectiou runs — 
 
 For this * * * 
 
 » * * * 
 
 Tlie deeds of mercy, that embrace 
 A distant sphere, an alien race. 
 Shall virtue's lips record, and claim 
 The fairest honours of thy name. 
 
 I be<i' pardon if I misapprehend the matter, but this appears to
 
 "52 LIFE AND WORKS OF BUKNS. 
 
 me the only imperfect passage in the poem. The comparison of 
 the sunbeam is tine. 
 
 The compliment to the Duke of Richmond is, I hope, as just as 
 it is certainly elegant. The thought. 
 
 Virtue * * * 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Sends from her unsullied source, 
 The gems of thought their purest force, 
 
 IS exceeding beautiful. The idea, from verse 81st to the 85th, that 
 the 'blest decree' is like the beams of morning usliering in t!ie 
 glorious day of liberty, ought not to pass nnnoticed or unapplauded. 
 From verse Soth to verse lOSth, is an animated contrast between 
 the unfeeling selfishness of the oppressor on the one hand, and the 
 misery of the captive on the other. Yerse 8Sth might perhaps bo 
 amended thus: 'Nor ever quit her narrow maze.' We are said 
 to pass a bound, but we quit a maze. Verse 100th is exquisitely 
 beautiful — 
 
 They, ■whom wasted blessings tire. 
 
 "Verse 110th is, I doubt, a clashing of metaphors ; 'to load a span' 
 is, I am afraid, an unwarrantable expression. In verse li4th, ' Cast 
 the universe in shade,' is a fine idea. From the lloth verse to the 
 142d is a striking description of the wrongs of the poor African. 
 Verse 120th, ' The load of unremitted pain,' is a remarkable, strong 
 expression. The address to the advocates for abolishing the slave- 
 trade, from verse 143d to verse 208th, is animated with the true 
 life of genius. The picture of oppi'ession — ■ 
 
 "While she links her impious chain, 
 And calculates the price of pain ; 
 AVeighs agon)- in sordid scales. 
 And marks if life or death prevails — 
 
 is nobly executed. 
 
 What a tender idea is in verse 180th! Indeed that whole de- 
 scription of home may vie with Thomson's description of home, 
 somewhere in the beginning of his Autumn. I do not remember to 
 have seen a stronger expression of misery than is contained in these 
 verses — 
 
 Condemned, severe extreme, to live 
 When all is fled that life can give. 
 
 The comparison of our distant joys to distant objects is equally 
 orig-inal and striking:. 
 
 The character and manners of the dealer in the infernal traffic 
 is a well done, though a horrid picture. I am not sure how far 
 introducing the sailor was right ; for tiiough the sailoi''s common 
 characteristic is generosity, yet in this case he is certainly not only 
 an unconcerned witness, but in some degree an elncient agent in 
 
 i
 
 CRITICISM ON ' THE SLAVE-TKADE.' 53'' 
 
 the business. Terse 224th is a nervous . . . expressive—' The heart 
 convulsive anguish breaks.' Tlie description of the captive wretcli 
 wlien he arrives in the West Indies is carried on with equal spirit. 
 The thought that the oppressor's sorrow on seeing the slave pine, is 
 like the butcher's regret when his destined lamb dies a natural 
 death, is exceedingly tine. 
 
 I am got so much into the cant of criticism, that I begin to be 
 afraid lest I have nothing except the cant of it ; and instead of 
 elucidating my author, am only benighting myself. For this rea- 
 son, I will not pretend to go through the whole poem. Some few 
 remaining beautiful lines, however, I cannot pass over. Yerse 
 2S0th is the strongest description of selfishness I ever saw. Tlie 
 comparison in verses 2S5th and 28(Jth is new and fine ; and the line, 
 •Your arms to penury you lend,' is excellent. 
 
 In verse 317th, 'like' should certainly be 'as' or 'soj' for 
 
 instance — 
 
 Ilis sway the hardened bosom leads 
 To cruelty's remorseless deeds : 
 As (or, SO) the blue liglitning wlien It springs 
 With fury on its livid win^s, 
 Darts on the goal with rapid force, 
 Nor heeds that ruin marks its course. 
 
 If you insert the word 'like' where I have placed 'as' you must 
 alter ' darts ' to ' darting,' and ' heeds ' to ' heeding,' in order to make 
 it grammar. A tempest is a favourite subject with the poets, but 
 I do not remember anything, even in Thomson's lVi)tier, superior 
 to your verses fi-om the 3-47th to the 351st. Indeed, the last simile, 
 beginning with 'Fancy may dress,' &;c. and ending with the 350th 
 verse, is, in my opinion, the most beautiful passage in the poem ; 
 it would do honour to the greatest names that ever graced our 
 profession. 
 
 I will not beg your pardon, madam, for these strictures, as my 
 conscience tells me that for once in my life I have acted up to the 
 duties of a Christian, in doing as I would be done by. 
 
 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 eipially escape the danger of stumbling throiigli 
 incautious speed, or losing ground through loitering neglect. I 
 am, &c. H. B. 
 
 To the above letter the following is Miss ^Yilliams's answer: — 
 
 Ith AiifjMt 1789. 
 Dear Rik — I do not lose a moment in returning you my sincere 
 acknowledgments for your letter, and your criticism on my poem, 
 which is a very flattering proof that you have read it with attention. 
 I think your objections are perfectly just, except in one instance.
 
 54 LIFE AND WOEKS OF BUEXS. 
 
 You have indeed been very profuse of pancgjTic on my llttia 
 perforaiance. A much less portion of applause from you would have 
 been gratifying to me, since I think its value depends entirely upon 
 the source from whence it proceeds — the incense of praise, like other 
 incense, is more grateful from the quality than the quantity of the 
 odour. 
 
 I hope you still cultivate the pleasures of poetry, which are 
 precious even independent of the rewards of fame. Perhaps the 
 most valuable property of poetry is its power of disengaging the 
 mind from worldly cares, and leading the imagination to the richest 
 springs of intellectual enjoyment; since, however frequently life 
 may be chequered with gloomy scenes, those who truly love the 
 Muse can always find one little path adorned with flowers and 
 cheered by sunshine. 
 
 TO MR JOHX LOG AN .^ 
 
 Ellisland, near Dumfries, 7th Aug. 1789. 
 Dear Sir — I intended to have written you long ere now, and as I 
 told you I had gotten three stanzas and a half on my way in a poetic 
 epistle to you; but that old enemy of all fjood vjorhs, the devil, 
 threw me into a prosaic mire, and for the soul of me I cannot get 
 out of it. I dare not ^vrite 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 b© 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, 
 
 K. B. 
 
 The poem alluded to in this letter was a satire evoked by an 
 ecclesiastical case in which Bums's heterodox tendencies and 
 personal friendships were deeply interested. Dr William M'Gill, 
 one of the two ministers conjoined in the parochial charge of 
 
 I Of Kjioekshiiinoch, in Glen Afton, Ayrshire.
 
 THE kirk's alarm. 55 
 
 Ayr, had published m 1786, A Practical Essay on tJie Death of 
 Jesus Christ, in Two Parts; containing,!, the History, 2, the Doctrine 
 of his Death, which was supposed to inculcate principles of both 
 Arian and Socinian character, and provoked many severe censures 
 from the more rigid party of the church. M'Gill remained silent 
 under the attacks of his opponents, till Dr William Peebles of 
 Newton-upon-Ayr, a neighbour, and hitherto a friend, in preaching 
 a centenary sermon on the Revolution, November 5, 1788, de- 
 nounced the essay as heretical, and the author as one who ' with 
 one hand received the privileges of the church, while with the 
 other he was endeavouring to plunge the keenest poniard into her 
 heart.' M'Gill published a defence, which led, in April 1789, to 
 the introduction of the case into the presbyterial court of Ayr, 
 and subsequently into that of the synod of Glasgow and Ayr. 
 Meanwhile, the public out of doors was agitating the question 
 with the keenest interest, and the strife of the liberal and zealous 
 parties in the church had reached a painful extreme. It was now 
 that Bums took up the pen in behalf of M'Gill, whom he looked 
 on as a worthy and enlightened person suffering an unworthy 
 persecution. 
 
 THE kirk's alarm. 
 
 Orthodox, orthodox, 
 
 Wha believe in John Knox, 
 Let me sound an alarm to your conscience ; 
 
 There 's a lieretic blast 
 
 Has been blawn in 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. 
 
 1 Dr M'Gill. The essay published by this reverend Rentleman is deseribed by 
 one of his Bur>'iving friends as a work of considerable ability, lie was a Socinian in 
 principle, though not a disciple of Socinus, none of whose works ho had ever read. 
 In his personal and domestic character he was a strange mixtui-e of simplicity and 
 stoicism. He seldom smiled, but often set the table in a roar by his quaint 
 remarks. He was inflexibly regular in the distribution of his time : he studied so 
 much every day, and took his walk at the same hour in all kinds of weather. Ho 
 playe<l at golf a whole twelvemonth without the omission of a single week-day, 
 except the three on wliich there are religious services at the time of the communion. 
 His views of many of the dispensatinns of Providence were widely difl'erent from 
 those of the bulk of society. A friend told him of an old clergj'man, an early com- 
 panion of his own, who, having entered the pulpit in his canonicals, and being 
 about to commence service, fell back and expired in a moment. Dr M'fiill rliipped 
 hi» hands together, and said : ' That was very desirable ; he lived all the days of his
 
 56 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Town of Ayr, town of Ayr,' 
 
 It was mad, I declare. 
 To meddle wi' mischief a-brewing ; 
 
 Provost John^ is still deaf 
 
 To the church's relief, 
 And orator Bob^ is its ruin. 
 
 D'rymple mild,'' D'rymple mild, 
 
 Though 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. 
 
 Rumble John,^ Rumble John, 
 
 Mount the steps wi' a groan, 
 Cry, the book is wi' heresy crammed; 
 
 Then lifg out your ladle. 
 
 Deal brimstone like adle, muck-watcr 
 
 And roar every note of the damned. 
 
 life.' The morning after a domestic calamity of the most harrowing kind, the 
 reverend doctor, to the surprise of his flock, officiated in church witli liis usual 
 gerenity. He conversed on self-murder with the coolness of a Koman philosopher. 
 One day, when he was in his study examining a huge folio, with his back to the 
 door, and only the writer of these notes in his presence, a stranger suddenly walked 
 in— a singular being named Macrae, who had written a translation of the Bible, 
 and now wandered through the country as an interpreter of dreams. Without 
 preface or introduction the intruder exclaimed : ' Dr M'Gill, I'm a phenomenon ! ' 
 The doctor looked roimd, and the expression of the countenances of the two 
 originals would have formed a subject for the pencil of Hogarth. 
 
 ' AVhcn Pr M'Gill's case first came before the synod, the magistrates of Ayr 
 published an advertisement in the newspapers, bearing a warm testimony to the 
 excellence of the defender's character, and their appreciation of his services as a 
 pastor. 
 
 2 John Ballantyno, Esq., banker, provost of AjT. the prime mover, probably, in 
 the testimony in favour of Dr M'Gill— the same individual to whom the Tti:a Brigs 
 is dedicated. There could not have been a nobler instance of true benevolence and 
 manly worth than that furnished by Provost Ballantyne. His hospitable mansion 
 was known far and wide, and he was the friend of every liberal measure. At an 
 election for the Ayr district of burghs, the delegate for Campbeltown being detained 
 by stormy weather, the Ayr electors, who had the casting vote, were disposed to 
 nominate their provost ; but Mr Ballantyne disdained taking advantage of an 
 accident, and caused the vote to be given for the person whom the CampbeltoAvn 
 delegate was known to favour. 
 
 3 Mr Robert Aiken, -wTitcr in A3T, to whom the Colter's Saturday Ni(}ht is 
 inscribed. He exerted his powerful oratorical talents as agent for M'Gill in the 
 presybtery and synod. 
 
 4 The Rev. Dr AVilliam Dalrj'mplc, senior minister of the collegiate charge of 
 AjT— a man of extraordinary benevolence and worth. It is related that, one day 
 meeting an almost naked beggar in the country, he took off his coat and waistccat, 
 gave the latter to the poor man, then put on his coat, buttoned it up, and walked 
 home. He died in 1814, after having fulfilled his duties for sixty-eight years. If 
 we are to believe the poet, his views respecting the Trinity had not been strictly 
 orthodox. 
 
 5 The Rev. John Russell, celebrated in the Holy Fair.
 
 THE kirk's alarm. 
 
 57 
 
 Simper James,i Simper James, 
 
 Leave tlie fair Killie dames, 
 There's a holier chase in your view; 
 
 I 'II lay on your head, 
 
 That the pack ye '11 soon lead, 
 For puppies like you there's but few. 
 
 Singct Sawney,"2 Singet Sawney, 
 
 Are ye huirding the penny, 
 Unconscious what evils await ; 
 
 Wi' a jump, yell, and howl, 
 
 Alarm every soul. 
 For the foul thief is just at your gate. 
 
 Daddy Auld,^ Daddy Auld, 
 
 There's a tod in the fauld, fox 
 
 A tod meikle waur than the clerk ;* 
 
 Though ye downa do skaitli, cannot harm 
 
 Ye '11 be in at the death. 
 And if ye canna bite, ye may bark. 
 
 Davie Bluster,'' Davie Bluster, 
 
 For a saint if ye muster, 
 The corps is no nice of recruits; 
 
 Yet to worth let's be just, 
 
 Boyal blood ye might boast, 
 If the ass was the king of the brutes. 
 
 Jamy Goose,'' Jamy Goose, 
 
 Ye hac made but toom roose, empty praise 
 
 In hunting the wicked lieutenant; 
 
 But the Doctor's your mark, 
 
 For the L — d's haly ark. 
 He has cooper'd and cawt a wrong pin in't. 
 
 Foet Willie,^ Poet Willie, 
 Gie the Doctor a volley, 
 
 ' 1 The Hfv. James Macldnlay, minister (if TCilmnrnock, the hero of the Oidlnatim. 
 
 - The Kcv. Mr Alexander Meodie, of Hieearton, one of the heroes of the 'l\ca 
 Jlerds. 
 
 3 The Rev. Mr Auld, of Mauchline. 
 
 •' The clerk was Mr Gavin Hamilton, whoso defence nfjainst the charffcs 
 preferred by Mr Auld, as elsewhere stated, had occabioned piueh trouble to this 
 clerpjTiian. 
 
 ^ Mr Grant, Oehiltree. 
 
 " Mr Younj,', Ciimnoek. 
 
 7 The Rev. I)r Peebles. ITc had excited some ridicule by a line in a poem on 
 the Centenary of the Revolution : 
 
 ' And bound in Liberty's endearing chain.' 
 
 The poetry of this gentleman is said to have been indifferent. He attempted wit 
 in private convcrBation with no better success.
 
 58 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Wi' your ' Liberty's Chain ' and your wit ; 
 
 O'er Pegasus' side 
 
 Ye ne'er laid a stride, 
 Ye but smelt, man, the place where he — 
 
 Andi'o Gouk,^ Andro Gouk, 
 
 Ye may slander the book, 
 And the book not the waur, let me tell ye ; ' 
 
 Ye are rich, and look big, 
 
 But lay by hat and wig, 
 And ye '11 hae a calf's head o' sma' value. 
 
 Barr Steenie,^ Barr Steenie, 
 
 What mean ye — what mean ye ? 
 If ye '11 meddle nae mair wi' the matter, 
 
 Ye may hae some pretence 
 
 To bavins and sense, manners 
 
 Wi' people wha ken ye nae better. 
 
 Irvine-side,'^ Irvine-side, 
 
 Wi' your turkey-cock pride. 
 Of manhood but sma' is your share ; 
 
 Ye've the figure, 'tis true, 
 
 Even your faes will allow. 
 And your friends they dare grant you nae mair. 
 
 Muirland Jockj-^ Muirland Jock, 
 
 Whom the L — d made a rock 
 To crush Common Sense for her sins, 
 
 If ill manners were wit, 
 
 There's no mortal so fit 
 To confound the poor Doctor at ance. 
 
 Holy Will,5 Holy Will, 
 There was wit i' your skull, 
 
 1 Dr Andrew Mitchell, Monkton. Extreme love of money, and a strange confu- 
 sion of ideas, characterised this preshyter. In his prayer for the royal family, he 
 would express himself thus : ' Bless the King — his Majesty the Queen — herMajesty 
 the Prince of Wales.' The word chemistry he pronounced in three different ways 
 — hemistry, shemistry, and tchemistry — hut never hy any chance in the right way. 
 Notwithstanding the antipathy he could scarcely help feeling towards Biu-ns, one 
 of the poet's comic verses would make him laugh heartily, and confess that, ' after 
 all, he was a droll feHow.' 
 
 2 Rev. Stephen Young, Barr. 
 
 3 Rev. George Smith, Galston. This gentleman is praised as friendly to Common 
 Sense in the Holy Fair. The offence which was taken at that praise probahly 
 emhittercd the poet against him. 
 
 * Rev. John Shepherd, Muirkirk. The statistical account of Muirkirk contributed 
 by this gentleman to Sir John Sinclair's work, is above the average in intelligence 
 and very agreeably written. He had, liowever, an unfortunate habit of saying rude 
 things, which he mistook for wit, and thus laid himself open to Bums's satire. 
 
 * The elder, William Fisher, whom Burua had formerly scourged.
 
 FREIT ON INHABITING ELLISLAND. 59 
 
 When ye pilfered the alms o' the poor ; 
 
 The timmer is scant, 
 
 When ye 're ta'en for a saunt, 
 Wha should swing in a rape for an hour. 
 
 Calvin's sons, Calvin's sons, 
 
 Seize your spir'tual guns. 
 Ammunition vou never can need ; 
 
 Your hearts are the stuff, 
 
 Will be powther enough, 
 And your skulls are storehouses o' lead. 
 
 Poet Burns, Poet Burns, 
 
 Wi' your priest-skelping turns. 
 Why desert ye your auld native shire ? 
 
 Though your Muse is a gipsy, 
 
 Yet were she e'en tipsy, 
 She could ca' us nao waur than we aro.^ 
 
 It may be added that the war raged, till, in April 1790, the 
 case came on for trial before the synod, when M'Gill stopped 
 farther procedure by giving in a document expressive of his deep 
 regret for the disquiet he had occasioned, explaining the challenged 
 passages of his book, and declaring his adherence to the standards 
 of the church on the points of doctrine in question.^ 
 
 Burns seems not to have entered upon his new house at Ellis- 
 land till the year 1789 was somewhat advanced, for he addressed 
 letters to his brother William in March, dating from the Isle. 
 Elizabeth Smith remembers the removal from that narrow tene- 
 ment to the better accommodations of EUisland, though she cannot 
 be precise about the time. Burns came to her, and with a slight 
 smile on his face desired her to take the family Bible and a bowl 
 of salt, and placing the one upon the other, carry them to the new 
 
 1 In the present version of this poem advantage is taken of a few various readings 
 from a copy published l)y Allan Cunningham, in which there is a curious repetition 
 of the last line of each verse, along with the name of the party addressed. A 
 specimen of this arrangement is given in the following additional stanza, from 
 Allan's coi)y : — 
 
 Afton's laird, Afton's laird. 
 When your pen can be spared, 
 A copy of this I bequeath 
 
 On the same sicker score. 
 As I mentioned before. 
 To that trusty auld worthy, Clacklcith, 
 
 Afton's laird ; 
 To that trusty auld worthy, Clackleith. 
 
 2T>r M'Oill died March .30, lfi07, .it the ago of scvcnty-six, and in the forty-sixth 
 year of his ministry. The account of the controversy hero given is abridged from 
 Mio-rai/'s LUrrarii llixlori/ of Galloway. The notes on tlie clergymen arc from a 
 living member of their profession (1851), who officiated iu Ayrshire at a time not 
 long subsciucnt to the period of the poem.
 
 GO LIFE AND WOKKS OF BURNS. 
 
 house, and walk into it before any other person. This was the 
 old freit appropriate to the taking possession of a new house, the 
 object being to secure good- hick for all who should tenant it. 
 The poet, like a man of imagination, delighted in such ancient 
 observances, albeit his understanding on a rigid tasking would have 
 denied their conclusions. lie himself, with his wife on his arm, 
 followed little Betty, the Bible and salt, and so entered upon the 
 possession of what was comparatively to him the Great Babylon 
 which he had built. 
 
 On the 18th of August his spouse brought him an infant, whom 
 he named Francis Wallace, in honour of Mrs Dunlop. Seeing 
 his family thus extending, and perhaps not greatly in heart about 
 the second year's crop of his farm, he about this time applied to 
 ]\Ir Graham of Fintry to be nominated Excise-officer of the rural 
 district in which he lived. He took this step entirely as a 
 prudential one, calculating on being a gainer by it to an extent 
 not much less than forty pounds a year, which he thought a most 
 desirable addition to the profits of his farm. According to Allan 
 Cunningham, who had opportunities of being well informed about 
 the Ellisland period of Burns's life, he contemplated devoting his 
 farm chiefly to the business of the dairy. His sisters were skilled 
 in this branch of rural economy, and had imparted their know- 
 ledge as far as possible to Mrs Burns. He thought that, while 
 Jean, with the assistance of some of her west-country sisterhood, 
 managed the cows and their produce, he himself might go on 
 with the Excise business, and still have a sufficiency of time for 
 the reduced duties connected with Ellisland which were then left 
 to himself. Thus both ways money would be coming in. It was 
 a good and plausible plan ; but, as Mr Cunningham observes — 
 
 ' The best-laid schemes o' mice and men 
 Gang aft agley." 
 
 The poet, however, deserves credit for his good intention, and for 
 the castigation of spirit to which he must have submitted on the 
 occasion. 
 
 * Searching auld wives' barrels, 
 
 Och, hon! the day! 
 That clarty barm should stain my laurels ; dirty yeast 
 
 But — what'll ye say! 
 These movin' things ca'd wives and weans, children 
 Wad move the very hearts o' stanes ! ' 
 
 So he had extemporaneously sung on getting his appointment. 
 The verse shews the motive, and does the poet honour. 
 
 We have seen that Burns sent his protest against Mr Kirk- 
 patrlck's revolution-sermon to the editor of the Stai; a London
 
 CORRESPONDENCE "SVITH A LONDON JOURNALIST, 61 
 
 evening papei'. He liad more recently transmitted to the same 
 quarter Delia, an Ode, and no^Y he appears to have proposed 
 to the editor something lilce a regular correspondence. Dr 
 Currie preserved some degree of mystery regarding both the 
 paper and the editor; and it was not without considerable 
 dilhculty that the present biographer obtained light respecting 
 botli. As already mentioned, tlie editor was Mr Feter Stuart, 
 long after known by his connection in succession with i\\Q Morning 
 Post and the Oracle. In the Anti-Gallican position then assumed 
 by this gentleman, we may discern one sufficient reason for the 
 suppression of his name by Currie. His letter is valuable for the 
 testimony it bears to the fascinating social character of the lamented 
 Eobert Fergusson, who had been a schoolfellow and companion of 
 his elder brother Charles, now a dramatic Avriter of some tempor- 
 ary fame. Mr Daniel Stuart, a younger brother, and the most 
 notable man of the three, was the employer of ]\Ir Coleridge in 
 the Morning Post, and a most generous friend towards that 
 extraordinary person during many subsequent years. 
 
 [to MU ROBERT BURNS.] 
 
 London, 5/A August 17f9. 
 
 My dear Sir — Excuse me wlien I say, that the inicommon 
 abilities wliich you possess nmst render your correspondence very 
 acceptable to any one. I can assure you I am particularly proud of 
 your partiality, and shall endeavour, by every method in my power, 
 to merit a continuance of your politeness. * * 
 
 "When you can spare a few moments, I should be proud of a letter 
 from you, directed for me, Gerard Street, Soho. * * 
 
 I canuot express my liappincss sufficiently at tlie instance of your 
 attachment to my late inestimable friend. Bob Fergusson,' who was 
 j)articularly intimate with myself and relations. While I recollect 
 M'ith pleasure Ids extraordinary talents and many amiable qualities, 
 it affords me the fjrcatest consolation that I am honoured with the 
 corrcs]ionduncc of Ids successor in natural simplicity and genius. 
 That Mr Burns has refined in the art of poetry, must readily be 
 admitted ; hut notwithstanding many favourable representations, I 
 am yet to learn that he inherits his convivial powers. 
 
 There was such a richness of conversation, such a jilenitude of 
 fancy and attraction in him, that wlien I call the happy period 
 of our intercourse to my memory, I feel myself in a state of 
 delirium. I was then younger than he by eight or ten years, but 
 liis manner was so felicitous, that he enraptured every person 
 around him, and infused into the hearts of the young and old the 
 spirit and animation which opei'ated on his own mind — I am, dear 
 sir, yours, &c. 
 
 1 The erection of u monuir.ent to liini.
 
 62 LIFE AND WORKS OP BURNS. 
 
 TO MR [peter STUART.] 
 
 ISepfember'] 1789. 
 
 My dear Sir — The hurry of a farmer in tliis particular season, 
 and the indolence of a poet at all times and seasons, will, I hope, 
 plead my excuse for neglecting so long to answer your obliging letter 
 of the 5th of August. 
 
 That you have done well in quitting your laborious concern in 
 * * I do not doubt; the weighty reasons you mention were, I 
 hope very, and deservedly indeed, weighty ones, and your health is 
 a matter of the last importance ; but whether the remaining pro- 
 prietors of the paper have also done well, is what I much doubt. 
 The [Star], so far as I was a reader, exhibited such a brilliancy of 
 point, such an elegance of pai-agraph, and such a variety of intelli- 
 gence, that I can hardly conceive it possible to continue a daily 
 paper in the same degree of excellence : but if there was a man who 
 had abilities equal to the task, that man's assistance the proprietors 
 have lost. 
 
 "When I received your letter, I was transcribing for [the Star] my 
 letter to the magistrates of the Canongate, Edinburgh, begging their 
 permission to place a tombstone over poor Fergusson, and their edict 
 
 in consequence of my petition ; but now I shall send them to 
 
 Poor Fergusson ! If there be a life beyond the grave, which I trast 
 there is; and if there be a good God presiding over all nature, 
 wliich I am sure there is — thou art now enjoying existence in a 
 glorious world, where worth of the heart alone is distinction in the 
 man ; where riches, deprived of all 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, Avill be 
 thrown into equal oblivion as if they had never been ! 
 
 Adieu, my dear sir ! So soon as your present views and schemes 
 are concentred in an aim, I shall be glad to hear from you, as 
 your welfai-e and happiness is by no means a subject indiiFerent to, , 
 yours, E. B. 
 
 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 by, 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 little
 
 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 63 
 
 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, Mrs J. Little, 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 know 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 20th 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 exist- 
 ence; 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 aU 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, 
 ■*vhich I keep constantly by me in my progress through life, in the 
 language of the book of Job, 
 
 Against the diiy of battle and of var. 
 
 Spoken of religion : 
 
 • 'Ti8 this, my fi-iend, that streaks our morning bright, 
 'Tis this that gilds the horror of our night. 
 AVhcn wcaltli forsaltcs us, and when friends are few ; 
 When friends are faithless, or when foes pursue ; 
 
 J ' Frae Jop the horn he hinted and couth blaw 
 8ac asprely, and warned gude .John Wright : 
 The rowar out he strake witli great sleight ; 
 The lavo gacd down, when tlie pin out gaes. 
 A hideous ery ainang the i]eople raise ; 
 Baith horse and men into tlie water fell,' &c. 
 
 — The Wallace, hook viL line 1179.
 
 G4 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 'Tis this that wards the blow, or stills tlio smart, 
 Disarms affliction, or repels his dart ; 
 AVithin 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 criticisnirf 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 Dicu, le boii Dieu,je vous commende! 
 
 We have to turn from this serious letter to two of the merriest 
 affairs in which we have any record of Burns being concerned. 
 The first was that which gave rise to his well-known song of 
 Willie hrcw'd a Pech o' Maid. Burns's note upon that ditty gives 
 its history. ' This air is [Allan] Masterton's; the song mine. The 
 occasion of it was this : Mr William Nicol, of the High School, 
 Edinburgh, during the autumn vacation being at Motfat, honest 
 Allan — who was at that time on a visit to Dalswinton — and I went 
 to pay Nicol a visit. We had such a joyous meeting, that Mr 
 Masterton and I agreed, each in our own way, that we should 
 celebrate the business.' 
 
 WILLIE BREWED A PECK o' MAUT. 
 
 O Willie brewed a peck o' maut. 
 
 And Eob and Allan cam to pree : t;;ste 
 
 Three blither hearts that lee-lann- nin-ht 
 Ye wad na find in Cliristcndie. 
 
 We are na fou', we're nae that fou', 
 
 But just a drappie in our ee ; 
 The cock may craw, the day may da'.<-, 
 And aye we'll taste the barley bree. 
 
 Hei'e are we met, three merry boys. 
 
 Three merry boys, I trow, are we ; 
 And niony a night we've merry been, 
 
 And mony mae we hojje to be ! 
 
 It is the moon, I ken her horn, 
 
 That's biinkin' in the lift sae hie; 
 She shines sae bright to wile us hame, 
 
 But, by my sooth, she'll wait a wee ! 
 
 Wha first shall rise to gang awa', 
 
 A cuckold, coward loon is he ! 
 AVha last beside his chair shall fa',1 
 
 He is the king amang us three ! 
 
 1 In Johnson's Sluaeum — 
 
 ' Wha first beside his chair ghall fa'.' 
 Evidently a mistake.
 
 ' WILLIE BREWED A PECK O' MAUT.' G5 
 
 The date of tliis song is ascertained to be not later than the 
 ICth October 1789, because in a letter of Burns of that date {see 
 onward), he quotes two verses of it. As the vacation of the 
 High School at that time extended from about the 13th August 
 to the 25th of September, the date of the song may be ascertained 
 as -within that period of the year. A doubt, however, has arisen 
 regarding the locality. Dr Currie stated that the meeting ' took 
 place at Laggan, a farm purchased by Mr Nicol in Nithsdale, on 
 the recommendation of Burns.' Allan Cunningham adopts this 
 statement, gives Dunscore as the parochial situation of Laggan, 
 and adds : ' It [the song] was composed to commemorate the 
 house-lieating, as entering upon possession of a new house is called 
 in Scotland. William Nicol made the browst strong and nappy ; 
 and Allan i\Iasterton, then on a visit at Dalswinton, crossed the 
 Nith, and with the poet and his celebrated punch-bowl reached 
 Laggan 
 
 " A wee before the sun gaed down." 
 
 The sun, however, rose on their carousal, if the tradition of the 
 land may be trusted.' 
 
 It is true that Nicol purchased a small estate called Laggan, not 
 in the parish of Dunscore, which was Burns's parish, but in the 
 adjacent one of Glencairn, and about a mile and a half from 
 jMaxwelton House. But there is good evidence that he did not 
 do so till the year following the composition of the song. "\Ve are 
 furnished with a note of * a disposition by "William Riddell of 
 Commieston, "W. S., to "William Nicol, one of tlie masters of 
 the High School, Edinburgh, of the lands of Meikle and Little 
 Laggan, lying in the barony of Snaid, parish of Glencairn, 
 and shire of Dumfries, dated 2G March 1790, and registered 
 in the books of council and session, 2 April 1790.'^ It might 
 be supposed possible that Nicol had obtained possession of 
 his property before the date of the disposition, perhaps at 
 the exchanging of missives of agreement, and tliat thus there 
 might be a house-heathuj at Laggan in autumn 1789. But in a 
 letter of Burns to Nicol, February 9, 1790 [see onward), there 
 occurs the following passage : — ' I hope Ned [Nicol's son] is a 
 good scholar, and will come out to gather nuts with me next 
 
 1 In an advertisement annoiineing the intended sale of parts of tho estate 
 of MaxweUon, which apj)ear9 in an Kclinbiir;,'li newspaper of I'lst November 
 17W, ' Lot VIL' is composed of tlie hands of Cruiglyrian, about 790 acres, whereof 
 17 arc arable, and 'the hinds of Meikle and Litile Lat-'gans, consisting of about 
 284 acres, whereof 1') are arable and !» meadow - ground ; the remainder is good 
 I)asture - land, and there is some wood upon these lands.' It is stated that the 
 lands of this lot are let together under a current lease till 1797. at the annual rent 
 of £l-.'l, 1«8. 
 
 I have been infonned that Nicol paid about £1500 for the Laggans. 
 VOL. 111. li
 
 G6 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 harvest.' Burns would assuredly not have written precisely 
 in this manner, if Nicol had by that time acquired a countiy 
 residence for himself and his family within four or five miles of 
 EUisland, and as well provided with nuts as EUisland itself. 
 We therefore conclude that Burns's note upon the song 
 is to be accepted as intimating Moifat as the scene of the 
 meeting, and that the statements of Currie and Cunningham 
 are mistakes. 
 
 A correspondent informs me that Nicol's mansion at Laggan 
 consisted merely of a hut and a hen — that is, a cottage of two 
 rooms. It may be admitted as far from unUkely, that Nicol and 
 Burns had many meetings there, resemhling that celebrated in the 
 song. The house is now in ruins, and passes by the name of 
 NkoVs Wa's. There is a hazel-copse behind the place, where 
 oiir friend used to gather nuts in his schoolboy days ; so that 
 most undoubtedly Ned was independent of the EUisland coppices 
 at the vacation of 1790 and thereafter. 
 
 Currie's note upon the song, written ten years after its composi- 
 tion, concludes with a sentence which says all that a generous 
 moralist would desire to be said on the ultra -meriy meeting 
 described by the bard. ' These three honest fellows — all men of 
 uncommon talents — are now all under the turf.'' 
 
 The second affair alluded to was one in which some of the 
 Nithsdale gentlemen of Burns's acquaintance were concerned. Our 
 bard, in introducing, the ballad composed on the occasion, gives 
 the following traditional recital :— ' In the train of Anne of 
 Denmark, when she came to Scotland with our James VI., there 
 came over also a Danish gentleman of gigantic stature and great 
 prowess, and a matchless champion of Bacchus. He had a little 
 ebony whistle, which at the commencement of the orgies he laid 
 on the table, and whoever was the last able to blow it, every- 
 body else being disabled by the potency of the bottle, was to 
 carry off the whistle as a trophy of victory. The Dane produced 
 credentials of his victories, without a single defeat, at the courts 
 of Copenhagen, Stockholm, Moscow, Warsaw, and several of the 
 petty courts in Germany; and challenged the Scots Bacchanalians 
 to the alternative of trying his prowess, or else of acknowledging 
 their infei'Iorlty. After many overthrows on the part of the Scots, 
 the Dane was encountered by Sir Robert Lawrie of Maxwelton, 
 ancestor of the present worthy baronet of that name ; who, after 
 three days and thi-ee nights' hard contest, left the Scandinavian 
 under the table, 
 
 " And blew on the whistle his requiem slorill." 
 
 Sir Walter, son to Sir Robert before mentioned, afterwards lost
 
 TIIE WIIISTLE-COXTEST, 67 
 
 the wliistle to Walter Eicldel of Gleuriddel, ^vlio had married a 
 sister of Sh- Walter's.'! 
 
 The whistle being now in the possession of Captain Riddel, 
 Burns's neighbour at Friars' Carse, it was resolved that he sliould 
 submit it to an amicable contest, mvolving, besides himself, two 
 other descendants of the conqueror of the Scandinavian — namely, 
 Mr Fergusson of Craigdarroch, and Sir Robert Lawrie of 
 Maxwelton, then M.P. for Dumfriesshire. The meeting was to 
 take place at Friars' Carse on Friday the 16th of October, and 
 BmTiS was mvited to be present. The historical associations con- 
 nected with the whistle would have been sure to excite an interest 
 in the bosom of the poet : so magnificent a frolic captivated his 
 imagination. We have the expression of this latter feeling in 
 a letter which he addressed that day on a trivial piece of 
 business — 
 
 Ellisland, lC(/i Oct. 1789.2 
 
 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 
 
 1 ' There are some odd blunders in the legend of the Wliistle, which a pedigree of 
 the Maxwelton family in my possession enables mc to mention. There was no Sir 
 Robert Lawrie of Maxwelton prior to or during the reign of James VI. Stephen, 
 the third son of .lohn Lawrie, the first of the family on record, and an inliabitant 
 of Dumfries, i)urchased tlie lands of Maxwelton from tlie Earl of Glencairn in 
 1614. lie was succeeded by his son John, who died in tlic year 1649 ; and his son 
 and heir, Robert, was created a baronet on the 27th March 1G85. Byliis second 
 wife, Jean Riddel, daughter of the Laird of Minto, he had tlirce sons and four 
 daughters, of wliom Catherine was married to AValter Riddel of Glonriddel, and 
 Anne to Alexander Fergvisson of Craigdarroch. His son Robert was killed, when 
 a lad, by a fall from his horse in 1702. So the story of Queen Anne's drunken 
 Dane may be regarded as a groundless fable, unless such a person came over in tho 
 train of Prince George of IJenmark, the Iiusband of our last Queen Anne, which 
 is not very probable.' — Charles K. Hhar/ic, in 2d edition of J uhnsoni: Musical Museum 
 (1839), iv. .'jes. It is evidently, nevertheless, to tho first baronet that the legend 
 recorded by Rums refers, as his second successor was a son, Sir Walter, a contem- 
 porary of Walter Riddel of Glenriddel. Tlie story liad probably some such founda- 
 tion as that described, though incorrectly stated as to time. 
 
 2 Burns, in his notes on Scottish song. Rives ' Friday, KJth October 1790,' as tho 
 date of tlio Whistle-contest. It is certainly a mistake as to the year. It will be 
 admitted that ho is less likely to havo made a mistalce in the date of a letter, 
 than in a statement written at tho distance of .a few years. Resides, his dato 
 • Friday, IGth October 17!Xl,' carries error on its own face, for the 16th of October 
 ITiX) was not a Friday, though the 16th of October 17^9 wa.s. There exists a letter 
 of Robert Ainslic to Mrs M'Leliosc, dated Dumfries, 18th October 17yu, in whicli 
 he tells of having been for several days with Bui'ns at lillisland, but says nothinj; 
 of a whistlc-eontcat on the ICth.
 
 ^68 LIFE AND WOKKS OF BURNS. 
 
 startled heavens, rapid as tlic ragged lightning, and horrid as those 
 convulsions of nature that bury nations. 
 
 Tlie elements, however, seem to take the matter very quietly : 
 they did not even usher in this morning Avith triple suns and a 
 shower of blood, symbolical of the three potent heroes, and tlie 
 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, &c. 
 
 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 ! 
 
 Wha first shall rise to gang awa', 
 A cuckold, coward loon is he : 
 Wha last beside his chair shall fa', 
 He is the king amang us three. 
 
 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 Ilobert Lawrie, to fi-ank the two 
 enclosed covers for me ; the one of them to Sir William Cunning- 
 ham of Ilobertland, Bart, at Kilmarnock — the other, to Mr Allan 
 jMasterton, writing-master, Edinburgh. The first has a kindred 
 claim on Sir Eobert, as being a brother baronet, and likewise a keen 
 Toxite ; 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, E. B. 
 
 THE WHISTLE. 
 
 I sing of a whistle, a whistle of worth, 
 
 I sing of a whistle, the pride of the North, 
 
 Was brought to the court of our good Scottish king. 
 
 And lonff with this whistle all Scotland shall rinir. 
 
 Old Loda,i still rueing the arm of Fingal, 
 The god of the bottle sends down from his hall — 
 'This whistle's your challenge — to Scotland get o'er, 
 And drink them to hell, sir! or ne'er see me more!' 
 
 ' See Ossian's Caric-thura.— B.
 
 ' THE WHISTLE.' 6D 
 
 Old poets have sung, and old clironicles tell, 
 What champions ventured, what champions fell ; 
 The son of great Loda was conqueror still, 
 And blew on the whistle his requiem shrill. 
 
 Till Robert, the lord of the Cairn and the Skarr,i 
 Unmatched at the bottle, unconquered in war. 
 He drank his poor godship as deep as the sea — 
 Ko tide of the Baltic e'er drunker than he. 
 
 Thus Robert, victorious, the trophy has gained, 
 AVhich now in his house has for ages remained ; 
 Till three noble chieftains, and all of his blood, 
 The jovial contest again have renewed. 
 
 Three joyous good fellows, with hearts clear of flaw r 
 Craigdarroch, so famous for wit, worth, and law ; 
 And trusty Glenriddel, so skilled in old coins; 
 And gallant Sir Robert, deep-read in old wines. 
 
 Craigdarroch began, with a tongue smooth as oil, 
 Desiring Glenriddel to yield up the spoil ; 
 Or else he would muster the heads of the clan, 
 And once more, in claret, try which was the man. 
 
 'By the gods of the ancients!' Glenriddel replies, 
 ']5efore I surrender so glorious a prize, 
 I'll conjure the ghost of tlic great Rorie More,^ 
 And bumper his horn with him twenty times o'er.* 
 
 Sir Robert, a soldier, no speech would pretend, 
 But he ne'er turned his back on his foe — or iiis friend. 
 Said, Toss down tiie whistle, the prize of the field, 
 And knee-deep in claret, he'd die, or he'd yield. 
 
 To the board of Glenriddel our heroes repair. 
 
 So noted for drowning of sorrow and care ; 
 
 But for wine and for welcome not more i-:nown to fame 
 
 Than the sense, wit, and taste of a sweet lovely dame. 
 
 A bard was selected to witness the fray. 
 And tell future ages tiie feats of the day; 
 A bard who detested all sadness and sj)Ieen, 
 And wished that Parnassus a vinevard had been. 
 
 _ ' Tlic Caim, a stronm in filciuiiirn parish, on which MaxwoHon IIoiiso is 
 Bituatc'd; the Skarr, a Biiiiilar niuuntain-rill, in the luirish of I'cnpont; both btiu^ 
 aSiucnts uf tlic Nitli. 
 
 • Sec Johnson's Tour to the Ilchriilts. — B.
 
 70 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 The dinner being over, the claret they ply, 
 
 And every new cork is a new spring of joy; 
 
 In the bands of old friendship and kindred so set, 
 
 And the bands grew the tighter the more they were wet. 
 
 Gay Pleasure ran riot as bumpers ran o'er ; 
 Bright Phoebus ne'er witnessed so joyous a core, 
 And vowed that to leave them he was quite forlorn, 
 Till Cynthia hinted he'd see them next morn. 
 
 Six bottles a piece had well wore out the night, 
 When gallant Sir Robert, to finish the fight, 
 Turn'd o'er in one bumper a bottle of red. 
 And swore 'twas the Avay that their ancestor did. 
 
 Then worthy Glenriddel, so cautious and sage, 
 No longer the warfare, ungodly, would wage ; 
 A high ruling-elder to wallow in wine l^ 
 He left the foul business to folks less divine. 
 
 The gallant Sir Robert fought hard to the end ; 
 But who can Avith fate and quart-bumpers contend? 
 Though fate said — a hero shall perish in light ; 
 So up rose bright Pho3bus— and down fell the kniglit. 
 
 Next up rose our bard, like a prophet in drink : — 
 ' Craigdarroch, th.ou'it soar when creation shall sink; 
 But if thou would flourish immortal in rhyme. 
 Come— one bottle more — and have^at the sublime! 
 
 ' Thy line, that have struggled for freedom with Bruce, 
 
 Shall heroes and patriots ever produce : 
 
 So thine be the laurel, and mine be the bay ; 
 
 The field thou hast won, by yon bright god of day!' 
 
 The whistle remained in the possession of the late Mr R. C 
 Fergusson of Craigdarroch, M.P. for the Stewartry of Kirkcud- 
 bright, son of the victor. 
 
 There is a point of dubiety in the history of this notable day, 
 respecting Burns's presence at the contest. Professor Wilson 
 infers from the tenor of the poet's letter to Captain Riddel, that 
 he was not present.^ The eloquent professor is here endeavouring 
 to defend Burns against those who argue, from such compositions 
 as The Whistle, that their author gloried in intemperance. But, 
 
 1 An elder of the Scottish church is called a ruling-elder when sent to represent 
 a burgh in the General Assembly. Glenriddel represented the burgh of Dumfries ia 
 several successive assemblies. 
 
 2 Essay on the Life and Genius of Burns.
 
 THE WHISTLE-CONTEST. 71 
 
 while denying that Burns is to be held as himself a wallower in 
 wine because of his writing such poems, I frankly own my 
 inability to believe that so highly dramatic a description of the 
 "Whistle- contest could have been unfaithful to fact in so prominent 
 a particular as the poet's presence. ' A bard was selected to 
 witness the fray' is a phrase too directly indicative to be 
 interpreted as a fiction even in a comic poem. It is, besides, 
 scarcely true that the letter contains no hint of the poet's intended 
 presence: in what other light are we to hold the sentence, ' For 
 me, as Thomson in his Winter says of the storm—" T shall hear 
 astonished, and astonished sing?'" If confirmation of the 
 bodily presence of the poet were wanting, it might be had in 
 the testimony of a man still living, who was then a servant 
 in Friars' Carse House. AVilliam Hunter, of Cockrune, in the 
 parish of Closeburn, reports that he has a perfect recollection 
 of the whole affair. ' Burns,' he says, ' was present the whole 
 evening. He was invited to attend the party, to see that the 
 gentlemen drank fair, and to commemorate the day by writing a 
 song. 
 
 ' I recollect well,' he adds, ' that when the dinner was over, 
 Burns quitted the table, and went to a table in the same room that 
 was placed in a window that looked south-east: and there he 
 eat down for the night. I placed before him a bottle of rum 
 and another of brandy, which he did not finish, but left a good 
 deal of each when he rose from the table after the gentlemen 
 
 had gone to bed ^Yhen the gentlemen were put to bed, 
 
 Bums walked home without any assistance, not being the worse 
 of drink. 
 
 ' When Bums was sitting at the table in the window, he had pen, 
 ink, and paper, which I brought to him at his own request. He 
 now and then wrote on the paper, and while the gentlemen were 
 sober, he turned round often and chatted with them, but drank none 
 of the claret which tlicy were drinking. ... I heard him read 
 aloud several parts of the poem, much to the amusement of the 
 three gentlemen.' 
 
 The statement of Hunter as to the sobriety which Burns pre- 
 served amidst the extreme potations of the night, is, after all, 
 more valuable testimony to his character than the denial of his 
 being present at tlic banquet. The fact is, Burns was not, up to 
 this time at least, liable to the reproach of any unusual 
 degree of intemperance. He was of too social and mirth-loving 
 a nature to refuse to join in occasional revelries, such as then too 
 frequently occurred amongst gentlemen as well as commoners ; 
 but he liked these scenos rather in spite of, than from a love of, 
 the drinking. All his old Ellisland servants testify to the sobriety
 
 72 LIFE AND WOEKS OF BURNS. 
 
 of his life there. Elizabeth Smith says that, in the whole course 
 of her half-year's service (1788-9), she never saw her master 
 in the least affected by liquor, except once, and that was at the 
 New Year. 
 
 I have been informed by a relative of Sir Robert Lawrie, that he 
 never afterwards quite recovered from the effects of the extra- 
 ordinary contest described by Burns, though he was able some 
 years after to take an active part in the war of the French 
 Eevolution, and survived till 1804. 
 
 We have to contemplate the poet, not many days after this 
 extravagant merry-making, in one of the most solemn and 
 affecting passages of his life. The grave had closed over jNIary 
 Campbell, as far as our facts and arguments will allow us to 
 assign a date, in the latter part of October 178G. Since then 
 three years had elapsed — years of literary triumph unexampled, 
 of nev/ and startling scenes, of passion, of pleasure, and of pain. 
 The poet had in the interval married and settled in life, and 
 taken up a new and laborious profession. Only a few days back, 
 he was expressing his sense of the importance of being a good 
 husband and father, saying that there lay ' the true pathos and 
 sublime of human life.' It might have been thought that by this 
 time the scenes of wo and scenes of pleasure which passed a few 
 years ago on the banks of the Ayr, would have faded much from 
 memoiy and feeling. It was above all unlikely that, after the 
 fascinating society of Charlotte Hamilton, Margaret Clialmers, 
 and Clarinda, the ghost of any early rustic love should rise to 
 cross his path and darken his spirit. But no — the simple High- 
 land girl wlio had trysted to meet him at Greenock, where, 
 instead of him, she found a grave, was like no other of the shades 
 of the past. A day came at the end of harvest, when the date of 
 the death of ]\Iary three years before was recalled to him. Accord- 
 ing to Mr Lockhart, reporting the statement of Mrs Bui-ns to her 
 friend Mr M'Diarmid, ' he spent that day, though labouring under 
 cold, in the usual woi'k of the harvest, and apparently in excel- 
 lent spirits. But as the twiliglit deepened, he appeared to grow 
 " very sad about something," and at length wandered out into the 
 barnyard, to which his wife, in her anxiety, followed him, 
 entreating him in vain to observe that frost had set in, and to 
 return to the fireside. On being again and again requested to do 
 so, he promised compliance ; but still remained where he was, 
 striding up and down slowly, and contemplating the sky, which 
 was singularly clear and starry. At last Mrs Bums found him 
 stretched on a mass of straw, with his eyes fixed on a beautiful 
 planet " that shone like another moon," and prevailed on him to 
 come in. He immediately, on entering the house, called for his
 
 EEMEMBRANCE OF MARY CAMPBELL, 7 J 
 
 desk, and wrote exactly as they now stand, with all the ease of 
 one copying from memory, these sublime and pathetic verses :' — 
 
 TO MARY IX HEAVEN. 
 
 Thou llng'ring star, with less'ning ray, 
 
 That lov'st to preet tlie early morn, 
 Again thou usher'st in the day 
 
 My Mary from my soul was torn. 
 Mary ! dear departed shade ! 
 
 Where is thy place of blissful rest ? 
 See'st thou thy lover lowly laid ? 
 
 Hcar'st thou the groans that rend his breast ? 
 
 That sacred hour can I forget, 
 
 Can I forget the hallowed 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! httle thought we 'twas our last! 
 
 Ayr, gurgling, kissed his pebbled shore, 
 
 O'erhung with wild woods, thick'ning green ; 
 Tlie fragrant birch, and hawtliorn hoar. 
 
 Twined am'rous 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 
 
 rroclaim'd the speed of wiugi)d day. 
 
 Still o'er these scenes my mcm'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? 
 
 Hcar'st thou the groans that rend his breast ? 
 
 Two particulars are to be noted regarding Mr Lockhart's 
 narration— that it assigns September as the date of the incident, 
 and represents evening as the time; whereas we have seen powerful 
 reasons for plachig the dcatli of Highland Mary in the latter 
 part of October, and the poem itself seems to imply morning— 
 
 * Thou ling'ring star, witli less'ninrj ray, 
 That Iov'kI to (jrcH the eaili/ morn, 
 Again thou lusher'et in the dai/
 
 74 LIFE AND -WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 As anything contradictory of our theory of the October date 
 tends to tlirow discredit on our whole arrangement of the facts of 
 Burns's life at a very important crisis,^ we must be excused for 
 having taken what might otherwise appear too much pains to 
 ascertain whether Mrs Burns's anecdote is rightly related as to 
 time, and whether probability does not pronounce in favour of 
 October. We shall at the same time shew that, if we are to 
 receive the anecdote at all, the morning must have heen poetically 
 imagined as the time. 
 
 In the first place, the harvest was late that year. We find in 
 the Scottish newspapers of the time, that, in the middle of October, 
 a great deal of grain was still out even in the favoured district 
 around Falkii-k ; while a letter from Sanquhar (Burns's neighbour- 
 hood), dated the 21st, states that ' while much was cut, very little 
 was yet got in, owing to the bad weather.' It appears that harvest 
 was commenced by the 8th of September in some districts, but 
 was interrupted by rains, and was not concluded till near the end 
 of the ensuing month. Consequently, the incident might take place 
 in the latter part of October, and still he connected with harvest 
 operations. The second portion of our evidence on the subject is 
 from one of the exact sciences, and appears to us at once to settle 
 the time of the day — the month — and almost the day of the month. 
 
 It fully appears that the planet Venus is the one referred to by 
 the poet, for the description applies only to it. Now Venus was 
 in conjunction with the sun, May 30, 1789, and after that became 
 visible as the evening-star towards the end of the summer, reaching 
 its greatest brilliancy in winter. It is therefore certain that the 
 star which ' loves to greet the early morn ' did not at this time 
 ' usher in the day,' and consequently, so far as the time of day 
 alluded to in the poem is concerned, a poetical liberty was taken 
 with truth. On the 21st of September the sun set at six 
 o'clock, and Venus forty -four minutes thereafter. The planet 
 was consequently not to be seen at that time except faintly 
 in the twilight. But on the 21st of October the sun set in the 
 latitude of EUisland at 4^» 53", and Venus l^^ 3m afterwards. 
 Consequently, Venus would then have begun to assume a brilliant 
 appearance during a short interval after sunset. On that day the 
 moon was four days old, and within eight diameters of Venus.2 
 The planet would then of course be beginning to be dimmed by 
 the moonlight, and this effect would go on increasing till the 
 moon had passed the full — that is, early in November. If, then, 
 
 1 See Volume I., p. 24(5-255, and p. 312-316. 
 
 21 have to express my obligations to Professor Piazzi Smyth, of the TJniversity 
 of Edinburgh, for his kind attention in furnishing me with these astronoaiital 
 particulars.
 
 DATE OF MAKY'S DEATH. 75 
 
 we are to set aside the possibility of a later month than October, 
 and keeping in view the all but certainty that Mary was not 
 bm-ied till some time after the 12th of that month, it seems 
 reasonable to conclude that the barnyard musings of Burns took 
 place between five and six o'clock of the evening of some day about 
 the 19th or 20th of October, and consequently a very short time 
 after the merry-meeting for the whistle-contest at Friars' Carse. 
 
 That a month later than October could have been the date of 
 the incident will, I presume, scarcely be argued for. The moon 
 was at the full on Tuesday the 2d of November, and it could 
 not be till after that day that the first hour of the night would be 
 ' starry,' with Venus ui full blaze. By that time, as far as we 
 can gather from the chronicles of the tune, the harvest was 
 past. Besides, Mrs Burns might easily mistake September for 
 October, but scarcely for November, a month of such different 
 associations. On this point the temperature of the time might 
 throw some light, if we could be sure of the exact meaning to 
 be attached to the phrase — ' the frost had set in.' It chances 
 that the temperature of October that year was unusually high, 
 the average at eight o'clock in the evening in Edinburgh being 
 45 J° Falu-enheit. The Edinhwr/h Advertiser of 30th October speaks 
 of "apple-trees and bean-stalks renewmg their blossoms in conse- 
 quence of the extraordinary mildness. On the 19th of October, 
 at eight o'clock in the evening, the thermometer indicated in 
 Edinburgh 51° ; on the 20th, at the same hour, 59" ; on the 21st, 51° 
 again. The only approach to frost was on the 30th and 31st, when, 
 at eight in the evening, the thermometer was respectively at 33° 
 and 37°. After this it rose to a more temperate pomt. Hence it 
 becomes evident that literal frost did not then exist at any such 
 period of the day. Probably Mrs Burns merely thought the evening 
 was beginning to be comparatively chilly. If we can admit of this 
 construction being put upon her words, I would be disposed to pitch 
 upon the warmest evening of tlie little period withm which we are 
 confined— for unless the poet had been in a peculiarly excited state, 
 so as to be insensible to external circumstances, which is obviously 
 a different thing from being in a merely pensive state, we must 
 suppose him as not likely to lie doAvn in the open air after sunset, 
 except under favour of some uncommon amount of ' ethereal 
 mildness.' Seeing, on the other hand, how positively inviting to 
 such a procedure would be a temperature of 59°, I leave the subject 
 with scarcely a doubt that the composition of To ^^ar}J in Heaven 
 took place on Tuesday the 20th of October, and that this was 
 consequently the date of the death of the heroine. 
 
 Burns had written a letter about the late changes in his circum- 
 stances to his venerable friend Blacklock, and intrusted it to llobert
 
 LIFE AND AVORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Heron, a young scion of the diurcli connected with the south- 
 Avestern district of Scotland, and who was now beginning to busy 
 himself with literary speculations. Heron had proved a faithless 
 messenger, and Blacklock addressed Burns as follows : — 
 
 TO MR ROBERT BURNS. 
 
 Edinburgh, 2ilh August 1789. 
 
 Dear Burns, thou brother of my heart, 
 Both for thy virtues and thy art ; 
 If art it may be called in thee, 
 Which nature's bonntv larije and free 
 With pleasure in thy breast diifuses, 
 And warms tby soul with all the Muses. 
 Whether to laugh with easy grace, 
 Thy numbei's move the sage's face, 
 Or bid the softer passions rise, 
 And ruthless souls with grief surprise, 
 'Tis nature's voice distinctly felt, 
 Through thee, her organ, thus to melt. 
 
 Most anxiously I wish to know, 
 
 With thee of late how matters go : 
 
 How keeps thy much-loved Jean her health ? 
 
 What promises thy farm of wealth ? 
 
 Whether the Muse persists to smile, 
 
 And all thy anxious cares beguile ? 
 
 Whether bright fancy keeps alive ? 
 
 And how tby darling infants thrive ? 
 
 For mc, with grief and sickness spent. 
 Since I my homeward journey bent, 
 Spirits depressed no more I mourn. 
 But vigour, life, and health return. 
 No more to gloomy thoughts a prey, 
 I sleep all night and live all day ; 
 By turns my friend and book enjoy, 
 And thus my circling hours employ ; 
 Happy while yet these hours remain, 
 If Burns could join the cheerful train, 
 AVith wonted zeal, sincere and fervent, 
 Salute once more his humble servant, 
 
 Thomas Blacklock.
 
 POETICAL EPISTLE TO DR BLACKLOCK. 
 
 Bums answered as follows : — 
 
 77 
 
 TO DR BLACKLOCK. 
 
 Elltsland, 21st Oct. l/S!). 
 
 Wow, but your letter made me vaiintie ! elated 
 
 And arc ye hale, and weel, and cantic ? merry 
 
 I kenned it still your wee bit jamitie, 
 
 Wad bring ye to : 
 Lord send you aye as weel's I want ye, 
 
 And then ye '11 do. 
 
 The ill-thief blaw the Hei'on south! 
 And never drink be near his drouth ! 
 He tauld mysel by word o' mouth, 
 
 He 'd tak my letter ; 
 I lippened to the chield in trouth, 
 
 And bade uae better. 
 
 Eut aiblins honest Master Heron 
 Had at the time some dainty fair one, 
 To ware his theologic care on, 
 
 And holy study ; 
 And tired o' sauls to waste his Icar on, 
 
 E'en tried the body. 
 
 Eut what d'ye think, my trusty fier, 
 I'm turned agauger — Peace be here! 
 Parnassian queans, I fear, I fear, 
 
 Ye'll now disdain mc! 
 And then my fifty pounds a year 
 
 Will little gain me. 
 
 Ye glaiket, gleesome, dainty damies, 
 Wha, by Castalia's wimplin' streamics, 
 Lowp, sing, and lave your pretty linibles, 
 
 Ye ken, ye ken, 
 That Strang necessity supreme is 
 
 'Mang sons o' men. 
 
 I hae a wife and twa wee laddies, 
 
 Tiiey maun hae brose and brats o' duddics ; 
 
 Yo ken yoursels my heart right proud is — 
 
 I need na vaunt. 
 But I'll sncd besoms— thraw saugh woodics,' 
 
 Before they want. 
 
 devil 
 
 trusted 
 desired 
 
 perhaps 
 
 sjiend 
 
 gidijy 
 %viiidin3 
 
 clotUcs 
 
 cut 
 
 1 Woodios— ' two or tlircc willow twitcH twisted tocjctlicr.nsed for liindin;? the end 
 of a broom or bireli bes im.'— /)/• Jm/iiVv.iji. Hunis, in short, avows his wUliiitJUess 
 to bccouie a broom-maker rather than allow his children to want.
 
 78 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Lord help me througli this warld o' care ! 
 I'm weary sick o't late and air ! 
 Not but I hae a richer share 
 
 Than mony ithers ; 
 But why should ae man better fare, 
 
 And a' men brithers ? 
 
 Come, firm Eesolve, take thou the van, 
 
 Thou stalk o' carl-hempi in man ! ' 
 
 And let us mind, faint heart ne'er wan 
 
 A lady fair : 
 Wha does the utmost that he can. 
 
 Will whyles do mair. sometimes 
 
 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. 
 
 My compliments to Sister Beckle ; 
 And eke the same to honest Lucky, 
 I wat she is a dainty chuckie,^ 
 
 As e'er tread clay ! 
 And gi'atefully, my guid auld cockie, 
 
 I'm yours for aye. 
 
 Robert Burns. 
 
 In this light strain — and yet it is a levity involving some very 
 serious things — did Burns write (if our conclusions are correct) 
 the day after he had given vent to the tragic strains To Mary in 
 Heaven. 
 
 Among Captain Riddel's visitors of this season was Francis 
 Grose — a broken-down English gentleman who, under the impulse 
 of poverty, had been induced to exercise considerable literary and 
 artistic talents for the benefit of the public. A large work on 
 the Antiquities of England had been completed some years ago. 
 He had also produced a treatise on Arms and Armour, another on 
 Military Antiquities, and several minor works. The genius and 
 social spirit of the man were scarcely more i*emarkable than his 
 personal figure, which was ludicrously squat and obese. Grose 
 liaving made an inroad into Scotland, for the purpose of sketching 
 and chronicling its antiquities, Burns met him at Friars' Carse, 
 
 1 The male hemp, that which bears the seed ; ' Ye have a stalk o* carl-hemp in 
 j'ou," is a Scotch proverb. — Kelly. 
 
 - Chuckic, a familiar term for a hen, transferred endearingly to a matron of the 
 human species.
 
 VEKSES OX GROSE THE ANTIQUARY. 79 
 
 and ■was greatly amused by liis aspect and conversation. The 
 comic muse also caught at the antiquarian enthusiasm as a proper 
 subject. The consequence was a poem 
 
 ox CAPTAIN GROSE'S PEREGRINATIONS THROUGH SCOTLAND, 
 
 COLLECTING THE ANTIQUITIES OF THAT KINGDOM. 
 
 Hear, land o' Cakes, and brither Scots, 
 Frae Jlaidenkirki to Johnny Groat's ; 
 If there's a hole in a' your coats, 
 
 I rede you tent it : varn 
 
 A chiel's amang you taking notes, 
 
 And, faith, he'll prent it. 
 
 If in your bounds ye chance to light 
 
 Upon a fine, fat, fodgel wight, plump 
 
 O' stature short, but genius bright, 
 
 That's he, mark weel — 
 And wow ! he has an unco slight 
 
 0' cauk and keel. 
 
 By some aidd houlet-haunted biggin, owl building 
 
 Or kirk deserted by its riggin, 
 
 It's ten to ane ye '11 find him snug in 
 
 Some eldritch part, unholy 
 
 Wi' deils, they say, Lord save's! colleaguin' 
 
 At some black art. 
 
 Ilk ghaist that haunts auld ha' or chaumer, 
 
 Yc gipsy-gang that deal in glamour, necromancy 
 
 And you deep-read in hell's black grammar, 
 
 Warlocks and witches; 
 Ye '11 quake at his conjuring hammer, 
 
 Ye midnight bitches. 
 
 It's tauld he was a sodgcr bred, 
 And ane wad rather fa'n than fled ; 
 But now he's quat the spurtlc blade, 
 
 And dog-skin wallet, 
 And ta'en the — Anti(piarian trade, 
 
 I think they call it. 
 
 He has a fouth o' auld nick-nackets, abundance 
 
 Rusty airn caps and jinglin' jackets, 
 "Wad baud the Lothians three in tackcts, 
 
 A towmont guid ; 
 And parritch-pats, and aidd saut-backcts, 
 
 Before the Flood. 
 
 1 Maidcnkirk is an inversion of the name of Kirkmaiden, in Wigtonahire, the 
 DioEl bouthcrly parish in Scotland.
 
 80 LIFE AND "VVOEKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Of Eve's first fire he lias a cinder ; 
 Auld Tubalcaiu's fire-shool and fender ; 
 That which distinguished the gender 
 
 O' Balaam's ass ; 
 A broomstick o' the witch of Endor, 
 
 Weel shod \vi' brass. 
 
 Forbye, he'll shape you afF, fu' gleg, quickly 
 
 The cut of Adam's philabeg ; 
 
 The knife that nicket Abel's craig, neck 
 
 He'll prove you fully. 
 It was a faulding jocteleg,' 
 
 Or lang-kail gully. 
 
 But wad ye see liim in his glee, 
 For meikle glee and fun has he. 
 Then set him down, and twa or three 
 
 Guid fellows wi' him ; 
 And port, port ! shine thou a wee, 
 
 And then ye '11 see him! 
 
 Now, by the powers o' verse and prose ! 
 Thou art a dainty chicl, Grose ! — 
 Whae'er o' thee shall ill suppose, 
 
 They sair misca' thee ; 
 I'd take the rascal by the nose, 
 
 Wad say, shame fa' thee. 
 
 Another of the facdicc of this acquaintance v/as an 
 
 EPITAPH ON CAPTAIN GROSE, THE CELEBRATED ANTIQUARY. 
 
 The Devil got notice that Grose was a-dying, 
 
 So whip ! at the summons, old Satan came Hying ; 
 
 But when he approached where poor Francis lay moaning, 
 
 And saw each bedpost with its burden a-groaning, 
 
 Astonished, confounded, cried Satan : ' By 
 
 I '11 want 'im, ere I take such a damnable load.' 
 
 Afterwards, when Grose had gone forward on his mission, 
 
 1 ' Jocktalcg, a clasp-knife ; Northumberland and Scotland. Probably from Jock 
 of Licgc. Liege formerly supplied Scotland with cutlery.' — Grose's Provincial Olossm-ii. 
 ' The etymology of this word remained imknown till not many years ago, that an old 
 knife was found, having this inscription Jacques dc Lici/c, the name of the cutler. 
 Thus it is in e,\act analogj* -with Andrea di Fcrrara.' — Lord JIailcs. 
 
 ' After he [James VI.] had gone to England, it is said he boasted to some of his 
 courtiers, that he would repeat a sentence which none of them could understand. 
 Calling one of his stable-boys, he said to him : " Callan, hae there's threttie pennies; 
 gae wa and buy me a jocktelei/ ,- and gin ye bide, I '11 gang to the bougars o' the 
 bouse, and tak a caber, and reestle your riggin wi 't." ' — Dr Jamieson.
 
 LETTER TO MR GROSE. 81 
 
 Burns kept up a correspondence with him. Professor Stewart 
 having intimated to the poet a desire to see Grose, the former 
 sent the followmg letter to his antiquarian friend : — 
 
 TO FRANCIS GROSE, ESQ., P.S.A. 
 
 Sir — I believe among all our Scots literati you have not met with 
 Professor Dugald Stewart, who fills the moral philosophy chair in 
 the university of Edinburgh. To say that he is a man of the first 
 parts, and, what is more, a man of the first worth, to a gentleman 
 of your general acquaintance, and who so much enjo}s the luxury 
 of unencumbered freedom and undisturbed privacy, is not perliaps 
 recommendation enougli; but when I inform you tliat Sir Stewart's 
 principal characteristic is your favourite feature — that sterling inde- 
 pendence of mind which, tliough every man's right, so few men have 
 the courage to claim, and fewer still tlio magnanimity to support ; 
 wlien I tell you that, unseduced by splendour and undisgusted by 
 wi-etchedness, lie appreciates the merits of the various actors m the 
 great drama of lil'e merely as they perform their parts — in short, 
 he is a man after your own heart, and I comply with his earnest 
 request in letting you know that he wishes above all things to meet 
 with you. His liouse, Catrine, is within less than a mile of Sorn 
 Castle, which you proposed visiting ; or if you could transmit him 
 the enclosed, lie would with the greatest pleasiu'c meet you anywhere 
 in the neio-libourhood. I write to Avrshire to inform JMr Stewart 
 that I liave acipiitted mj-self of my promise. Should your time and 
 spirits pennit your meeting with Mr Stewart, 'tis well ; if not, I 
 hope you will forgive this liberty, and I have at least an opportunity 
 of assuring you with what truth and respect I am, sir, your gi'eat 
 admirer, and very humble servant, R. E. 
 
 Not being, after all, very sure of the whereabouts of Grose, the 
 bard enclosed liis letter in an envelope addressed to Mr Cardonnel, 
 a brother antiquary, and containing a set of jocular verses in 
 imitation of the quaint song of Sir John ^lalcolm. 
 
 WRITTEN IN AN ENVELOPE, ENCLOSING A LETTER TO CAPTAIN GROSE, 
 
 Ken yc ought o' Captain Grose? 
 
 I go and ago. 
 If he's araang his friends or foes ? 
 
 Irani, coram, dago. 
 
 Is he to Abra'm's bosom gane ? 
 
 Igo and ago, 
 Or handing Sarah by the wamc ? 
 
 Irani, coram, dago. 
 
 VOL. 111. F
 
 82 LIFE A^'D "WORKS OF BURNS, 
 
 Is he south or is he north ? 
 
 Igo ajid ago, 
 Or drowned in the river Forth ? 
 
 Irani, coram, dago. 
 
 Is he slain by Highlan' bodies ? 
 
 Igo and ago. 
 And eaten like a wether haggis ? 
 
 Iram, coram, dago. 
 
 Where'er he be, the Lord be near him ; 
 
 Igo and ago. 
 As for the deil, he daurna steer him, 
 
 Iram, coram, dago. 
 
 But please transmit the enclosed letter, 
 
 Igo and ago. 
 Which will oblige your humble debtor, 
 
 Iram, coram, dago. 
 
 So may ye hae auld stanes in store, 
 
 Igo and ago, 
 The very stanes that Adam bore, 
 
 Iram, coram, dago. 
 
 So may ye get in glad possession, 
 
 Igo and ago. 
 The coins o' Satan's coronation ! 
 
 Iram, coram, dago. 
 
 The Excise business might have been a benefit to Burns in more 
 respects than in that of income, if it had only filled up time other- 
 wise liable to be spent in idleness or invaded by dissipation. 
 Neither can we suppose that frequent riding through the beautiful 
 scenery of Nithsdale could be quite an unsuitable way for a poet 
 to spend part of his time. On the contrary, as Burns had always 
 been accustomed to compose while engaged in labour out of doors, 
 his present life might have been expected to prove rather favour- 
 able to the Muse than otherwise. It appears, however, that the 
 business was overtasking. The ten parishes which Burns surveyed 
 form a tract not less than fifteen miles each way. It called for 
 his riding about two hundred miles a week. Under this serious 
 exaction upon his strength, spirits, and time, neither the mental 
 nor the agricultural farm of Bums got fair play. 
 
 The poet, however, was diligent and exact in the performance 
 of his official duty to a degree which I question if two out of 
 every ten of the present literary men of England would be found 
 to attain. He bent his strong faculties to the purpose, and he
 
 OFFICIAL CONDUCT OF BURNS. 83 
 
 accomplished it, whatever the Dalilahs of the imagination might 
 say to the contrary. Inspired with a just view of the contraband 
 trade as an infraction and disturbance of the rights of the fair 
 trader, he was disposed to be severe with the regular smuggler ; 
 but in petty matters of maccuracy, or even something worse, among 
 the country brewsters and retailers, he tempered justice with 
 mercy. The late Professor Gillespie of St Andrews remembered 
 seeing Burns on a fair day in August 1793 at the village of Thorn- 
 hill, where, as was not uncommon in those days, a poor woman 
 named Kate Watson had, for one day, taken up the trade of a 
 publican, of course without a licence. ' I saw the poet enter her 
 door, and anticipated nothing short of an immediate seizure of a 
 certain greybeard and barrel which, to my personal knowledge, 
 contained the contraband commodities our bard was in quest of. 
 A nod, accompanied by a significant movement of the forefinger, 
 brought Kate to the doorway or trance, and I was near enough to 
 hear the following words distinctly uttered : " 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-by t'ye at present." Burns 
 was in the street and in the midst of the crowd in an instant, and 
 I had access to know that the friendly hint was not neglected. 
 It saved a poor widow from a fine of several pounds, for commit- 
 ting a quarterly offence by which the revenue was probably subject 
 to an annual loss of five shillings.' ^ 
 
 Allan Cunningham relates a similar anecdote. ' The poet and 
 a brother exciseman one day suddenly entered a widow-woman's 
 shop in Dunscore, and made a seizure of smuggled tobacco. 
 " Jenny," said the poet, " I expected this would be the upshot. 
 Here, Lewars, take note of the number of rolls as I count 
 them. Now, Jock, did ye 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, he went on with his humorous enumeration, but dropping 
 every otlier roll into Janet's lap. Lewars took the desired note 
 v.'ith much gravity, and saw as if he saw not the merciful conduct 
 of his companion.' 
 
 We see in these homely facts the same benevolent nature which 
 shines in the verses to the Mouse and the Mountain-daisy.- 
 
 1 E<linburgh Literary Joufnal, 182!). 
 
 2 ' Jean Dunn, a suspected trader in Kirkpatrick-Durliam, obscn-ing Burns and 
 Kobertson — another exciseman — approaching her house on the morning of a fair, 
 Flipped out by the baeU-door, apparently to evade their scrutiny, leaving in her 
 house only her attendant for the day and her daughter, a little girl. " Has there 
 been any brewing for the fair here to-day ? " demanded the poet as he entered the 
 cabin. "O no, sir," was the reply of the servant: "we Iia'e nae licence for 
 that." " That 's no true," exclaimed the child : " the muekle black kist is fou* o' 
 the bottles o' yill that my mother sat up a" night brewing for the fair." " Does that
 
 -84 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 TO MR ROBERT AINSLIE. 
 
 Ellisi.and, Ist Nov. 1789. 
 
 My dear Friend — I had written you long 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 whicli my house and farm lie. 
 In this I Avas extremely lucky. Without ever having been an 
 expectant, as tliey 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. 
 
 I know not how the word exciseman, or still more opprobrious, 
 ganger, will sound in your ears. I too have seen the day when my 
 auditory nerves would have felt very delicately on tliis subject; but 
 a wife and children are things which have a wonderful power in 
 blunting these kind of sensations. Fifty pounds a year for life, and 
 a provision for widows and orphans, you will allow is no bad settle- 
 ment for a 2^oet. For the ignominy of the profession, I have the 
 encouragement which I once heard a recruiting sergeant give to a 
 numerous, if not a respectable audience, in the streets of Kilmarnock : 
 ' Gentlemen, for your further and better encouragement, I can assure 
 you that our regiment is the most blackguard corps under the crown, 
 and consequently with us an honest fellow has the surest chance of 
 preferment.' 
 
 You need not doubt that I find several very unpleasant and dis- 
 agi"eeable 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 
 iman 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 docs 
 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 liear 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, &c. R. B. 
 
 bird speak?" said Robertson, pointing to one hanging in a cage. "There is no 
 use for another speaking-bird in this iiou.se," said Burns, " wliile tliat little lassie 
 is to the fore. We are in a hurry just now ; but as we return from the fair, wo '11 
 f.xaniine the mucklc black kist." Of course, when they returned, the kist belied 
 the little lassie's tale.' — C'ommunkat:d by Mr Joseph Train. 
 
 \
 
 LETTER TO WILLIAM BURNS. 85 
 
 TO MR RICHARD BROWN. 
 
 Ellisland, 4lh November 1789. 
 
 I HAVE been so hiivried, my evor-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 tliat 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 fiitlier ! I have indeed been extremely lucky 
 in getting an additional income of £oO 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 necessai-y for tlie proper enjoyment of human existence. 
 I caimot 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 yon 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 ou earth, my brotliers 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 tlic melancholy, though strong influence 
 of being both of the family of the unfortunate, we were intwined 
 with one another in our growtli towards advanced age ; and blasted 
 1)0 tlic sacrilegious hand that shall attempt to undo tlie miion ! You 
 and I nuist have one bumper to my favourite toast : ' 3Iay the com- 
 jianions of Our youth be the friends of our old age!' Come and sec 
 me one year ; I shall see you at Port-Glasgow the next, and if wo 
 can contrive to have a gossipping between our two bedfellows, it 
 ■will bo so much additional pleasure. Mi's Burns joins me in kind 
 compliments to you and 3Irs Brown. Adieu ! I am ever, my dear 
 6ir, yours, 11. B. 
 
 TO MR WILLIAM BURNS. 
 
 Ex.Lisi.AND, V)lh Nov. 1789. 
 
 Dear William— I would have written you sooner, but I am so 
 Lurried and fatigued witli my Excise business, that I can scarcely
 
 66 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 pluck up resolution to go through the effort of a letter to anybody. 
 Indeed you hardly deserve a letter from me, considering that you 
 have spare hours in which you have nothing to do at aU, and yet it 
 was near three months between your two last letters. 
 
 I know not if you heard lately from Gilbert. I expect him here 
 with me about the latter end of this week. * * * * My mother 
 is returned, now that she has seen my little boy Francis fairly set to 
 the world. I suppose Gilbert has informed you that you have got 
 a new nephew. He is a fine thriving fellow, and promises to do 
 honour to the name he bears. I have named him Francis Wallace, 
 after my worthy friend, Sirs Dunlop of Dunlop. 
 
 The only Ayrshire news that I remember in which I think you 
 will be interested is that Blr Konald is bankrupt. You will easily guess 
 that from his insolent vanity in his sunshine of life he will now feel 
 a little retaliation from those who thought themselves eclipsed by 
 him ; for, poor fellow, I do not think he ever intentionally injured 
 any one. I might indeed perhaps except his wife, Avhom he certainly 
 has used very ill ; but she is still fond of him to disti-action, and bears 
 up wonderfully — much superior to him — under this severe shock of 
 fortune. Women have a kind of sturdy sufferance which qualifies 
 them to endure, beyond, much beyond, the common run of men ; but 
 perhaps part of that fortitude is owing to their short-sightedness, for 
 they are by no means famous for seeing remote consequences in all 
 their real importance. 
 
 I am very glad at your resolution to live within your income, be 
 that what it will. Had poor Ronald done so, he had not this day been 
 a prey to the dreadful miseries of insolvency. You are at the time 
 of life when those habitudes are begun which are to mark the 
 character of the future man. Go on and persevere, and depend on 
 less or more success. I am, dear William, your brother, R. B. 
 
 The dutiful kindness of Burns to this young brother has already 
 been alluded to. We have before us a letter of WiUiam Burns, 
 dated from Morpeth, 29th November 1789, including an account of 
 moneys and articles of clothing furnished for him by the poet 
 during the preceding eighteen months, to the amoiint of £5, 9s. 
 In August of this year two guineas had been advanced, which 
 the young man says he intended to repay about Christmas ; ' but,' 
 he adds, ' as you can spare them, I will keep them till I go to 
 London, when I expect soon to be able to clear you off in full.' 
 He goes on to express a hope that ' young Wallace bids fair to 
 rival his great predecessor in strength and wisdom.' He apologises 
 for seldom writing by the fact, that he is devoting his leisure time 
 to reading from a circulating library. He has read Karnes's Sketches 
 of the History of Man, BosweWs Tour to the Hebrides, Burns^s 
 Poems, and Beattie's Dissertations, and will be glad if his brother 
 wiU set down the names of a few other books which he should 
 inquh'e for. 

 
 ELECTION CONTEST. 87 
 
 A contest for the representation of the Dumfries group of 
 burghs commenced in September between Sir James Johnston of 
 Westerhall, the existing member, and Captain INIiller, younger of 
 Dalswinton, son of Burns's landlord. In this affair the bard stood 
 variously affected. Professing only a whimsical Jacob itism, he 
 had hitherto taken no decided part with either of the two great 
 factions of his tune; but he had a certain leaning towards Mr 
 Pitt and his supporters.^ On the other hand, some of his best 
 friends— as Henry Erskine, the Earl of Glencairn, Mr MiUer, 
 Captain Eiddel— were Whigs, and these persons he was fearful to 
 offend. The ferment of democracy had already commenced in 
 France, and Lafayette brought Louis and his wife and children 
 through the mob from Versailles to Paris only a fortnight before 
 Bums was apostrophising the shade of Mary in the barnyard at 
 Ellisland. But the frenzy had not yet spread to Scotland, and our 
 poet nowhere makes any allusion to it. On this canvass becoming 
 keen. Burns threw in his pen, but rather from the contagion of local 
 excitement than from partisanship. One feeling, indeed, he had 
 in earnest, and this was detestation of the Duke of Queensberry. 
 The duke, who was the greatest landlord in Nithsdale, was 
 considered as having proved something like a traitor to the 
 king on the late occasion of the Regency Bill, when he was in 
 the mmority which voted for the surrender of the power of the 
 crown into the hands of the Prince of Wales without restriction. 
 For this, and for his mean personal character and heartless 
 debaucheries, Burns held his Grace in extreme contempt. In 
 tlie first place, then, he penned an election ballad, chiefly against 
 the duke. 
 
 THE LADDIES BY TEE BANKS o' KITH. 
 Tune— I/p and uaur them a'. 
 
 The laddies by the banks o' Nith, 
 
 "Wad trust his Grace wi' a', Jamie, 
 But he'll E.iir Ihcni as he sair'd the king — serve 
 
 Turn tail and rin awa, Jamie. 
 
 ' On the subject of Burns's politics, Sir Wiiltcr Scott makes a remark in sending 
 some of the poet'H letters to Mr Lockhart: — ' In one of tlicm to tliat Bingular old 
 curmiiili;con, Lady Winifred Constable, you will see he plays liish Jacobite, and 
 on that account it is curious; though I imagine his Jucobitisni, like my own, 
 belonged to the fancy rather than the reason. He was, however, a great I'ittitc 
 down to a certain period. There were Bomo passing stupid verses in the papers, 
 attacking and defending his satire on a certain preacher whom he termed " aa 
 unco calf." In one of them occurrwl these lines in vituperation of the adversarj' — 
 
 " A 'Whig, I guess. But Rab's a Torj', 
 And gic3 ua mony a funny story." 
 
 This was in 1707.'
 
 88 
 
 LIFE AND AVORKS OF BUENS. 
 
 Up and waur them a', Jamie, bafSe 
 
 Up and waur them a' ; 
 The Johnstons hae the guidiu' o't,i 
 
 Ye turncoat Whigs, awa. 
 
 Tlic day he stude his country's friend, 
 
 Or gied her faes a claw, Jamie, 
 Or frae puir man a blessin' wan. 
 
 That day the duke ne'er saw, Jamie. 
 
 But wha is he, his country's boast? 
 
 Like him there is na twa, Jamie ; 
 There's no a callant tents the kye, toywatehes 
 
 But kens o' Westerha', Jamie. 
 
 To end the wark, here's AVliistlebirck,^ 
 
 Lang may his whistle bhaw, Jamie ; 
 And Maxwell true o' sterling blue. 
 
 And we'll be Johnstons a', Jamie. 
 
 TO ROBERT GRAHAM, ESQ. 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 some- 
 thing that throws cold water on the resolution, as if one should say : 
 ' You have foimd 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 tliought proper to make one powerful and 
 another helpless, the connection of obligor and obliged is all fair ; 
 and though my being under your patronage is to me highly honour- 
 able, yet, sir, allow mo 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 Mitchel, 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 gi'eatly inimical to my coi'respondcnce with 
 the Muses. Their visits to me, indeed, and I believe to most of 
 
 ' A Border proverb, significant of the great local power of this family in former 
 times. The Gordons were the subject of a similar proverb, which forms the title of 
 a beautiful melody. 
 
 -' Alexander Birtwhistle, Esq. merchant at Kirkcudbright, and provost of the 
 burgh. A contemporary chronicle notices him as carrying on a brisk foreign trade 
 fi-om that little port.
 
 * THE FIVE CAELINES.' 80 
 
 their acquaintance, like the visits of good angels, are short and far 
 between ; but I meet them now and tiien as I jog through the hills 
 of Nithsdale, just as I used to do on the banks of Ayr. I take tlie 
 liberty to enclose 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 antiquary, 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. 
 Tliougli I daresay you have none of the SoIemn-League-and-Covenant 
 fire wiiich shone so conspicuous in Lord George Gordon and tlie 
 Kilmai-nock 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 enclosed 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. 
 
 The election ballad, as you will see, alludes to the present canvass 
 in our strine; of borouirhs. I do not believe there will be such a 
 hard-run match in the wliole 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 wlio has it in his power to be the father 
 of a country, and who ***'■• ^-,1 is a chai'actcr that one cannot speak 
 of witli patience. 
 
 Sir James Johnston- does ' what man can do,' but yet I doubt his 
 fate. E. B. 
 
 The ballad alluded to was one in which he presents the five 
 burglis under figurative characters most felicitously drawn : 
 Dumfries as Maggy on the banks of Nith ; Annan as Blinking 
 Bess of Annandale ; Kirkcudbright as Whisky Jean of Galloway; 
 Sanquhar as Black Joan frac Crichton Peel ; and Lochmabcn as 
 Marjory of the many Lochs — appellations all of which have 
 some appropriateness from local circumstances. 
 
 THE FIVE CARLINES. 
 
 There were five carlines in the south, old women 
 
 They fell upon a scliemc, 
 To send a lad to Lon'on town, 
 
 To bring them tidings hame. 
 
 ' Dr Ciirrlo has here obviously suppressed a bitter allusion to the Duke of 
 Quccnsbcrry.
 
 90 LIFE AND WOKKS OF BUPlNS. 
 
 Nor only bring them tidings hame, 
 
 But do their errands there, 
 And aiblins gowd and honour baith possibly 
 
 Might be that laddie's share. 
 
 There was Maggy by the banks o' Nith, 
 
 A dame wi' pride eneugli, 
 And Marjory o' the Mony Lochs, 
 
 A carline auld and teugh. 
 
 And Blinkin' Bess o' Annandale, 
 
 That dwelt near Solvvayside, 
 And AVliisky Jean, that took her gill, 
 
 In Galloway sae wide. 
 
 And Black Joan, frae Crichton Peel, 
 
 0' gipsy kith and kin- 
 Five wighter carlines warna foun' handsomer 
 
 The south countra within. 
 
 To send a lad to Lon'on town, 
 
 They met upon a day. 
 And mony a knight and mony a laird 
 
 Their errand fain would gae. 
 
 O mony a knight and mony a laird 
 
 This errand fain would gae ; 
 But nae ane could their fancy please, 
 
 O ne'er a ane but tv/ae. 
 
 The first he was a belted knight,^ 
 
 Bred o' a Border clan , 
 And he wad gae to Lon'on town, 
 
 Might nae man him withstan'. 
 
 And he wad do their errands weel. 
 
 And meikle he wad say, 
 And ilka ane at Lon'on court 
 
 Would bid to him guid-day. 
 
 Then next came in a sodger youth,^ 
 
 And spak avI' modest grace. 
 And he wad gae to Lon'on town, 
 
 If sae their pleasure was. 
 
 ,1 Sir James Johnston. 2 Captain Miller.
 
 ' THE FIVE CAELINES.' 91 
 
 He wadna heclit tliem courtly gifts, promise 
 
 Nor meikle speech pretend, 
 But he wad hecht an honest heart 
 
 Wad ne'er desert a friend. 
 
 Now, wham to choose, and wham refuse. 
 
 At strife thir carlines fell ; 
 For some had gentle folks to please, 
 
 And some wad please themsel. 
 
 Then out spak mim-mou'ed Meg o' Nith, prim-mouthed 
 
 And she spak up wi' pride, 
 And she wad send the sodger youth, 
 
 Whatever might betide. 
 
 For the auld guidman o' Lon'on court ^ 
 
 She didna care a phi ; 
 But she wad send the sodger youth 
 
 To greet his eldest son.- 
 
 Then up sprang Bess o' Annandale, 
 
 And a deadly aith she's ta'en. 
 That she wad vote the Border knight, 
 
 Though she should vote her lane. 
 
 -o 
 
 For far-aff fowls hae feathers fiiir, 
 
 And fools o' cliange are fain ; 
 But I hae tried the Border knight, 
 
 And I'll try him yet again. 
 
 Says Black Joan frae Crichton Peel, 
 
 A carlinc stoor and gi'im, austere 
 
 The auld guidman, and the young guidman. 
 
 For me may sink or swim ; 
 
 For fools will freit 3 o' right or wrang, 
 AVhile knaves laugh them to scorn ; 
 
 But the sodgcr's friends hae blawn the best, 
 So he shall bear the horn. 
 
 Then Whisky Jean spak owrc her drink, 
 
 Ye wcel ken, kimniers a'. 
 The auld guidman o' Lon'on court 
 
 His back's been at the wa' ; 
 
 ' Tlie King. " The Prince of Wales. 
 
 3 Tiilk supurstitiously.
 
 92 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 And mony a friend that kiss'd his cup 
 
 Is now a freniit wight : estranged 
 
 But it's ne'er be said o' Whisky Jean — 
 I'll send the Border knight. 
 
 Then slow raise Marjory o' the Lochs, 
 
 And wrinkled was her brow, 
 Her ancient weed was russet gray, 
 
 Her auld Scots bluid was true ; ^ 
 
 There's some great folks set light by me — 
 
 I set as light by them ; 
 But I will send to Lon'on town 
 
 Wham I like best at hame. 
 
 Sae how this weighty plea may end 
 
 Nae mortal wight can tell : 
 God grant the king and ilka man 
 
 May look weel to himsel. 
 
 Towards the close of the year, excessive business application, 
 joined to the usual effects of social life and a poetical tempera- 
 ment, brought Burns to a sick-chamber. 
 
 TO MRS DUNLOP. 
 
 Ellislavd, I3th December 1789. 
 Many thanks, my dear madam, for your sheetful of rhymes. 
 Though at present I am below the veriest prose, yet from you every- 
 thing 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 scarce 
 able to lift my head, much less to ride once a week over ten muir 
 parishes. AVhat 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 anguisli, 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. 
 
 ' TeU 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 learned as you are.' - 
 
 Can it be possible, that when I resign this frail, feverish being, I 
 
 1 It may not bo unworthy of notice that this verse waa one in great favour with 
 Sir Walter Scott, who used to recite it with good ctfect. 
 
 2 Blair's Grave.
 
 EELIGIOUS REFLECTIONS. 93 
 
 sliall still find myself in conscious existence ? When the last gasp 
 of ao-ony 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 sagos 
 and holy flamens, is there probability in your conjectures, truth in 
 your stories, of another world beyond death ; or are tliey 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! AVould 
 to God I as firmly believed it as T ardently wish it! Tliere I should 
 meet an aged parent, now at rest from the many bufFctings 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. Bluir, tliy weak-nesses were the aberrations of Imman 
 nature, but tliy heart glowed with everything generous, manly, and 
 noble ; and if ever emanation from the All-good Eeing animated a 
 human form, it was tliine ! There should I, with speecliless 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 plaoe of heavenly rest ? 
 Sccst thou thy lover lowly laid ? 
 
 Heai-'st thou the groans that rend his hveast ? 
 
 Jesus Clirlst, thou amiablcst of characters! I trust thou art no 
 impostor, and that thy revelation of blissful scenes of existence 
 heyond death and the grave is not one of tlie many impositions 
 Avliich time after time have been palmed on credulous mankind. I 
 trust tliat in thee ' shall all the families of the earth be blessed,' by 
 l)eing yet connected together in a better world, where every tie that 
 bound' heart to lieart 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 arc in fact diseases of the mind. 
 I camiot rea.son, 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 sympatliise with a disea.sed wretch 
 wlio has impaired more than half of any faculties he possessed. 
 Your goodness will excuse this distr.acted scrawl, which the writer 
 dare scarcely read, and which he would throw into the fire were lio 
 able to write anything better, or indeed anything at all. 
 
 Kumour told me something of a son of youis who was returned 
 from the East or "West Indies. If you have gotten news from James 
 or Anthony, it wius cruel in you not to let me know; as I promise 
 you, on the sincerity of a man mIio is weary of one world and 
 anxious about another, that scarce anything could give me so
 
 94 LIFE ASD WOPvKS OF BURNS. 
 
 much pleasure as to hear of any good thing befalling my honoured 
 friend. 
 
 If you have a minute's leisure, take up your pen ia pity to h 
 pauvre miserable E. B. 
 
 "Written four days after a letter to !Mr Graham, in -svhich he 
 spoke of a cheerful and alert performance of his Excise duties, one 
 might be apt to suspect some error in the date of this to 3Irs 
 Dunlop, wherein he discourses as one reduced by a long illness 
 to the most serious feelings. But no such theory is in reality 
 required to reconcile this epistle either to that to ^Ir Graham or 
 to one -written only a week afterwards to the provost of Lochmaben, 
 in which our bard seems to have carried the jocular a good way 
 bevond the bounds of decorum. A headache of three weeks' standina; 
 had now perhaps laid him up from his duties for one or two days ; 
 and low spirits were the consequence. Having to write to Mrs 
 Dunlop, a lady of refined sentiments and a deep sense of religion, 
 Bums attuned his mind accordingly, and poured out this sentimental 
 effusion, involving feelings of which we have no reason to doubt 
 that for the moment they were sincere, although very likely the 
 first walk out to the river-side in the eye of the morning sun, or 
 the first ride across the Dunscore HUls in quest of fiscal delin- 
 quents, set him off into a totally different strain of emotion. 
 What is very curious, the letter which he describes as a ' distracted 
 scrawl,' composed with only half of his faculties, appears after all 
 to have been a deliberate transcription with some amplifications 
 from an entry of his last year's commonplace-book. (See Volume 
 II., p. 265.) Another of the mrfstere-s (F atelier of Bums ! 
 
 -\mongst the gentry of Dumfriessliii-e, Bums would be led by 
 his Jacobitism to single out for especial regard the Lady TVinifred 
 Maxwell, grand-daughter of that Earl of Xithsdale who owed his 
 escape from the block for his concern in the insurrection of 1715 
 solely to the heroism and ingenuity of his wife, with whom he 
 exchanged clothes in the Tower the night before his intended 
 execution. There seems to have been a proposal to introduce the 
 bard to her ladyship ; but it had been prevented by the illness 
 alluded to in the letter to 3ilrs Dunlop : 
 
 TO LADY WIXTFKED MAXWELL COXSTABLE.^ 
 
 Ellislax-d, 16£A December 1789. 
 My Ladt — In vain have I from day to day expected to hear from 
 Mrs Yoimg, as she promised me at Dalswinton that she would do me 
 
 • Her ladyship had married William Haggereton Constable of EveriDgham, by 
 ■whom ghe had eeveral children.
 
 LETTER TO PROVOST MAXWELL, LOCHMABEN. 95 
 
 the honour to introduce me at Tinwald ; and it was impossible, not 
 from your ladyship's accessibiUty, but from my own feelings, that I 
 could go alone. Lately, indeed, Mr Maxwell of Carruchan in his 
 usual goodness offered to accompany me, when an unlucky indisposi- 
 tion 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 plcasanter 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 sufferers 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 imits more to the unnoted crowd that followed their leaders, 
 yet what they could tliey 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 
 Idng and their country. This language and the enclosed versesi 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. 
 
 TO PROVOST MAXWELL, OF LOCHMABEX. 
 
 Ellisland, 20th Dtccmler 1789. 
 Dear Trovost — As my friend, Mr Graham, goes for your good 
 town to-morrow, I cannot resist the temptation to send you a few 
 lines, and as I have nothing to say, I have chosen this sheet of foolscap, 
 and bcgim, as you see, at the top of the first page, because I have 
 ever observed, that when once people have fairly set out, they know 
 not where to stop. Now that my first sentence is concluded, I have 
 nothing to do but to pray Heaven to help me on to another. Siiall 
 I write you on politics, or religion, two master - subjects for your 
 sayers of nothing ? Of the first, I daresay by this time you are 
 nearly surfeited;- and for the last, whatever they may talk of it 
 who make it a kind of company-concern, I never could endure it 
 beyond a soliloquy. I might write you on farming, on building, on 
 marketing; but my poor distracted mind is so torn, so jaded, so 
 racked and bedeviled with the task of the superlatively damned to 
 make one guinea do the business of three, that I detest, abhor, and 
 
 ' Those nddresscd to Mr William Tytlcr. 
 
 - The provost, as the IcndinR voter in Marjory of the Mony Lochs, must have 
 rccuntly liad a sufficiency of politics.
 
 06 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 swoon at the very word business, though no less than four letters of 
 my very short surname are in it. 
 
 Well, to make the matter short, I shall betake myself to a subject 
 ever fruitful of themes — a subject the turtle-feast of the sons of Satan, 
 and the delicious secret sugar-plum of the babes of grace — a suljject 
 sparkling with all the jewels that wit can find in the mines of 
 genius, and pregnant Avith all the stores of learning fi-om Moses and 
 Confucius to Franklin and Priestley — in short, may it please your 
 lordship, I intend to write * * * 
 
 [ ' Here,' says Allan Cnnninpham, ' the poel inserted a song, the spccijication of which 
 could he of no Ijenefit to his fame.' ] 
 
 . If at any time you expect a field-day in your town — a day wlien 
 dukes, earls, and knights pay their court to weavers, tailors, and 
 cobblers — I should like to know of it two or tlirec days beforehand. 
 It is not that I care three skips of a cur-dog for the politics, but I 
 should like to see such an exhibition of human nature. If you meet 
 with that worthy old veteran in religion and good-fellowship, Mr 
 JefiTrey, or any of his amiable family, I beg you will give them my 
 best compliments. E. B. 
 
 In the conclusion of this letter, Burns alludes to the minister of 
 Lochmaben. In the course of his perambulations, he was occa- 
 sionally in the house of this Avorthy man. Mr Jeffrey had a 
 daughter, a sweet, blue-eyed young creature, who at one of Burns's 
 visits, probably the first, did the honours of the table. Next 
 morning our poet presented at breakfast a song which has given 
 the young lady immortality : 
 
 THE BLUE-EYED LASSIE.' 
 
 I gaed a waefu' gate yestreen, road 
 
 A gate, I fear, I '11 dearly rue ; 
 
 I gat my deatli frae twa sweet cen, 
 Twa lovely eon o' bonnie blue. 
 
 'Twas not her golden ringlets bright; 
 Her lips like roses Avat wi' dew, 
 
 Her lieaving bosom, lily-white- 
 It was her een sac bonnie blue. 
 
 She talked, she smiled, my heart she wiled ; 
 
 She charmed my soul — I wist na how j 
 And aye the stound, the deadly wound, pang 
 
 Cam frae her een sae bonnie blue. 
 
 'This song was printed in Johnson's Museum, with an air composed by Mr 
 Hiddel of Glenriddel. It has been set by George Thomson to tlie tune of ' The 
 Blathrie o't,' but, in the opinion of the present editor, it flows mueh more sweetly 
 to ' My ouly joe and dearie O."
 
 BURKS AT LOCIIMABEN MANSE. 97 
 
 Cut, 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. 
 
 Miss JeflVey married a gentleman named Renwick of Xew York, 
 and was living there about 1822, when a son of Mr George 
 Thomson was introduced to her by her son, the professor of 
 cliemistry in Columbia College. Mr Thomson gave the following 
 account of her to his father : ' She is a widow — has still the 
 remains of Burns's delightful portrait of her : her twa svieet een, 
 that gave him his death, are yet clear and full of expression. She 
 has great suavity of manners and much good sense.' He then 
 adds from her recollection a charming picture of the manners of 
 Burns in refined and agreeable society. ' She told me that she 
 often looks back with a melancholy satisfaction on tlie many 
 evenings slie spent in the company of the great bard, in the social 
 circle of her father's fireside, listening to the brilliant sallies of 
 his imagination and to his delightful conversation. " Many times," 
 said she, " have I seen Burns enter my father's dwelling in a cold 
 I'ainy night, after a long ride over the dreary moors. On sucli 
 occasions one of the family would help to disencumber him of his 
 dreadnought and boots, while others brought him a pair of slippers 
 and made him a warm dish of tea. It was during tliese visits that 
 he felt himself perfectly happy, and opened his whole soul to us, 
 repeated and even sang many of his admirable songs, and enchanted 
 all who had the good fortune to be present with his manly, lumi- 
 nous observations and artless manners. I never," she added, 
 " could fancy that Burns liad ever followed the rustic occupation 
 of the plough, because everything he said or did had a graceful- 
 ness and cliarm that was in an extraordinary degree engaging." ' - 
 
 It may be pleasant to many to know, that Captain Wilks of the 
 United States' navy, and superior of the exploratory expedition 
 whose publication has been received in this country as a valuable 
 contribution to science, is a son-in-law of the Blue-eyed Lassie of 
 Burns. Mrs llenwick, however, liad the fate to see Mrs Wilks 
 and others of her children go to the grave before her. 
 
 In tlie Neio York Mirror (184G) appeared tlie following notice 
 regarding Mrs Kenwiek : — ■' The lady to wiiom the fullowing verses 
 — never l)cfore published — were addressed, known to the readers 
 of Burns as the " Blue-eyed Lassie," is one of a race whose 
 beauties and virtues formed for several generations the inspiration 
 of the master of the Scottish song. Ilcr mother was Agnes 
 
 • A proverbial expression. 
 
 * New edition of Mr 'i'huinaon'a Melodies, 1830. 
 VOL. HI. O
 
 08 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Armstrong, in whose honour the touching words and beautiful 
 air of " Koslin Castle " were composed, and " Fairie fair" ^ was her 
 more remote progenitrix.' 
 
 The editor then adds the following song as a composition of 
 Burns : — ■ 
 
 SONG. 
 
 AiB.— Maggy Lauder. 
 When first I saw fair Jeanie's face. 
 
 I couldna tell what ailed me, 
 My heart went fluttering pit-a-pat, 
 
 My een they almost failed me. 
 She's aye sae neat, sae trim, sae tight, 
 
 All grace does round her hover, 
 Ae look deprived me o' my heart, 
 And I became a lover. 
 
 She's aye, aye sae blithe, sae gay, 
 She's aye so blithe and cheerie; 
 She 's aye sae bonny, blithe, and gay, 
 O gin I Avere her dearie ! 
 
 Had I Dundas's whole estate. 
 
 Or Hopetoun's wealth to shine in ; 
 Did warlike laurels crown my brow, 
 
 Or humbler bays entwining — 
 I'd lay them a' at Jeanie's feet. 
 
 Could I but hope to move her, 
 And prouder than a belted knight, 
 
 I 'd be my Jeanie's lover. 
 
 She aye, aye sae blithe, sae gay, &c. 
 
 But sair I fear some happier swain 
 
 Has gained sweet Jeanie's favour : 
 If so, may every bliss be hers. 
 
 Though I maun never have her, 
 But gang she east, or gang she west, 
 
 'Twixt Forth and Tweed all over, 
 "While men have eyes, or ears, or taste. 
 
 She'll always find a lover. 
 She 's aye, aye sae blithe, sae gay, &c. 
 
 Mrs Renwick has been for some years dead. 
 The Countess of Glencairn, mother of his beloved patron, had 
 from the first shewn Burns much kindness. By her origin, as we 
 
 1 This allusion is not readily intelligible. The person meant seems to be ' Fairlie 
 fair,' a fictitious character in the ballad of Hardyknule, written at the beginning 
 of the last century by Lady Wardlaw.
 
 LETTER TO THE COU^^TESS OF GLENCAIKN. 99 
 
 have seen, she "was a somewhat remarkable person among the 
 Scottish nobility, being the daughter of a village musician, who 
 was raised to unexpected wealth by the bequest of a fortunate 
 relative. Her ladyship had lately written a kind letter to Burns. 
 
 TO THE COUNTESS OF GLENCAIRN. 
 
 [Ellisland, Decemher 1789.] 
 My Ladv — The honour you have done your poor poet in writing 
 him so very obliging a letter, and the pleasure the enclosed beautiful 
 verses have given him, came very seasonably to his aid amid the 
 cheerless gloom and sinking despondency of diseased nerves and 
 December weather. As to forgetting the family of Glencairn, 
 Heaven is my witness with what sincerity I could use those old 
 verses, which please me more in their rude simphcity than the most 
 elegant lines I ever saw — 
 
 • If thee, Jerusalem, I forget. 
 
 Skill part from my right hand. 
 My tongue to my mouth's roof let cleave. 
 
 If I do thee forget, 
 Jerusalem, and thee above 
 
 My chief joy do not set.' 
 
 When I am tempted to do anything improper, I dare not, because 
 I look on myself as accountable to your ladyship and family. 
 Now and then, when I have the honour to bo called to the tables of 
 the great, if I happen to meet with any mortification from the stately 
 stupidity of self- sufficient squires, or the luxurious insolence of 
 upstart nabobs, I get above the creatui'es by calling to remembrance 
 tliat I am patronised by tlie noble House of Glencairn ; and at gala- 
 times — such as New- Year's Day, a christening, or the kirn -night, 
 when my punch-bowl is brought from its dusty corner, and filled up 
 in honour of tiie occasion, I begin with — The Countess of Glencairn ! 
 My good woman, with tlie enthusiasm of a grateful heart, next cries : 
 My Lord! and so the toast goes on until I end with Lady Harriet's 
 little angel! ^ wliose epithalamium I have pledged myself to write. 
 
 When I received your ladyship's letter I was just in the act of 
 transcribing for you some verses I have lately composed, and meant 
 to liave sent them my first leisure hour, and ac(iuainted you with my 
 late change of life. I mentioned to my lord my fears concerning 
 my farm. Those fears were indeed too true; it is a bargain would 
 liavc ruined mo but for tho lucky circumstance of my having an 
 E.xcisc commission. 
 
 rcoplc may talk as they please of the ignominy of the Excise ; 
 £.50 a year will su])port my wife and cliildrcn, and keep mo inde- 
 pendent of the world ; and I woukl much rather have it said that 
 my profession borrowed credit from me, than that I borrowed 
 
 * Lady Ilarriet Don was tho daughter of Lady Glencairn. Her child was tho 
 late accomplished Sir Alexander Don, of Ncwton-Don, Uart.
 
 100 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 credit from my profession. Another advantage I have in tliis 
 business is tlie knowledge it gives me of the various shades of 
 Imman character, consequently assisting me vastly in my poetic 
 pursuits. I had the most ardent enthusiasm for the Muses when 
 nobody knew me but myself, and that ardour is by no means cooled 
 now that my Lord Glencaii-n's goodness has introduced me to all 
 the world. Xot that I am in haste for the press. I have no idea of 
 publishing, else I certainly liad consulted my noble, generous patron ; 
 but after acting the part of an honest man, and supporting my 
 family, my whole wishes and views are directed to poetic pursuits. 
 I am aware that though I were to give performances to the world 
 superior to my former works, still if they were of the same kind 
 with those, the comparative reception they would meet with would 
 mortify me. I have turned my thoughts on the drama. I do not 
 mean the stately buskin of the tragic muse. Does not your ladyship 
 think that an Edinburgh theatre would be more amused with 
 affectation, folly, and whim of true Scottish growth, than manners, 
 wliich by far the greatest part of the audience can only know at 
 second-hand ? I have the honour to be your ladyship's ever devoted 
 and grateful humble servant, R. B. 
 
 SKETCH — new-year's day [1790.] 
 
 TO MRS DU.VLO!'. 
 
 This day, Time winds th' exhausted chain, 
 To run the twelvemonth's length again : 
 I see the old, bald-pated fellow, 
 With ardent eyes, complexion sallow, 
 Adjust the unimpaired machine. 
 To wheel the equal, dull routine. 
 
 The absent lover, minor heir, 
 
 In vain assail him with their prayer; 
 
 Deaf as my friend, he sees them press, 
 
 Nor makes the hour one moment less. 
 
 Will you (the Major's' with the hounds, 
 
 The happy tenants share his rounds ; 
 
 Coila's fair liachcl's- care to-day. 
 
 And blooming Keith's engaged with Gray) 
 
 I'rom housewife cares a minute borrow — 
 
 — That grandchild's cap will do to-morrow — 
 
 And join with me a-moralising, 
 
 This day's propitious to be wise in. 
 
 First, what did yesternight deliver? 
 
 ' Another year is gone for ever.' 
 
 > Afterwards General Dimlop of Dunlop. 
 
 « Uachcl, a daughter of Mrs Dunlop, was making a sketch of Coila.
 
 ^ SKETCH ON NEW- year's DAY. 101 
 
 And what is this day's strong suggestion ? 
 
 ' The passing moment 's all we rest on ! ' 
 
 Best on — for what I what do we here ? 
 
 Or why regard the passing year ? 
 
 Will time, amused with proverbed lore, 
 
 Add to our date one minute more ? 
 
 A few days may — a few years must — 
 
 Eepose 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 ns never dies : 
 
 That on this frail, uncertain state, 
 
 Hang matters of eternal weight : 
 
 Tliat future life in worlds unknown 
 
 Must take its hue from this alone; 
 
 AVhether as heavenly glory bright, 
 
 Or dark as misery's woeful night. 
 
 Since, then, my honoured, first of friends, 
 
 On this poor being all depends, 
 
 I;et us th' important noiv employ, 
 
 And live as those who never die. 
 
 Though you, with days and honours crowned, 
 
 Witness that filial circle round 
 
 (A sight, lii'e's sorrows to repulse, 
 
 A sight, pale envy to convulse), 
 
 Others now claim your chief regard ; 
 
 Yourself, you wait your bright reward. 
 
 BuiTis was at this time pressed with business, yet at the same- 
 time as much the victim of hypochondria as if he had been left to 
 total vacuity. The evil prospects of his farm harassed his mind. 
 lUisied and vexed as lie was, he found time to pay occasional 
 evening visits to Dumfries, in order to witness the performances 
 of a tolerable company of players which had temporarily settled 
 there. He had even been led by these theatricals to turn his 
 tlioughts to tlie comic drama as a line not unworthy of the efforts 
 of Coila. But neither at this time nor any other did he ever get 
 beyond the composition of an occasional address or epilogue. 
 
 TO JIU GILBERT BIR.VS. 
 
 Ki.Lisi.AVD, WlhJamiarii 17!Kt. 
 
 Dear Brother — I mean to take advantage of the frank, though 
 I have not in my present frame of mind nnich ajipctite for exertion
 
 102 LIFE AND WORKS OF BUEXS. i 
 
 in writing. My nerves are in a • state. I feel that horrid 
 
 hypochondria pervading every atom of both body and soul. Tins 
 farm has undone my enjoyment of myself. It is a ruinous affair on 
 
 all hands. But let it go to ! I'll fight it out, and be off with it. 
 
 We have got a set of very decent players here just now. I 
 have seen them an evening or two. David Campbell, in Ayi-, wrote 
 to me by the manager of the company, a Mr Sutherland, who is a 
 man of apparent worth. On New-Year's-Day evening I gave him the 
 following prologue, which he spouted to his audience with applause ! 
 
 SPOKEN AT THE THEATRE, DUMFRIES, ON NBW-VEAR'S-DAY EVENING [1790.1 
 
 No song nor dance I bring from yon great city 
 
 That queens it o'er our taste — the more's the pity: ^ 
 
 Though, by the by, abroad why will you roam ? 
 
 Good sense and taste are natives here at home : 
 
 But not for panegyric I appear, 
 
 I come to wish you all a good new-year ! 
 
 Old Father Time deputes me here before jq, 
 
 Not for to preach, but tell his simple story : | 
 
 The sage grave ancient coughed, and bade me say : 
 
 'You're one year older this important day.' 
 
 If wiser, too — he hinted some suggestion, 
 
 But 'twould be rude, you know, to ask the question ; 
 
 And with a would-be roguish leer and wink, 
 
 He bade me on you press this one word — ' think !' 
 
 Ye sprightly youths, quite fluslied with hope and spirit, 
 
 Who think to storm the world by dint of merit, 
 
 To you the dotard has a deal to say. 
 
 In his sly, dry, sententious, proverb way : 
 
 He bids you mind, amid your thoughtless rattle, 
 
 That the first blow is ever half the battle ; 
 
 That though some by tlie skirt may try to snatch him, 
 
 Yet by the forelock is the hold to catch him ; 
 
 That whether doing, suffering, or forbearing, 
 
 You may do miracles by persevering. 
 
 Last, though not least in love, ye youthful fair, 
 Angelic forms, high Heaven's peculiar care ! 
 To you old Bald-pate smooths Jn's wrinkled brow, 
 And humbly begs you'll mind the important Now ! 
 To crown your liappiness he asks your leave, 
 And offers bliss to give and to receive. 
 
 For our sincere, though hai:)ly M'eak endeavours, 
 With grateful pride we own your many favoui'S ; 
 And howsoc'er our tongues may ill reveal it, 
 Believe our glowing bosoms truly feel it.
 
 LETTER TO MR WILLIAM DUNBAR. 103 
 
 I can no more. If once I was clear of this damned farm, I should 
 respire more at ease. 
 
 Three days after the writing of this fretful letter, he was restored 
 to a calmer humour. 
 
 TO MR WILLIAM DUNBAR, W.S. 
 
 Ellisland, nth January 1790. 
 
 Since we are here creatures of a day, since ' a few summer days, 
 and 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 notl\ing worse — step in between us and bar the 
 enjoyment of a mutual correspondence ? We are not shapen out 
 of the common, heavj-, 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 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 mortifyuig 
 circumstances in it that I was led to fear. 
 
 Fib. 2d. — I have not, for sheer hurry of business, been able to 
 spare five minutes to finish my letter. Eesides my farm business, I 
 ride on my Excise matters at least 200 miles every week. I havo 
 not by any means given np the Muses. You will see in the third 
 volume of Johnson's Scots So7)gs that I have contributed my mite 
 there. 
 
 But, my dear sir, little ones that look up to you for paternal 
 protection arc 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 a 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 inde- 
 pendent line of life. What a chaos of hurry, chance, and changes 
 is this world, when one sits soberly down to reficct on it ! To a 
 father, who himself knows the world, the thought that he shall havo 
 sons to usher into it nnist 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 nic 
 forget that they arc nieces of yours, and let me say that I never saw
 
 104 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 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,^ and think over the 
 social scenes we have had togetlier. God grant that there may be 
 another world more congenial to honest fellows beyond this : a. 
 ■world where these rubs and plagues of absence, distance, misfortunes, 
 ill healtli, &c. 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, E. B, 
 
 Mrs Dunlop appears to have at this time accompanied one of 
 her many kind letters Avith a present, perhaps with some reference 
 to the thirty-first birthday of the bard, which was approaching. 
 On that day he wrote to her one of the most interesting of his 
 letters : 
 
 TO MRS DUNLOP. 
 
 Ellisland, 2M January I/OO, 
 
 It has been owing to imremitting luirry of business that I liave 
 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 witli 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 ? AVhen 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 vou have done me, in makinn: me 
 your compeer in friendship and friendly correspondence, tliat 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 liis 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 
 liard gales of fortune, he went to the bottom with the Atirora 
 frigate I 
 
 I forget what part of Scotland had the honour of giving him birth^ 
 but he was the son of obscurity and misfortune.2 He was one of 
 those daring, adventurous spirits which Scotland, beyond any other 
 country, is remarkable for producing. Little does the fond motlier 
 think as she hangs delighted over the sweet little leech at her 
 
 1 The poet's copy of Spcneor was a present from Mr Puntiar. 
 
 * Falconer was the son of a tradcbman in the Nctherbow of Edinburgh.
 
 LETTER TO CLARINDA. 105 
 
 bosom, where the poor fellow may hereafter wander, and wliat 
 may be his fate. I remember a stanza in an old Scottish ballad.i 
 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 die ! ' 
 
 Old Scottish songs are, you know, a favourite study and pursuit of 
 mine; and now l"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 hur 
 fate. She concludes with this pathetic wish— 
 
 • O that my father had ne'er on mc smiled ; 
 O that my mother had ne'er to me sung! 
 that my cradle had never hecn rocked ; 
 But tliat I had died when I was young ! 
 
 O that tlie grave it were my bed ; 
 
 My blankets were my winding-sheet ; 
 The clocks and the worms my bedfellows a' ; 
 And O sae 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. Jlisery is like love ; to speak its language tndy, the author 
 must have felt it. 
 
 I am every day expecting the doctor to give your little godson 2 
 the small-pox. They arc rife in the countiy, 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. 
 
 1 thought to have sent you some rhymes, but time forbids. I 
 promise you jioctry mitil you are tired of it next time I have the 
 honour of assuring you how tndy I am, kc. 11. B. 
 
 About this time the Clarinda corrGspondence was for a moment 
 renewed, the following letter appearing as an answer to one from 
 the lady, which has not been preserved. It is remarkable for tlio 
 admission it makes of misconduct in his past career, though infer- 
 ring tliat the circumstances in Avhich imprudence had involved 
 
 > Queen Marv- had four attendants if her own fhristian name. In the ballad 
 menti(JiHd by lUirnH, oni> of thine gentlewomen is diseribed as murdering her 
 illegitimate child, and hulleiing for the crime ; and the verse <iuotc'd is one of lur lubt 
 expressions at the place of execution. The incident is supposed to be fictitious. 
 
 2 The burd's second son, Francis.
 
 106 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 him left him no means of a spotless escape. There can scarcely 
 be a doubt that the song with which it closes was written in com- 
 pliment to his correspondent. From few men besides Burns could 
 any lady have expected, along with an apology for deserting her 
 only twenty months ago, a pleasant-faced canzonet of compliment 
 declarmg the world to be lightless without love. 
 
 SYLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 
 
 lAbout February 1790.]^ 
 I HAVE indeed been ill, madam, this whole winter. An incessant 
 headache, depression of spirits, and all the truly miserable conse- 
 quences of a deranged nervous system, have made dreadful havoc 
 of my health and peace. Add to all this, a line of life, into which I 
 have lately entered, obliges me to ride upon an average at least two 
 hundred miles every week. However, thank Heaven, I am now 
 greatly better in my health. * * * » 
 
 I cannot, will not, enter into extenuatory circumstances ; else I 
 could shew you how my precipitate, headlong, unthinking conduct, 
 leagued with a conjuncture of unlucky events to thrust me out of a 
 possibility of keeping the path of rectitude ; to curse me by an 
 irreconcilable war between my duty and my nearest wishes, and 
 to damn me with a choice only of different species of error and 
 misconduct. 
 
 I dare not trust myself farther with this subject. The following 
 song is one of my latest productions, and I send it you as I would 
 do anything else, because it pleases myself: — 
 
 MY LOVELY NANCY. 
 
 Tune— 27i(; Quaker's Wife. 
 
 Thine am I, my faithful fair, 
 
 Thine, my lovely Nancy; 
 Every pulse along my veins, 
 
 Every roving fancy. 
 
 To thy bosom lay my heart. 
 
 There to throb and languish : 
 Though despair had wrung its core, 
 
 Tliat would heal its auguish. 
 
 Take away those rosy lips, 
 
 Rich with balmy treasure ; 
 Turn away thine eyes of love, 
 
 Lest I die with pleasure. 
 
 1 In the authorised edition of the correspondence this letter is conjecturally dated 
 spring of 1791. The hypochondria complained of, and the allusion to the recent 
 entrance upon the Excise business, bring it for certain a year farther back.
 
 A PKOLOGUE. 107 
 
 "What is life wlieu wanting love ? 
 
 Night without a morning : 
 Love 's the cloudless summer sun, 
 
 Nature gay adorning. 
 
 Towards the conclusion of tlie theatrical season at Dumfries, 
 Coila came once more to the aid of Mr Manager Sutherland ; but 
 it cannot be said that her effusion was such as to hold forth a 
 very favourable prognostic of dramatic effort. 
 
 PROLOGUE FOR MR SUTHERLAND'S BENEFIT NIGHT, DUMFRIES. 
 
 What needs this din about the town o' Lon'on, 
 How this new play and that new sang is comin'? 
 Why is outlandish stuff sac meilde courted ? 
 Does nonsense mend like whisky, when impoi'ted ? 
 Is there nae poet, burning keen for fame. 
 Will try to gie us songs and plays at hame ? 
 For comedy abroad he needna toil, 
 A fool and knave are plants of every soil ; 
 Nor need he hunt as far as Rome and Greece 
 To gather matter for a serious piece ; 
 There's themes enough in Caledonian stoiy, 
 Would shew the tragic Muse in a' her glory. 
 
 Is there no daring bard will rise, and tell 
 
 How glorious Wallace stood, how hapless fell ? 
 
 Where are the Muses fled that could produce 
 
 A drama worthy o' the name o' Bruce ; 
 
 How here, even here, he hrst unsheathed tlic sword 
 
 'Gainst mighty England and her guilty lord ; 
 
 And after mony a bloody, deathless doing. 
 
 Wrenched his dear country from the jaws of ruin? 
 
 O for a Shakspcai-e or an Otway scene, 
 
 To draw the lovely, hapless Scottish Queen ! 
 
 Vain all th' omnipotence of female charms 
 
 'Gainst licadlong, ruthless, mad rebellion's arms. 
 
 She fell, but fell with spirit truly llonian, 
 
 To glut the vengeance of a rival woman: 
 
 A woman — though the phrase may seem uncivil — 
 
 As able and as cruel as the devil ! 
 
 One Douglas lives in Home's immortal page, 
 
 But Douglasses were heroes every age : 
 
 And though your fathers, prodigal of life, 
 
 A Douglas followed to the martial strife, 
 
 Perhaps if bowls row right, and liight succeeds. 
 
 Ye yet may follow where u Douglas leads !
 
 108 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 As ye hae generous done, if a' the land 
 
 Would take the Bluses' servants by the hand; 
 
 Not only hear, but patronise, befriend them, 
 
 And where ye justly can commend, commend them ; 
 
 And aibHus when they winna stand the test, 
 
 Wink hard, and say the folks hae done their best ! 
 
 Would a' the land do this, tlien I'll be caution 
 
 Ye '11 soon hae poets o' the Scottish nation, 
 
 AVill gar Fame blaw imtil her trumpet crack, 
 
 And warsle Time, and lay him on his back! strive witU 
 
 For us and for our stage should ony spier, ask 
 
 ' Wha's aught thae duels maks a' this bustle here?' men 
 
 My best leg foremost, I'll set up my brow. 
 
 We have tlic honour to belong to you ! 
 
 We're your ain bairns, e'en guide us as ye like, children 
 
 But like gude niitliers, shore before you strike. tlueatcn 
 
 And gratcfu' still I hope ye '11 ever find us, 
 
 For a' the patronage and meikle kindness 
 
 We've got frae a' professions, sets, and ranks : 
 
 God help us ! we're but poor — ye'sc get but thanks. 
 
 The third volume of the Scots Musical Museum had been 
 going on, somewliat more slowly than tlie second, but with an 
 equal amount of assistance from Burns. Besides the songs 
 already cited since the date of the second volume, he contributed 
 many which, as they bore no particular reference to his own 
 history, nor any other trait by which the exact date of their 
 composition could be ascertained, are here presented in one 
 group. Several of them are, however, only old songs mended or 
 extended by Burns. 
 
 TIBBIE DUNBAR. 
 Tu.vE — Juhnny 21'Gill. 
 
 wilt thou go wi' me, sweet Tibbie Dunbar? 
 
 wilt thou go wi' nie, sweet Tibbie Dunbar ? 
 Wilt thou ride on a horse or be drawn in a car, 
 Or walk by my side, sweet Tibbie Dunbai'l 
 
 1 carena thy daddie, liis lands and his money, 
 I carena thy kin, sae high and sae lordly ; 
 But say thou wilt hae me, for better for waur. 
 And come in thy coatie, sweet Tibbie Dimbar ! 
 
 a
 
 THIKD VOLUME OF JOUNSON'S MUSEUM. 109 
 
 THE GARDENER Wl' HIS TATDLE. 
 
 TuN'E — T/*e Gardeners' March. 
 
 fit will be found that Burns subsequently produced a now version of this song, 
 changing tlie burden at the close of the stanzas.] 
 
 "When rosy morn conies in wl' showers. 
 To deck her g.iv green birken bowers, 
 Then busy, busy are his hours. 
 
 The gardener wi' his paidle. 
 
 The crystal waters gently fa', 
 The nierrv birds are lovers a', 
 Tiie scented breezes round him blaw, 
 The gardener wi' his paidle. 
 
 "Wlien purple morning starts the hare, 
 To steal upon her early fare, 
 Then through the dews he maun repair, 
 The gardener wi' his paidle. 
 
 "When day, expiring in the west. 
 The curtain draws of Xature's rest. 
 He flies to her arms he Iocs the best, 
 The gardener wi' his paidle. 
 
 HIGHLAND IIARUY. 
 
 [Of this song Burns says : ' The chorus I picked up from an old woman in 
 Punblane ; the rest of the song is mine." It is evident that the poet lias under. 
 Btoixl the chorus in a Jacobite sense, and written liis own verses in that strain 
 accordingly. Mr Peter Biiehan has, nevertheless, ascertained that the original 
 song related to a love attachment between Harry Lumsdalo, the second son of a 
 ]ligh1and gentleman, and Miss Jeanic Gordon, daughter to the Laird of Knoekes- 
 pock, in Aberdeenshire. Tlie lady was married to lier cousin, Ilabicliie Gordon, a 
 son of the Laird of Uliynie ; and some time after, her former lover having met Ikt 
 and shaken her liiind, her husband drew his sword in anger, and lopped off severril 
 of Lumsdale's finiicrs, wliieli lligliland Harry took so much to lieart, that he soon 
 aftcTdied. — Sec Hogg and Motherwell's edition of Hums, ii. 107.] 
 
 5Iy Harry wa.s a gallant gay, 
 
 Fu' stately strode he on the plain : 
 Lilt now he's banished far away ; 
 
 I'll never sec iiim bade again. 
 
 for liim bade again ! 
 
 O for him back again ! 
 
 1 wad gie a' Kiiockiiaspic's land 
 
 For Highland Harrv backajrain.
 
 no LIFE AND WOEKS OF BURNS. 
 
 When a' the lave gae to their bed, rest 
 
 I wander dowie up the glen ; sad 
 
 I set me down and greet my fill, cry 
 And aye I wish him back again. 
 
 were some villains hangit high, 
 
 And ilka body had their ain ! 
 Then I might see the joyfu' sight, 
 
 My Highland Harry back again. 
 
 BONNIE ANN. 
 
 Air — Ye Gallants bright. 
 
 [' I composed this song out of compliment to Miss Ann Masterton, the daughter of 
 my friend Allan Masterton, the author of the air " Strathallau's Lament," and two 
 or three others in this worli.' — Bur7is. Miss Masterton afterwards became Mrs 
 Derbishire, and was living in London in 1831.] 
 
 Te gallants bright, I rede ye right, 
 
 Beware o' bonnie Ann ; 
 Her comely face sae fu' o' grace, 
 
 Your heart she will trepan. 
 Her een sae bi'ight, like stars by night, 
 
 Her skin is like the swan ; 
 Sae jimply laced her genty waist, 
 
 That sweetly ye might span. 
 
 Youth, grace, and love attendant move, 
 
 And pleasure leads the van : 
 In a' their charms and conquering arms 
 
 They wait on bonnie Ann. 
 The captive bands may chain the hands. 
 
 But love enslaves the man ; 
 Ye gallants braw, I rede you a', 
 
 Beware o' bonnie Ann ! 
 
 JOHN ANDERSON. 
 Tune— /o/hi Anderson my Jo. 
 
 John Anderson my jo, John, 
 
 When we were first acquent. 
 Your locks were like the raven, 
 
 Your bonnie 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.
 
 THIRD VOLUME OF JOHNSON'S MUSEUM. Ill 
 
 Jolm Anderson my jo, John, 
 
 We clamb the hill thegither. 
 And mony 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. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF SHERIFF-MUIR.l 
 IvNE—Cameronian Kant. 
 
 [In this instance, Bums has concentrated in his own language a more diffuse 
 song on the same subject which is understood to liavo been the composition of Mi- 
 Barclay, a Berean minister of some note about the middle of the last century, xmcle 
 to the distinguished anatomist of the same name.] 
 
 * cam ye here the fight to shun, 
 
 Or herd the sheep wi' me, man ? 
 Or were ye at the Sherra-muir, 
 
 And did the battle see, man f 
 'I saw the battle, sair and tough. 
 
 And reekin' red ran mony a sheugh ; channel 
 
 My heart, for fear, gaed sough for sough, gjgh 
 
 To hear the thuds, and see the cluds, knocks 
 
 0' clans frae woods, in tartan duds, clothes 
 
 AVha glaumed at kingdoms three, man. grasped 
 
 • The red-coat lads, wi' black cockades, 
 
 To meet them were na slaw, man ; 
 They nislied and puslied, and bluid outgushed, 
 
 And mony a bouk did fa', man : corpse 
 
 The great Argyle led on his files, 
 I wat they glanced for twenty miles: 
 They hacked and hashed, while broadswords clashed, 
 And through they dashed, and hewed, and smashed. 
 
 Till fey men died awa, man. predestined 
 
 ' But had you seen the philabegs. 
 
 And skyrin tartan trews, man ; shining 
 
 When in tlie teeth they dared our Whigs, 
 
 And covenant true blues, man ; 
 In lines extended lang and large, 
 When bayonets opjioscd the targe, 
 And thousands liastened to the charge, 
 
 1 'This was ■WTittcn about the time our hard made his tour to the Ilighl.Tnds, 
 1787.'— ' i(r;-«V. Gilbert Hums entertained a doubt if the song was by his brother; 
 but for this wc can bcc no just grounds.
 
 112 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Wi' Higliliind wratli they frae the sheath 
 Drew blades o' death, till, out o' breach, 
 They Hed like frighted doos, man.' 
 
 ' O how dcil, Tain, can that be true ? 
 
 The chase gacd frao the North, man ; 
 I saw myself, they did piii-siie 
 
 The iiorsemen back to Forth, man ; 
 And at Dunblane, in my ain sight, 
 They took the brig wi' a' their might. 
 And strauglit to Stirling winged tlicir flight ; 
 But, cursed lot! the gates were shut j 
 And mony a huntit, poor red-coat, 
 
 For fear amaist did swarf, man !' swoon 
 
 ' My sister Kate cam up the gate 
 
 Wi' crowdie unto me, man ; porridije 
 
 Slic swore she saw some rebels run 
 
 Frae Fcrth inito Dundee, man : 
 Tiieir left-hand general had nao skill. 
 The Angus lads had nae good will 
 That day their ncibors' blood to spill ; 
 For fear, by foes, that they sliould lose 
 Their cogs o' brose — all crying woes ; 
 
 And so it goes, you see, man. 
 
 ' They've lost some gallant gentlemen 
 
 Amanjr the Hiirhland clans, man: 
 I fear my Lord I'anmure is slain, 
 ' Or fallen in AVhiys-ish hands, man : 
 
 Now wad ye sing this double fig'.it. 
 Some fell for wrang, and some for right ; 
 But mony bade the world guid-night ; 
 Then ye may tell, how pell and mell. 
 By red claymores, and muskets' knell, 
 Wi' dying yell, the Tories fell. 
 
 And Whigs to hell did flee, man.' 
 
 BLOOMING NELLY. 
 TiiN'E— 0;i a Bank of Flow^s. 
 
 On a bank of flowers, in a summer dav, 
 
 For summer lightly drest, 
 The youthful, blooming Nelly lay, 
 
 Witli love and sleep opprest ; 
 When Willie, wandering through the wood. 
 
 Who for lier favour oft had sued, 
 He gazed, he wished, he feared, he blushed. 
 
 And trembled where he stood.
 
 THIRD VOLUME OF JOHNSON'S MUSEUM. 113 
 
 Her closed eyes like weapons slieatlied. 
 
 Were sealed in soft repose ; 
 Her lip, still as she fragrant breathed, 
 
 It richer dyed the rose. 
 The springing lilies sweetly prest, 
 
 Wild-wanton, kissed her rival breast ; 
 He gazed, he wished, he feared, he blushed — 
 
 His bosom ill at rest. 
 
 Her robes light waving in the breeze. 
 
 Her tender limbs embrace ; 
 Her lovely form, her native ease, 
 
 All harmony and grace : 
 Tumultuous tides his pulses roll, 
 
 A faltering, ardent kiss he stole ; 
 He gazed, he wished, he feared, he blushed, 
 
 And sighed his very soul. 
 
 As flies the partridge from the brake 
 
 On fear-inspiri^d wings, 
 So Nelly starting, lialf awake, 
 
 Away afi'righted springs : 
 But Willy followed, as he should; 
 
 He overtook her in the wood ; 
 He vowed, he prayed, he found the maid 
 
 Forgiving all and good. 
 
 Mv heart's in the highlands. 
 
 TvsE—Faitte na Miosp. 
 
 My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here ; 
 My heart's in the Highlands a-cliasing the deer; 
 A-chasing the wild deer, and following the roe — 
 Jly heart's in the Highlands wherever I go. 
 
 Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North, 
 The birthplace of valour, tlie country of worth; 
 Wherever I wander, wherever I rove, 
 The hills of the Highlands for ever 1 love. 
 
 Farewell to the nioinitains high covered 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. 
 VOL. III. u
 
 Ill LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 My heart's in the Higlilands, my hera-t is not here; 
 My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer; 
 A-cliasing tlie wild deer, and following the roe — 
 My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go. 
 
 [In this song Burns caught up the single streals of poetry which existed in a 
 well-known old stall song, entitled The Strong Walls of De.rry, an^ which com- 
 mences thus : 
 
 ' The first day I landed 'twas on Irish ground. 
 The tidings came to me from fair Derry town. 
 That my love was married, and to my sad wo. 
 And I lost my first love by courting too slow.' 
 
 After many stanzas of similar doggrel, the author breaks out, as under an inspira- 
 tion, with the one fine verse, which Bvu'ns afterwards seized as a basis for his own 
 beautiful ditty : 
 
 ' My heart 's in the Highlands, my heart is not here; 
 My heart 's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer ; 
 A-chasing the deer, and following the roe — 
 My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go.'] 
 
 THE BANKS OF NITH. 
 
 Tune — Uohic donna Gorach. 
 
 The Thames flows proudly to the sea, 
 
 Where royal cities stately stand ; 
 But sweeter flows the Nith, to me, 
 
 Where Cummins ance had high command ; 
 When shall I see that honoured land, 
 
 That winding stream I love so dear ! 
 Must wayward fortune's adverse hand 
 
 For ever, ever keep me here ? 
 
 How lovely, Nith, thy fruitful vales, 
 
 AVhere spreading hawthorns gaily bloom! 
 How sweetly wind thy sloping dales. 
 
 Where lambkins wanton through the broom ! 
 Though wandering, now, must be my doom. 
 
 Far from thy bonnie banks and braes, 
 May there my latest hours consume, 
 
 Amang tlie friends of early days ! 
 
 DEAR TITTIE ! 
 
 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 
 
 In poortith I might make a fen' ; shiit 
 
 Yf hat care I in riches to wallow. 
 
 If I maunua marry Tam Glen ?
 
 BURXS'S CARE IN WRITING SONGS. 115 
 
 There 's Lowi-ie, the Laird o' Drumeller, 
 Guid-day to you, brute ! he comes ben ; 
 
 He brags and ho blaws o' his siller, 
 
 But when will he dance like Tarn Glen ? 
 
 My minnie docs constantly deave me, mother 
 
 And bids me beware o' young men ; 
 
 They flatter, she says, to deceive me. 
 But wha can think sac o' Tarn Glen? 
 
 My daddie says, gin I'll forsake him. 
 He'll sie me <ruid hunder marks ten: 
 
 But if it's ordained I maun take him, 
 wha will I get but Tarn Glen 2 
 
 Yestreen at the valentines' dealing, 
 
 My heart to my mou' gied a stcn ; bound 
 
 For thrice I drew ane without failing, 
 And thrice it was written — Tarn Glen. 
 
 T!ie last HalloAvcen I was waukin — 
 
 My droukit sark-sleeve, as ye ken ; wet 
 
 His likeness cam up the house staukin. 
 And the very gray breeks o' Tam Glen ! 
 
 Come counsel, dear tittie ! don't tarry — 
 
 I'll gie you my bonnie black hen, 
 Gif ye will advise me to marry 
 
 The lad I loe dearly— Tam Glen. 
 
 The volume was introduced by a short preface, evidently from 
 the peu of Burns — to whose credit, indeed, this work may almost 
 wholly be placed. ' . . . . As this is not one of those many 
 publications whicli are hourly ushered into the world merely to 
 catch the eye of fashion in her frenzy of a day, the editor has 
 little to hope or fear from the herd of readers. Consciousness of 
 the well-known merit of our Scottish music, and tlie national 
 fondness of a Scotclnnan for the productions of his own country, 
 are at once the editor's motive and apology for this undertaking ; 
 and where any of the pieces in the collection may perhaps be 
 found wanting at the critical bar of the first, he appeals to the 
 honest prejudices of the last.' 
 
 A circumstance has been obligingly reported to mc by Sir James 
 S. Monteath of Closcburn, as illustrating the artist-like care with 
 which Burns even now elaborated and finished his songs. ' There 
 was then living in Closcburn parish a respectable woman, Christina 
 Kirkpatrick, married to a mason named Flint. She had a 
 masculine understanding ; was well acquainted with the old music,
 
 116 LIFE AKD WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 the songs and ballads of Scotland ; and, having a fine voice and 
 good ear, she sang them remarkably -well. At a subsequent 
 time, •when the poet's mother lived on a farm which forms part of 
 this estate, she was on intimate terms with Kirsty, to whom, on 
 the removing with her son Gilbert to East Lothian, she gave 
 several little presents ; amongst the rest, the low - seated deal- 
 chair on which she had nursed the poet and the rest of her 
 children. This was obligingly presented to me by Kirsty on her 
 deathbed, and it is now in my possession. 
 
 ' AVhen 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 Scotch airs, 
 «he 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.' 1 
 
 It may also be remarked that Burns was to some extent 
 assisted in the same manner by his wife, whose vocal powers and 
 acquaintance with Scottish airs were much beyond what is common. 
 
 TO MR PETER HILL, BOOKSELLER, EDINBURGH. 
 
 Ellisland, 2d Feb. 17.00. 
 No ! I will not say one word about apologies or excuses for not 
 writijig — I am a poor, rascally ganger, 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, tlie u})braidings of my wife, 
 liavo persecuted mo on your account these two or three months 
 past. I wisli to God I was a great man, tliat 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 liand 
 in my pocket for you, which, like all other great men, I suppose I 
 would avoid as much as possible. Wliat are you doing, and how are 
 you doing? Have you lately seen any of rny fcM' friends? "What 
 
 1 A statement confirmatory of the anccdiitc in the text is made in a cnmmuni- 
 cation of the late Professor Thomas Gillespie, of St Andrews, to the Edinhimjh 
 Likrarii Journal, December 12, 182!): ' 'When a sclioolboy at AVallace-hall Academy, 
 I saw Burns's horse tied by the bridle to the snfck of a cottage-door in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Tliornhill, and lingered for some time listening to the songs which, 
 seated in an arm-chair by the fireside. Burns was listening to. Betty (?) Flint 
 was the name of the songstress. She was neither pretty nor witty, but she had 
 a pipe of the most overpowering pitch, and a taste for song. . . . She sang even 
 to us laddies. There's nae luck about the f ton ^ e, ixnd Braiv, braw lads o' Gala Water, 
 most inimitably.'
 
 LETTER TO WILLIAM NICOL. 117 
 
 has become of the borough uefokm, or how is the fate of my poor 
 namesake Mademoiselle Eurns decided? Which of their grave 
 lordships can lay his hand on his heart, and say that he has not 
 taken advanta^'e of such frailty 2 * * * O man ! hut for tliee 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 aft'cctionate 
 mother ; and shall the unfortunate sacrifice to thy pleasures have no 
 claim on thy humanity 1 1 * * * 
 
 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 docs me the 
 honour to mention nie so kindly in his works, please give him my 
 best thanks for the copy of his book.-' I shall write \\\\\\ my first 
 leisure hour. I like his poetry much, but I think his style in prose 
 quite astonishing. 
 
 What is become of that veteran in genius, wit, and * " "■, Smellie, 
 and his boolc ? Give him my compliments. Does ]\Ir Graham of 
 Gartnioro ever enter your shop now ? He is the noblest instance 
 of great talents, great fortune, and great worth that ever I saw in 
 conjunction. Kemcmber me to Mrs Hill ; and believe me to be, my 
 dear sir, ever yours, E. B, 
 
 TO Mil WILLIAM NICOL. 
 
 Ellisland, Fch. 9, 1700. 
 
 My dear Sir — That 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 oifer to have tlie mare with 
 jne. That I might at least shew my readiness in wishing to bo 
 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 keep- 
 ing. I drew her in the plough, one of three, for one poor week. I 
 refused fifty-five shillings for her, wliich waa 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 tlie bones of the necic ; with a weakness or total want of power in 
 her fillets; and, in short, the whole vertcbnc of her sjtine seemed to 
 be diseased and uniiinged ; and in ciglit-and-forty hours, in spite of 
 tlio two best farriers in the country, she died, and be to her ! 
 
 ' Tlio frail feinjile here alluded to Ii.id been tlie subject of sfniic rather oppressive 
 magisterial proieccllnKs, wtiich took their churnetcr from Creech, aud roused soino 
 public foelinn in her bihalf. 
 
 *Thc VilUiiic Cin-dlr, :i poem (8vo, Ss. Gd. sewed. Johnson, London), is reviewed 
 In the Scots Maijnziii,- fur (Ictobor 17i-!l. 
 
 3 A volume entitled Jiivriiik Piu-nit, by .John Armstrong, student in the University 
 of Edinburgh, appeared in the latter part of I7t<l>.
 
 118 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 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, every- 
 thing 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 encourage- 
 ment 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 thii-ty 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 Kev. Mr Lawson of Kirkmahoe, 
 seconded by the Kev. Mr Kirkpatrick of Dunscore,i and the rest of 
 that faction, have accused, in formal process, the imfortunate and 
 Eev. Mr Heron of Kirkgunzeon, that in ordaining Mr Nielsen 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 ivas agreeable to reason and the word of God ! 
 
 Mrs B. begs to be remembered most gratefully to j'ou. 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 200 miles per week. I have done 
 little in the poetic way. I have given Mr Sutherland two Prologues, 
 one of which was delivered last Avcek. I have likewise strung four 
 or five barbarous stanzas, to tlie tune of Chevy Chase, by way of 
 Elegy on your poor unfortunate mare, beginning (the name she got 
 here was Peg Nicholson)^ 
 
 PEG NICHOLSON. 
 
 Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare, 
 
 As ever trode on airn ; 
 But now she's floating down the Nith, 
 
 And past the mouth o' Cairn. 
 
 1 Burns's own parish priest. 
 
 * In burlesque allusion, it may 1)0 presumed, to the insane vroman, Margaret 
 Nicholson, who made an attempt to stab George III. witU a knife, August 1786.
 
 DK m'gill's persecutors. 119 
 
 Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare, 
 
 And rode tlirougli thick and thin ; 
 But now she's floating down the Kith, 
 
 And wanting even the skin. 
 
 Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare, 
 
 And ance she bore a priest ; 
 But now she's floating down the Nitli, 
 
 For Solway fish a feast. 
 
 Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare, 
 
 And the priest he rode her sair ; 
 And much oppressed and bruised she was, 
 
 As priest-rid cattle are — &c. &c. 
 
 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. 
 
 TO 
 
 Ellisland, 1790. 
 
 Dear Sir— Whether in the way of my trade I can be of any 
 
 service to the Rev. Doctor,^ is, I fear, very doubtful. 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. Good God, sir ! to such a shield, humour is the peck of a 
 sparrow, and satire the pop-gun of a schoolboy. Creation-disgracing 
 f^celtnds such as they, God only can mend, and the devil only 
 can punish. In the comprehending way of Caligula, I wish they all 
 had but one neck. I feel impotent as a child to the ardour of my 
 wishes! O for a withering curse to blast the germina of their 
 wicked machinations. for a poisonous tornado, winged from the 
 ton-id zone of Tartarus, to sweep the spreading crop of their 
 villanous contrivances to the lowest hell ! R- R- 
 
 The poet's young brother, William, who liad latterly been 
 employed at Newcastle, Avas now resolved to adventure intp the 
 great Held of London, and he wrote (24th January 1790) to Robert 
 for a letter of introduction to his old preceptor Murdoch. ' You 
 promised,' he adds, ' wlicn I was intending to go to Edinburgh, 
 to ■RTite me some instructions about behaviour in companies 
 
 » DrM'Gill, ofAjT,
 
 120 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 rather above my station, to which I might be eventually introduced. 
 As I may be introduced into such companies at JIurdoch's or on 
 his account, when I go to London, I wish you would write me 
 some such instructions now : I never had more need of them, for, 
 having spent little of my time in company of any soi't since I 
 came to Newcastle, I have almost foi'got the common civilities of 
 life. To these instructions pray add some of a moral kind, for 
 though — either through the strength of early impressions, or the 
 frigidity of my constitution, I have hitherto v/ithstood the temp- 
 tation to those vices to which young men are so much addicted, 
 yet I do not know if my virtue will be able to withstand the more 
 powerful temptations of the metropolis ; yet, through God's 
 assistance and your instructions, I hope to weather the storm.' ^ 
 
 The innocence of this is certainly very charming; and one 
 cannot but be amused at seeing Robert Burns applied to for an 
 edification against the vices most besetting to young and hot 
 blood. 
 
 TO MR WILLIAM BURNS, SADDLER, NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE. 
 
 Ellisland, 10th February 1790. 
 
 My dear William — .... Now that yon are setting out for that 
 place [London], put on manly resolve, and determine to persevere; 
 and in that case you will less or more be sure of success. One or 
 two things allow me to particularise to you. London swarms with 
 worthless wretches who prey on their fellow-creatures' thoughtlessness 
 or inexperience. Be cautious in forming connections with comrades 
 and companions. You can be pretty good company to yourself, and 
 you cannot be too shy of letting anybody l<now you further than to 
 
 know you as a saddler. Another caution It is an impulse 
 
 the hardest to be restrained ; hut if once a man accustoms himself 
 to gratifications of that impulse, it is then nearly or altogether 
 impossible to restrain it 
 
 I have gotten the Excise division, in the middle of which I live. 
 Poor little Frank is this morning at the height of the small-pox. I 
 got him inoculated, and I hope he is in a good way. 
 
 Write me before you leave Newcastle, and as soon as you reach 
 London. In a Avord, if ever you be, as perhaps you may be, in a 
 strait for a little ready cash, you know my direction. I shall not 
 sec you beat while you fight like a man. — Farewell! God bless 
 yon. EoBT. Burns. 
 
 The above letter shews how well Burns could point out 
 
 1 Cromek'B Reliqucs, r- S/^-
 
 EnYilED EPISTLE TO A JOTTRNALIST. 121 
 
 prudential rules for others. He might well have added to some 
 parts of his preachment — 
 
 ' And may you better reck the rede, 
 Than ever did th' adviser ! ' 
 
 Dr Currie published a little, jocular, rhyming epistle which 
 Burns had sent to ' a gentleman who had sent the poet a news- 
 paper, and offered to continue it free of expense.' There can 
 scarcely be a doubt that this gentleman was Peter Stuart, to 
 whose newspaper, The Star, Burns had sent various contributions 
 in prose and verse. Stuart desired to have the occasional assist- 
 ance of Burns, and seems to have thought of sending his paper as 
 an inducement and a remuneration. Mr Daniel Stuart reported 
 in 1838 ' that his brother had at this time offered Burns a salary 
 for contributions, ' quite as large as his Excise endowments.' He 
 had forgot particulars ; but he remembered his brother shewing 
 Burns's letters, and boasting of the correspondence of so great a 
 genius. It is to be feared that this is not true as to time, if true 
 at all. Neither can we think ]Mr Daniel Stuart right in calling 
 this jocular epistle of Burns ' a sneering, unhandsome return ' 
 for his brother's offer, whatever that might bo. It is a piece of 
 more pleasantry, conceived in the purest good-humour, and witli 
 all desirable marks of good-feeling towards the person addressed: 
 
 WRITTEN TO A GENTLEMAN WHO HAD SENT THE POET A NEWSPAPER, 
 AND OFFERED TO CONTINUE IT FREE OF EXPENSE. 
 
 Kind Sir, I've read your paper through, 
 
 And, faith, to me 'twas really new ! 
 
 How guessed ye, sir, what niaist I wanted ? 
 
 This niony a day I've graned and gauntcd, yawned 
 
 To ken what French miscliief was brcwin', 
 
 (Jr what the druuihc Dutch were doiu'; muddy 
 
 That vile doup-skelpcr, Emperor .Joseph, 
 
 If Venus yet had got his nose off; 
 
 Or how tiie coUiesIiangie works contention 
 
 Atwccn the lUissians and the Turks ; 
 
 Or if the Swede, before he halt, 
 
 "Would play auither Oliarles the TvvaU:^ 
 
 If ])eiiuiark, anyl)ody spak o't; 
 
 Or Poland, wha had now the tack o't ; Ic.iso 
 
 How cut-throat Prussian blades were hingui'; 
 
 How libbet Italy was singiu' ; 
 
 1 .Sec a cnmmiinioation of Mr Daniel Ptiiart, regarding sonic .allegations of Jfr 
 Coleridge, O'eiillnntin's ^tapazi^H•, July 183K. 
 
 - GusUivu.s 111. had attracted considerable notice in ITflOby his vigorous measures 
 against Russia, and the arrest of many of hia nubility who disapproved of his 
 measures.
 
 122 LITE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 If Spaniard, Portuguese, or Swiss, 
 
 Were sayin' or takin' aught amiss : 
 
 Or how our merry lads at hame, 
 
 In Britain's court, kept up the game : 
 
 How Royal George, the Lord leuk o 'er him ! 
 
 Was managing St Stephen's quorum ; 
 
 If sleekit Chatham Will was livin', Bmootli 
 
 Or glaikit Charlie got his nieve in ; thoughtless fist 
 
 How Daddie Burke the plea was cookin'. 
 
 If Warren Hastings' neck was yeukin' ; 
 
 How cesses, stents, and fees were raxed, 
 
 Or if bare yet were taxed ; 
 
 The news o' princes, dukes, and earls. 
 Pimps, sharpers, bawds, and opera-girls ; \ 
 
 If that daft buckie, Geordie Wales, 
 Was threshin' still at hizzies' tails ; 
 Or if he was grown oughtlins douser, soberer 
 
 And no a perfect kintra cooser. 
 A' this and mair I never heard of. 
 And but for you I might despaired of. 
 So gratefu', back your news I send you, 
 And pray, a' guid things may attend you ! 
 Ellisland, Monday morning, 1790. 
 
 After all, from whatever cause, the gi'atuitous newspaper did 
 not come very regularly, as appears from a subsequent note of 
 remonstrance sent by the bard to headquarters : — ■ 
 
 Dear Peter, dear Peter, 
 
 We poor sons of metre 
 Are often negleckit, ye ken ; 
 
 For instance, your sheet, man, 
 
 (Though glad I 'm to see 't man), 
 I get it no ae day in ten. — R. B. 
 
 Mr Cumiingham of Edinburgh, ever a zealous friend of Burns, 
 had written to him as follows : — 
 
 ^Uh January 1790. 
 
 In some instances it is reckoned unpardonable to quote any one's 
 own words ; but the value I have for your friendship nothing can 
 more truly or more elegantly express than 
 
 ' Time hut the impression stronger makes. 
 As streams their channels deeper wear.' 
 
 Having written to you twice without having heard from you, I am 
 apt to think my letters have miscarried. ]My conjecture is only 
 framed upon the chapter of accidents turning up against me, as it 
 too often does in the trivial, and I may Avitli truth add, the more 
 important affairs of life ; but I shall continue occasionally to iufonn
 
 LETTER TO ALEXANDER CUNNINGHAM. 123 
 
 you what is going on among the circle of your friends in these parts. 
 In these days of merriment I have frequently heard your name 
 proclaimed at the jovial hoard, under the roof of our hospitable 
 friend at Stenhouse Mills ; there were no 
 
 ' Lingering moments numbered with care.' 
 
 I saw your Address to the New -Year in the 'Dumfries Journal.' Of 
 your productions I shall say nothing ; but my acquaintances allege 
 that when your name is mentioned— which every man of celebrity 
 must know often happens— I am the champion, the Mendoza, against 
 all snarling critics and narrow-minded reptiles, of whom a few on 
 this planet do crawl. 
 
 With best compliments to your wife and her black-eyed sister, I 
 remain yours, &c. 
 
 Burns sent an answer as soon as his now pressing engagements 
 permitted. 
 
 TO MR CUNNINGHAM. 
 
 Ellisland, I3th 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 wUl 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 
 Pine-apple to a dish of Bohea with the scandal-bearing helpmate of 
 a village priest ; or a glass of whisky-toddy with a ruby-nosed yoke- 
 fellow of a foot- padding exciseman— I make a vow to enclose this 
 shcctful of epistolary fragments in that my only scrap of gilt-paper. 
 
 I am indeed your unwortliy 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 Quecnsberry to the powers of darkness, 
 than my friend Cunningham to me. It is not tbat 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 anti- 
 tlifsize sentiment and circumvolute periods as well as any coiner of 
 phrase in the regions of pliilology. 
 
 December 1789. 
 
 My bkau Cunningham — Where arc 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 2
 
 124 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Wliat strange beings we are ! Since we have a portion of con- 
 scions 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 rendei's our little scantling of happi- 
 ness 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, notwith- 
 standing, to be as unhappy as others to whose lot few of them have 
 fallen ? I believe one trreat 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 fop 
 the dishonest pride of looking down on others of our fellow-creatures 
 seemingly diminutive in humbler stations, &c. &c, 
 
 Sitndai/, lith 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 past redemption, and, what is worse, to all eternity. 
 
 I am deeply read in Boston's Four/old State, Marshall on Sanctiji- 
 cation, Guthrie's Trial of a Saving Interest, &c. ; but ' there is no 
 halm 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, ccc. 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 
 nncs to he 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
 
 BOOKS ORDERED FROM PETER HILL. 125 
 
 kindest influence when the bearer of this, Mr Syme, and you meet ! 
 1 wish I could also make one. 
 
 Finally, brethren, farewell ! Whatsoever things arc lovely, what- 
 soever things are gentle, whatsoever things are charitable, whatsoever 
 things are kind, think on these things, and think on E. B. 
 
 TO MR PETEU IIILL. 
 
 ELLtsLAND, 2(i 3Iarch 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 
 eend'us as soon as possible i—T/fe Mirror, The Lounga; Man of 
 Feeling, Man of the World (these, for my own sake, I wish to have 
 by tho first carrier); Knox's History of the Reformation; Ihce's 
 History of the Rehellion in 1715 ; any good History of the Rebellion in 
 1745; A Disj^lay of the Secession Act and Testimony, hy Mr Gib; 
 Hervey's Meditations; Beveridge's Thoughts; and another copy of 
 Watson's Body of Divinity. This last heavy performance is so much 
 admired by many of our members, that they will not be content with 
 one copy. 
 
 I wrote to 3rr 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 boolcs 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 Excis' : by Jellinger Symons. I 
 tvant 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, Congrcve's, 
 AVychcrley's, Yanhrugh's, (-'ibbcr's, or any dramatic works of the 
 more modern Macklin, Garrick, Foote, Colman, or Sheridan. A 
 good copy, too, of Molifcre 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 llacine, Corneillc, and Voltairo 
 too. I am in no hurry for all or any of these, but if you accidentally 
 meet with them very chea]), get thcni for mo. 
 
 And now, to <|uil 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 
 deganVy handsome, at least as amiable, and sings as divinely as ever. 
 My good wife too has a charming * wood-note wild;' now, could wo 
 four get anyway snugly together in a corner of the New .Jerusalem 
 (remember I bespeak your comjiany there), you and I, tiiougli 
 Heaven knows wc arc no singers, &c. 
 
 I am out of all i>aticnce with this vile world for one thing. Man- 
 kind are by nature benevolent creatures, e.Ncept in a few scoundrelly
 
 12G LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 instances. I do not think that avarice of the good things we chance to 
 have is born with ns ; but we are placed here amid so much nakedness, 
 and hunger, and poverty, and want, that we are under a cursed neces- 
 sity 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. Even the knaves who have injured me, 
 I would oblige them; though, to tell the ti'uth, it would be more out of 
 vengeance, to shew them that I was independent of and above them, 
 than out of the ovei-flo wings of my benevolence. Adieu ! 
 
 K.B. 
 
 Whatever may be thought of Burns's letters, it is certainly in 
 them that we get the most intimate and peneti'ating glances at his 
 owa nature. Some passages in the above epistle, for instance, 
 are like the lightning-flash on a dark and turbid sea. He feels so 
 intensely the hateful character of worldly selfishness, that he can- 
 not help priding himself on his want of the alloy of caution and 
 prudence. His sense of sin is strongly pressed on his mind, but 
 it is lightened by the consciousness of a boundless philanthropy. 
 And yet, too, he would only benefit the knaves of the earth to 
 shew his sense of superiority over them, thus inflicting upon them 
 the vengeance of a humiliation. To such men as Hill, who, like him- 
 self, could use some licence in thought and speech, he is frank iu 
 the strain of comment and the selection of terms. It is curious 
 to see how, in his communications to the refined and pious Mrs 
 Dunlop, the caution and prudence which he disclaimed, or at least 
 the tact of a man of the world, exercised some restrictive influence 
 over his pen. Thus it is that in a single page, we have the poet 
 almost unconsciously revealing his pride with his benevolence, 
 his abjuration of and his bondage to prudence. The ensuing 
 letter is remarkable for the confession it contains, that he felt high 
 endowments to be a disqLualification for the common struggles of 
 the world : — 
 
 TO MRS DUNLOP. 
 
 Elusland, 10th Ajml 1790. 
 I HAVE just now, my ever-honoured friend, enjoyed a very high 
 luxury, in reading a paper of the Loimyer. You know my national 
 prejudices. I had often read and admired the Spectator, Adventurer, 
 Eamhler, 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
 
 LETTER TO MRS DUXLOP. 127 
 
 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. 
 
 Though very poor, may j'et be very blest.' 
 
 Nothing can reconcile me to the common terms English ambas- 
 sador, English court, &c. ; and I am 'out of all patience to see that 
 equivocal character, Hastings, impeached by ' the Commons of Eng- 
 land.' Tell mc, 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,' &c. — I believe these, among your men of the loorld — men who, in 
 fact, guide for the most part and govern our world — are looked on as 
 so many modifications of wrong-hcadedness. 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 
 OUGUT, but what they dare. For the truth of this I shall not 
 ransack the liistory 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 lierfect 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 
 stanch opinion of men of the v:orld ; 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 gi'ave, then the true measure of human con- 
 duct is, proper and improprr; 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 car 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 inliar^ 
 monic jars in this ill-tuned state of being, it is odds but the indivi- 
 dual 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 bo 
 glad to have your opinion of some of tho papers. The one I have 
 just read, Lounger, No. (Jl, has cost me more honest tears than any- 
 thing I have read of a long time.i JIackeuzie has been called the 
 
 ' Tliis p.ipcr rcI.itcB to attaehmcnta between servants and masters, and conclude* 
 •with tho story of Albert iloue. ,
 
 128 LIFE AND WOEKS OP BURNS. 
 
 Addison of the Scots, and, in my opinion, Addison wonld not he hurt 
 at tlie comparison. If he has not Addison's exqnisite humour, lio 
 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 othei'S — than from the simple, affecting tale 
 of poor Harlcy ? 
 
 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 not you think, 
 madam, that among the few favoured of Heaven in the structure 
 of their minds — for such there certainly are — there may be a purit}-, 
 a tenderness, a dignity, an elegance of soul, which are of no use, nay, 
 in some degree absolutely disqualifying, for the truly important busi- 
 ness of making a man's way into life ! If I am not much mistaken, 
 my gallant young friend A ****** i 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, a 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 liave 
 more leisure to transcribe anything that may shew how much I have 
 the honour to be, madam, yours, &c. K. B. 
 
 TO DR MOORE. 
 
 Dumfries, Excise-Office, lith July 1790. - 
 Sir — Coming into town this morning to attend my duty in this 
 office, it being collection-day, I met witii 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 hungi-y 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- Muckei''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, Zcluco. In fact, you are in some degree 
 
 1 Probably Antliony, a son of Mrs Dun]op, is here meant.
 
 DUMFRIES ELECTION. 129 
 
 blameable for my neglect. You were pleased to express a ■wish for 
 uiy opinion of the 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, Eichardson, 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 Elilm shews 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, &c. wherever I meet with an original thought, a nervous 
 remark on life and manners, a remarkaljle, well-turned period, or a 
 character sketched with uncommon precision. 
 
 Tiiough 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 
 tlicm. If indeed I am indebted to the fair author for the book,i and 
 not, as I ratlier suspect, to a celebrated author of the other sex, I 
 sliould certainly have written to the lady, with my grateful acknow- 
 ledgments, and my own ideas of the comparative excellence of her 
 pieces. 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. E- B. 
 
 The canvass for the Dumfries burghs had been proceeding with 
 excessive vigour all this spring, and when the election at length 
 took place in July, the agitation and fervour of the public mind 
 in the district exceeded everything of the kind previously known. 
 The influence of tlie Duke of Queensberry on the '\^'hig side 
 proved too much for the merits of excellent ' Westerhall,' and the 
 dismissal of liis Grace from the bed-cliambcr was revenged on 
 Pitt by the return of Captain IMiller. In a spirited verse-epistle 
 on the subject, addressed to his friend Mr diraham, Burns still 
 shews, under an affected impartiality, liis Tory and even cavalier 
 leanings. 
 
 EPTSTLE TO MR CRAUAM OF FINTRY. 
 
 Fintry, my stay in worldly strife, 
 Friend o' my Muse, friend o' my life, 
 
 Are ye as idle 's 1 am ! 
 Come then, wi' uncouth, kintra flog, vagary 
 
 O'er I'egasus I'll lUng my log, 
 
 And ye shall see me try him. 
 
 I TliU book was the Sonnets of Charlotte Smith. 
 VOL. III. I
 
 130 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 I'll sing tlie zeal Di-umlanrig i bears, 
 Who left the all-important cares 
 
 Of princes and their dai'lings ; 
 And, bent on winning borough towns. 
 Came shaking hands wi' wabster loons, 
 
 And kissing barefit carlins. women 
 
 Combustion through our boroughs rode, 
 Whistling his roaring pack abroad, 
 
 Of mad, unmuzzled lions ; 
 As Queensberry buft' and blue ~ unfurled, 
 And Westerha' and Hopetouir-^ hurled 
 
 To every Whig defiance. 
 
 But Queensberry, cautious, left the war. 
 The unmannered dust might soil his star, 
 
 Besides, he hated bleeding ; 
 But left behind him heroes bright, 
 Heroes in Coasarean fight 
 
 Or Ciceronian pleading. 
 
 O for a throat like huge Mons-Meg,^ 
 To muster o'er each ardent Whig 
 
 Beneath Drumlanrig's banners ; 
 Heroes and heroines commix 
 All in the field of polities, 
 
 To Avin immortal honours. 
 
 M'Murdo^ and his lovely spouse 
 
 (Th' enamoured laurels kiss her brows) 
 
 Led on the loves and gi'aces ; 
 She won each gaping burgess' heart. 
 While he, all-conquering, played his part. 
 
 Among their wives and lasses. 
 
 Craigdarroch'' led a light-armed corps; 
 Tropes, metaphors, and figures pour. 
 
 Like Hecla streaming thunder j 
 Glenriddcl,7 skilled in rusty coins. 
 Blew up each Tory's dark designs, 
 
 And bared the treason under. 
 
 ' The Duko of Queensberry. Burns, for metre's sake, uses his Grace's second 
 title. 
 
 " The livery of Mr Fox. 3 The Earl of Hopetoun. 
 
 ■* A piece of ordnance of extraordinary structure and magnitude, founded in the 
 rcipn of James IV. of Scotland, about the end of the fifteenth centurj-, and which 
 is still exhibited, though in an infirm state, in Edinburgh Castle. The diameter of 
 the bore is twenty inches. 
 
 * The duke's chamberlain, a friend of Burns. 
 
 fl Mr Fer(,Ti.sson of Craigdarroch ; the victor of the Whistle-contest. 
 
 7 Captain Iliddel of Glcnriddel,
 
 DrJIFEIES ELECTION. ! 131 
 
 In either wing two champions fought, 
 Redoubted Staig,i who set at nought 
 
 The wildest savage Tory, 
 And Welsh,- who ne'er yet iiinched his ground, 
 High waved his magnum bonum I'ound 
 
 With Cyclopean fury. 
 
 Miller 3 brought up the artillery ranks, 
 The many-pounders of the Banks, 
 
 Resistless desolation ; 
 While Maxwelton,-^ that baron bold, 
 Mid Lawson's port entrenched his hold, 
 
 And threatened worse damnation. 
 
 To these, what Tory hosts opposed ; 
 With these, what Tory warriors closed, 
 
 Surpasses my descriving : 
 Squadrons extended long and large, 
 AVith furious speed rushed to the charge, 
 
 Like raging devils driving. 
 
 Yv'hat verse can sing, what prose narrate. 
 The butcher deeds of bloody fate 
 
 Amid this mighty tulzie ? conflict 
 
 Grim Horror grinned ; pale Terror roared, 
 As iliirtlier at his thrapple shored ; tlucatened 
 
 And hell mixt in the brulzie ! broil 
 
 As Highland crags, by thunder cleft, 
 
 When lightnings fire the stormy lift, firmament 
 
 Hurl down wi' crashing rattle ; 
 As flames amang a hundred woods ; 
 As headlong foam a hundred floods ; 
 
 Such is the rage of battle. 
 
 The stubborn Tories dare to die ; 
 As soon the rooted oaks would fly, 
 
 Reforc th' approaching fellers ; 
 The Whitis come on like Ocean's roar. 
 When all his wintry billows pour 
 
 Against the Buchan BuUcrs.-'' 
 
 1 Provost of Dumfries. 
 
 2 The Kheriff of the eoiinty. 
 
 3 Mr Miller of Dalswinlon, father of tho candidate. lie had been a banker. 
 ■> Sir Kobcrt Lawrie, M.l'. for the county. 
 
 ^ The ' Bullcrs of Ituchan ' in an ap|iollation given to a tremendous rocl>-y recess 
 on the Aberdeenshire coast, near Peterhead— having an opening to the sea, whilo 
 tho top is open. The Kea, constantly raging in it, gives it the appearance of a pot 
 or boiler, uud hence the name.
 
 132 UFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Lo, from the shades of Death's deep night, 
 Departed Whigs enjoy the fight, 
 
 And think on former daring ! 
 The muffled murtherer of Charles ^ 
 The Magna-Charta flag unfurls, 
 
 All deadly gules its bearing. 
 
 Nor wanting ghosts of Tory fame ; 
 
 Bold Scrimgeour^ follows gallant Grahame^ — 
 
 Auld Covenanters shiver — 
 (Forgive, forgive, much-wronged Montrose ! 
 AVhile death and hell engulf thy foes, 
 Thou liv'st on high for ever !) 
 
 Still o'er the field the combat burns ; 
 The Tories, Whigs, give way by turns ; 
 
 But fate the word has spoken — 
 For woman's wit, or strength of man, 
 Alas ! can do but what they can — 
 
 The Tory ranks are broken. 
 
 O that my een were flowing burns ! 
 My voice a lioness that mourns 
 
 Her darling cub's undoing ! 
 That I might greet, that I might ci-y, 
 While Tories fall, while Tories fly. 
 
 And furious Whigs pursuing ! 
 
 What Whig but wails the good Sir James ; 
 Dear to his country by the names 
 
 Friend, Patron, Benefactor ? 
 Not Pulteney's wealth can Pulteney save ! 
 And Hopetoun falls, the generous, brave ! 
 
 And Stuart bold as Hector ! 
 
 Thou, Pitt, shall rue this overthrow, 
 And Thurlow growl a curse of wo, 
 
 And Melville melt in wailing ! 
 Now Fox and Sheridan, rejoice ! 
 And Burke shall sing : ' prince, arise ! 
 
 Thy power is all-prevailing ! ' 
 
 For your poor friend, the Bard afar, 
 He hears, and only hears the war, 
 
 A cool spectator pufely ; 
 So when the storm the forest rends. 
 The robin in the hedge descends. 
 
 And sober chirps securely. 
 
 ' Tlio masked oxtciitioncr of Charles I. 
 
 « John, Earl of Dnndfe, noted for his zeal and suflFerirgs in the cause of the StuartB 
 durini; the time of tlie ('oinmonwealtli. 
 3 The great Martjuis of Montrose.
 
 MURDOCH THE SCHOOLMASTER. 
 
 133 
 
 TO MR MURDOCH, TEACHER OF FRENCH, LONDON. 
 
 Ellisland, Wth Julu M^. 
 
 My dear Sir— I received a letter from you a long time ago, but 
 imfortunately, as it was in the time of my peregrinations and 
 journeyings through Scotland, I mislaid or lost it, and by consequence 
 your dire'ction 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. 
 
 Ills last address he sent to 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 bo a long one. I have much to 
 tell you of 'hairbreadth 'scapes in th' imminent deadly breach,' with 
 all the eventful history of a life, the early years of whicii 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, K. B.i 
 
 ' ' Tliis letter was coniimmicated to the editor [Cromck] by a gentleman, to 
 whose liberal advice and information he ia much indebted— Mr John Murdoch, the 
 tutor of the poet— accompanied by the following interesting note:— 
 
 " London, Hart Street, Bi-ooMsnunv, 28<A Dec. 1807. 
 
 Dkar Sra— The following letter, wliieh I lately found amont; my papers, I copy 
 for your perusal , partly because it is Hurns's, partly because it makes honourable 
 mention of my rational Christian friend, his father; and likewise because it is 
 rather flattering to myself. I gloiy in no one thing eo much as an intimacy witli 
 good men— the friendship of others reflects no honour. When I recollect the 
 pleasure— and I hope benefit— I received from the conversation of Wii.mam Uurnb, 
 especially when on the Lord's Day we walked together for about two miles to the 
 house of prayer, there publicly to adore and praise the Giver of all good, I entertain 
 an ardent hope that together we shall ' renew the glorious theme in distant worlds,' 
 with powers more adequate to the mighty subject— the KxiP.KnANT nKXEFirBNCB 
 OP THE ORKAT CREATOR. But to tlic letter :—[//trf/o;/ouf the kUcr relative to young 
 William Burns.'] 
 
 I promised myself a deal of happiness in the conversation of my dear young friend; 
 but my promises of this nature generally prove fallacious. Two visits were the 
 utmost that 1 received. At one of them, however, he repeated a lesson which I had 
 given him about twenty years before, when he was a mere child, concerning the 
 pity and tenderness dueto animals. To that lesson, which it seems was brought to 
 the level of his capacity, he declared himself indebted for almost all the philanthropy 
 he possessed. 
 
 Let not parents and teachers imagine that it is needless to talk seriously to 
 rliildren. They are sooner fit to be reasoned with than is generally thought. Strong 
 and indelible impretBions are to be nuidu before the mind be agitated and ruffled
 
 134 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 TO MR M'MURDO. 
 
 Ellislan'd, 2d Augusl 1790. 
 
 Sir — Now that you are over with tlie sirens of Flattery, the 
 harpies of Corruption, and the furies of Ambition — these infernal 
 deities that on all sides, and in all parties, preside over the villanous 
 business of politics — permit a rustic Muse of your acquaintance to 
 do her best to soothe you with a song. 
 
 You knew Henderson — I have not flattered his memory. I have 
 the honour to be, sir, your obliged, humble servant, E. B. 
 
 Burns here alludes to an elegy he had composed upon an 
 Edinburgh friend not as yet noticed. Matthew Henderson 
 appears to have been a ' man about town,' a kind-hearted, life- 
 enjoying person, of agreeable manners and upi-ight character. 
 Allan Cunnmgham states, on the authority of Sir Thomas 
 Wallace, who is represented as having known him, ' that he dined 
 regularly at Fortune's Tavern, and was a member of the Capillaire 
 Club, which was composed of all who inclined to be witty and 
 joyous.' There is a sad want of documentaiy or contemporary 
 evidence about him ; I have searched the obituaries in vain for 
 his death. Hence there might almost be a justifiable doubt of his 
 having ever existed. His reality is, however, beyond a doubt. 
 A private letter wi-itten in Edmburgh in February 1787, besides 
 alluding to Burns as the lion of the day, speaks of several gentle- 
 men who had been spoken of as fit to undertake the Mastership 
 of Ceremonies at the Assemblies. ' I heard of two or three people 
 as being mentioned by others, who never, I daresay, thought of it 
 for themselves — as, for instance, Haggart and Matthew Henderson. 
 Would Matthew leave his friend and bottle to go bow at an 
 Assembly?'^ This reveals not merely his existence, but his 
 character. He had been one of Burns's good-fellow friends during 
 the time he spent in Edinburgh, and he appears as a subscriber 
 for four copies of the second edition of our bard's poems — not, 
 however, as Captain Matthew Henderson — • but as ' IMatthew 
 Henderson, Esq.,' the ' Captain ' being, we understand, a mere 
 pet -name for the man among his friends, adopted most likely 
 from the position he held in some convivial society. Burns 
 speaks of the poem as ' a tribute to the memory of a man I loved 
 much.' 
 
 by the numerous train of distracting cares ancl tmruly passions, whereby it is 
 frequently rendered almost unsusceptible of the principles and precepts of rational 
 religion and sound morality. 
 
 But I find myself digressing again. Poor William! then in the bloom and 
 vigour of youth, caught a putrid fever, and in a few days, as real chief mourner, I 
 followed his remains to the land of forgetfulncss. John Murdoch.' 
 
 — Cromkk. 
 
 > The letter is printed entire in the Scottish Journal, Dec. 11, 184?. T. G. Steven- 
 son, Edinburgh.
 
 ELEGY ON MATTHEW HENDERSON. 135 
 
 OX CAPTAIN MATTHEW HENDERSON, 
 
 A GENTLEMAN WHO HELD THE PATENT FOR HIS HONOURS IMMEDIATELY FROM 
 
 ALMIGHTY GOD. 
 
 ' Should the poor be flattered ? '— Shakspearb. 
 
 But now his radiant course is run, 
 
 For Matthew's course was bright : 
 His soul was like the glorious sun, 
 
 A matchless, heavenly light ! 
 
 O Death ! thou tyrant fell and bloody ! 
 
 The meikle devil wi' a woodie rope 
 
 Haurl thee hame to his black smiddie, 
 
 O'er liurcheon hides, hedgehos 
 
 And like stockfish come o'er his studdie 
 
 Wi' thy auld sides ! 
 
 He's gane! he's gane! he's frae us torn, 
 
 The ae best fellow e'er was born ! 
 
 Thee, Matthew, Nature's sel' shall mourn 
 
 By Avood and wild, 
 Where, haply. Pity strays forlorn, 
 
 Frae man exiled ! 
 
 Yc hills ! near neibors o' the starns, 
 
 That proudly cock your cresting cairns ! 
 
 Ye cliffs," the haunts of sailing yearns, eagles 
 
 Where echo slumbers! 
 Come join, ye Nature's sturdiest bairns. 
 
 My wailing numbers ! 
 
 Mourn, ilka grove the cushat kens ! wood-pigcon 
 Ye hazelly sliaws and briery dens ! 
 Ye burnies, wimplin' down your glens, 
 
 Wi' toddlin' din, purling 
 
 Or foaming Strang, mI' hasty stcns, leaps 
 
 Frae lin to liu ! pool 
 
 Mourn, little harebells o'er the lea ; 
 Ye stately foxgloves fair to see ; 
 Ye woodbines, hanging bonnilie. 
 
 In scented bowers; 
 Ye roses on your thorny tree. 
 
 The first o' Howers. 
 
 At dawn, when every grassy lilade 
 
 Droops with a diamond at its head, 
 
 At even, when beans their fragrance shod, 
 
 r th' rustling gale, 
 Ye maukins whiddin tlirough the glade, hares skipping 
 
 Come join my wail.
 
 136 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Mourn, ye wee sonj^stcrs o' the wood ; 
 Ye grouse that crap tlie heather bud ; 
 Ye curlews callin<r through a clud; 
 
 Ye whistling plover ; 
 And mourn, ye whirring paitrick brood! — 
 
 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. 
 
 Mourn, clam'ring craiks at close o' day, land-rails 
 
 'Mang fields o' fiowering clover gay ; 
 And when ye wing your annual way 
 
 Frae our cauld shore, 
 Tell thae far warlds, wha lies in clay 
 
 Wham we deplore. 
 
 Ye houlets, frae your ivy bower, owls 
 
 In some auld ti'ee or eldritch tower, dismal 
 
 What time the moon, wi' silent glower staro 
 
 Sets up her horn. 
 Wail through the dreary midnight hour 
 
 Till waukrife morn! 
 
 O rivers, forests, hills, and plains ! 
 Oft have ye heard my canty strains: 
 But now, what else for me remains 
 
 But tales of wo ? 
 And frae my cen the drapping rains 
 
 Maun ever flow. 
 
 Mourn, Spring, thou darling of the year ! 
 
 Ilk cowslip cup shall kep a tear: receive 
 
 Thou, Simmer, while each corny spear 
 
 Shoots up its head. 
 Thy gay, green, fiowei-y tresses sliear 
 
 For him that's dead. 
 
 Thou, Autumn, wi' thy yellow hair, 
 In grief thy sallow mantle tear! 
 Thou, Winter, hurling through the air 
 
 The roaring blast. 
 Wide o'er the naked world declare 
 
 The worth we've lost!
 
 ELEGY ON MATTHEW HENDERSON. 137 
 
 Mourn him, thou Sun, great source of light! 
 Mourn, empress of tiie silent night ! 
 And you, ye twinkling starnies bright, 
 
 My Matthew mourn ! 
 For through your orbs he's ta'en his flight, 
 
 Ne'er to return, 
 
 Henderson ! the man — the brother ! 
 And art thou gone, and gone for ever ? 
 And hast thou crossed that unknown river, 
 
 Life's dreary bound ? 
 Like thee, where shall I find another, 
 
 The world around ? 
 
 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. 
 
 THE EPITAPH. 
 
 Stop, passenger ! — my story's brief, 
 And trutli I shall relate, man ; 
 
 I tell nae common tale o' grief — 
 For Matthew was a great man. 
 
 If thou uncommon merit hast. 
 
 Yet spurned at Fortune's door, man, 
 
 A look of pity liitlier cast — 
 For Matthew was a poor man. 
 
 If thou a noble sodgcr art, 
 
 Tliat passest by this grave, man, 
 
 There moulders liere a gallant heart — 
 For Matthew was a brave man. 
 
 If tliou on men, their works and ways. 
 Canst throw unconmion light, man. 
 
 Here lies wha weel bad won thy praisc- 
 For Matthew was a bright man. 
 
 If thou at friendship's sacred ca' 
 AVad life itself resign, man. 
 
 Thy sympatlietic tear maun fa' — 
 For Matthew was a kind man.
 
 138 LIFE AND WOKKS OF BUKNS. 
 
 If thou art stanch without a stain, 
 Like the unchanging blue, man. 
 
 This was a kinsman o' thy ain — 
 For Mattliew was a true man. 
 
 If thou hast wit, and fun, and fire, 
 And ne'er guid wine did fear, man, 
 
 This was thy billie, dam, and sire — • 
 For Matthew was a queer man. 
 
 If ony whiggish whingin' sot, peevish 
 
 To blame poor Matthew dare, man, 
 
 May dool and sorrow be his lot ! 
 For Matthew was a rare man. 
 
 TO MKS DUNLOP. 
 
 Sth August 1790. 
 
 Deaji Madam— After a long day's toil, plague, and care, I sit down 
 to ^mte to you. Ask me not why I have delayed it so long ? It was 
 owing to hurry, indolence, and fifty other things ; in short, to any- 
 thing but forgetfulness of la plies aimahle de son sexe. By the by, 
 you are indebted your best courtesy to me for this last compliment, 
 as I pay it from my sincere conviction of its truth — a quality rather 
 rare in compliments of these grinning, bowing, scraping times. 
 
 Well, I hope writing to you will ease a little my troubled soul. 
 Sorely has it been bruised to-day ! A ci-devant friend of mine, and 
 an intimate acquaintance of yours, has given my feelings a wound 
 that I perceive will gangrene dangerously ere it cure. He has 
 wounded my pride 1 * « * * li. B. 
 
 TO MR CUNNINGHAM. 
 
 Ellisland, sth Avfjust 1790. 
 
 Forgive me, my once dear, and ever dear friend, my seeming 
 negligence. You cannot sit down and fancy the l)usy 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 ; an ortliodox clergy- 
 man at a Paisley sacrament * * * ; or a tavern-keeper at an election 
 dinner * * * ; but the resemblance that hits my fancy best is, that 
 blackguard miscreant, Satan, who, &c. &c. roams about like a roaring 
 lion, seeking, searching 1 whom he may devour. However, tossed about 
 as I am, if I choose— and who would not choose?-— to bind down with 
 
 ' Searching is apparently used hy tlie hard in a professional sense ; namely, Satan 
 eearches after the manner of a busy exeisenian.
 
 BUENS'S LIFE AT ELLISLAXD. 139 
 
 the crampcts of attention tlie 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 ' con- 
 summation devoutly to be wished ?' 
 
 • Thy spirit, Independence, let me share ; 
 Lord of the lion-heart and cagle-ej'e ! 
 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 Indejyendence : 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. * * * E. B.i 
 
 Certainly no invidious observer could now say of Bums that lie 
 indulged in a poetic indolence. On the contrary, he was man- 
 fully, though perhaps imprudently, attempting to do the work of 
 a plurality of men. His farm must of course have required some 
 attention, even though nearly the whole of the Avork was done by 
 servants. Then he had to see the interests of the revenue pro- 
 tected throughout ten parishes. Over this ground he had to ride 
 at an average two hundred miles a week. He, moreover, wrote 
 letters and poems, and paid some attention to the moral interests 
 of his household. The motive of all this activity was the honour- 
 able one of a desire to maintain his family and be ' behadden to 
 naebody.' Such being the case, it is a great mistake to think of 
 Burns as one entirely deficient in the qualities of, a man of the 
 "world. He was now undoubtedly manifesting several of the 
 most important, as diligence, perseverance, and accuracy in 
 the details of business. ^ It has been stated that his household 
 
 ' ' The prccodinR letter e:xplainR the feelings under which this was written. Tlio 
 strain of indignant invective RcK'Son Borne time lonscrin the style which our bard 
 was too apt to indulf^c, and of which the reader has already seen so niucli.' — 
 CuRRiE. The writing of two letters in one day appears inconsistent with the alleged 
 hurry of the poet's life; but the Htli of August 1/9(1 was a Sunday. Therefore the 
 exception rather confirms the rule. 
 
 * Burns certainly disliked the drudgery of common worldly affairs ; and it is little 
 to be wondered at ; but this just increases his merit in imdcrtaking and performing 
 the business which it was his lot to have jilaeed biforc him. In Colonel KuUcrton's 
 View of Aiiricull lire i7i Ai/rshirc, I7!'3, there is a compliment to Hurna on a purely 
 technical matter, which will read BtranRcly to many of his admirers. ' In order,' 
 Bays the colonel, ' to prevent the danger arising from homed cattle in studs and straw- 
 yards, the best mode is to cut out tlie budding knob, or root of the horn, while the 
 calf is very young. This was suggested to me by Mr llobert Ilurns, wliose general 
 talents are no less conspicuous than the poetic powers which have done so much 
 honour to the county where he was boin.'
 
 140 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 ■was managed laxly, and in a style of ruinous indulgence towards 
 the servants;! but, on careful inquiry, I am satisfied that Dr 
 Carrie is nearer the truth when he speaks of 'the uniform 
 prudence and good- management of JMrs liurns.' "What seems to 
 liave given rise to the former notion is, that the Ayrshire dietary 
 for servants, which Burns naturally carried with him, was more 
 liberal than that of Dumfriesshire, and hence appeared to his 
 neighbours as somewhat extravagant. No doubt, also, Burns was 
 now and then led to spend a few evening hours over the bowl with 
 his friends ; but these were perhaps the sole examples of relaxa- 
 tion which occurred in his laborious life, and he would be a Puritan 
 indeed who could grudge them to him. In short, the life of Burns 
 at this time was on the whole a respectable life, both in respect of 
 the positive qualities of industrious application and punctual dis- 
 charge of duty, and the negative one of inoffensiveness towards 
 society. It shews satisfactorily enough that there was nothing in 
 Burns himself to prevent him from acting the decent master of a 
 household, and all other conventionalities which the world could 
 desire. 
 
 A few years ago (1838), there lived on the farm of Enrick, near 
 Gatehouse of Fleet, a respectable working-man named William 
 Clark, who had been ploughman to Burns for six months at 
 Ellisland. The testimony of an intelligent man of this class, 
 •when not against his master, may assuredly be taken as readily 
 as that of a person higher in the social scale. It was to the 
 following effect, as reported by a gentleman residing near Kirk- 
 cudbright : — 
 
 ' Soon after Burns became tenant of Ellisland, AVilliam Clark 
 lived with him as servant during tlie winter half-year, he thinks, 
 
 of 1789-90 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 the generality of the farmers in the neighbour- 
 hood. The farm of Ellisland was said to be moderately rented, 
 and was susceptible of much improvement, had improvement been 
 in repute. Burns sometimes visited the neighbouring farmers, 
 and they returned the compliment; but that way of spending 
 time and exchanging civilities was not so common then as now, 
 and, besides, the most of the people thereabouts had no expecta- 
 tion that Burns's conduct and writings would be so much noticed 
 afterwards. Bums kept nine or ten milch cows, some young 
 cattle, four horses, and several pet sheep : of the latter he was 
 very fond. During the winter and spring time, when he was not 
 
 ' Life of Burns by Allan Cunningham,
 
 BURNS AT ELLISLAND. ' 141 
 
 engaged with the Excise business, he occasionally held the plough 
 for an hour or so for him (William Clark), and was a fair work- 
 man, though the mode of ploughing now-a-days is much superior 
 in many respects. During seed-time. Burns might be fi'equently 
 seen, at an early hour, in the fields with his sowing-sheet ; but as 
 business often required his attention from home, he did not sow 
 the whole of the grain. He was a kind and indulgent master, 
 and spoke familiarly to his servants, both in the house and 
 oitt of it, though, if anything put him out of humour, he was 
 gey guldersome for a tree while : the storm was soon over, and 
 there was never a word of ujxast afterwards. Clark never saw 
 him really angry but once, and it was occasioned by the careless- 
 ness of one of the woman-servants who had not cut potatoes small 
 enough, which brought one of the cows into danger of being 
 choked. His looks, gestures, and voice on that occasion were 
 terrible: W. C. was glad to be out of his sight, and when they 
 met again Burns was perfectly calm. If any extra work was to 
 be done, the men sometimes got a dram ; but Clark had lived 
 with masters who were more flush In that way to their servants. 
 Clark, during the six months he spent at EUisland, never once 
 saw his master intoxicated or incapable of managing his own 
 
 business Burns, when at home, usually wore a broad blue 
 
 bonnet, a blue or drab long-tailed coat, corduroy breeches, dark- 
 blue stockings, and cootikens, and In cold weather a black-and- 
 white-checked plaid wrapped round his shoulders. Mrs Burns 
 ■was a good and prudent housewife, kept everything In neat and 
 tidy order, was well liked by the servants, for whom she provided 
 abundance of wholesome food. At parting, Burns gave Clark a 
 certificate of character, and, besides paying his wages in full, 
 gave him a shilling for a, fairing.^ 
 
 Two documents, conveying some idea of Burns's mode of con- 
 ducting himself in business-arrangements with his inferiors, were 
 lately turned up in Dumfries. The first Is a letter to Mr David 
 Newal, writer in that town, who was factor on the 13nlswinton 
 estate : it refers to the forming of a drain, which it would appear 
 that Bums and his landlord were to pay in common ; and short as 
 it is, and relating to a matter so commonplace, the character of 
 the writer nevertheless peeps out : — 
 
 D« Sir — Enclosed is a state of the account between you and 
 mc and James Halliday respecting tlic drain. I have stated it 
 at 20d. per rood, as, in fact, even at that, tlicy liave not the wages 
 they ougiit to liavc liad, and 1 cannot for the soul of mo sec a poor 
 de\il a loser at my hand. 
 
 Humanity, I liopc, as well as Charity, will cover a multitude of
 
 142 LIFE AND WORKS OF BUENS. 
 
 sins ; a mantle of -R-hicli — between you and me — I have some little 
 need. I am, sir, yours, E. B. 
 
 Enclosed in this letter is an account in Burns's handwriting 
 between hunself and D. Ilalliday, inferring a debit of £10, 17s. 3d. 
 for wages and the building of a yard-dike, anda credit of £11, Is. 6d., 
 composed of so much in cash, so much in meal and cheese, and 
 certain other sums paid for HaUiday. This account does not 
 appear to be that referred to in the letter to Mr Newal : it seems 
 to be merely a memorandum of the state of D. Halllday's wages 
 at the Martinmas term. It contains, however, equally character- 
 istic matter, for the poet makes an error of summation to the 
 extent of 5s. in Halliday's favour, and overpays him 4s. 3d. besides. 
 As to this ' poor devil,' too, he took special care that he ' should 
 not be a loser at his hand.' 
 
 His friend Mr Ramsay of Oclitertyre paid him a visit in the 
 course of a tour this summer or autumn, in company with the 
 Rev. Mr Stewart of Luss. To quote a letter of Mr Ramsay to 
 Dr Currie : — 
 
 ' Seeing him pass quickly near Closeburn, I said to my compa- 
 nion : " That is Burns." On coming to the inn the ostler 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, &c. I was much 
 pleased with his itxor 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 Shakspeare, 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 that he had now gotten a story for a 
 drama, which he was to call Rob Macquechan's Elslion, 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 S[tewart] popped in his head, which put 
 
 ' The classical associations of Mr Ramsay would naturally carry liismind on this 
 occasion to— 
 
 ' Qu6cl si p\i(lica mulicr in partem juvet 
 Domum atque dulces libcros 
 {Sabina qua/ix, aut purusta Bolibua 
 Pemicis uxor Appuli), &c.' 
 
 nor. V. Od. 2,
 
 YISITOES AT ELLISLAND. 143 
 
 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 S[tewart]'s cheeks, albeit unused to the poetic strain. * * * 
 From that time we met no more, and 1 was grieved at the reports 
 of him afterwards. Poor Bums ! we shall hardly ever see his 
 like again. He was, in truth, a sort of comet in literature, ii-re- 
 gular in its motions, which did not do good proportioned to the 
 blaze of light it displayed.' 
 
 An equally competent observer— the late Sir Egerton Brydges — 
 paid a visit to Burns about the same time ; and many years after 
 he thus reported his recollections of what passed : — 
 
 ' I had always been a great admirer of his genius and of many 
 
 traits in his character; and I was aware that he was a person 
 
 moody and somewhat difficult to deal with. I was resolved to 
 
 keep in full consideration the irritability of his position in society. 
 
 About a mile from his residence, on a bench, under a tree, I passed 
 
 a figure, which from the engraved portraits of him I did not 
 
 doubt was the poet ; but I did not venture to address him. On 
 
 arriving at his humble cottage, Mrs Burns opened the door ; she 
 
 was the plam sort of humble woman she has been described : she 
 
 ushered me into a neat apartment, and said that she would send 
 
 for Burns, who was gone for a walk. In about half an hour he 
 
 came, and my conjecture proved right: he was the person I had 
 
 seen on the bench by the road-side. At first I was not entirely 
 
 pleased with his countenance. I thought it had a sort of capricious 
 
 jealousy, as if he was half mclined to treat me as an intruder. I 
 
 resolved to bear it, and try if I could humour him. I let him 
 
 choose his turn of conversation, but said a few words about the 
 
 friend wliose letter I had brought to him. It was now about four 
 
 in the afternoon of an autumn day. While we were talking, Mrs 
 
 Burns, as if accustomed to entertain visitors in this way, brought 
 
 in a bottle of Scotch wliisky, and set the table. I accepted tliis 
 
 hospitality. I could not help observing the curious glance with 
 
 which he watched me at the entrance of this signal of homely 
 
 entertainment. lie was satisfied ; he filled our glasses: "Here's 
 
 a health to auld Caledonia ! " The fire sparkled in liis eye, and 
 
 mine sympathetically met his. He shook my hand with warmth, 
 
 and we were friends at once. Then ho drank " Erin for ever ! " 
 
 and the tear of delight burst from his eye. The fountain of his 
 
 mind and his heart now opened at once, and flowed with abundant 
 
 force almost till midnight. 
 
 ' He had amazing acuteness of intellect as well as glow of 
 sentiment. I do not deny that he said some absurd tilings, and 
 many coarse ones, and that his knowledge was very irregular, and
 
 144 LIFE AND WOBKS OF BURNS. 
 
 sometimes too presumptuous, and that he did not endure con- 
 tradiction with sufficient patience. His pride, and perhaps his 
 vanity, was even morbid. I carefully avoided topics in which he 
 could not take an active part. Of literary gossip he knew nothing, 
 and therefore I kept aloof from it : in tlie technical pai'ts of 
 literature his opinions were crude and uninformed ; but whenever 
 he spoke of a great writer whom he had read, his taste was 
 generally sound. To a few minor writers he gave more credit 
 than they deserved. Ilis great beauty was his manly strength, and 
 his energy and elevation of thought and feeling. He had always 
 a full mind, and all flowed from a genuine spring. I never 
 convei'sed with a man who appeared to be more warmly impressed 
 with the beauties of nature : and visions of female beauty and 
 tenderness seemed to transport him. He did not merely appear 
 to be a poet at casual intervals ; but at every moment a poetical 
 enthusiasm seemed to beat in his veins, and he lived all his days 
 the inward if not the outward life of a poet. I thought I perceived 
 in Burns's cheek the symptoms of an energy which had been 
 pushed too far ; and he had this feeling himself. Every now and 
 then he spoke of the grave as soon about to close over him. His 
 dark eye had at first a character of sternness ; but as he became 
 warmed, though this did not entirely melt away, it was mingled 
 with changes of extreme softness.' ^ 
 
 If this was a laborious, it was also a hopeful time with Burns. 
 He had only as yet been a twelvemonth in the service of the 
 revenue, and already, by the kind interest of Mr Graham, his 
 promotion to a supervisorship, inferring an income of £200 'a 
 year, was contemplated. So bright, indeed, were the prospects of 
 the poet, tliat Nicol aifected, or perhaps scarcely affected, to dread 
 his forgetting his old friends, as appears from a characteristic 
 letter of his to Mr liobert Ainslie, dated August 1.3, 1790:—' As 
 to Burns, poor folks like you and I must resign all thoughts of 
 future correspondence with him. To the pride of applauded 
 genius is now superadded the pride of office. He was lately 
 raised to the dignity of an Examiner of Excise, which is a step 
 preparative to attaining that of a supervisor. Therefore we can 
 expect no less than that his language will become perfectly Hora- 
 <wm— "odi profanum vulgus et arceo." However, I will see him 
 ill a fortnight hence ; and if I find that Beelzebub has inflated his 
 heart like a bladder witli pride, and given it the fullest distension 
 that vanity can effect, you and I will burn him in effigy, and write 
 a satire, as bitter as gall and wormwood, against goveniment for 
 
 * Metropolitan Magazine,
 
 REQUESTED TO WRITE FOR THE BEE. 145 
 
 employing its enemies, like Lord North, to effect its purposes. 
 This will be taking all the revenge in our power.' By rating 
 Bums as an enemy of the government, Nicol could only refer to 
 his predilection for the cause of tlie Stuarts. In no other respect 
 had Burns as yet become liable even to the suspicion of a hostility 
 to the existing powers. 
 
 In the autumn of 1790, Dr James Anderson, an agricultural and 
 miscellaneous writer of merit, planned a small periodical work of 
 an entertaining and instructive character, to be entitled The Bee. 
 It commenced in December of this year, and was continued till 
 January 1794, when it formed eigliteen duodecimo volumes. Dr 
 Anderson appears to have secured the good-natured interest of 
 Dr Blacklock in behalf of his undertaking, and the blind poet is 
 found in September to have addressed a playful poetical letter to 
 Burns, entreating him to become a contributor : — 
 
 TO MR ROBERT BURNS. 
 
 Edinburgh, \sl Septcmhcr [1790.] 
 How docs my dear friend, mucli I languish to hear, 
 His fortune^ rulations, and all that are dear; 
 "With love of the Muses so strongly still smitten, 
 I meant this epistle in verse to have written ; 
 But from age and infirmity indolence flows, 
 And this, much I fear, will restore me to prose. 
 Anon to my business I wish to proceed, 
 Dr Anderson guides and provokes me to speed — 
 A man of integrity, genius, and worth, 
 Who soon a performance intends to set forth; 
 A work miscellaneous, extensive, and free, 
 Which will weekly appear, by the name of the Bee. 
 Of tliis from himself I enclose you a plan, 
 And hope you will give what assistance you can. 
 Entangled with business, and haunted with care, 
 In which more or less human nature must share, 
 Some moments of leisure the Wuscs will claim, 
 A sacrifice due to amusement and fume. 
 The Bee, which sucks lioney from every gay bloom. 
 With some rays of your genius her work may illume ; 
 Whilst the ffower whence her honey spontaneously flows, 
 As fragrantly smells and as vig'rously grows. 
 
 Now with kind gratulations 'tis time to conclude, 
 And add, your ])romotion is here \indcrstood; 
 Thus free from the servile employ of Kxcise, sir, 
 We hope soon to hear you conuncnce sujicrvisor ; 
 You then moi-e at leisure, and free from control, 
 May indulge the strong passion that reigns in your soul. 
 VOL. III. J
 
 146 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 But I, feeble I, must to nature give way ; 
 
 Devoted cold death's and longevity's prey ; 
 
 From verses though languid my thoughts must unbend, 
 
 Though still I remain your affectionate friend — 
 
 Thomas Blacklock. 
 
 A fragment of a letter of Burns to Dr Anderson, wliich 
 Cromek recovered, evidently refers to this application : — 
 
 TO DR ANDERSON. 
 
 Sir— I am much indebted to my worthy friend Dr Blacklock, for 
 
 introducing me to a gentleman of Dr Anderson's celebrity; but 
 
 when you do me the honour to ask my assistance in your proposed 
 
 publication, alas ! sir, you might as well think to cheapen a little 
 
 honesty at the sign of an advocate's wig, or humility under the 
 
 Geneva band. I am a miserable hurried devil, worn to the marrow 
 
 in the friction of holding the noses of the poor publicans to the 
 
 grindstone of the Excise ! and, like Milton's Satan, for private reasons, 
 
 am forced 
 
 To do what yet though damned I would abhor 
 
 — and, except a couplet or two of honest execration * * * E. B.l 
 
 "We have already seen a little of the correspondence between 
 Burns and his youngest brother William, and of the substantial 
 kindness shewn by the former to a youth in a manner thrown upon 
 his care by the death of their father. The young man died in 
 London in September 1790, and the expense of his last illness and 
 funeral appears to have been promptly discharged by the poet, as 
 the receipt for it is dated October 8th. 
 
 It chances that some documents, evidencing the promptitude 
 and exactness of Burns as a servant of the government, have 
 been preserved and recently brought to light. The first is a 
 petition of T. J., farmer at Mirecleugh, addressed to the 
 justices of peace for Dumfriesshire, reclaiming against a fine of 
 £5 which Collector Mitchell had imposed on him for ' making 
 fifty - four bushels of malt, without entry, notice, or licence.' 
 J. stated that he had been in the habit of making malt for 
 forty years without making entry of his kiln or pond, which he 
 
 ' This little piece of business is hero for tlic first time put into proper order. By 
 Dr Currie the versified epistle of Blaclilock was published nakedly, with the date 
 1789. As it is, nevertheless, in the place it should have occupied if dated 1790, and 
 as December 17.')0 is the date of the comnieneement of the Bee, I have no doubt that 
 * 1789 • is one of the many chronological errors and misprints of Currie. The frag- 
 ment of liurns's letter ia printed by Cromek under 1794, and by Allan Cunningham 
 is supposed to be addressed to JJr Robert Anderson, the early patron of Thomas 
 Campbell, and editor of the British Pods. These editors had alike failed to observe 
 the palpable relation of the one letter to the other.
 
 BURNS IN AN EXCISE PROSECUTION. 147 
 
 deemed unnecessary, because the malting was always effected at 
 one operation, and not till notice liad been given to the proper 
 officer. With respect to ' notice ' on this occasion — having 
 inquired of Mr Burns which was the best way of sending it to 
 him, he had been informed that a letter might be sent to ' John 
 Kelloch's ' in Thornhill, whence it might be forwarded by post. 
 He had brought Mrs Kelloch to swear that such a letter had 
 been sent to her by J.'s son for Mr Burns, but had been mislaid. 
 He offered to swear that he had sent the notice to Thornhill 
 in good time, and had had no intention to defraud the revenue. 
 With respect to ' licence,' J. averred that he had only been 
 prevented from renewmg it as usual this year because Mr Mitchell, 
 on his applying for it, had put him off to another time, on the 
 score of being too busy at the time to grant it to him. 
 
 In respect of J.'s petition, the justices, Mr Fergusson of Craig- 
 darroch, and Captain Riddel, ordered the collector to stop pro- 
 ceedings until they should have had an oppoi-tunity of inquiring 
 into the truth of what it set forth. Then came Bui'us's 
 
 'ANSWERS TO THE PETITION OF T. J. 
 
 * 1. Whether the petitioner has been in use formerly to malt all 
 his grain at one operation, is foreign to the purpose : this last 
 season he certainly malted his crop at four or five operations ; 
 but be that as it may, Mr J. ought to have kno-\vn that by 
 express act of parliament no malt, however small the quantity, 
 can be legally manufactured until previous entry be made in 
 writing of all the ponds, barns, floors, &c. so as to be used before 
 the grain can be put to steep. In tlie Excise entiy-books for the 
 division there is not a syllable of T. J.'s name for a number of 
 years bygone. 
 
 ' 2. True it is that Mr Burns, on his first ride, in answer to Mr 
 J.'s question anent the conveying of the notices, among other 
 ways pointed out the sending it by post as the most eligible 
 method, but at the same time added this express clause, and to 
 which Mr Burns is willing to make faith : " At the same time, 
 remember, Mr J., that the notice is at your risk imtil it reach 
 me!" Farther, wlien Mr Burns came to tlic petitioner's kiln, 
 there was a servant belonging to Mr J. ploughing at a very 
 considerable distance from the kiln, wlio left his plough and three 
 horses Avithout a driver, and came into the kiln, wiiich j\Ir B. 
 tliought was rather a suspicious circumstance, as there was nothing 
 extraordinary in an Excise-officer going into a legal malt-floor so 
 as to [induce a man to] leave three horses yoked to a plough in
 
 148 LIFE AND -WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 the distant middle of a moor. This servant, on being repeatedly 
 questioned by Mr Burns, could not tell when the malt was put to 
 steep, when it was taken out, «S:c. — in short, was determined to 
 be entirely ignorant of the affair. By and by, Mr J.'s son 
 came in, and on being questioned as to the steeping, taking 
 out of the grain, &c. Mr J., junior, referred me to this said 
 servant, this ploughman, who, he said, must remember it best, as 
 having been the principal actor in the business. The lad then, 
 having gotten his cue, circumstantially recollected all about it. 
 
 ' All this time, though I was telling the son and servant the 
 nature of the premunire they had incurred, though they pleaded 
 for mercy keenly, the affair of the notice having been sent never 
 once occurred to them, not even the son, who is said to have been 
 the bearer. This was a stroke reserved for, and worthy of the 
 gentleman himself. As to Mrs Kelloch's oath, it proves nothing. 
 She did indeed depone to a line being left for me at her house, 
 which said line miscarried. It was a sealed letter; she could not 
 tell whether it was a malt -notice or not; she could not even 
 condescend on the month, nor so much as the season of the year. 
 The trutli is, T. J. and his family being Seceders, and conse- 
 quently coming every Sunday to Thornhill Meeting-house, they 
 ■were a good conveyance for the several maltsters and traders in 
 their neighbourhood to transmit to post their notices, permits, &c. 
 
 ' But why all this tergiversation? It was put to the petitioner 
 in open court, after a full investigation of the cause: "Was he 
 willing to swear that he meant no fraud in the matter ? " And 
 the justices told him that if he swore he would be assoilzied 
 [absolved], otherwise he should be fined: still the petitioner, after 
 ten minutes' consideration, found his conscience unequal to the 
 task, and declined the oath. 
 
 ' Now, indeed, he says he is willing to swear : he has been 
 exercising his conscience in private, and will perhaps stretch a 
 point. But the fact to which he is to swear was equally and in 
 all parts known to him on that day when he refused to swear as 
 to-day: nothing can give him further light as to the intention of 
 his mind, respecting his meaning or not meaning a fraud in the 
 affair. No time can cast further light on the 2^1'esent resolves of the 
 mind; hit time will reconcile, and lias reconciled many a man to 
 that iniquity tvhich he at first abhorred.^ 
 
 This is followed by a note of Collector Mitchell, calling for 
 confirmation of judgment against J.i A brief, dateless letter 
 
 ' The documents respecting the Mireclough prosecution, exclusive of the letter 
 which follows, were found among the official papers of Mr Kerr, who was clerk of 
 the pe.-ice at the time : they are now in the possession of Mr M'Gowan, architect, 
 Dumfries. The answers by Burns arc in his well-known hand, without signature.
 
 LETTER TO CRAUFORD TAIT, ESQ. 140 
 
 of Bums to this gentleman evidently refers to the affair, and 
 shews that the poet was f;ir from being assured that the justices 
 •would decide in favour of the revenue. 
 
 TO COLLECTOR MITCHELL. 
 
 Ellisland [^October 13, 1790.] 
 Sir — I shall not fail to wait on Captain Riddel to-night — I wish 
 and pray that the goddess of justice herself would appear to-morrow 
 among our hon. gentlemen, merely to give them a word in their ear 
 that mercy to the thief is injustice to the honest man. For my part, 
 I have galloped over my ten parishes these four days, until this 
 moment that I am just alighted, or ratlier that my poor jackass- 
 skeleton of a horse lias let me down ; for the miserable devil ha.^ 
 been on his knees half a score of times within the last twenty miles, 
 telling me in liis own way : ' Behold, am not I thy faithful jade of a 
 horse, on which thou hast ridden these many years?' 
 
 In short, sir, I have broke my horse's wind, and almost broke my 
 own neck, besides some injuries in a part that shall be nameless, 
 owing to a hard-hearted stone of a saddle. I find that every offender 
 lias so many great men to espouse his cause, that I shall not be 
 surprised if I am not' committed to the stronghold of the law 
 to-morrow for insolence to the dear friends of the gentlemen of the 
 country. I have the honour to be, sir, your obliged and obedient 
 humble 11. 13. 
 
 IIow the matter ended does not appear. 
 
 TO CRAUFORD TAIT, ESQ., EDINBURGII.- 
 
 Em.island, 15(/i Oclolcr 1790. 
 
 Dear Sir — Allow me to introduce to your acquaintance tlio 
 hearer, Mr Wm. Duncan, a friend of mine, whom I have long known 
 and long loved. His father, wliose only son he is, has a decent little 
 property in Ayrsiiire, and has bred tlic 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 tlian enough, for common life ; as 
 to his heart, when nature had kneaded the kindly clay tliat composes 
 it, slie said : ' I can no more.' 
 
 You, my good sir, were born under kinder stars ; but your fraternal 
 Bympathy, I well know, can enter into the feelings of tiic young man 
 
 I There evidently should he hut one negative in this sentence. 
 * Son of Mr T:iit, of Il.irvieston, where Burna had been bo pleasantly entertained 
 on several occasions ia 1707.
 
 150 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 who goes into life with the laudable ambition to do something, and 
 to he something among his fellow- creatures, but whom the con- 
 sciousness of friendless obscurity presses to the earth, and wounds 
 to the soul ! 
 
 Even the fairest of his \'irtues are against him.^ That independent 
 spirit, and that ingenuous modesty — qualities inseparable from a 
 noble mind — are, with the million, circumstances not a little dis- 
 qualifying. 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 Avhich 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 
 peripiirasis of language, in what circumvolution of phrase, I shall 
 envelop, yet not conceal, this plain story ?— ' My dear Mr Tait, my 
 friend 3Ir 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- 
 covcnant of friendship to Mrs Lewis Hay.i I am a wretch for not 
 writing her ; but I am so hackneyed with self-accusation in that way 
 
 1 Formerly Miss Margaret Chalmers.
 
 ROBERT AINSLIE VISITS ELLISLAND. 151 
 
 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 compli- 
 ments 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. K. B. 
 
 On the day when Burns wi-ote this letter, he received a visit 
 from his young friend Eobert Ainslie. It was the Idrn night, or 
 evening for the celebration of harvest -home, and Ainslie found, 
 besides a sister of Bums and a sister of Mrs Burns, who were 
 ordinary inmates of the house, three male and female cousins who 
 had been assisting in the harvest-work, and a few neighbours of 
 homely character. ' We spent the evening,' says Ainslie in a 
 letter to Mrs M'Lehose, ' in the way common on such occasions, of 
 dancing, and kissing the lasses at the end of every dance.' The 
 guest speaks of Burns's hearty welcome to himself, and of his 
 kind attentions to Mrs Burns, but does not seem to have thought 
 the menage and company worthy of the poet. ' Our friend,' he 
 says, ' is as ingenious as ever, and seems happy with the situation 
 I have described. His mind, however, seems to me to be a great 
 mixture of the poet and exciseman. One day he sits down and 
 writes a beautiful poem — and the next seizes a cargo of tobacco 
 from some unfortunate smuggler, or roups out some poor wretch 
 for selling liquors without a licence. From his conversation, he 
 
 seems to be pretty frequently among the great Having 
 
 found that his farm does not answer, he is about to give it up, 
 and depend wliolly on the Excise.' ^ 
 
 As if to make up by one great effort for the scant attention he 
 had this year given to the Muse, Burns composed in its fall the 
 much -admired poem of Tam o' Shanter. According to the 
 recital of Gilbert Burns, it originated thus : — ' Wien my father 
 feued liis little property near Alloway Kirk, the wall of the church- 
 yard had gone to ruin, and cattle had free liberty of pasture in it. 
 My father and two or three neighbours joined in an application to 
 the town-council of Ayr, who were superiors of the adjoining land, 
 for liberty to rebuild it, and raised by subscription a sum for 
 enclosing this ancient cemetery with a wall : hence he came to 
 consider it as liis burial-place, and we learned that reverence for 
 it people generally have for the burial-place of their ancestors* 
 !My brother was living in Ellisland, when Captain Grose, on his 
 peregrinations through Scotland, stayed some time at Car.sc House 
 in the neighbourhood, with Captain llobert Itiddel of Glenriddel, 
 
 ' Original letter in the possession of tlic late Sir W. C. M'Lehose, grandson of 
 C'larinila.
 
 152 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 a particular friend of my brother's. The antiquary and the poet 
 were "unco pack and thick tliegither." Eobert requested of 
 Captain Grose, wlTt>_ '^he should come to Ayrshire, that he wotild 
 make a drawing of AUoway Kirk, as it was the burial-place of his 
 father, where he himself had a sort of claim to lay down his 
 bones when they should be no longer serviceable to him; and 
 added, by way of encouragement, that it was the scene of many a 
 good story of witches and apparitions, of which he knew the 
 captain was very fond. The captain agreed to the request, 
 provided the poet would furnish a witch-story, to be printed along 
 with it. Tam o' Shunter was produced on this occasion, and was 
 first published in Grose^s Antiqitities of Scotland.'' 
 
 ' The poem,' says Mr Lockhart, ' was the work of one day ; 
 and Mrs Burns well remembers the circumstances. He spent most 
 of the day on his favourite walk by the river, where, in the afternoon, 
 she joined him with some of her children — [there were then only 
 two.] lie was hns'ily crooning to himsel, and Mrs Burns, perceiving 
 that her presence was an interruption, loitered behjmd with her 
 little ones among the broom. Her attention was presently attracted 
 by the strange and wild gesticulations of the bard, who, now at 
 some distance, was agonised with an ungovernable access of joy. 
 He was reciting very loud, and with the teai's rolling down his 
 cheeks, those animated verses which he had just conceived — 
 
 " Now Tam, O Tam ! had tliae been queans, 
 A' plump and strappin' in their teens ; 
 Their sarks, instead o' crecshie flannen, 
 Been snaw-white scventeen-hunder linen ! 
 Thir breeks o' mine, my only pair, 
 That ance were plush, o' guid blue hair, 
 I wad hae gi'en them off my hurdles, 
 For ae blink o" the bonny burdies ! " ' i 
 
 TAM O' SH-INTER : 
 A TALE. 
 
 ' Of bro^^Tiyis and of bogilis full is this buke.' 
 
 Gawin Douglas. 
 
 AVhon chapman billies leave the street, fellows 
 
 And drouthy neibors, neibors meet, 
 
 As market-days are wearing late. 
 
 And folk begin to tak the gate ; road 
 
 ' ' The above,' eays Mr Lockhart, ' is quoted from a manuscript journal of 
 Cromck. Mr M'Diarmid confirms the statement, and adds that the poet, having 
 committed the verses to writing on the top of his sod-dike over the water, came into 
 the buuse, and read them immediately in high triumph at the fireside.'
 
 TAM O' SHANTER. 153 
 
 While we sit bousing at the nappy, 
 And gettin' fou and unco happy, 
 We think na on the lang Scots miles, 
 The mosses, waters, slaps, and stiles, 
 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 Tarn o' Shanter, 
 As he frae Ayr ae night did canter, 
 (Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses 
 Tor honest men and bonnic lasses.) 
 
 O Tam ! liadst thou but been sae wise, 
 
 As ta'en thy ain wife Kate's advice 1 
 
 She tauld thee wcel thou was a skcllum, 
 
 A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum ;l 
 
 That frae November till October, 
 
 Ae market-day thou was na sober; 
 
 That ilka melder,"- wi' the miller, 
 
 Thou sat as lang as thou had siller ; 
 
 That every naig was ca'd a shoe on. 
 
 The smith and thee gat roaring 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 drowned in Doon, 
 
 Or catched wi' warlocks in the mirk, darkness 
 
 By Alloway's auld haunted kirk. 
 
 Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet, causes cry 
 
 To think how mony counsels sweet. 
 How mouy lengthened sage advices. 
 The husband frae the wife despises 1 
 
 But to our tale : — Ac market-night, 
 
 Tam had got planted unco right, 
 
 Fast by an ingle, bleeziug finely, 
 
 Wi' reaming swats, thiit drank divinely; new ale 
 
 And at his elbow, Souter Johnny, 
 
 His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony; 
 
 Tam lo'cd him like a vera brither— 
 
 They had been fou' for weeks thegithcr! 
 
 I ATI ifllo-talkinK fellow. . 
 
 3 'The (iu;uititv of iiuaUTonnd at tlio mill nt onetime.'— iJr/amicton. 
 
 •'• In Scotland, the \illaKe «lure a iiarish chunh is situated is tiBiially called tlio 
 Kirkton. A certain .Kan Kiiincdy, who kept a. reputable public-houflc in the 
 villago of Kirkuswald, is here alluded to.
 
 154 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 The niglit di-ave 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- 
 Tarn didna mind the storm a whistle. 
 
 Care, mad to see a man sae happy. 
 E'en drowned himself amang the nappy ! 
 As bees flee harae wi' lades o' treasure. 
 The minutes winged 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 flower, its bloom is shed ; 
 
 Or like the snowfall in the river, 
 
 A moment white — then melts for ever ji 
 
 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 or 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 
 
 As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in. 
 
 The wind blew as 'twad blawn its last ; 
 The rattling showers rose on the blast ; 
 The speedy gleams the darkness swallowed. 
 Loud, deep, and lang the thunder bellowed : 
 That night, a child might understand, 
 The Deil had business on his hand. 
 
 Weel mounted on his gray marc, Meg, 
 
 A better never lifted leg, 
 
 Tam skelpit on through dub and mire, 
 
 Despising wind, and rain, and fire; 
 
 Whiles holding fast his guid blue bonnet. 
 
 Whiles crooning o'er some auld Scots sonnet ; himiniing 
 
 Whiles glowering round wi' prudent cares, staring 
 
 Lest bogles catch him imawares. 
 
 • C'anidiornivibuB, tunc cum cccidcre recontcs, 
 In lifiuidas nondum quas mora vertit aquas. 
 
 Ovid, Amor, iii 5.
 
 TAJI O' SHANTEK. 155 
 
 Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigli,l 
 Where gliaists and houlets nightly cry. 
 
 By this time he was cross the ford, 
 
 Where iu the snaw the chapman smoored ; smothered 
 
 ' • Alloway Kirk, with its little enclosed burial-ground, stands beside the road 
 from Ayr to Maybolo, about two miles from the former town. The church has long 
 been roofless, but the walls are pretty well preserved, and it still retains its bell at 
 the east end. Upon the whole, the spectator is struck with the idea that the 
 witches must have liad a rather narrow stage for the performance of their revels, as 
 described in the poem. The inner area is now divided by a partition-wall, and one 
 part forms the family burial-place of Mr Cathcart of Blairston. The " winnock- 
 bunker in the east," where sat the awful musician of the partj', is a conspicuous 
 feature, being a small window divided by a thick mullion. Around the building 
 are the vestiges of other openings, at any of which the hero of the tale may be 
 supposed to have looked in upon the hellish scene. Within the last few years the 
 old oaken rafters of the kirk were mostly entire, but they have now been entirely 
 taken away, to form, in various shapes, memorials of a place so remarkably 
 signalised by genius. It is necessary for those who survey tlie ground in reference 
 to the poem, to be informsd that the old road from Ayr to this spot, by which Burns 
 supposed his hero to have approached Alloway Kirk, was considerably to the west 
 of the present one, which, nevertheless, has existed since before the time of Burns. 
 XJpo» a field about a quarter of a mile to the north-west of the kirk, is a single 
 tree enclosed with a paling, the last remnant of a group which covered 
 
 " the cairn 
 
 Whare hunters fand the murdered bairn ; " 
 
 and immediately beyond that object is 
 
 • the ford, 
 
 Whare in the snaw the chapman smoorod ; " 
 
 (namely, a ford over a small bum which soon after joins the Doon) being two 
 J>laccs which Tarn o' Shanter is described as having passed on liis solitary way. 
 The road then made a sweep towards the river, and, passing a well which trickles 
 down into the Doon, where formerly stood a thorn, on whicli an individual, called 
 in the poem " Mungo's mithcr," committed suicide, approached Alloway Kirk 
 ■upon the west. These circumstances maj' here appear trivial, but it is surprising 
 with what interest any visitor to the real scene will in(j\iiro into, and behold 
 every part of it which can be associated, however remotely, with the poem of Tarn 
 o' Shankr. The churchyard contains several old monuments, of a very humble 
 description, marking the resting-places of undistinguished persons, who formerly 
 lived in the neighbourhood, and probably had the usual hercditai-y title to little 
 spaces of ground in this ancient cemetery. Among those persons rests William 
 Bumess, father of the poet, over whose grave the son had piously raised a small 
 Btone, recording his name and the date of his death, together witli the short 
 poetical tribute to his memorj- whicli is copied in the works of the bard. But for 
 this monument, long ago destroyed and carried away piecemeal, there is now 
 substituted one of somewhat liner proportions. But the churchyard of Alloway 
 has now become fashionable with the dead as well as the living. Its little area is 
 absolutely crowded witli modern monuments, referring to persons many of whom 
 have been brought from considerable distances to take tlieir rest in this doubly- 
 consecrated ground. Among these is one to the memory of a person named 
 TjTie, who, visiting the spot some years ago, happened to express a wish that ho 
 might be laid in Alloway Churchyard, and, as fate would have it, was interred in 
 the spot he had pointed out within .a fortnight. Nor is this all; for even the 
 neighbouring gentry are now contending for departments in this fold of tho 
 departed, and it is probable that the elegant mausolca of rank and wealth will sonn 
 be jostling with the stimtcd obelisks of humble worth and noteless povertj'.' — 
 Chambers's Journal, 1833. 
 
 'Oct. 22, 1823, [died] at Doonfoot Mill, Mr David Watt, miller, in the sixty. 
 ciiihth year of his age. He was scliool-fillow with the celebrated Kobcrt Burns, 
 and the last person baptised in Alloway Kiik.'— Magazine Obituary.
 
 156 LIFE AND WOKKS OF BURNS. 
 
 And past the birks and mcikle stane, 
 
 AVhere drunken Charlie bi-ak's neck-bane ; 
 
 And tliroiigh the whins, and by the cairn, gorse 
 
 Where liuntcrs fand the murdered bairn ; 
 
 And near tlie tliorn, aboon the well. 
 
 Where Munfjo's mither handed hersel. 
 
 Before him Doon pours all his floods ; 
 
 The doubling storm roai's through the woods ; 
 
 The lightnings flash from pole to pole, 
 
 Near and more near the thunders roll ; 
 
 When, glimmering through the groaning trees, 
 
 Kirk-Alloway seemed in a bleeze ; 
 
 Through ilka bore the beams were glancing, 
 
 And loud resounded mirth and dancing. 
 
 Inspiring bold John Barle3'corn ! 
 
 AVliat dangers thou canst make us scorn ! 
 
 Wi' tippenny we fear nae evil ; 
 
 Wi' usquebae we'll face the devil ! — 
 
 The swats sae reamed in Tammie's noddle, 
 
 Fair play, he cared na deils a boddle. 
 
 But Maggie stood right sair astonished, 
 
 Till, by the heel and hand admonished, 
 
 She ventured forward on the light ; 
 
 And, wow ! Tam saw an imco sight ! 
 
 Warlocks and witches in a dance ; 
 
 Nae cotillon brent new frae France, 
 
 But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels. 
 
 Put life and mettle in their heels : 
 
 A winnock-bunkcr in the east, 
 
 There sat auld Nick, in shape o' beast ; 
 
 A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large, ehaggy dog 
 
 To gie them music was his charge ; 
 
 He screwed the pipes and gart them skirl, scream 
 
 Till roof and rafters a' did dirl. vibrate 
 
 Coffins stood round, like open presses. 
 
 That shawcd the dead in their last dresses; 
 
 And by some devilish cantrip slight trick 
 
 Each in its cauld hand held a light — 
 
 By which heroic Tam was able 
 
 To note upon the haly table, 
 
 A murderer's bancs in gibbet aims ; 
 
 Twa span-lang, wee unchristcned bairns ; 
 
 A thief, new-cutted frae a rape, 
 
 Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape ; 
 
 Five tomahawks, wi' bluid red-rusted ; 
 
 Five scimitars, wi' murder crusted ; 
 
 A garter which a babe had strangled ; 
 
 A knife, a father's throat had mangled,
 
 TAM O' SHANTER. 
 
 157 
 
 Whom his ain son o' life bereft, 
 The gray hairs yet stack to the heft : 
 Wi' mair o' horrible and awfu', 
 "Which even to name wad be unlawfu'. 
 
 As Tammie glowred, amazed and curious, 
 
 The mirth and fun grew fast and furious: 
 
 The piper loud and louder blew ; 
 
 The dancers quick and quicker flew; 
 
 They reeled, they set, tiiey crossed, they cleekit, linked 
 
 Till ilka carline swat and reekit, smoked 
 
 And coost her duddies to tlio wark, clothes 
 
 And linket at it in her sark ! 
 
 Now Tam, Tarn ! had thae been queans, 
 
 A' plump and strappin' in their teens ; 
 
 Their sarks, instead o' creeshie flannen, greasy 
 
 Been snaw- white seventeen-hunder linen ! ' 
 
 Thir breeks o' mine, my only pair. 
 
 That ance were plush, o' guid blue hair, 
 
 I wad hae gi'en them oft' my hurdles, 
 
 For ac blink o' the bonnie burdiesi 
 
 ]3ut witliered beldams, auld and droll, 
 
 Rigwoodie- hags, wad spean a foal, wean 
 
 Loiiping and Hinging on a cummock, stick 
 
 I wonder didna turn thy stomach. 
 
 But Tam kenned what was what fu' brawlic ; 
 There was ac winsome wench and walie, 
 Tliat night eidisted in the core, 
 (Lang after kenned on Carrick shore ; 
 For mony a beast to dead she shot, 
 And perished mony a bonnie boat, 
 And shook baith meikle corn and bear, 
 And kept the country-side in fear.) 
 Her cutty-sark, o' Paisley liarn, 
 That while a lassie she had worn. 
 In longitude tliough sorely scanty, 
 It was iier best, and she was vauntie — 
 Ah ! little ken)ied thy reverend grannio 
 That sark slie coft for lier wee Nannie, 
 Wi' twa pund Scots ('twas a' her riches), 
 Wad ever graced a dance o' witches! 
 
 But liere my JIuse her wing maun cour, 
 Sic flights arc far beyond her jiower; 
 
 goodly 
 
 short shift 
 
 ' ' The manufacturer'a tcmi fur a fine linen, woven in a rccd of 17C0 divisions.'— 
 Ornmck. 
 " Worthy of the gallows.
 
 158 
 
 LIFE AND WOKKS OF BUKNS. 
 
 To sing how Nannie lap and flang, 
 
 (A sonple jad she was and Strang,) 
 
 And how Tarn stood Hke ane bewitchedj 
 
 And thought his very een enriched ; 
 
 Even Satan glowred and fidged fu' fain, 
 
 And hotched and blew wi' might and main : 
 
 Till first ae caper, syne anithei', 
 
 Tarn tint his reason a' thegither, 
 
 And roars out, ' Weel done, Cutty-sark !' 
 
 And in an instant all was dark : 
 
 And scarcely had he Maggie rallied, 
 
 AVhen out the hellish legion sallied. 
 
 As bees bizz out wi' angry fyke, fret 
 
 When plundering herds assail their byke ; nest 
 
 As open pussie's mortal foes, the hare 
 
 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 screech and hollow. frightful 
 
 Ah, Tarn! ah, Tam ! thou '11 get thy fairin'! 
 
 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 keystane^ o' tlie brig; 
 
 There at them thou thy tail may toss, 
 
 A running stream they darcna cross! 
 
 But ere the keystane she could make, 
 
 The fient a tail she had to shake ! 
 
 For Nannie, far before the rest, 
 
 Hard upon noble Maggie prest, 
 
 And flew at Tam wi' furious ettle, cndeavotu 
 
 But little wist she Maggie's mettle — 
 
 Ae spring brought off her master hale. 
 
 But left behind her ain gray tail : 
 
 The carline claught her by the rump. 
 
 And left poor Maggie scarce a stump. 
 
 Now, wha tliis tale o' truth shall read. 
 
 Ilk man and mother's son take heed : 
 
 Whene'er to drink you are inclined, . 
 
 Or cutty-sarks run in your mind, 
 
 Think ! ye may buy the joys ower dear — 
 
 Eemember Tam o' Shanter's mare. 
 
 1 It is a well-known fact that witches, or any evil spirits, have no power to 
 follow a poor wight any farther than the middle of the next running stream. It 
 may be proper likewise to mention to the benighted traveller, that when he falls 
 in with hoiiles, whatever danger may be in his going forward, there is much more 
 hazard in turning back.— B.
 
 lege:<ds op allow ay kirk. 159 
 
 It appears tliat Burns originally sent his Alloway - Kirk 
 ■witch-stories in a plain prose recital as follows : — 
 
 TO FEANCIS GROSE, ESQ. 
 
 I 
 
 Amoxg the many -witch-stories I have heard relating to Alloway 
 Kirk, I distinctly remember only tvv'o or tliree. 
 
 I'pon 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 shewed itself to 
 proceed from the haunted edifice. AVhether ho 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 had 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 kii'k. 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, &c. 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 damnable 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 bo equally authentic, was as 
 follows : — 
 
 On a market-day in the town of Ayi-, a farmer from Carrick, and 
 consequently whose way lay by the very gate of Alloway Kirkyard, 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 liis business, till by the time lie reached Alloway it was the wizard 
 hour, between night and morning. 
 
 Though lie was terrified with a blaze streaming from the kirk, yet 
 as it is a well-known fact, that to turn biuk on these occasions is 
 running by far the greatest risk of mischief, he prudently advanced 
 on his road. "When he liad reached the gate of the kirkyard, ho was 
 surprised and entertained, through the ribs and arches of an old Gothic 
 window, which still faces tlie liighway, to see a danco of witches 
 merrily footing it round their old sooty blackguard master, who was 
 keeping them all alivo with the power of his bagpipe. The farmer.
 
 ICO LIFE AND WOEKS OF BURNS. 
 
 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 tliat 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 be 
 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 thorn 
 actually sprang 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 liour 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, 1 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, liad 
 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 fiew off, like Pegasus, through 
 the air with its rider. T)ie foolish boy likewise pulled his ragwort, and 
 cried with the rest, ' Up horsie!' and, strange to tell, away he flew 
 with the company. The fii'st stage at which the cavalcade stopt was 
 a merchant's wine-cellar in Bordeaux, where, without saying by 
 your leave, they quaffed away at the best the cellar could aftbrd, 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, lieedlcssly 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 tlie 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. E. B.i 
 
 ' This letter was communicated by Mr Gilchrist, of Stamford, to Sir Egerton 
 Brj-dges, by whom it was published in the Ccnsura Literaria, 1796.
 
 THE KEAL TAM O' SIIANTER. 161 
 
 The country people in Ayrshire, contrary to their wont, 
 umnythicise the narrations of Burns, and point both to a real 
 Tam and Souter Johnny and to a natural occurrence as the basis 
 of the tiction. Their story is as follows: — The hero was an 
 honest farmer named Douglas Graham, who lived at Shanter, 
 between Tuniberry and Colzean. His wife, Helen M'Taggart, 
 was much addicted to superstitious beliefs. Graham, dealing in 
 malt, went to Ayr every market-day, wliitlier he was frequently 
 accompanied by a shoemaking neighbour, John Davidson, who 
 dealt a little in leather. The two would often linger to a late 
 hour in the tavci'ns at the market-town. One night, when riding 
 home more than usually late by himself in a storm of wind and 
 rain, Graham, in passing over Brown Carrick Hill near the Bridge 
 of ])oon, lost his bonnet, which contained the money he had 
 drawn that day at the market. To avoid the scolding of his wife, 
 he imposed upon her credulity with a story of witches seen at 
 Alloway Kirk, but did not the less return to the Carrick Hill to 
 seek for his money, which he had the satisfaction to find with his 
 bonnet in a plantation near the road. It is supposed that Burns, 
 when in his youth living among the Carrick farmers at Kirk- 
 oswald, became acquainted with Graliam and Davidson, studied 
 their grotesque habits, and heard of their various adventures, 
 including that of Alloway Kirk, thougli perhaps without learning 
 that it was the imposture of a imsband upon a too-credulous wife. 
 Douglas (Jraliam and John Davidson, tlie supposed originals of 
 Tam o' Shanter and Souter Johnny, have long reposed in the 
 churchyard of Kirkoswald, where the former has a handsome 
 monument, bearing a pious inscription. 
 
 Tiie poem dul}' appeared in Grose's work, in connection with a 
 plate of Kirk- Alloway, and with a note of the editor, some of the 
 terms of which will scarcely fail to amuse the modern reader: — 
 
 ' To my inf/rnious friend, l\Ir Kobert Burns, I have been seriously 
 obligated : he was not only at the pains of making out what was 
 most worthy of notice in Ayrshire, the county honoured by his 
 birth, but lie also wrote, expressly for this work, the prtitij tale 
 annexed to Alloway Church.' 
 
 Poor Grose's work appeared at the end of April 1791, and lie 
 liimself died suddenly at Dublin about three weeks after. 
 
 Mrs Dunlop had tlils summer umlergoiie a severe domestic 
 affliction. Her daugliter Susan liad married a Frencli gentleman 
 named Henri, of good birth and fortune, and tlie young couple lived 
 happily at ]-,oudoun Castle in Ayrshire, wiien (.June 22, 17!)0) the 
 gentleman sank under the cft'octs of a severe cold, leaving his 
 wife pregnant. The l)irth of a son and heir in tlie subsequent 
 November is the theme of an exulting letter of Burns. 
 
 VOL. III. K
 
 1G2 LIFE AND "WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 TO MRS DUNLOP. ' 
 
 Ellisland, [latter part o/] Novcmher 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 swg for joy is no new thing ; but to pj-eacA 
 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 my left hand, 
 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 i 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 : — 
 
 STANZAS OK THE BIRTH OF A POSTHUMOI]^ CHILD, BORN UNDER 
 PECULIAR CIRCUMSTANCES OF FAMILY DISTRESS. 
 
 Sweet flov/eret, pledge o' meikle love, 
 
 And ward o' mony a prayer. 
 What heart o' stane wad thou na move, 
 
 Sae helpless, sweet, and fair ! 
 
 November hirples o'er the lea limps 
 
 Chill on thy lovely form ; 
 And gane, alas ! the sheltering tree 
 
 Should shield thee frae the storm. ♦ 
 
 May He vv'ho gives the rain to pour, 
 
 And wings the blast to blaw, 
 Protect thee frae the driving shower, 
 
 The bitter frost and snaw ! 
 
 May He, the friend of wo and want. 
 
 Who heals life's various stounds, pangs 
 
 Protect and guard the mother-plant, 
 And heal her cruel wounds ! 
 
 ' Mrs Little was a poetical milkmaid in the Bervice of Mrs Ilenri at Loudoun 
 Castle. For an account of her see Contemporaries of Burns. Edinburgh : 1840.
 
 HISTORY OF THE POSTHUMOUS SON. 163 
 
 Eut late she flourished, rooted fast, 
 
 Fair on the suinmer morn ; 
 Now, feebly bends she in the blast. 
 
 Unsheltered and forlorn. 
 
 Blest be thy bloom, thou lovely gem, 
 
 Unscathed by ruffian hand ! 
 And from thee many a parent stem 
 
 Arise to deck our land! 
 
 I am much flattered by your approbation of my Tam o' Shanter, 
 Tvhich you express in your former letter, though, by the by, you 
 load me in that said letter with accusations heavy and many, to 
 all which I plead, 7iot 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 i lately. He, in consequence of your recom- 
 mendation, 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. ■"• ■"• 
 
 The subsequent history of Mrs Henri and her son is in some 
 points worthy of being commemorated. In a subsequent letter 
 Burns deplores her dangerous and distressing situation in France, 
 exposed to the tumults of the Eevolution; and he has soon after 
 occasion to condole with his venerable friend on the death of her 
 daughter in a foreign land. When this sad event took place the 
 orplian child fell under the immediate care of his paternal grand- 
 father, who, however, was soon obliged to .take refuge in Switzer- 
 land, leaving the infant behind him. Years passed— he and the 
 Scotch friends of the child heard nothing of it, and concluded that 
 it was lost. At length, when the elder Henri was enabled to 
 return to his ancestral domains, he had the unspeakable satis- 
 faction of finding that his grandson and heir was alive and well, 
 having never been removed from the place. The child had been 
 protected and reared with the greatest care by a worthy female 
 named Mademoiselle Susette, formerly a domestic of the family. 
 This excellent person had even contrived, through all the levelling 
 violences of the intervening period, to preserve in her young 
 charge the feelings appropriate to his rank. Though absolutely- 
 indebted to her industry for his bread, she had caused him always 
 to be seated by himself at table and regularly waited on, so that 
 
 > One of the gcncr.il supcr\'isor3 of E.tcise,
 
 1G4 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 the otherwise plebeian circumstances in which he lived did not 
 greatly aft'ect him. The subject of Burns's stanzas Avas a very- 
 few years ago proprietor of tlie family estates; and it is agi'eeable 
 to add, that Mademoiselle Susette then lived in his paternal 
 mansion, in the enjoyment of that grateful respect to which her 
 lidelity and discretion so eminently entitled her. 
 
 TO WILLIAM DUNBAR, W. S. 
 
 Ellisland, Vith Janvarjj 1791. 
 
 I AM not gone to Elysium, most noble colonel,^ 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 tlie 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 
 bloodhounds of misfortune never track his stejis, 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 bo he that curseth thee ! ! !' 
 
 As a further 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 
 wisliing you only to shew 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, K. B. 
 
 TO MR PETER HILL. 
 
 Ellisland, \']lh January 17!)!. 
 Take those two- guineas, and place them overagainst that damned 
 account of yours, which has gaggedmy mouth these five or six months! 
 I can as little write good things as apologies to the man I owe money 
 to. O the suprome curse of making three guineas do the business 
 of five! Not all the labours of Hercules; not all tlie Hebrews' three 
 centuries of Egyptian bondage, were such an insuperable business, such 
 an infernal task ! ! Poverty ! thou half-sister of death, thou cousin- 
 genuan of liell!— where shall I find force of execration equal to the 
 amplitude of thy demerits ? Oppressed by thee, the venerable ancient, 
 grown hoary in tiic practice of every virtue, laden with years and 
 wretchedness, implores a little, little aid to support his existence, 
 
 "So styled SB president of the convivial society called the Crochallan Feneiblos. 
 
 - In the orifjinal account, y.-nes Mr Thomas Thorburn, Dumfries, Hill enters £;!, 3s. 
 to Hiirns't credit under January 20, 17!)1, leaving a balance to debit of £3, 7s. 5d. It is 
 probable that two guineas haa been written or printed by mistake for three.
 
 PECUNIARY CIRCUMSTANCES OF BURNS. 165 
 
 from a stony-hearted son of Mammon, whose sun of prosperity never 
 knew a cloud, and is hy him denied and insulted. Oppressed by thee, 
 tlie 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 contumely of arrogant, unfeeling wealth. 
 Oppressed by thee, the sou of genius, whoso ill-starred ambition 
 plants luni 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 
 liave reason to complain of thee — ^ the children of folly and vice, 
 though in conmion with thee the ofif'spring 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. Lut far otherwise is the lot of the man 
 of family and fortime. — His early follies and extravagance are spirit 
 and fire ; hif> consequent wants are the embarrassments of an honest 
 fellow; and when, to remedy the matter, he has gained a legal com- 
 mission to plunder distant provinces, or massacre peaceful nations, he 
 I'cturns, perhaps, laden with the spoils of I'apinc and murder; lives 
 wiciced and respected, and dies a scoundrel and a lord. Nay, worst of 
 all, alas for hcli)less woman ! — the needy prostitute, who has shivered 
 at the corner of the street, waiting to earn the wages of casual pros- 
 titution, is left neglected and insulted, ridden down by the chariot- 
 wheels of the coroncted Rir, lun-rying on to the guilty assignation — 
 slie who, without the same necessities to plead, riots nightly in the 
 same guilty trade. 
 
 Well, divines may say of it what they please, but execration 
 is to the mind what phlebotomy is to the body — the vital 
 sluices of botli are wonderfully relieved by their respective 
 evacuations. 11. B. 
 
 As poverty, or at least narrowness of circumstances, has been 
 painfully associated with the name of ]kirns, it is of importance 
 to note at what time, after his sudden transient access of fortune, 
 his purse again became light, lie certainly was at ease in this 
 respect down to the early part of 1790, when lie proffered assist- 
 ance to his youngest brotlier "William, in tlie event of its being 
 wanted. Even in the fall of that year, when the death of William 
 in London caused an unexpected call to be made upon the poet 
 for tlie disc'harge of the expenses iiuuirred by the sickness and 
 funeral of tiic young man, it appears that payment was promj)tly 
 made.' AVe learn from the above letter that Burns iiad for some 
 
 ' This appcirs from .a letter founfl aninnt; Hiirns"R pnpcra, nml now in tlio 
 pusscesion of Blr Thomas Thorburn, DuinfriuB. 'To .Mr Uohkut 1{i'uns>.— Sir— I
 
 1G6 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 months before the close of 1790 begun to feel himself in some 
 embarrassment for money. What is more, the debt which had 
 gagged him with respect to his friend Hill appears to have been 
 comparatively a trifle — only £6, 10s. 5d. To send £3, 3s. towards 
 an account for a sum so little larger, certainly illustrates in some 
 degree the 'supreme curse of making three guineas do the 
 business of five.' It is, nevertheless, equally true and curious that 
 we have to see Burns at this ci'isis in the new and unexpected 
 character of an accommodator or creditor. It is a trivial affair, 
 which would not be worth noting in the life of any ordinary man. 
 In that of Burns, considering how exclusively we have hitherto 
 heard of him as a poor man, in the way of being patronised 
 by others, even the smallest matter on the other side has some 
 interest. There was a certain Alexander Crombie, a builder 
 at Dalswinton, who had reared the farm - edifices at Ellisland, 
 and whom Burns had probably found to be a good fellow 
 struggling with the difficulties of inadequate capital. A bill 
 lies before me, di-awn by Burns for £20, under date ' Dumfries, 
 December 15, 1790,' at three months, and accepted by Crombie. 
 It is indorsed by Burns to Mr David Staig, agent for the Bank of 
 Scotland at Dumfries. An instrument of protest for non-payment 
 of this bill, drawn up on the 18th of March 1791, is also preserved, 
 shewing that Crombie had not been ready to withdraw it at the 
 proper time. This, after the lapse of some time, had been 
 intimated to the poet by a letter from Mr James Gracie, an officer 
 in the bank, and we obtain from another source a note of Burns 
 in answer thereto : — 
 
 Globe Inn, 8 o'clock p.m. 
 Sir — I liave your letter ancnt Crombie's bill. Your forbearance 
 lias been very great. I did it to accommodate the tliouglitless fellow. 
 He asks till Wednesday week. If he fail, I pay it myself. In the 
 meantime, if horning and caption be absolutely uGccssary, grip him by 
 the neck, and welcome. Yours, Egbert Burns. 
 
 It is perhaps just barely worthy of being mentioned, that Mr 
 Hill signs a quittance for payment in full to Burns, 5th December 
 1791, when the poet would probably be somewhat more in cash 
 than for some time before, in consequence of the sale of his 
 farming effects. The sum was £8, 16s. 8d. 
 
 The books collected by a man being an index of his taste, it 
 may be curious to see what those were which Burns obtained from 
 
 received your favour of the 5th instant this day, containing a bill for the money 
 expended in your deceased brother's sicUneES and funeral. Wishing you all health 
 and happiness, I am, air, your very humble servant, W. Barber.— iira«d, Oct. 8,
 
 ELEGY ON MISS EUENET. 167 
 
 Peter Hill. "We find tliem to have been as follows : — Letters on 
 the Religion Essential to Man ; Peregrine Pickle ; Count Fathom ; 
 Launcelot Greaves ; a Family Bible (£2) ; Johnson's English 
 Dictionary, 8vo edition; Shakspeare; Ossian's Poems; Smellie's 
 Philosophy of Natural History ; The World ; Garrick's Works ; 
 Gibber's Works — all of these prior to March 6, 1790 ; the 
 remainder on the 20th January 1791 — The Adventurer; Arabian 
 Nights' Entertainments; Joseph Andrews; Roderick Random; The 
 Scots Worthies ; Marrow of Modern Divinity ; Cole on God's 
 Sovereignty ; Newton's Letters ; Confession of Faith ; Boyle's 
 Voyages; Blair's Sermons; Guthrie's Grammar ; Buchan's Domestic 
 Medicine; Price on Providence and Prayer; Don Quixote; The 
 Idler. It thus appears that Burns loved Fielding and Smollett, 
 the English essayists and dramatists, and books of liberal divinity. 
 Besides books, the amount includes £1, lis. 6d. for a copy of 
 Ainslie's IMap of Scotland on rollers. Burns would of course love 
 to see ' Caledonia stem and wild,' his ' auld respected mother,' hung 
 up in full view in his best room. 
 
 » 
 
 TO MR CUNNINGHAM. 
 
 Ellisland, 23d January 1791. 
 
 Many happy returns of the season to you, my dear friend ! As 
 many of the good things of this life as is consistent with the usual 
 mixture of good and evil in the cup of being ! 
 
 I have just finished a poem — Tarn r> Shanter — which you will 
 receive enclosed. It is my first essay in the way of tales. 
 
 I have these several months been liammering at an elegy on the 
 amiable and accomplished !SIiss Burnet.' I have got, and can get, no 
 farther than the following fragment, on which please give me your 
 strictures. In all kinds of poetic composition, I set great store by 
 your opinion ; but in sentimental verses, in the poetry of the heart, 
 no Roman Catholic ever set more value on the infallibility of the 
 Holy Father than I do on yours. 
 
 I mean the introductory couplets as text verses. 
 
 ELEGY ON THE LATE MISS BURNET OF MONBODDO. 
 
 Life ne'er exulted in so rich a prize 
 
 As Burnet, lovely from her native slvics ; 
 
 Nor envious death so triumphed in a blow, 
 
 As that which laid th' accomplished Burnet low. 
 
 > This beautiful oro.ituro, to whom Hums paid so hi'-!li a complimrnt in his 
 address to Edinburijii, had been carried off by eonsuniption, 17th June 1790.
 
 168 LIFE AND WOKKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Thy form and mind, sweet maid, can I forget ? 
 In ri(;liest ore tlie brightest jewel set ! 
 In thee, high Heaven above was truest sliewn, 
 As by his noblest work the Godhead best is known. 
 
 In vain j'c flaunt in summer's pride, ye groves ; 
 
 Thou crystal streamlet with tliy flowery sliorc, 
 Ye Avoodland choir that chant j'our idle loves. 
 
 Ye cease to charm— Eliza is no more ! 
 
 Ye heathy wastes, immixed with reed}' fens ; 
 
 Ye mossy streams, with sedge and rushes stored ; 
 Ye rugged cliffs, o'erhangiug dreary glens, 
 
 To you I fly, ye witli my soul accord. 
 
 Princes, whose cumbrous pride was all their worth, 
 
 8Iiall venal lays their jiompous exit hail ? 
 And thou, sweet excellence ! forsake our earth, 
 
 And not a muse in honest grief bewail ? 
 
 We saw thee shine in youth and beauty's pride, 
 
 And virtue's light, that beams beyond the spheres ; 
 
 But, like tlio sun eclipsed at morning-tide, 
 Thou left'st us darkling in a world of tears. 
 
 The parent's heart that nestled fond in thee, 
 That heart how sunk, a i)rey to grief and care ; 
 
 So decked the woodbine sweet yon aged tree ; 
 iSo from it ravished, leaves it bleak and bare. 
 
 Let me hear from you soon. Adieu ! R. B. 
 
 The licv. Archibald Alison, a clergyman of the English Church, 
 but connected with .Scotland, and ultimately for many years 
 minister of one of the Episcopal chapels in Edinburgh, had at 
 this time produced his celebrated Essay on Taste. Having become 
 acquainted with Burns in Edinburgh, he sent a copy of the book 
 to Ellisland. 
 
 TO THE REV. ARCHIBALD AtlSON. 
 
 Ellisland, WU Feb. 17!)1. 
 '^^^ — You must by this time have set me down as one of the most 
 tingratefid of men. You did me the honour to present me with a 
 book which does honour to science and the intellectual powers of 
 inan, and I have not even so much as acknowledged the receipt of it. 
 The fact is, you yourself are to blame for it. Flattei-cd 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
 
 BURKS ON THE DOCTRINE OF ASSOCIATION. 169 
 
 of tlie sins that most easily beset mc, 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 fiist 
 principles. I own, sir, that at first glance several of your propositions 
 startled me as paradoxical. That the martial clangour of a trumjiet 
 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, wlien the half-blown flower is heavy with the tears of the 
 dawn, was infinitely more beautiful and elegant than the ui)riglit 
 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 siiook my faith. In short, 
 sir, except Euclid's Elements of Gcometri/, which I made a shift to 
 imravel 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 
 <piantum of information, and added so much to my stock of ideas, 
 as your Essays on the Principles of Taste. One thing, sir, you must 
 foi-give my mentioning as an uncommon merit in the work — I mean 
 the language. To clothe abstract philosophy in elegance of stylo 
 sounds something like a contradiction in terms; but you have con- 
 vinced me that they are (piite conii)atible. 
 
 I enclose 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, &c. R. B. 
 
 This is the letter which Dugald Stewart, in liis communication 
 to Dr Currie respecting Burns — printed in the memoir written by 
 that gentleman — says he read witli surprise, as evincing that the 
 unlettered Ayr.sliire Bard had formed ' a distinct conception of tlie 
 general principles of the doctrine of association.' The doctrine is one 
 peculiar, we believe, to the Scotch school of mctapliysicians, and 
 mainly consists in an assertion, that our ideas of beauty in objects 
 of all kinds arise from our associating witli them some other ideas 
 of an agreeable kind. For instance, our notion of beauty in the 
 cheek of a pretty maiden arises from our notions of licr liealth, 
 innocence, and .so forth : our notion of the beauty of a Highland 
 prospect, such as the Trosaclis, from our notions of the romantic 
 kind of life formerly led in it ; as if there were no female beauty 
 independent of both health and innocence, or fine scenery where 
 men had not formerly worn tartans and claymores. The whole 
 of the above letter of Burns is in reality — though perhaps unmeant 
 by him — a satire on this doctrine, whicli, notwithstanding the 
 eloquence of an Alison, a !?tewart, and a JefTrey, must now be 
 considered as amongst the dreams of pliilosophy.
 
 170 LIFE AND WORKS OF BUFtXS. 
 
 TO MRS GRAHAM OF FINTRT. 
 
 Ellisland, [_Februarp'] 1791. 
 Madam — Whether it is that the story of our Mary Queen of Scots 
 has a peculiar effect on the feelings of a poet, or whether I have in 
 the enclosed ballad succeeded beyond my usual poetic success, I 
 know not, but it has pleased me beyond any eftbrt of my Muse for 
 a good while past ; on that account I enclose it particularly to you. 
 It is true the purity of my motives may be suspected. I am already 
 deeply indebted to Mr Graham's goodness ; and wliat, in the usual 
 ways of men, is of infinitely greater importance, Mr G. can do me 
 service of the utmost importance in time to come. 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 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 inde- 
 pendent mind! It is no fault of mine that I was born to dependence, 
 nor is it Mr Graham's chiefest praise that he can command influence : 
 but it is liis merit to bestow, not only with the kindness of a brother, 
 but with the politeness of a gentleman, and I trust it shall be mine 
 to receive with thankfulness, and remember with undiminished 
 gratitude. R. B. 
 
 LAMENT 
 
 MAUY QUEEN OF SCOTS ON THE AFPROACH OF SPRING. 
 
 Now Nature hangs her mantle green 
 
 On every blooming tree. 
 And spreads her sheets o' daisies white 
 
 Out o'er the grassy lea : 
 Now Phajbus cheers the crystal streams, 
 
 And glads the azure skies ; 
 Eut nought can glad the weary wight 
 
 That fast in durance lies. 
 
 Now lav'rocks wake the merry morn, 
 
 Aloft on dewy wing ; 
 The merle, in his noontide bower. 
 
 Makes woodland echoes ring ; 
 The mavis wild wi' mony a note. 
 
 Sings drowsy day to rest : 
 In love and freedom they rejoice, 
 
 Wi' care nor thrall opprest.
 
 LAMENT OF MAEY QUEEN OF SCOTS. 171 
 
 Now blooms the lily by the bank, 
 
 The primrose down the brae ; 
 The hawthorn's budding in the glen, 
 
 And milk-Avhite is the slae ; 
 The meanest hind in fair Scotland 
 
 May rove their sweets apiang ; 
 But I, the queen of a' Scotland, 
 
 Maun lie in prison Strang ! 
 
 I was the queen o' bonnie France, 
 
 Where happy I hae been ; 
 Fu' lightly rase I in the morn, 
 
 As blithe lay down at e'en : 
 And I 'm the sovereign of Scotland, 
 
 And mony a traitor there ; 
 Yet here I lie in foreign bands. 
 
 And never-ending care. 
 
 But as for thee, thou false woman ! 
 
 My sister and my fae, 
 Grim vengeance yet shall whet a sword 
 
 That through thy soul shall gae ! 
 The weeping blood in woman's breast 
 
 Was never known to thee ; 
 Nor th' balm that draps on wounds of wo 
 
 Frae woman's pitying e'e. 
 
 My son ! my son ! may kinder stars 
 
 Upon thy fortune shine ! 
 And may those pleasures gild thy reign. 
 
 That iie'er wad blink on mine ! 
 God keep tlice frae thy mother's faes, 
 
 Or turn their hearts to thee : 
 And where thou mect'st thy mother's friend, 
 
 Remember him for me! 
 
 O soon, to me, may summer suns 
 
 Nae niair liglit up the morn ! 
 Nac mair, to me, the autmnn winds 
 
 Wave o'er the yellow corn ! 
 And in the narrow house o' death 
 
 Let winter round me rave ; 
 And the next flowers that deck the spring 
 
 Bloom on my peaceful grave !
 
 172 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 TO DR MOOUE. 
 
 Elmsland, SEiVt Fchruanj 1791. 
 
 I DO not know, sir, whether you are a subscriber to Grose's Anti- 
 quities of Scotland. If you are, tlie enclosed 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 mc another opportunity of thanking 
 you for all your goodness to the rustic bard, and also of shewing you 
 that the abilities you have been pleased to commend and patronise 
 arc still employed in the way you wish. 
 
 The Elcgj on Captain Haidcrson is a tribute to the memory of a 
 man I loved much. Poets have in this the same advantage as 
 Iioman Catholics : tliey can be of service to their friends after they 
 have passed that bourne where all other kindness ceases to be of 
 avail. AVhether, 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 
 •ielight. As almost all my religious tenets originate from my heart, 
 I am wonderfully pleased with the idea tliat I can still keep up a 
 tender intercourse witli the dearly -beloved friend, or still more 
 dearly-beloved mistress, avIio is gone to the world of spirits. 
 
 The ballad on Queen Mary was begun while I was busy with 
 Perajs Rdiqiics of EiUjUsh. Poetry. By the wa}', how much is every 
 lionest heart, which has a tincture of Caledonian prejudice, obliged 
 to you for your glorious story of Buchanan and Targe ! 'Twas an 
 unequivocal proof of j-our loyal gallantry of soul giving Targe the 
 victory. I should have been mortified to tlie ground if you had not.i 
 
 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 particularly above the rest, and one or two which, with humble 
 deference, I am disposed to think unequal to the merits of the 
 book. I liave sometimes thought to transcribe these marked 
 pass.ages, or at least so nnich 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 unhajtpily his dramatis personam are beings of another 
 world ; and, however they may captivate the inexperienced, romantic 
 
 ' In Dr Moore's novel lUichnnan represents the Lowland puritan feeling of 
 Scotland, Targe tlio cavalier lligliland spirit. In a light arising fi-om a quarrel 
 about the honour of (iuetn Mary, Targe is victor.
 
 BUnXS STILL RHYMES FOR FUN. 173 
 
 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. I am not yet employed 
 as such, but in a few years I shall fall into the file of sujjervisorshij) 
 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 ])rince's friends had 
 got in — and every dog you knoiv has his day — my getting forward 
 in the Excise would have been an easier business than otherwise it 
 will be. Thoutth this was a consummation devoutlv 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 
 by the Disposer of events as to see that period, iix 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 : JJdter be the head o' the commonalti/ than the tail o' the 
 (jcntry. 
 
 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 
 Jiave the honour to be, yours, k,c. K. B. 
 
 Dr Moore's answer to this letter contained some cold criticism 
 on 'Tam o' Shanter and Matthew Henderson, but on another point 
 spoke what all will feel to have been good sense : ' I cannot helj) 
 thinking you imprudent in scattering abroad so many copies of 
 your verses. It is most natural to give a few to contidential 
 ffiends, particularly to tliose who are connected with the subject, 
 or who are perhaps themselves the subject; but this ought to be 
 done under promise not to give other copies. Of the poem you 
 sent me on Queen j\Iary I refused every solicitation for copies ; 
 but I lately saw it in a newspaper. My motive for cautioning 
 you on this subject is, that I wish to engage you to collect ail 
 your fugitive pieces, not already printed, and after they liave 
 been reconsidered and polished to the utmost of your power, 
 I would have you publisli them Ijy another subscription ; hi 
 promoting of which I will exert myself with pleasure.' 
 
 Burns seems never to have been willing to listen to any such 
 scheme. To write poetry for the j/tirjxMc of making money by it 
 he regarded with abhorrence ; to publish a second volume of poems 
 like tlie first was only, he feared, to expose himself to tlie morti- 
 lication of hearing it pronounced interior, lie still, as iu the old
 
 174 LIFE AND WORKS OP BURNS. 
 
 ]Mossgiel days, 'rhymed. for fun;' or if lie acknowledged other 
 motives, they were none of them mercenary. He was ever ready, 
 for example, to do what he could to oblige or gratify a friend ; he 
 would write in obedience to his own whimsical impulses : above 
 all things, he delighted to improve and add to that glorious inheri- 
 tance of old songs which his country possessed. At this very 
 time — February 8th — the Eev. Mr Baird i wrote to ask him to take 
 some trouble hi editing the poems of poor Michael Bruce for the 
 benefit of his aged and helpless mother — begging, moreover, for a 
 few poems of Burns's own, to help out the bulk of the volume. 
 Burns's answer is highly characteristic : 
 
 TO THE KEV. G. BAIRD. 
 
 Ellisland, l_February'] 1791. 
 Eeverend Sir — Why did you, my dear sir, write to me in such a 
 hesitating style on the business of poor Bruce ? Don't I know, and 
 have I not felt, the many ills, the peculiar ills, that poetic flesh is 
 heir to 1 You shall have your choice of all the unpublished poems 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 prefa- 
 tory 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 genero- 
 sity in my part of the business. I have such a host of peccadil- 
 loes, 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 retrospec- 
 tion. E. B. 
 
 It nevertheless does not appear that the edition of Bruce sub- 
 sequently published contained any poems by Burns. 
 
 TO MR CUNNINGHAM. 
 
 Ellisland, 12/7j March 1791. 
 If the foregoing piece be worth your strictures, let me have them. 
 For my own part, a thing that I have just composed always appears 
 through a double portion of that partial medium in which an author 
 
 1 Afterwards Principal of the University of Edinbursh.
 
 LETTER TO MR CUNNINGHAM. 175 
 
 will ever view his own works. I believe, in general, novelty has 
 something in it that inebriates the fancy, and not unfrequently dissi- 
 pates 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 oiSce 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. 
 
 [there'll never be peace till JAMIE COMES HAME.] 
 
 By yon castle wa', at the close of the day, 
 
 I heard a man sing, though his head it was gray ; 
 
 And as he was singing, the tears fast 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 darena weel say't, though we ken wha's to blame, 
 
 There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame. 
 
 My seven braw sons for Jamie drew sword. 
 And now I greet round their green beds in the yerd. 
 It brak the sweet heart of my faithfu' auld dame — 
 There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame. 
 Now life is a burden that bows me down. 
 Since I tint my bairns, and he tint his crown ; 
 But till my last moments my words are the same — 
 There '11 never be peace till Jamie comes hame ! 
 
 If you like the air, and if the stanzas hit your fancy, yon 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 kcystanc. 
 
 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 rest, 
 
 That happy my dreams and my slumbers may be j 
 
 Far, far in the west is he I loc best. 
 
 The lad that is dear to my babie and me ! 
 
 Goodnight once more, and God bless you ! R. B.
 
 17G LIFE AND WOKKS OF BURNS. 
 
 At the close of January, Burns met a serious loss, both as 
 respecting his fortunes and his feelings, in the death of his amiable 
 patron James, Earl of Glencairn, Avho, after returning from a futile 
 voyage to Lisbon in search of health, died at Falmouth, in the 
 forty-second year of his age. The deep, earnest feeling of gratitude 
 Avhich Burns bore towards this nobleman is highly creditable to 
 him. He put on mourning for the earl, and designed, if possible, 
 to attend his funeral in Ayrshire. At a later time, he entered a 
 permanent record of his gratitude in the annals of his family, 
 by calling a son James Glencairn. In the meantime he com- 
 posed a 
 
 LAMEXT FOR JAMES, EARL OF GLENCAIRN. 
 
 The wind blow hollow frae the hills, 
 
 liy fits the sun's departing beam 
 Looked on the fading yellow woods 
 
 That waved o'er Lugar's winding stream : 
 Beneath a craigy steep, a bard, 
 
 Laden with years and meikic pain. 
 In loud lament bewailed liis lord. 
 
 Whom death liad all untimely ta'en. 
 
 He leaned him to an ancient aik, 
 
 Whose trunk was mouldering down with years ; 
 His locks were bleachbd white with time. 
 
 His lioary cheek was wet wi' tears ; 
 And as he tonclied his trembling harp, 
 
 And as he tuned his doleful sang, 
 The winds, lamenting through their caves, 
 
 To echo bore tlie notes alang : 
 
 * Ye scattered birds that faintly sing, 
 
 The relic[UL'S of the vernal quire I 
 Ye woods tliat shed on a' the winds 
 
 The lionours of the aged year! 
 A few short months, and glad and gay, 
 
 Again yo'll charm the ear and e'e; 
 But nocht in all revolving time 
 
 Can gladness bring again to me. 
 
 ' I am a bending, aged tree, 
 
 Tliat long has stood the wind and rain ; 
 But now lias come a cruel blast. 
 
 And my last hold of earth is ganc : 
 Kac leaf o' mine shall greet the spring, 
 
 Nao simmer sun exalt my bloom ; 
 But I maun lie before the storm, 
 
 And itlicrs plant them in my room.
 
 LAMENT FOR THE EARL OF GLENCAIRN. 177 
 
 ♦ I've seen sac mony cliangefu' years, 
 On eartli I am a stranger grown ; 
 
 I wander in the ways of men, 
 
 Alike unknowing and unknown : 
 Unheard, unpitied, unrelieved, 
 
 I bear alane my lade o' care, 
 For silent, low, on beds of dust, 
 
 Lie a' that would my sorrows share. 
 
 ' And last (the sum of a' my griefs !) 
 
 My noble master lies in clay ; 
 The fiower amang our barons bold, 
 
 His country's pi'ide ! his country's stay — 
 In weary being now I pine, 
 
 For a' the life of life is dead. 
 And hope has left my aged ken. 
 
 On forward wing for ever tied. 
 
 ' Awake thy last sad voice, my harp ! 
 
 Tlie voice of wo and wild despair; 
 Awake ! resound thy latest lay — ■ 
 
 Then sleep in silence eveimair ! 
 And thou, my last, best, only friend, 
 
 That fillcst an untimely tomb. 
 Accept this tribute from the bard 
 
 Thou brought from fortune's mirkest gloom. 
 
 * In poverty's low barren vale 
 
 Thick mists, obscure, involved me round ; 
 Though oft I turned the wistful eye, 
 
 Nac ray of fame was to be found : 
 Tiiou found'st me, like the morning sun, 
 
 Tiiat melts t!io fogs in limpid aii'. 
 The friendless I)ard and rustic song 
 
 Became alike thy fostering care. 
 
 * O why has worth so short a date ? 
 
 While villains rii)en gray witii time ; 
 Must thou, the noble, generous, great. 
 
 Fall in bold maniiood's liardy prime ! 
 "Why did I live to see that day ? 
 
 A day to mo so fidl of wo ! — 
 O had I met the mortal shaft 
 
 AV'hich laid my benefactor low ! 
 
 • The bridegroom may forgot tho bride, 
 
 Was made his wedded wife yestreen ; 
 The monarch may forget the crown 
 That ou his head an hour has been ; 
 VOL. HI. L
 
 178 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Tlie mother may forget the child 
 
 Thixt smiles sae sweetly on her knee ; 
 
 But I'll remember thee, Glencairn, 
 And a' that thou hast done for me ! ' 
 
 LINES SENT TO SIR JOHN WHITEFOORD, BART. OF WHITEFOORD, WITH 
 THE FOREGOING POEM. 
 
 Thou, who thy honour as thy God rever'st, 
 
 Who, save thy mind's reproach, nouglit earthly fear'st, 
 
 To thee this votive offering I impart, 
 
 The tearful tribute of a broken heart. 
 
 The friend thou valued'st, I the patron loved ; 
 
 His worth, his honour, all the world approved, 
 
 AVe'U mourn till we too go as he has gone, 
 
 And tread the dreary path to that dark world unknown. 
 
 On the same melancholy subject Burns wrote the two following 
 letters. The gentleman here addressed was Lord Glencairn's 
 factor or land-agent, and had been instrumental m brhiging the 
 bard into notice. 
 
 TO MR ALEXANDER DALZELL, FACTOR, FINDLAYSTON. 
 
 Ellisland, 19(/i March 1791. 
 
 My dear Sir— I have taken the liberty to frank this letter to 
 you, as it encloses an idle poem of mine, which I send you ; and, 
 God knows, you may perhaps pay dear enough for it if you read it 
 through. jN'ot that this is my own opinion; but the author, by the 
 time he has composed and corrected his work, has quite pored away 
 all his powers of critical discrimination. 
 
 I can easily guess, from my own heart, what you have felt on a 
 late most me'lancholy event. God knows what I have suffered at 
 the loss of my best friend, my first and dearest patron and benefactor ; 
 the man to whom I owe all that I am and have ! I am gone into 
 mourning for him, and with more sincerity of grief than I fear some 
 will, who, by nature's ties, ought to feel on the occasion. 
 
 I will be exceedingly obliged to you, indeed, to let me know the 
 news of the noble family, how the poor motlier and the two sisters 
 support their loss. I had a packet of poetic bagatelles ready to 
 send to Lady Betty when I saw the fatal tidings in the newspaper. 
 I sec, by the same channel, that the honoured remains of my noble 
 patron are designed to be brought to the family burial-place. Dare 
 I trouble you to let me know privately before the day of interment, 
 that I may cross the country, and steal among the crowd, to pay a 
 tear to the last sight of my ever-revered benefactor ? It will oblige 
 me beyond expression. K. B.
 
 BURXS BREAKS HIS ARII. 179 
 
 TO LADY E. CUXNINGHAM.l 
 
 My Lady — I would, as usual, have availed myself of the privilege 
 your goodness has allowed me, of sending you anything I compose in 
 my poetical way ; but as I had resolved, so soon as the shock of my 
 irreparable loss would allow me, to pay a tribute to my late bene- 
 factor, I determined to make that the first piece I should do myself 
 the honour of sending you. Had the wing of my fancy been equal 
 to the ardour of my heart, the enclosed had been much more worthy 
 your perusal : as it is, I beg leave to lay it at your ladyship's feet.- 
 As all the Avorld knows my obligations to the late Earl of Glencairn, 
 I would wish to shew, as openly, that my heart glows, and shall ever 
 glow, with the most grateful sense and remembrance of his lordship's 
 goodness. The sables I did myself the honour to wear to his lord- 
 ship's memory were not the ' mockery of wo.' Nor shall my 
 gratitude perish with me ! If among my children I shall have a son 
 that has a heart, he shall hand it down to his child as a family honour 
 and a family debt, that my dearest existence I owe to the noble 
 house of Glencairn! 
 
 I was about to say, my lady, that if you think the poem may 
 venture to see the light, I would, in some way or other, give it to 
 the world. E. B. 
 
 In the latter part of March, Burns had the misfortune to come 
 clown with his horse and break his right arm. Janet Little, 
 the poetical milkmaid, had come to see him, and Tvas waiting at 
 Ellisland when the bard returned in the disabled state to which 
 he had been reduced by the accident. She has related in 
 simple verse her own painful alarm when the sad intelligence 
 resounded through his hall, tJie sympatliy with which she 
 regarded the tears of his affectionate Jean, and tlie double embar- 
 rassment she experienced in greeting at such a crisis the illus- 
 trious poet whom she had formerly trembled to meet at all.-' In 
 the course of a few weeks he was so far recovered as to write 
 "with his own hand. 
 
 TO MRS DUNLOP. 
 
 Ellisland, llh lAprif] 1791. 
 
 "When I toll 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, 
 
 }ou will allow that it is too good an apology for my seemingly 
 
 ' Sister of the recently deceased, and of the then existing, Earls of Glcncnim. 
 lior ludyship died unniairiod, August lh04. 
 * The poem enclosed was the Lament for Jama, Earl of Qlcncaim. 
 ^ Contemporaries of Burns, p. H2.
 
 180 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 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 Iiave 
 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 wliich please let me have your opinion. You know tliat 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 farther. 
 
 Your kind letter, with your kind rememhrance of your godson, 
 came safe. This last, madam, is scarcely what my pride can bear. 
 As to the little fellow,^ he is, partiality apart, the finest boy I have 
 for 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 doctors' drugs in his bowels. 
 
 I am truly happy to hear that tlie '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, 
 
 E. B. 
 
 Very soon after, Mrs Burns brought her husband a third son, 
 on whom tlie appellation of William Nicol was conferred — an indi- 
 "vidual who lias since passed through an honourable military career 
 in India, and is now recognised as Lieutenant- Colonel Bui-ns. 
 
 TO MRS DUNLOr. 
 
 Ell:sland, Ulh 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 
 I)articularly 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 [the 9th], 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 tC uiuvre in that species of manufacture, as I 
 
 ' The infant, Francis Wallace Burns, the poet's second son.
 
 GOOD QUALITIES OF A KUSTIC SPOUSE, 181' 
 
 look on Tarn o' S'hanfer to be my standard performance in tlie 
 poetical line. 'Tis true, both tlie one and the other discover a spice 
 of roguish waggery, that might pci'haps be as well spared ; but then 
 they also sliew, in my ojiinion, a force of genius, and a finishing 
 polish, that I despair of ever excelling. JNIrs 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 Judj and heather. 
 We cannot hope for that highly - polished mind, that cliarming 
 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 unaHoyed by some one or other of the many 
 species of cai)rice, I declare to Heaven I should tliink 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 tlie next rank of female excellence ; 
 — as fine a figure and face we can produce as any rank of life what- 
 ever; rustic, native grace; imaffected modesty and unsullied purity; 
 natiu'c's mother-wit, and the rudiments of taste; a simplicity of soul, 
 unsuspicious of, because unacquainted with, the crooked ways of a 
 selfisli, interested, disingenuous world; and tlie dearest charm of all 
 tlie rest — a yielding sweetness of disj)osition, and a generous warmtli 
 of heart, grateful for love on our part, and ardently glowing witii 
 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. 
 Tills is the greatest effort ni}- broken arm has yet made. Do let me 
 Iicar, by first post, how rhfr prtit Monsieur'^ comes on with his small- 
 pox. Jlay Almighty goodness preserve and restore him ! R. B. 
 
 I\[r Alexander Fraser Tytlcr, son of the ]\Ir William Tytler 
 with whom Burns had previously corresponded, held an eminent 
 place among the literati of Edinburgh, on account of his learning 
 and taste, although none of his many writings liad attained a 
 high degree of popularity. Mr Tytler, having seen Tarn o' 
 Shunter^ was so much pleased with it that he immediately wrote 
 to the poet a letter, which, coming from such a quarter, must 
 have been truly gratifying to him : — 
 
 Edinburgh, Wh March 1791. 
 
 Dear Sir — Mr Hill yesterday put into my hands a sheet of 
 Groses AntiquUi(s, containing a poem of yours entitled Tani o' 
 Shunter: a tale. The very high pleasure I have received from the 
 
 ' Mra Henri's child, and the grandchild of Mrs Dunlop.
 
 182 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 perusal of this admirable piece, I feel, demands tlie warmest acknow- 
 ledgments. Hill tells me he is to send off a packet for you this 
 day ; I cannot resist, therefore, putting on paper what I must have 
 told' you in person had I met witli you after the recent perusal of 
 your tale— which is, that I feel I owe you a debt, which, if undis- 
 charged, would reproach me with ingratitude. I have seldom in my 
 life tasted of liigher enjoyment from any work of genius than I have 
 received from this composition ; and I am much mistaken if this 
 poem alone, had you never written another syllable, would not 
 have been sufficient to have transmitted your name down to 
 posterity with high reputation. In the introductory part, where 
 you paint the character of your hero, and exhibit him at the 
 alehouse iiir/le, with his tippling cronies, you have delineated nature 
 with a humour and ncvivete that Avould do honour to Matthew 
 Prior; but when you describe the infernal orgies of the witches' 
 sabbath, and the hellish scenery in which they are exhibited, you 
 display a power of imagination that Shakspeare himself could not 
 have exceeded. I know not that I have ever met with a picture 
 of more horrible fancy than the following : — 
 
 ' Coffins stood round, like open presses, 
 That shawed the dead in theii' last dresses ; 
 And, by some devilish cantrip slight, 
 Each in its cauld hand held a light.' 
 
 But when I came to the succeeding lines my blood ran cold within 
 me — 
 
 ' A knife, a father's throat had mangled, 
 Whom his ain son of life bereft. 
 The gray hairs yet stack to the heft.' 
 
 And here, after the two following lines, ' Wi' mair o' horrible and 
 awfu',' &c., the descriptive part might perhaps have been better 
 closed than the four lines which succeed, which, though good in 
 themselves, yet, as they derive all their merit from the satire they 
 contain, are here rather misplaced among the circumstances of pure 
 horror.i The initiation of the young witch is most happily de- 
 scribed—the effect of her charms exhibited in the dance of Satan 
 himself— the apostrophe, ' Ah little thought thy reverend grannie!'— 
 the transport of Tani, who forgets his situation, and enters com- 
 pletely into the spirit of the scene— are all features of high merit 
 in this excellent composition. The only fault it possesses is, that 
 the winding-up, or conclusion of the story, is not commensurate to 
 tlie interest which is excited by the descriptive and characteristic 
 painting of the preceding parts. The preparation is fine, but the 
 
 * The four lines were as follow : — 
 
 • Three la'XN'j'ers' tongues turned inside out, 
 AVi' lies seemed like a beggar's clout ; 
 And priests' hearts rotten, black as muck, 
 Lay stinking, vile, in every neuk.' 
 
 The poet expunged them, in obedience to the recommendation of Mr Tytler.
 
 LETTER TO MR A. F. TYTLEE. 183 
 
 result is not adequate. But for this perhaps you have a good 
 apology — you stick to the popular tale. 
 
 And now that I have got out my mind, and feel a little relieved 
 of the weight of that debt I owed you, let me end this desultory 
 scroll by an advice: — You have proved your talent for a species of 
 composition in which but a very few of our own poets have succeeded. 
 Go on — write more tales in the same style — you will eclipse Prior 
 and La Fontaine; for with equal wit, equal power of numbers, 
 and equal naivete of expression, you have a bolder and more 
 vigorous imagination. A. F. T. 
 
 ' You have delineated nature with a humour and naivete that 
 would do honour to Matthew Prior.' It certainly would ! 
 
 TO A. F. TYTLER, ESQ. 
 
 Ellisland lAprii:] 1791. 
 Sir — Nothing less than the unfortunate accident I have met with 
 could have prevented my grateful acknowledgments for your letter. 
 His own favourite poem, and that an essay in the walk of the Muses 
 entirely new to him, where consequently his hopes and fears were 
 on the most anxious alarm for his success in the attempt — to have 
 that poem so much applauded by one of the first judges, was the 
 most delicious vibration that ever tlirilled along the heart-strinrrs of 
 a poor poet, Plowcvcr, Providence, to keep up the proper propor- 
 tion of evil with the good, which it seems is necessary in this sub- 
 lunary state, thought proper to check my exultation by a very serious 
 misfortune. A day or two after I received your letter, my horse 
 came down with me and broke my riglit arm. As this is the first 
 ser\'ice my arm has done me since its disastei', I find myself unable 
 to do more than just, in general terms, thank you for this additional 
 instance of your patronage and friendsliip. As to the faults you 
 detected in the piece, tliey are truly there ; one of them, the hit at 
 the lawyer and priest, I shall cut out: as to the falling off in the 
 catastrophe, for the reason you justly adduce, it cannot easily bo 
 remedied. Your approbation, sir, has given me such additional 
 spirits to persevere in this species of poetic composition, that I am 
 already revolving two or three stories in my fancy. If I can bring 
 these floating ideas to bear any kind of cmljodied form, it will give 
 me an additional opportimity of assuring you how much I have the 
 honour to be, kc. E. B. 
 
 Wliile confined with his broken arm, Burns had the pleasure of 
 receiving a valuable mark of that regard with wliicli a common 
 Jacobitism liad inspired T.ady "Winifred Maxwell Constablp, in the 
 form of a snuff-box, containing on the lid a beautil'ul miniature 
 of Queen Maiy,
 
 TO JIR PETER HILL, EDINBURGH. 
 
 [Siimmei-, 1791.] 
 JIy dear Friend — I was never more unfit for writing. A poor 
 devil, nailed to an elbow-chair, writhing in anguish with a bruised 
 leg laid on a stool before him, is in a fine situation truly for saving 
 bright things. 
 
 I may perhaps see you about Martinmas. I have sold to my 
 landlord the lease of my farm, and as I roup off everything then, I 
 have a mind to take a week's excursion to see old acquaintance. At 
 .all events you may reckon on [payment of] your account about that 
 time. So much for business. I do not know if I ever informed you 
 tluit I am now got ranked on the list as a supervisor, and I have 
 pretty good reason to believe that I shall soon be called out to 
 employment. The appointment is worth from tme to two hundred 
 a year, according to the place of the country in which one is settled. 
 I have not been so lucky in my farming. Mr Miller's kindness has 
 been just such another as Creech's was : 
 
 ' llis meddling vanity, a busy iicnd, 
 Still making work his Eelfish craft must mend.' 
 
 By the way, I have taken vengeance on Creech. He wrote mc a faie, 
 
 184' LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 TO LADY W. M. CONSTABLE. 
 
 I-'llisland, ilth April lydl. 
 My Lady— Nothing less than tlie unlucky accident of having 
 latelv bi-oken my right arm could have prevented me, the moment I 
 received your ladyship's elegant present by Mrs Miller, from return- 
 in"- you mv warmest and most grateful acknowledgments. I assure 
 your ladyship I shall set it apart — the symbols of religion shall only 
 be more sacred. In the moment of poetic composition the box 
 shall be mv inspiring genius. When I would breathe the compre- 
 hensive wish of benevolence for the happiness of others, I shall 
 recollect your ladyship ; when I would interest my fancy in the 
 distresses incident to humanity, I shall remember the unfortunate 
 JMary. R. B. 
 
 JIany years after, one of the poet's sons, having taken this I 
 
 box with him to India, had the misfortune to damage the portrait i 
 
 UTeparably in leaping on board a vessel. ! 
 
 Before Burns had been long recovered from the fall by which 
 his arm was broken, he seems to have met with a new misfortune 
 of the same kind, which, however, only sent him to liis chamber 
 with a bruised leg. He had about the same time finally decided 
 to give up his farm, a step Avhich he deemed necessary in 
 order to escape ruin, and to which he was of course the less 
 averse, as he was now led to expect speedy promotion in the 
 Excise.
 
 LETTER INTRODUCING MR CLARKE, A TEACHER. 185 
 
 fair letter, telling; me that lie was jroinj^ to print a third edition ; and 
 as he had a brother's care of my fame, he wished to add every new 
 thinir I have written since, and I should be amjdy rewarded with — 
 a copy or two to present to my friends. He has sent me a copy of 
 the last edition l to correct, kc. But I have as yet taken no notice of 
 it; and I hear he has p'.iblished without me. You know, and all 
 my friends know, that I do not value money ; but I owed the 
 gentleman a debt, which I am happy to have it in my power to 
 repay. 
 
 Farewell, and prosperity attend all your undertakings ! I shall 
 try, if my uiducky limb would give me a little ease, to write you a 
 letter a little better worth reading. R. B. 
 
 If we would see the entire Burns, we must hear such sentiments 
 as these which he avows respecting i\Iiller and Creech, as well as 
 listen to his meek epistles to Mrs Dunlop. Some will think the 
 vengeance he speaks of was after all a gentle one, as from an 
 irate poet against a publisher. 
 
 TO 
 
 Ellisland, 1701. 
 
 Dear Sir — I am exceedingly to blame in not writing you long 
 ago ; but the truth is, that I am the most indolent of all human 
 beings, and when I matriculate in the Herald's Office, 1 intend that 
 my sujiporters shall be two sloths, my crest a slow-worm, and the 
 motto, ' Deil tak the foremost.' So much by way of apology for not 
 thanking you sooner for your kind execution of my commission. 
 
 I would have sent you the poem ; but somehow or other it found 
 its way into the public papers, where you must have seen it. I am 
 ever, dear sir, yours sincerely, R. B. 
 
 b 
 
 TO MR CUNNINGHAM. 
 
 IIW /line 1791. 
 
 Lf.t me interest you, my dear Cunningham, in behalf of the 
 gentleman who waits on you witli this. Ho is a Mr Clarke of Mofiat, 
 principal schoolmaster there, and is at jjrcsent suilcriiig severely 
 xmder the persecution of one or two powerful individuals of his 
 employers. He is accused of harshness to boys tliat were placed 
 
 ' Croccli nrtvcrtiKod a new edition of rJurns's Poems in .Tuly }'90. In Septenibir 
 IT'.l], Mr Davies wrote to Mr Creeeli : ' .Mr Cadell b:i\s he Ijelievos lie wrote you 
 about the new edition of Hurns's I'ocms ; but in case he has not, he bids me toll 
 you, sir, that he recommends KKKI U) bo printe<I in 2 vols, crown 8vo, on a fino 
 "wove pajKr, and that it be CnishcU in two or three months, in time for his sale.'
 
 186 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 under liis care. God help the teacher, if a man of sensibility and 
 genius — and such is my friend Clarice — 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, iu 
 fact, it savours of impiety to attempt making a scholar of, as he has 
 been marked a blockhead in the book of fate at the Almighty fiat 
 of his Creator. 
 
 The patrons of MofFat School are the ministers, magistrates, and 
 town-council of Edinburgh ; and as the business comes now before 
 them, let me beg my dearest friend to do everything in his power to 
 serve the interests of a man of genius and worth, and a man whom 
 I particularly respect and esteem. You know some good fellows 
 among the magistracy and council ; but particulai'ly 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 Y.^ 
 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, and . . . 
 
 God help the children of dependence ! Hated and persecuted by 
 their enemies, and too often, alas ! almost unexceptionably, received 
 by their friends with disrespect and reproach, under the thin disguise 
 of cold civility and humiliating advice. 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 curse 
 on that privileged plain-dealing of friendship which, in the hour of 
 my calamity, cannot reach forth the helping-hand without at the same 
 time pointing out those failings, and apportioning them their share 
 in procuring my present distress. My friends — for such the world 
 calls ye, and such ye think yourselves to be — pass by my virtues if 
 you please, but do also spare my follies : the first will witness in 
 my breast for themselves, and the last will give pain enough to the 
 ingenuous mind without you. And since deviating more or less 
 from the paths of propriety and rectitude must be incident to human 
 nature, do thou, Fortune, put it in my power, always from myself and 
 of myself, to bear the consequence of those errors ! I do not want 
 to be independent that I may sin, but I Avant to be independent in 
 my sinning. 
 
 To return in this rambling letter to the subject I set out with, let 
 me recommend my friend Mr Clarke to your acquaintance and 
 good offices — his worth entitles him to the one, and his gratitude 
 will merit the other. I long much to hear from you. Adieu ! 
 
 K. B. 
 
 ' Mr Cunningham was nephew to Dr Robertson.
 
 CHIEF CAUSE OF BUEXS'S VEXATIONS. 187 
 
 There is something arresting in this letter. Wliile merely 
 recommending a persecuted schoolmaster to a friend's protection, 
 thus to launch out into a general apology for hurtful failings, and 
 an indignant protest against the friendship which would preach 
 upon them even while redeeming their consequences, powerfully 
 claims our attention amidst the obscurity which prevails regarding 
 the details of Burns's private life and the varying current of his 
 feelings at diiferent times. We know that the poet was now 
 convinced that his farming scheme was a failm-e, and that much 
 of the little capital arising from the profits of his poems was 
 irretrievably gone. But the suffering from that cause could never, 
 alone, have wrung from him such an outpourmg of bitter feelmg. 
 It is the more remarkable as the commencement of a series of 
 such tu-ades which extended at intervals through the remainder of 
 his life. From this time forth, indeed, we are to see a chronic 
 exasperation of spirit affecting the life and conversation of the 
 luckless bard. AVe get but slight and casual glimpses of the 
 cause of all this acrimony ; but I am assured that it would be a 
 great mistake to attribute it wholly, or in any considerable part, 
 to a mere jarring between the sensitive spirit of the poet and the 
 rude contact of the worldly scene into which he was plunged. 
 Burns did not want for a certain worldly wisdom and hardiness. 
 His poetical powers had not in themselves exposed him to 
 any serious evils. On the contrary, he was indebted to them for 
 any advance in the social scene which lie ever made, and even for 
 such endowments of fortune as had befallen him. Neither was 
 Burns so unworthily regarded by either high or low in his own 
 day and place, as to have much occasion for complaint on that 
 score. On the contrary, he had obtained the respectful regard 
 of many of the very choicest men and women of his country. 
 "Wlienever he appeared in aristocratic circles, his acknowledged 
 genius and the cliarms of his conversation gave him a distinction 
 not always readily yielded to mere wealth and rank. No, we 
 have to look elsewhere for an explanation of the mystery : it 
 seems to have mainly lain in the reckless violence of some of his 
 passions, by the consequences of which lie was every now and 
 then exposed to humiliations galling to his pride. It was a refuge 
 to his wounded feelings to suppose that tlicse passions were 
 essentially connected with his poetical character. But wc shall 
 liave hereafter to consider this subject more fully. 
 
 There is a condition of great suffering, when, though tho 
 main source of grief cannot be spoken of, smaller evils will 
 be denounced with a superfluity of splenetic effusion not a little 
 startling to tlie bystander. Bums appears about this time to 
 have been subjected, either in public or private, to a searching
 
 188 LTFE AND WOKKS OF BURNS. 
 
 hvpercriticism, probably of a kind beneath his notice. The fol- 
 lowing fragment was perhaps designed as part of a private reply 
 to the critic : — 
 
 [literary scolding.] 
 
 Tiiou eiinucli of language : thou Englishman, who never was south 
 the Tweed : thou servile echo of fashionable barbarisms : thou 
 quack, vending the nostrums of empirical elocution : thou marriage- 
 maker between vowels and consonants, on the Gretna Green of 
 caprice : thou cobbler, botching the flimsy socks of bombast oratory : 
 thou blacksmith, hammering the rivets of absurdity : thou butcher, 
 imbruing thy hands in the bowels of orthography : thou aixh-heretic 
 in pronunciation : thou pitch - pipe of affected empliasis : thou 
 carpenter, mortising the awkward joints of jarring sentences : thou 
 squeaking dissonance of cadence : thou pimp of gender : thou Lion 
 Herald to silly etymology : thou antipode of grammar : thou execu- 
 tioner of construction : thou brood of the speech-distracting builders 
 of the Tower of Babel : thou lingual confusion worse confounded : 
 thou scape-gallows from the land of syntax : thou scavenger of mood 
 and tense : thou murderous accoucheur of infant learning : thou 
 ignis fatuus, misleading the steps of benighted ignorance : thou 
 pickle - herring in the puppet - show of nonsense : thou faithful 
 recorder of barbarous idiom : thou persecutor of syllabication : thou 
 baleful meteor, foretelling and facilitating the rapid approach of Nox 
 and Erebus.i 
 
 The same petty subject of resentment rides through an epistle 
 to his patron Graham, while in reality his anguished bosom 
 acknowledged deeper sources of wo : — 
 
 TUIUD EPISTLE TO MR GRAHAM OF FINTRY. 
 
 ISumincr, 1701.] 
 Late crippled of an arm, and now a leg, 
 About to beg a pass for leave to beg : 
 Dull, listless, teased, dejected, and deprest, 
 (Nature is adverse to a cripple's rest) ; 
 Will generous Graham list to his Poet's wail ? 
 (It sootiies poor misery, hearkening to her tale), 
 And hear him curse the light he first surveyed. 
 And doubly curse the luckless rhyming trade ? 
 
 Thou, Nature, partial Nature ! I arraign ; 
 Of thy caprice maternal I complain. 
 
 1 Tljis singular composition made its appearance in the Gentleman's Mapnzine 
 foT August 1832, without date or sitrnature. The original manu'-cript was in the 
 possession of the late Mr Andrew Henderson, surgeon, Berwick-upon-Tweed, ono of 
 the sons of the Rosebud.
 
 THIRD EPISTLE TO MR GRAHAM OF FINTRY. 189 
 
 The lion and the bull thy care have found, 
 
 ( )ne shakes the forests, and one spurns the ground : 
 
 Thou giv'st the ass his hide, the snail his shell, 
 
 Th' envenomed wasp, victorious, guards his cell ; 
 
 Thy minions, kings, defend, control, devour, 
 
 In all th' omnipotence of rule and power; 
 
 Poxes and statesmen, subtile wiles insure: 
 
 The cit and polecat stink, and are secure ; 
 
 Toads with their poison, doctors with their drug, 
 
 The priest and hedgehog in their robes are snug; 
 
 Ev'n silly woman has her warlike arts, 
 
 Her tongue and eyes, her dreaded spear and darts ;^ 
 
 But, oh ! thou bitter stepmother and hard, 
 
 To thy poor, fenceless, naked child — the Bard ! 
 
 A thing unteachable in world's skill. 
 
 And half an idiot, too, more helpless still : 
 
 No heels to bear him from the opening dun ; 
 
 No claws to dig, his hated sight to shun ; 
 
 No horns, but those by luckless Hymen worn, 
 
 And those, alas ! not Amalthea's horn : 
 
 No nerves olfactory, Mammon's trusty cur. 
 
 Clad in rich dulness' comfortable fur; — • 
 
 In naked feeling, and in aching pride. 
 
 He bears the unbroken blast from every side : 
 
 Vampyre booksellers drain him to the heart, 
 
 And scorpion critics cureless venom dart. 
 
 Critics ! — appalled I venture on the name. 
 Those cut-throat bandits in the patlis of tame : 
 Bloody dissectors, worse than ten Monroes!' 
 He hacks to teach, they mangle to expose. 
 
 His heart by causeless wanton malice wrimg, 
 
 By blockheads' daring into madness stung ; 
 
 His well-won bays, tlian life itself more dear, 
 
 By miscreants torn, who ne'er one sprig must wear: 
 
 Foiled, bleeding, tortured, in the unequal strife, 
 
 The liapless poet flounders on through life ; 
 
 Till fled eacli hope that once his bosom flrcd, 
 
 And fled each muse that glorious once inspired. 
 
 Low sunk in squalid, unprotected age. 
 
 Dead, even resentment, for his injured page, 
 
 He lieeds or feels no more the ruthless critic's rage ! 
 
 So, by some hedge, the generous steed deceased, 
 For half-starved snarling curs a dainty feast: 
 By toil and famine wore to skin and bone, 
 Lies senseless of each tugging bitch's son. 
 
 ' AUiulint; to the eminent anatomist, rrofosaor Alexander Monro, of tlic Eclin- 
 bui'gh University.
 
 100 LIFE AND WOEKS OF BURNS. 
 
 dulness ! portion of the truly blest ! 
 Calm sheltered haven of eternal rest ! 
 
 Thy sons ne'er madden in the fierce extremes 
 Of fortune's polar frost, or torrid beams. 
 If mantling high she fills the golden cup, 
 With sober selfish ease they sip it up : 
 Conscious the bounteous meed they well deserve. 
 They only wonder ' some folks' do not starve. 
 The grave sage hern thus easy picks his frog, 
 And thinks the mallard a sad worthless dog. 
 When disappointment snaps the clue of hope, 
 And through disastrous night they darkling grope, 
 With deaf endurance sluggishly they bear, 
 And just conclude that ' fools are fortune's care.' 
 So, heavy, passive to the tempest's shocks. 
 Strong on the sign-post stands the stupid ox. 
 Not so the idle Muses' mad-cap train. 
 Not such the workings of their moon-struck bi'ain ; 
 In equanimity they never dwell, 
 By turns in soaring heaven or vaulted hell. 
 
 1 dread thee, fate, relentless and severe. 
 With all a poet's, husband's, father's fear! 
 Already one strong hold of hope is lost, 
 Glencairn, the truly noble, lies in dust ; 
 (Fled, like the sun eclipsed as noon appears. 
 And left us darkling in a world of tears :) 
 
 O hear my ardent, grateful, selfish prayer ! — 
 Fintry, my other stay, long bless and spare ! 
 Through a long life his hopes and wishes crown, 
 And bright in cloudless skies his sun go down ! 
 May bliss domestic smooth his private path. 
 Give energy to life, and soothe his latest breath, 
 With many a filial tear circling the bed of death ! 
 
 As the summer moved on, Burns seems to have recovered from 
 both bruises and vexations, and to have regained some degree 
 of equanimity. 
 
 TO [MR PETER HILL.] 
 
 [Dumfries, IZtk July 1791.'] 
 My dear Friend — I take Glenriddcl's kind offer of a corner for 
 a postscript to you, though I have nothing particular to tell you. It 
 is witli the greatest pleasure I learn from all hands, and particularly 
 from your warm friend and patron, the Laird here, that you are 
 going on, spreading and thriving like the palm-tree that shades the 
 fragrant vale in the Holy Land of the Prophet. May the richest 
 
 1 The date is supplied in a different hand. A post-mark indicates ' Ju. 14.'
 
 VISIT OF TWO ENGLISHMEN TO ELLISLAND. 191 
 
 juices from beneath, and tlie dews of heaven from above, foster 
 your root and refresh your branches, until you bo as conspicuous 
 among your fellows as the stately Goliah towering over the little 
 pigmy Philistines around him ! Amen, so be it ! ! ! 
 
 E. B. 
 
 At this time we have a picturesque presentment of Burns from 
 the pen of Dr Currie : — ' In the summer of 1791 two English 
 gentlemen, who had before met with him in Edinburgh, paid a 
 visit to him at EUisland. On calling at the house, they were 
 informed that he had walked out on the banks of the river ; and 
 dismounting from their horses, they proceeded 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 made of a 
 fox's skin on his head, a loose greatcoat fixed round him by a 
 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, of which they 
 partook heartily. After dinner, the bard told them ingenuously 
 that he had no wine to offer them — nothing better than Highland 
 whisky, a bottle of which Mrs Burns set on the board. He 
 produced at the same time his punch-bowl, made of Inverary 
 marble ; and, mixing the spirit with water and sugar, filled their 
 glasses, and invited them to drink. i The travellers were in 
 haste, and, besides, the flavour of the whisky to their suthron 
 palates was scarcely tolerable ; but the generous poet offered them 
 his best, and his ardent hospitality they found it impossible to 
 resist. Burns was in his happiest mood, and the charms of his 
 conversation were altogether fascinating. He ranged over a great 
 variety of topics, illuminating whatever he touched. He related 
 the tales of his infancy and of his youth ; he recited some of the 
 gayest and some of the tendercst of his 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 whisky improved in its flavour ; the marble boAvl 
 "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 in returning to Dumfries, 
 
 > TIio towl here referred to was formed of laph-oUaris, tlie Btonc of wliiuli Tnvc- 
 rary C'astlo is built. It was fasliioned by tlie liands of Mr Armour of Maiieliliiie, 
 nnd presented by him as a miirriaRC-gift to his famoiis son-inlaw. After the poet's 
 death, it fell into the hands of Mr Ale.xander Cunningham of Pldinburgh, front 
 which attain it passed to those of Mr Hastic, representative of Paisley in several 
 parliaments, who is said to have refused three hundred guineas for it, a sum that 
 Would have set Hums on his legs for ever!
 
 102 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 and could scarcely distinguish it when assisted by the morning's 
 dawn.'^ 
 
 TO MR THOMAS SLOAN. 
 
 Ellisland, \r.l Sept. l/Ol. 
 
 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 attaclmient. 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 emharras of your present situation. You 
 know my favourite quotation from Young — 
 
 -' On Reason build Resolve! 
 
 That column of true majosty in man." 
 
 And that other favourite one from Tliomson'a Alfred — 
 
 • What proves the hero truly great, 
 la, 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 croi) on this day se'en-night, and 
 sold it very well. A guinea an acre, on an average, above value. 
 But such a scene of dnnikenncss was hardly ever seen in this country. 
 After the roup was over, about thirty people engaged in a battle, 
 every num for his own hand, and fouglit it out for three hours. Nor 
 was the scone much better in the liousc. 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 tliese many weeks. 
 
 Tarewell ! and God bless you, my dear friend! E. B. 
 
 ' Given from the information of one of the party.
 
 INVITATION FROM THE EARL OF BUCIIAN. 193 
 
 Tlie reader must not suppose that Burns had given any special 
 encouragement to the glass at the sale of his crop. It was the 
 custom on such occasions to produce a quantity of whisky or 
 some similar liquor, from which the persons attending the sale 
 were expected to help themselves at discretion. The common 
 belief was, that without this attraction there might be a difficulty 
 in assembling a company, and that without such a stimulus to 
 bidding the stock would go off at prices beneath its value. Such 
 matters are usually left to the auctioneer, and probably on this 
 occasion our poet was passive in all respects but that of an observer 
 of self-degraded human nature. There is seldom any excess now- 
 a-days ; but stiU the bottle never fails to appear side by side with 
 the auctioneer. 
 
 The Earl of Buchan, whose connection with the Glencairn 
 family gave him a claim on Burns's consideration which he could 
 never have derived from his own character, was at this time con- 
 templating one of the puerile fetes for which he had so restless a 
 propensity, the ostensible object being the inauguration of a 
 temple built to Thomson the poet on Ednam Hill, while the true 
 one was the glorification of the Earl of Buchan. His lordship 
 wrote to Burns, requesting his presence on the occasion, and 
 suggesting that he should ' go across the country, and meet the 
 Tweed at the nearest point to his farm — and wandering along the 
 pastoral banks of Thomson's pure parent stream, catch inspiration 
 on the devious walk, till he finds Lord Buchan sitting on the 
 ruins of Dryljurgh. There,' he adds, ' the Commendator [for so 
 he considered himself, as being the successor of the ancient abbots] 
 will give him [Burns] a hearty welcome, and try to light his lamp 
 at the pure flame of native genius upon the altar of Caledonian 
 virtue !' Burns gave a courteous and conceding answer : 
 
 TO THE EARL OF BUCHAN, 
 
 Er.Lisi.AVD, [September'] 1790. 
 My Lord — Language sinks under the ardour of my feelings wlien 
 I would tliuiik your h)rdshi)) for the honour you liave done 7no in 
 inviting me to make one at tlic coronation of tliu bust of Tliomson. 
 In my first enthusiasm ia reading the cai'd you did mo the lionour 
 to write me, I overlooked every obstacle, and determined to go ; but 
 I fear it will not be in my j)Ower. A week or two's absence, in tlio 
 very middle of my harvest, is wliat I nuicli doubt I dare not venture 
 on. I once already made a jiilgrirnage uj) tlic wliole course of tlio 
 Tweed,' and fondly would I take the same deliglitful journey down 
 the winding's of tiiat deli'ditful stream. 
 
 1 In reality, only to Innerleithen. 
 VOL. III. M
 
 194 - LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Your lordship hints at an odo for the occasion ; but v/ho would 
 •write after Collins? I read over his verses to the memory of 
 Thomson, and despaired. I got indeed to the length of three or four 
 stanzas, in the way of address to the shade of the bard, on crowning 
 his bust. I shall trouble your lordship with the subjoined copy of 
 tlicm, which, I am afraid, will be but too convincing a proof how 
 unequal I am to the task. However, it aftbrds me an opportunity of 
 approaching your lordship, and declaring how sincerely and gratefully 
 I have the honour to be, &c. R. B. 
 
 ox CROW.MXG Ills BUST AT EDNAM, ROXBURGHSHIRE, WITH BAYS. 
 
 "While virgin Spring, by Eden's flood, 
 
 Unfolds her tender mantle jrreen, 
 Or pranks the sod in frolic mood, 
 
 Or tunes Jilolian strains between : ' 
 
 "While Summer with a matron grace 
 Eetreats to Dryburgh's cooling shade, 
 
 Yet oft, delighted, stops to trace 
 The progress of the spiky blade : 
 
 While Autumn, benefactor kind, 
 
 By Tweed erects his aged head. 
 And sees, with self-approving mind. 
 
 Each creature on his bounty fed : 
 
 "While maniac Winter rages o'er 
 
 The hills whence classic Yarrow flows. 
 
 Bousing the turbid torrent's roar, 
 Or sweeping, wild, a waste of snows : 
 
 So long, sweet Poet of the year ! 
 
 Shall bloom that wreath thou well hast won ; 
 While Scotia, witli exulting tear. 
 
 Proclaims that Thomson was her son. 
 
 Burns, in looking into Collins for his verses to tlie memory of 
 Thomson, had probably glanced at the same poet's exquisite Ode 
 io Evening, for the three concluding verses are manifestly imitated 
 in this address: 
 
 ' W^hile Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont, 
 And bathe tliy breathing tresses, meekest Eve : 
 While Summer loves to sport 
 Beneath thy lingering light :
 
 LETTER TO COLONEL FULLAETON. 195 
 
 Willie sallow Autumn fills thy cup with loaves, 
 Or Whiter, yelling through the troublous air, 
 
 Affrights thy shrinking train, 
 
 And rudely rends thy robes : 
 
 So long, regardful of thy quiet rule, 
 
 Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace, 
 
 Thy gentlest influence own, 
 
 And love thy favom'ite name ! ' 
 
 TO COLONEL FULLARTON, OF FULLARTON.^ 
 
 Ellisland, October 3, 179L 
 Sir — I have just this minute got the frank, and next minute must 
 send it to post ; else I purposed to have sent you two or three other 
 bagatelles that might have amused a vacant hour, about as well as 
 Six Excellent Neio Songs, or the Aberdeen Prognostications for the 
 Year to come? I shall probably trouble you soon with another 
 packet : about the gloomy mouth of jS^ovember, when the people of 
 England hang and drown themselves, anything generally is better 
 than one's own thoughts. 
 
 Fond as I may be of my own productions, it is not for their sake 
 that I am so anxious to send you them. I am ambitious, covetously 
 ambitious, of being known to a gentleman whom I am proud to call 
 my countryman ;•' a gentleman, who was a foreign ambassador as soon 
 as he was a man, and a leader of armies as soon as he was a soldier, 
 and that with an eclat unknown to the usual minions of a court — men 
 who, with all the adventitious advantages of princely connections 
 and princely fortunes, must yet, like the caterpillar, labour a whole 
 lifetime before they reach the wished-for height, there to roost a 
 stupid chrysalis, and doze out the remaining glimmering existence 
 of old age. 
 
 If the gentleman that accompanied you when you did me the 
 honour of calling on me, is with you, I beg to be respectfully remem- 
 bered to him. I have the honour to be your highly obliged, and 
 most devoted humble servant, K. B. 
 
 Burns had become acquainted, probably at Friars' Carse, with 
 
 ' This gentleman, it will be recollected, is honourably mentioned in The 
 Vision. The letter first appciircd in the Paislq/ Magazine, 1828. For the favour- 
 able opinion which he entertained of Hums, sec the present volume, p. 1.39. 
 
 2 A conspicuous brancli uf popular literature in .Scotland till a recent period con- 
 Bistcd of coarse brochures of four leaves, sold at a halfpenny, and generally con- 
 taining something approjiriato to the title of 'Six Excellent New Sonps — viz.' 
 iVc. The other branch of popular literature mentioned in the text consisted of 
 abnanacs, published at Aberdeen, at the price of a penny. 
 
 '^ Meaning a native of the same county.
 
 19G LIFE AND AVOr.KS OF BURNS. 
 
 a beautiful young Englisliwoman, a relation of the Eiddels, and 
 also connected by the marriage of a sister with the noble family 
 of Kenmure in the neighbouring stewartry. Deborali Davies 
 —for this was her name — was of small stature, but exquisitely 
 handsome, and she possessed more than an average share of mental 
 graces. With his usual sensibility to female beauty, but especially 
 that of a refined and educated woman. Burns became an idolater of 
 Miss Davies, and the feelings which possessed him soon led to aa 
 effusion of both prose and verse. 
 
 TO MISS DAVIFS. 
 
 Madam — I understand my very wortliy neighbour, Mr Riddel, has 
 informed you tliat I have made you the subject of some verses. 
 There is something so provolcing in the idea of being the burden of a 
 ballad, that I do not think Job or Moses, though such patterns of 
 patience and meekness, could have resisted the curiosity to know 
 what tliat ballad was ; so my worthy friend has done me a mischief, 
 which I daresay he never intended, and reduced me to the unfor- 
 tunate alternative of leaving your curiosity xmgratilied, or else 
 disgusting you with foolish verses, the imfinislied production of a 
 random moment, and never meant to have met your ear. I have 
 heard or read somewhere of a gentleman who had some genius, 
 much eccentricity, and very considerable dexterity with his pencil. 
 In the accidental group of life into which one is thrown, wherever 
 this gentleman met with a character in a more than ordinary degree 
 congenial to liis licart, lie used to steal a sketcli of the face ; merely, 
 lie said, as a nota bene, to point out the agreeable recollection to his 
 memory. Wliat this gentleman's pencil was to him, my Muse is to 
 me; and the verses I do myself tlie lionour to send you are a 
 metncuto exactly of the same Icind that be indulged in. 
 
 It may be moi"e owing to the fastidiousness of my caprice than 
 tlie delicacy of my taste, but I am so often tired, disgusted, and liurt 
 witli the insipidity, affectation, and pride of mankind, that when I 
 meet with a person 'afccr my own heart,' I positively feel what an 
 orthodox Protestant would call a species of idolatry, which acts on 
 my fancy like inspiration ; and I can no more desist rhyming on the 
 impulse, than an /Eolian harp can refuse its tones to the stream- 
 ing air. A distich or two would be the consequence, though 
 the object which hit my fancy were gray -bearded age; but where 
 my theme is youth and beauty, a young lady whose personal charms, 
 wit, and sentiment, are equally striking and unaffected — by Heavens! 
 though I had lived threescore yeai's a married man, and threescore 
 years before I was a married man, my imagination would hallow the 
 very idea : and I am truly sorry that the enclosed stanzas have done 
 Buch poor justice to such a subject. R. B.
 
 SONGS ON MISS DAYIES. 197 
 
 LOVELY DAYIES. 
 TvsE—Miss iluii: 
 
 O how shall I, imskilfii', try 
 
 The poet's occupation, 
 The tiinefu' powers, in happy hours, 
 
 That whisper inspiration ? 
 Even they maun dare an effort mair 
 
 Than aught they ever gave us, 
 Ere they rehearse, in equal verse, 
 
 The charms o' lovely Davies. 
 
 Each eye it cheers, when she appears. 
 
 Like Phoebus in the morning, 
 "NVhen past the shower, and every flower 
 
 The garden is adorning. 
 As the wretch looks o'er Siberia's shore, 
 
 When winter-bound the wave is; 
 Sae droops our heart when we maun part 
 
 Frae charming, lovely Davies. 
 
 Her smile's a gift, frae 'boon the lift. 
 
 That maks us mair than princes ; 
 A sceptered hand, a king's comuiaud. 
 
 Is in her darting glances : 
 The man in arms, 'gainst female charms, 
 
 Even he her willing slave is ; 
 He hugs his chain, and owns the reign 
 
 Of conquering, lovely Davies. 
 
 3Iv Muse to dream of such a theme, 
 
 Her feeble powers surrender ; 
 The casrle's jrazo alone survevs 
 
 The sun's meridian splendour : 
 I Mad in vain essay the strain. 
 
 The deed too daring brave is ; 
 I'll drop the lyre, and mute admire 
 
 The charms o' lovely Davies. 
 
 Burns afterwards canonised the lady still more effectively in a 
 briei'cr but more sentimental ditty, which had the good fortune to 
 he conceived in connection with one of the most tenderly-beautiful 
 of the national airs. 
 
 THE BOXME WEF. TIIINO. 
 TrvR— Bonnie icec Thing. 
 
 Bonnie wee thing, cannic wee thing, 
 Lovely woe thing, wert thou mine, 
 
 I wad wear tlicc in ]uy bosom. 
 Lest my jewel I should tine!
 
 198 LIFE AND WOEKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Wishfully I Ipok and languish 
 
 In that bonnie face o' thine ; 
 And my heart it stouuds wi' anguish, 
 
 Lest my wee thing be na miine. 
 
 Wit, and grace, and love, and beauty, 
 
 In ae constellation shine; 
 To adore thee is my dutj', 
 
 Goddess o' this soul o' mine ! 
 Bonnie wee thing, cannie v/ee thing, 
 
 Lovely wee thing, wert thou mine, 
 I wad wear thee in my bosom, 
 
 Lest my jewel I should tine ! 
 
 ' One day, while Burns was at Moffat ' — thus writes Allan 
 Cunningham — ' the charming, lovely Davies rode past, accompanied 
 by a lady tall and portly: on a friend asking the poet, why God 
 made one lady so large, and Miss Davies so little, he replied in the 
 words of the epigram : ' 
 
 Ask why God made the gem so small, 
 
 And v/hy so huge the granite ? 
 Because God meant mankind should set 
 
 The hiffher value on it. 
 
 *£>' 
 
 ' No one,' adds Allan, ' has apologised so handsomely for scrimpit 
 stature.' 
 
 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 ii'e 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 imper- 
 tinent 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
 
 EVENTUAL HISTORY OF MISS DAVIES. 199 
 
 impotent and ineffectual, as the idle breeze that crosses the pathless 
 desert ? In my walks of life I have met Avith 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 
 Las 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 pleasui-e 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 afFaii'S 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 skulic, 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 coidd 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 toler- 
 able — 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. E. B. 
 
 Allan Cunningham relates the romantic subsequent history of 
 Miss Davies, from the information of a nephew of the lady. A 
 Captain Dclany ' made himself acceptable to her by sympathising 
 in her pursuits, and writing verses on her, calling her his Stella, 
 an ominous name, which might have brought the memoi'y of Swift's 
 unhappy mistress to her mind. An offer of marriage was made 
 and accepted ; but Delany's circumstances were urged as an obstacle: 
 delays ensued : a coldness on the lover's part followed : his regi- 
 ment was called abroad, he went with it : she heard from him once 
 and no more, and was left to mourn tlie change of affection — to 
 droop and die. He perished in battle or by a foreign climate, soon
 
 200 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS, 
 
 after tlic dccath of the young lady, of whose love he was so 
 uuwortliy. 
 
 ' The "following verses on this unfortunate attachment form part 
 of a poem found among her papers at her death : she takes 
 Delany's portrait from her bosom, presses it to her lips, and says — 
 
 " Xexfc to thyself, 'tis all on earth, 
 
 Thy Stella dear doth hold ; 
 The glass is clouded witli my brcatli, 
 
 And as ray bosom cold : 
 Tliat bosom which so oft has glowed, 
 
 "With love and friendsliip's name, 
 Where you the seed of love first sowed. 
 
 That kindled into flame. 
 
 You tliere neglected let it burn, 
 
 It seized the vital part, 
 And left my bosom as an urn, 
 
 To hold a broken heart ; 
 I once had tlioiight I should have been 
 
 A tender, happy wife, 
 And passed my future days serene, 
 
 AVith thee, my James, through life." ' 
 
 Amongst the gentry of Dumfriesshire was one possessed of 
 accomplishments akin to those of Burns — Charles Sharpe of 
 Hoddam, an excellent violinist, and a composer of both music and 
 verse. I am not aware of the publication of any specimen of Mr 
 Sharpe's poetry ; but his son, Mr Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, 
 printed a few years ago an air to the song of llie Ewe-milMmj's 
 Bonnie, which the Laird of Iloddam was believed to have produced 
 upon the stock and horn when only eight years of age ; and it 
 certainly is a pleasing example of melody of the Scottish cha- 
 racter, and perfectly original. Burns having heard an air of Mr 
 Sharpe's composition, adopted tlie whimsical idea of addressing 
 him under a fictitious signature, in the character of a vagrant 
 fiddler: — 
 
 TO CHARLES SHARPE, ESQ. OF HODDAM, 
 ENCLOSING A BALLAD. 
 
 It is true, sir, you arc a gentleman of rank and fortune, and I am 
 a poor devil — you are a fcatlier in the cap of Society, and I am a very 
 liobnail in his sliocs ; 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 
 lionourablc house of Kirkpatrick. No, no, sir : I cannot indeed be 
 properly said to belong to any house, or even any province or
 
 "WHIMSICAL LETTER TO CHARLES SHAEPE OF IIODDAM. 201 
 
 kingdom ; as my mother, wlio for many years was spouse to a, 
 marching- regiment, gave me into tiiis bad world, aboard the packet- 
 Ijoat, somewhere between Donagliadee and Portpatrick. By our 
 common family, I mean, sir, the family of the Pluses. I am a fiddler 
 and a poet ; and you, I am told, play an exquisite violin, and have a 
 standard taste in the helles leitrcs. 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 enclosed. 
 Will you allow me, sir, to present you them, as the dearest oftering 
 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 himiau 
 nature, amid an age when frivolity and avarice have, between them, 
 debased us below the brutes that perish !' But, alas, sir ! to mc you 
 are unapproachable. It is true the Muses baptised me in Castaliaii 
 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-liearted turnpikes 
 too, arc what not even the hide of Job's behemoth could bear. The 
 coat on my bac'.c is no more : I shall not speak evil of the dead. It 
 would be eipially 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 
 ill Britain. I was during several years a kind of fac-totum servant 
 to a country clergyman, where I picked up a good many scra]>s of 
 learning, particuhirly in some branches of the mathematics. Wiien- 
 ever I feel inclined to rest myself on my way, I take my scat 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 lot me mislead yotJ, as if I would interest your 
 pity. Fortune has so mucli forsaken me, tliat she has taught mo 
 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 simj)Iy as they act tlieir parts. I can look 
 on a wortlilcss fellow of a duke witii unqualified contempt, and can 
 regard an honest scavenger with sincere respect. As you, sir, go
 
 202 LIFE AND AYOEKS OF BURNS. 
 
 throii^li j-our rdle with svicli distinguished merit, permit me to make 
 one in the cliorus of universal applause, and assure you that, with 
 the highest respect, I have the honour to be, &c. 
 
 This queer epistle led to an intimacy between Mr Sharpe and 
 Burns, of w^hicli all literary evidence has vanished. The only other 
 memorial of the friendship of the two fiddlers that has appeared is 
 a cm-ious relic in the possession of a gentleman at "Wliitehaven — 
 namely, a masonic apron described as of ' shammy leather, very 
 fine, with figures of gold, some of them relieved with green, others 
 with a dark - red colour,' while ' on the under side of the semi- 
 circular part which is turned down at the top, is written in a bold 
 fail' hand — 
 
 " Charles Shakpe of Hotham, 
 
 TO 
 
 Eabbie Burns. 
 
 Dumfries, Dec. 12, 1791." 'i 
 
 The local library scheme which Burns had helped to set on 
 foot soon after coming to EUisland, had now run its three years' 
 course with success. It had become the duty of Mr Kirkpatrick, 
 the minister of Dunscore, to send an account of his parish to Sir 
 John Sinclair, for publication in the large statistical work which 
 he had commenced : from this the reverend gentleman omitted all 
 reference to the Monkland Library, probably, as Allan Cunning- 
 ham suggests, from a dislike to the kind of literature patronised 
 by it. Mr Riddel resolved to make up, as far as possible, for this 
 deficiency, and prevailed on Burns to write an account of the 
 library, Avhich he enclosed to Sir John in one from himself. Both 
 letters appeared in the third volume of the Statistical Account of 
 Scotland. 
 
 TO SIR JOHN SINCLAIR, BART. 
 
 Sir John — I enclose you a letter, written by Mr Burns, as an 
 addition to the account of Dunscore parish. It contains an account 
 of a small library which ho was so good (at my desire) as to set on 
 foot in the barony of Monkland, or Friars' Carse, in this parish. As 
 its utility has been felt, particularly among the younger class of 
 people, I think that if a similar plan were established in the- 
 different parishes of Scotland, it would tend greatly to the speedy 
 improvement of the tenantry, trades-people, and work-people. Mr 
 Burns was so good as to take the M'hole charge of this small concern. 
 He was treasurer, librarian, and censor to this little society, who 
 
 1 Letter of Mr .John Rnmsay (author of Woodnolcs of a Wanderer), in Ayr 
 Advertiser, January 9, 1851.
 
 ACCOUNT OF THE MOXKLAKD LICEAEY. 203 
 
 \rlll long have a grateful sense of liis public spirit and exertions for 
 their improvement and information. I have the honour to be, Sir 
 John, yours most sincerely, Robert PiIDDEl. 
 
 TO SIR JOHN SINCLAIR. 
 
 [1791.] 
 
 Sir — The following circumstance has, I believe, been omitted in 
 the statistical account transmitted to you of the parish of Dunscore, 
 in Nithsdale. I beg leave to send it to you because it is new, and 
 may be useful. How far it is deserving of a place in your patriotic 
 publication you are the best judge. 
 
 To store the minds of the lower classes with useful knowledge is 
 certainly of very great importance, both to them as individuals and 
 to society at large. Giving them a turn for reading and reflection, 
 is giving them a source of innocent and laudable amusement, and, 
 besides, raises them to a more dignified degree in the scale of 
 rationality. Impressed with tliis idea, a gentleman in this i^arish, 
 Piobert Eiddel, Esq. of Glenriddel, set on foot a species of circulating 
 library, on a plan so simple as to be practicable in any corner of the 
 country; and so useful as to deserve the notice of every country 
 gentleman who thinks the improvement of that part of his own 
 species, whom chance has thrown into the humble walks of the 
 peasant and the artisan, a matter worthy of his attention. 
 
 Mr Riddel got a number of his own tenants and farming 
 neighbours to form themselves into a society for the purpose of 
 having a library among themselves. They entered into a legal 
 engagement to abide by it for three years ; ' with a saving-clause or 
 two, in case of removal to a distance or of death. Each member 
 at his entry paid five shillings ; and at each of their meetings, 
 which were held every fourth Saturday, sixpence more. With 
 their entry-money, and the credit which they took on the faith of 
 their future funds, they laid in a tolerable stock of books at the 
 commencement. What authors they were to purchase was always 
 decided by tlie majority. At every meeting, all the books, imder 
 certain fines and forfeitures, by way of penalty, were to be produced ; 
 and the members had tlieir choice of the volumes in rotation. He 
 whose name stood for that niglit first on the list, had his choice of 
 what volume he pleased in the whole collection ; the second had his 
 choice after the first ; the third after the second ; and so on to tiio 
 last. At next meeting, he who had been first on the list at the 
 preceding meeting was last at this ; he avIio had been second was 
 first; and so on through the whole three years. At the expiration 
 of the engagement, the books were sold by auction, but only among 
 the members themselves ; and each man had his share of the common 
 stock, in money or in books, as he chose to be a purchaser or not. 
 
 At the breaking up of this little society, wliicli was formed under 
 Mv Riddel's patronage, what with benefactions of books from him,
 
 20-t LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 and what with their ov.-n purchases, they liad collected together 
 upwards of one hundred and fifty volumes. It will easily be guessed 
 that a good deal of trash would be bought. Among the books, 
 however, of this little library, were — Blair^s Sermo>i.<;, BohertsorCs 
 History of Scotland, Hume's History of the Stum-L^, The Spectator, 
 Idler, Adventurer, Mirror, Loungtr, Observer, Man of Feeling, Man 
 of the World, Chrysal, Don Quixote, Joseph Andrews, &c. A peasant 
 ■wlio can road, and enjoy such books, is certainly a much superior 
 being to his neighbour who perhaps stalks beside his team, very little 
 removed, except in shape, from the brutes he drives. 
 
 "Wishing your patriotic exertions their so much merited success, I 
 am, sir, your humble servant, A Peasant. 
 
 TO MR MAXWELL OF TERRAUGHTY, ON IIIS BIRTHDAY. 
 
 Health to the Maxwell's veteran chief! 
 Health, aye unsoured by care or grief: 
 Inspired, I turned Fate's sybil leaf 
 
 This natal morn ; 
 I see thy life is stuff o' prief. 
 
 Scarce quite half worn. 
 
 This day thou metes threescore eleven, 
 And I can tell that bounteous Heaven 
 (The second-sight, ye ken, is given 
 
 To ilka Poet) 
 On thee a tack o' seven times seven 
 
 Will yet bestow it. 
 
 If envious buckies view wi' sorrow 
 
 Thy lengthened days on this blest morrow, 
 
 May desolation's lang-teethed harrow, 
 
 Nine miles an hour, 
 Hake them like Sodom and Gomorrah, 
 
 In brunstanc stoure ! 
 
 But for thy friends, and they are mony, 
 Baith honest men and lassies bonnie. 
 May couthie fortune, kind and cannie. 
 
 In social glee, 
 Wi' mornings blithe, and c'cnings funny, 
 
 Bless them and thee ! 
 
 Fareweel, auld birkie! Lord be near ye, 
 And then the deil he daurna steer ye: 
 Your friends aye love, your faes aye fear ye ; 
 
 For me, shame fa' me, 
 If neist my heart I dinna wear ye 
 
 While Burns they ca' me !
 
 SOXG OF DEATH. 205 
 
 The person addressed in these verses — John ^Maxwell, Esq. of 
 
 Terraughty and Munches — was a leading public man in the county 
 
 of Dumfries. He was on several accounts very remarkable, but 
 
 particularly for his birth and the proximity into which his family 
 
 history brings us with events comparatively remote ; for jMr Maxwell 
 
 was grandson's-grandson, and no more, to the gallant and faitliful 
 
 Lord Ilerries, who on bended knees entreated Queen Mary to 
 
 prosecute Bothwell as the nuu-derer of her husband, and who sul> 
 
 sequently fought for her at Langside. One cannot learn without a 
 
 pleasing kind of surprise that a relation in the fifth degree of one 
 
 who was Warden of the West Marches in 15-45, should have lived 
 
 to the close of the French Eevolution wai's, which was the case of 
 
 Mr Maxwell, for lie died in January 1814. Mr Maxwell was an 
 
 active man both in the management of his own estate and in 
 
 public business, and is admitted to have contributed greatly 
 
 to the jarosperity of liis native district. A very curious paper 
 
 drawn up by him in 1811, giving a view of the advance of 
 
 the country in its agricultural economy during his centenai-ian 
 
 existence, has been published. 
 
 TO SIRS DUXLOP. 
 
 Ellisi.an'd, I'lh Dcceniljcr 1791. 
 
 Many thanks to you, madam, for your good news respecting the 
 little floweret and tlie mother-plant. I hope my poetic prayers luivo 
 been heard, and will be answered up to the warmest sincerity of 
 their fullest extent; and tlien Mrsi Henri will find her little darling 
 tlie representative of liis late parent, in everything hut his abridged 
 existence. 
 
 I have just finished the following song, which, to a lady, the descend- 
 ant of AVallace, and many heroes of Jiis truly illustrious line — and 
 lierself the mother of several soldiers — needs neither preface nor 
 apology, 
 
 SOXG OF DEATH. 
 
 Am — Oran an Aoij. 
 
 Scene— A. Fidd of B.attlc— Time of the d.ay, F.vcninc;— T)io wounded and dying of 
 the victorious army are supposed to join in llie following sonj; : — 
 
 Farewell, tluni fair day, thou green earth, and ye skies. 
 
 Now gay M-itli the l)i-ight setting sun ; 
 Farewell loves and fricndsliips, ye dear tender ties — 
 
 Oar race of existence is run !
 
 206 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Thou grim King of Terrors, thou life's gloomy foe ! 
 
 Go, frighten the coward and slave ; 
 Go, teach them to tremble, fell tyrant! but know 
 
 No terrors hast thou to the brave ! 
 
 Thou strik'st the dull peasant — he sinks in the dark, 
 
 Nor saves e'en the wreck of a name ; 
 Thou strik'st the young hero — a glorious mark! 
 
 He falls in the blaze of his fame ! 
 
 In the field of proud honour — our swords ia our hands, 
 
 Our king and our country to save— 
 "While victory shines on life's last ebbing sands, 
 
 Oh ! who would not die with the brave? 
 
 The circumstance that gave rise to tlie foregoing verses was — 
 looking over with a musical friend M'Donald's collection of Highland 
 airs, I was struck with one, an Isle of Skye tune, entitled Oran an 
 Aoig, or the Song of Death, to the measure of which I have adapted 
 my stanzas. I have of late composed two or three other little 
 pieces, which, ere yon full-orbed moon, whose broad impudent face 
 now stares at old Mother Earth all night, shall have shrunk into a 
 modest crescent, just peeping forth at dewy dawn, I shall find an hour 
 to transcribe for you. A Dieuje vous commende. K. B. 
 
 We have seen that so early as January 1790, after a little more 
 than a year and a half's experience of his farm, the poet had 
 become alarmed at its unprofitableness. His statement to Lady 
 Elizabeth Cunningham in spring 1791 is, that but for the support 
 he had from his Excise income he must have sunk under the bad 
 bargain of his farm. It is difficult now to imagine such a farm as 
 ruinous at £50 or even £70 a year, when the existing tenant pays 
 £170, notwithstanding that it is now less by a few acres than in 
 Burns's time, and that the markets are even lower than they were 
 then. But some explanation is hinted when we hear Burns 
 speaking of wandering out among the broom in his neighbourhood : 
 the land was not then in its present state of cultivation ; high, or 
 even tolerable farming was not understood or pi-actised ; and, 
 accordingly, it might be more difficult to wring £70 out of this 
 farm for the landlord in 1791 than it is now to pay him £100 
 more. However this may be, Burns now only waited for a some- 
 what better appointment in the Excise to throw up his ungrateful 
 acres.' 
 
 1 In a conversation I had with Mr Kirkpatrick, the present tenant, in June 1850, 
 he 8i)oke of the farm as one which would be a pretty good bargain at £14(I, even 
 under the new prospects of British agriculture. The land has been much improved 
 since Buma's time, but still is not of first-rate quality.
 
 BUKKS ABANDONS HIS FAEil. 207 
 
 His thirrl versified epistle to Mr Graham, which is here placed 
 in summer 1791, expresses, though hintingly, the eager Avishes of 
 the poet for such an appointment, and at length, by the kindness 
 of that gentleman, it was obtained towards the close of the 
 year. He had expected, as we have seen, a supervisorship ; but 
 this was to remain a hope deferred. The arrangement was that 
 Bums should perform duty in Dumfries as an ordinary exciseman, 
 and enjoy a salary of £70 per annum. This was an advance 
 of £20 upon his Ellisland income, and as he did not now 
 require to keep a horse, the advantage must be reckoned at 
 a still higher sum. However this was. Burns considered himself 
 as for the meantime independent of the farm. The mcome was 
 indeed a small one, and it was something of a declension to be 
 the common exciseman only ; but hope at this time made up for 
 pU — he was led to expect an advance in the service which, though 
 increasing his toils, would put him comparatively at ease in his 
 circumstances. On this occasion he composed his 
 
 \ 
 
 FOURTH EPISTLE TO MR GRAHAM OF FINTRV. 
 
 I call no goddess to inspire my strains, 
 A fabled muse may suit a bard that feigns ; 
 Friend of my life ! my ardent spirit burns, 
 And all the tribute of ray heart returns, 
 For boons accorded, goodness ever new. 
 The gift still dearer, as the giver, you. 
 
 Thou orb of day ! thou other paler light ! 
 
 And all ye many sparkling stars of night ; 
 
 If aught that giver from my mind efface. 
 
 If I that giver's bounty e'er disgrace ; 
 
 Then roll to me, along your wandering spheres, 
 
 Only to number out a villain's years ! 
 
 As a first step, he had to get Ellisland taken off his hands by 
 Mr Miller. It had pleased Heaven to bring these two remarkable 
 men into a sort of friendship, but to ' decrease it upon better 
 acquaintance.' Burns quickly found that Mr Miller's relation to 
 him was that of the patron : he expected deference, and Avhen 
 Burns would not submit to such terms, tlic landlord and his gifted 
 tenant became comparatively estranged. Yet there is no evidence 
 of Mr iMiller having ever acted otherwise than generously and 
 leniently with Burns, or of Burns having ever acted ungratefully 
 or with open disrespect towards Mr Miller. "When the crisis 
 arrived which caused the poet to wish to part with tlie farm, the 
 landlord was fortunately in such circumstances as to render him
 
 208 LIFE AND TVORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 more than willing to take back the lease. A neighbour, Mr 
 IMorine, was willing to purchase for £2000 what Burns could not 
 profitably lease at £70. Mr Miller was not unwilling to part on 
 such terms with a piece of his property, which was awkwardly 
 detached from the rest by the river. Accordingly, on the 19th 
 November, j\Ir ^loriue became proprietor of ' the forty-shilling or 
 three-merk land of old extent of EUisland,' and Burns at the same 
 time renounced his concern in the ground. lie soon after sold off 
 his stock and implements, and taking a small house in Dumfries, 
 moved thither with his family and his furniture — ' leaving nothing 
 at EUisland,' says Allan Cunningham, ' but a putting-stone with 
 which he had loved to exercise his strength, a memory of his 
 musings which can never die, and £300 of his money sunk 
 beyond redemption in a speculation from which all had augured 
 happiness.'
 
 D U M FRIES: 
 
 Decembeu 1791— July 179G. 
 
 It must have been a sad change to the poet and his family, 
 when, leaving tlie beautiful knolls and haughs of Ellisland, and all 
 the rough comforts of a farm, they had to take up tlieir residence 
 in the first floor of a small house in the ' Wee' Vennel of 
 Dumfries, -where the father no longer saw the sun rise over the 
 beautiful river, the little ones had no longer the gowaned sod to 
 sport over, and the mother found that every article of household 
 necessity had to be purchased. How light, however, would present 
 inconveniences have appeared, if any of the group could have 
 known that they had taken the first but decisive step towards the 
 tragic conclusion which stretched this noble poet on his deathbed 
 less than five years after! 
 
 Dumfries is a compact and rather elegant small town, situated 
 on the Is'ith at the point where it becomes navigable. The 
 environs are generally beautiful ; one spot particularly so, where 
 the ruins of Lincluden Church adorn the peninsula between the 
 Nitli and its tributary the Cluden. The curse of country towns 
 is the partial and entire idleness of large classes of the inhabitants. 
 There is always a cluster of men living on competencies, and a 
 greater number of tradesmen whose shop -duties do not occupy 
 half their time. Till a very recent period, dissipation in greater 
 or less intensity was the rule and not the exception amongst 
 these men ; and in Dumfries, sixty years ago. this rule held good. 
 In those days tavern enjoyments were in vogue among men who 
 do not now enter a public place of entertainment once in a 
 twelvemonth. The weary waste of spirits and energy at these 
 soaking evening meetings was deplorable. Insipid toasts, petty 
 raillery, empty gabble about trivial occurrences, endless disputes 
 on small questions of fact, where an almanac or a dictionary would 
 have settled all, these, relieved by a song when it was to be had, 
 
 VOL. III. N
 
 210 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 formed the staple of convivial life as I remember it in such places 
 in my o^vn younger days. It was a life without progress, or 
 profit, or any gleam of a tendency to moral elevation. The oply 
 redemption to be hoped for it was in such scintillations of wit 
 and eloquence as a man like Burns could give. For him, on the 
 other liand, to do so was to sacrifice the bread of angels before 
 blocks and dolts. 
 
 Burns came into this society a comparatively pure man, for 
 though the contrary has been asserted, there is no evidence that 
 he had as yet acquired over-convivial habits. His own inclination 
 was to shun rather than to court the bacchanalian revel, and 
 there was a literal truth in what he told the Countess of Glen- 
 cairn as to bringing his punch-bowl from its dusty comer on her 
 ladyship's birthday. Burns, however, does not seem ever to 
 have aimed at systematically resisting the temptations of convivial 
 society. He yielded to them when they came, and it depended 
 on the frequency of occasion or opportunity whether he was to be 
 much or little in merry company. Now tliat he was thrown into 
 Dumfries, it was of course to be feared that he would become 
 much more a victim to such indulgences than formerly. 
 
 The removal to Dumfries was a crisis in the fate of Bums in 
 another respect. In the earlier years of the French Eevolution, 
 it does not appear that our poet felt much interest in that 
 agitating subject ; nor do we observe any traces of political 
 liberalism in his writings or conduct up to the latter part of 1791. 
 In this respect he was not different from the great bulk of British 
 society, for certainly till the publication of Burke's pamphlet the 
 proceedings of the patriotic party in France had excited much 
 less attention than might have been expected. There were as yet 
 no democratic publications, no ultra-reforming societies. The 
 active sympathisers were a small party of intelligent men, chiefly 
 connected Avith the dissenting bodies. It was only now that the 
 violent arrogations of the democratic party in the Legislative 
 Assembly of France began to be viewed with any serious uneasiness 
 by the English government. Men of rank and state could not but 
 sympathise with the unfortunate Louis, whom his subjects kept 
 in an honourable, but perilous captivity. Sober men began to 
 fear that the new regime was not to settle to quiet or sober courses. 
 On the other hand, the more ardent minds were loath to see 
 danger. It is at this crisis that we find the mind of Burns 
 beginning to kindle to French politics. Formerly ill affected, 
 though in no serious way, to the Brunswick dynasty, it was with 
 liim, as witli many other Jacobites, a simple change in the form of 
 opposition to take up with the doctrines which were now a subject 
 of alarm to the English and all other reigning families. Not that
 
 LETTER TO MR R. AINSLIE. 211 
 
 he would have readily sanctioned any violent changes in the 
 constitution of his country — such things were not generally 
 thought of — but his sympathies were certainly with the patriots 
 in France, as against their own sovereign and the powers 
 proposing to replace him in full authority. 
 
 These are general observations which come in suitably at this 
 place ; but it is not immediately that their application appears. 
 
 TO MR AINSLIE. 
 
 My dear Ainslte — Can you minister to a mind diseased ? — can 
 you, amid the horrors of penitence, regret, remorse, headache, 
 nausea, and all the rest of the 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 j'/^rdii that I am ! I have tried everything that used to 
 amuse me, but in vain : here must I sit, a monument of the 
 vengeance laid up in store for the wicked, slowly counting every 
 chick of the clock as it slowly, slowly numbers over these lazy 
 scoundrels of hours, who, * * * *, are ranked up before me, 
 every one following his neighbour, and every one with a burden 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 stai'ing me in the face, every one telling a more 
 bitter tale than his fellow. * « I began Elihanlcs and Elihraes, 
 but the stanzas fell unenjoyed and unfinished from my listless 
 tongue : at last I luckily thought of reading over an old letter of 
 yours that lay by me in my book-case, and I felt something, for the 
 
 first time since I opened my eyes, of pleasurable existence 
 
 "Well — I begin to breathe a little since I began to write to you. How 
 are you, and what are you doing? How goes law? Apropos, for 
 connexion's sake, do not address to me supervisor, for that is an 
 lionour 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, though t'other day I got an appoint- 
 ment 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. K. B. 
 
 We have but an obscure notice of a visit which Bums paid to 
 Edinburgh in November of this year, being the last he ever made 
 to that capital. Up to nearly this time Mrs M'Lehose had main- 
 tained the unforgiving distance wliich she assumed after his final 
 union with Jean, notwithstanding his having sent her several
 
 212 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 exculpatory letters. She had lately written to him in a style 
 ■which drew forth the following reply : — 
 
 STLVANDER TO CLARINDA. 
 
 I HAVE received both your last letters, madam, and ought, and 
 ■would have answered the iirst long ago. But on what subject shall 
 I write you ? How can you expect a correspondent should write 
 you when you declare tliat you mean to preserve his letters with a 
 view, sooner or later, to expose them on the pillory of derision and 
 the rack of criticism? This is gagging me completely as to speaking 
 the sentiments of my bosom ; else, madam, I could perhaps too truly 
 
 ' Join grief with grief, and eclio sighs to thine ! ' 
 
 I have perused your most beautiful, but most pathetic poem ; do not 
 ask me how often or with what emotions. You know that ' I dare 
 to si7i, but not to lie.^ Your versos wring the confession from my 
 inmost soul, that — I will say it, expose it if you please — that I have, 
 more than once in my life, been the victim of a dauining conjuncture 
 of circumstances : and that to me vou must be ever 
 
 ' De;ir us the light that visits those sad eyes.' 
 
 I have just, since I had yours, composed the following stanzas. 
 Let me know your opinion of them : — 
 
 Sweet Sensibility, how charming. 
 
 Thou, my friend, canst truly tell ; 
 But how Distress, with horrors arming, 
 
 Thou, .-.las! hast known too well! 
 
 Fairest Flower, behold the lily, 
 
 Blooming in the sunny ray ; 
 Let the blast sweep o'er the valley, 
 
 See it prostrate on the clay. 
 
 Hear the wood-lark charm the forest, 
 
 Telling o'er his little joys; 
 But, alas ! a prey the surest 
 
 To each pirate of the skies. 
 
 Dearly bought the hidden treasure 
 
 Finer feclino'S can bestow: 
 Cords that vibrate sweetest pleas\n-e 
 
 Thrill the deepest notes of wo. 
 
 T have one other piece in your taste; but I have just a snatch of 
 time. 
 
 Now, however, the lady was approaching a critical passage of 
 her own liistory. She had resolved, though with much hesitation,
 
 KENEWED CORRESPONDENCE WITH CLARINDA. 213 
 
 to accept an invitation from her heartless husband, and join him 
 in Jamaica. In the softened feeling arising from the contempla- 
 tion of such a movement, she relented so far towards Burns as to 
 admit him to a visit. Wliat one would give to know the par- 
 ticulars of the interview! It took place on the Gth of December. 
 That it gave occasion to an effusion of passionate feeling is 
 strongly hinted in a letter of the poet written a twelvemonth 
 after. We may also hesitate little in reading as a record of the 
 scene a series of lyrics, one of which is amongst the most eai-nest 
 and arresting expressions of intense feeling ever composed in 
 verse. He also addressed several letters to the lady. 
 
 TO CT.ARINDA. 
 
 LcAPHiLLS, Thursday noon, \^Dcc. 11, 179I-] 
 
 [After transcribing the Lament of Manj Qmen cif Scots; he adds} 
 — Such, my dearest Clarinda, were tlie words of the amiable but 
 unfortunate Mary. Misfortune seems to take a peculiar pleasure in 
 dartinjj her arrows against 'lionest men and bonny lasses.' Of this 
 you are too, too just a proof; but may your future fate be a bright 
 exception to the remark. In the words of Hamlet — 
 ' Adieu, adieu, adieu ! Remember me.' 
 
 Sylvander. 
 to clarinda. 
 
 Dumfries, [ISift Dec. 1791] 
 
 I HAVE some merit, my ever dearest of women, in attracting and 
 securing the heart of Clarinda. In her I met with the most 
 accomplisbed of all womankind, the first of all God's works ; and 
 yet I, even I, had the good-fortime to appear amiable in her sight. 
 
 liy the by, this is the sixth letter that I have written you since I 
 left you ; and if you were an ordinary being, as you are a creature 
 very extraordinary — an instance of what God Almighty in the 
 plenitude of his power and the fulness of his goodness can make! — 
 I would never forgive you for not answering uiy letters. 
 
 I have scut your hair, a part of the parcel you gave me, with a 
 measure, to Mr I3ruce the jeweller in Princes JStrect, to get a ring 
 done for me. I have likewise sent in the verses On Sensibility, 
 altered to 
 
 ' Sensibility how chnrminp, 
 
 Dearest Nancy, thou canst tell,' &c. 
 
 to the editor of the Srntx Songs, of which you liavc throe volumes, to 
 set to a most beautiful air — out of coinjilinient to the first of women, 
 my cvcr-bclovcd, my ever-sacred Clariiula. I shall probably write 
 you to-morrow. In the meantime, from a man who is literally 
 drunk, accept and forgive ! II. B.
 
 21-4 Ln?E AND WOEKS OF BURNS. 
 
 TO CLARINDA. 
 
 DuMFBiBs, 27(ft Decemher 1791. 
 I HAVE yours, my ever-dearest madam, this moment. I have just 
 ten minutes before the post goes, and tliese I shall employ in sending 
 you some songs I have just been composing to different tunes for 
 the Collection of Songs, of wliich you have three volumes, and of 
 ■wliich you shall have the fourth. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 •=■ Iv^s—Rory Ball's Port. 
 
 Ae fond kiss, and then we sever ! 
 
 Ae fare w eel, and then for ever! 
 
 Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge tlice, 
 
 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 '11 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 loved sae kindly, 
 Had Ave never loved 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 I 
 
 Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee^ 
 
 Warring sighs and groans I'll v/age thee. 
 
 SONG. 
 To an old Scots Tune. 
 
 Behold the hour, the boat, arrive! 
 
 My dearest Nancy, fareweel! 
 Severed frae thee, can I survive, 
 
 Frae thee whom I hae loved sae weel ?
 
 SONGS ON MES M'LEHOSE. 215 
 
 Endless and deep shall be my grief; 
 
 Nae ray o' comfort shall I see ; 
 But this most precious, dear belief ! 
 
 That thou wilt still remember me. 
 
 Alang the solitary shore, 
 
 Where fleeting sea-fowl round me cry, 
 Across the rolling, dashing roar, 
 
 I'll westward turn my wistful eye. 
 
 Happy, thou Indian grove, I'll say. 
 
 Where now my Nancy's path shall be ! 
 While through your sweets she holds her way, 
 
 O tell me, does she muse on me ? 
 
 SONG. 
 To a charming plaintive Scots Air. 
 
 Ance mair I hail thee, thou gloomy December ! 
 
 Ance mair I hail thee wi' sorrow and caro : 
 Sad was the parting thou mak'st me remember. 
 
 Parting wi' Nancy, oh, ne'er to meet mair! 
 
 Fond lovers' parting is sweet, painful pleasure, 
 Hope beaming mild on the soft parting hour ; 
 
 But the dire feeling, oh, farewell for ever ! 
 Anguish unmingled and agony pure ! 
 
 The rest of this song is on the wheels. 
 
 Adieu. Adieu. 
 
 Sylvander. 
 
 The poet afterwards added the following verses : — 
 
 Wild as the winter now tearing the forest, 
 Till the last leaf o' the summer is flown, 
 
 Such is the tempest has shaken my bosom. 
 Since my last hope and last comfort is gone ! 
 
 Still as I hail thee, thou gloomy December, 
 Still shall I hail thee wi' sorrow and care ; 
 
 For sad v.-as the parting thou mak'st me remember, 
 Parting wi' Nancy, oh, ne'er to meet mair! 
 
 The song to the air Rotij DalVs Port is the remarkable expres- 
 sion of passion above alluded to. The fourth stanza Byron put at 
 the head of his poem, The Bride of Ahydos. Scott has remarked 
 that that verse is worth a thousand romances ; and Mrs Jameson 
 has elegantly said that not only are these lines what Scott says,
 
 21 G LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 'but in themselves a complete romance. They are,' she adds, 
 ' the alpha and omega of leeUng, and contain the essence of au 
 existence of pain and pleasure distilled into one burning drop.' 
 
 On the 25th of January 1792, Mrs M'Lehose wrote a friendly 
 letter to Burns, bidding him farewell in anticipation of her 
 immediate departure for Jamaica. She says : ' Seek God's 
 favour, keep his commandments, be solicitous to prepare for a 
 happy eternity. There I trust we will meet in never-ending 
 bliss!' She sailed in February in that vessel, the Eoselle, in 
 which Burns intended to have left his country a few years before. 
 
 One of the final meetings of Burns and Clarinda is believed to 
 be the subject-matter of the following song, which, however, must 
 be regarded as a poetical rather than historical recital: — 
 
 O MAY, THY MORN. 
 
 May, thy morn was ne'er so sweet 
 
 As tlic mirk night o' December, 
 For sparkling was the rosy wine, 
 
 And secret was the chamber ; 
 And dear was she I darena name, 
 
 But I will aye remember: 
 And dear was she I darena name. 
 
 But I will aye remember. 
 
 And here's to them that like ourscl' 
 
 Can push about the jorum ; 
 And here's to them that wish us wecl, 
 
 May a' that's gude watch o'er them ! 
 And here's to them we darena name. 
 
 The dearest o' the quorum : 
 And here's to thorn we darena tell, 
 
 The dearest o' the quorum. 
 
 These lyrics could not have been written without an earnest, 
 however temporary and transient feeling on the part of the author; 
 yet we conceive it would be a great mistake to accept them as a 
 literal expression of the particular passion in which they origi- 
 nated, or a description of incidents to which that passion gave rise. 
 We ought to make a considerable allowance for the extent to 
 which the poet's mind is actuated by mere considerations of art 
 and the desire of effect. In one there is a levity, and in others a 
 tincture of metier^ which are alike incompatible with our notions 
 of this sentimental attachment. The Ae Fond Kiss appears in a 
 different light. The tragic tale seems there concentrated in a 
 wild gush of eloquence direct from the poet's heart.
 
 SONGS ON MRS M'LEHOSE. 217 
 
 In the course of the ensuing summer, while Mrs M'Lehose was 
 absent in the West Indies, the poet's feelings subsided into a 
 comparative caha, and he then composed the following beautiful 
 pastoral : — 
 
 MY NANNIE 's AWA. 
 
 Now in her green mantle blithe nature arrays, 
 And listens the lambkins that bleat o'er the braes, 
 AVhile birds warble welcome in ilka green sliaw ; 
 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 ; 
 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 of the lawn. 
 The shepherd to warn o' the gray-breaking dawn ; 
 And thou mellow mavis that hails the night fa', 
 Give over for pity— my Nannie's awa. 
 
 Come autumn, sae pensive, in yellow and gray, 
 And soothe lue with tidings o' nature's decay : 
 The dark dreary winter and wild driving snaw 
 Alane can delight me — now Nannie's awa! 
 
 ITirowIng himself sympathetically into the circumstances of 
 the unhappy lady, he at the same time gave expression to her 
 supposed feelings in seeking a reunion with her aberrant hus- 
 band : — 
 
 WANDERING AVILLIE. 
 
 Here awa, there awa, wandering "Willie, 
 
 Now tired with wandering, hand awa hamc ; 
 
 Come to my bosom, my ae only dearie, 
 
 And tell me thou bring'st me my Willie the same. 
 
 Loud blew the oauld winter winds at oin" parting; 
 
 It wasna the blast brought tiie tear in my ce : 
 Now welcome the simmer, and welcome my Willie, 
 
 The simmer to nature, my Willie to me. 
 
 Ye hurricanes, rest in tiic cave o' your slumbers! 
 
 how your wild horrors a lover alarms! 
 Awaken ye breezes ! blow gently, ye billows ! 
 
 And waft my dear laddie ance mair to my arms.
 
 218 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 But if he's forgotten his faithfullest Nannie, 
 
 O still How 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! l 
 
 It will be found that Burns afterwards made some alterations 
 on the above song. 
 
 In a letter to Mr Cunningham, dated June 11, 1791, we have 
 seen Burns expressing himself warmly in behalf of his friend Mr 
 Clarke, the teacher at Moffat, whom he regarded as suffering an 
 unworthy persecution. He appears in the interval to have been 
 continuing to exert himself in behalf of Mr Clarke. 
 
 ■*t3 
 
 TO MR JAMES 'c[LARKE], MOFFAT. 
 
 Dumfries, 10//t January 1792. 
 I received yours this moment, my dear sir. I sup with Captain 
 Riddel in town to-night, else I had gone to Carse directly.^ Courage, 
 mon ami ! The day may after all be yours ; but at anyrate, there 
 is other air to breathe than that of Moffat, pestiferously tainted as 
 it is with the breath of that arch- scoundrel, J- — •. There are 
 two quotations from two poets which, in situations such as yours, 
 were congenial to my soul. Thomson says — 
 
 ' What proves the hero truly great, 
 Is never, never to despair.' 
 
 And Dr Young — 
 
 ' On Reason build Resolve, 
 
 That column of true majesty in man." 
 
 To - morrow you shall know the result of my consultation with 
 Captain Riddel. Yours, R. B. 
 
 In the more elevated society of Dumfries, into which Burns 
 had, as usual, been invited, he found a young married lady of no 
 common character. Maria AVoodley was the daughter of a 
 governor of Berbice, and had been married at a very early age to 
 
 ' This song appears to have had a prototj'pe in an old one of which two stanzas 
 have been preserved : — 
 
 Here awa, there awa, here awa, Willie, 
 
 Here awa, there awa, here awa hame ; 
 Lang have I sought thee, dear have I bought thee, 
 
 Now 1 hae gotten my Willie again. 
 
 Through the lang muir I have followed my Willie, 
 Through the lang muir I have followed him hame, 
 
 Whatever betide us nought shall divide us. 
 Love now rewards all my sorrow and pain. 
 
 * Doubtless to make interest for hia friend on some point brought under his 
 notice.
 
 MKS WALTER EIDDEL. 219 
 
 Mr Walter Riddel, a younger brother of Glenriddel, possessed of 
 an estate in Antigua, but who had lately returned to his native 
 country to enjoy the fruits of fortune. About four miles to the 
 south of Dumfries stands a handsome mansion surrounded with a 
 small estate ; originally, under the name of the Holm, it was the 
 rural retreat of the eminent advocate Andrew Crosbie, who has 
 been generally reputed as the prototype of Counsellor Pleydell in 
 Giiy Mannering. Afterwards it was bought by a gentleman named 
 Goldie,who called it Goldielea, after his own name and that of his 
 wife — Leigh — a descendant of the elder branch of that distinguished 
 English family. Mr Riddel, purchasing the place from Mr Goldie, 
 named it Woodley Park, after the name of his wife ; and so it con- 
 tinued to be called till, by the non-payment of the purchase- 
 money, it reverted to Mr Goldie, and regained its former appella- 
 tion of Goldielea, by which it is now recognised. The lady, who 
 was as yet under twenty, though already a mother, possessed 
 beauty, abilities, and accomplishments; was a little of an esjrritfort; 
 had a taste for literature and natural history ; and delighted in the 
 society of men of talent. The A'ivid genius of Bums instantly 
 attracted her, and he became a frequent visitor at Woodley Park. 
 There he found a fine library, comprising not only English litera- 
 ture, but choice examples of that of France and Italy, with wliich 
 the fair proprietress was willing to make him acquainted. She- 
 was a writer of verses herself — at first sight an alarming fact for a 
 literary visitor ; but it happened that ]\Irs Riddel's poetry was fiir 
 above mediocrity, and that she had too much good sense to allow 
 it to become an annoyance to her friends. On the whole, then, 
 Woodley Park was a most fiiscinating retreat for our susceptible 
 bard. Nor does it appear that he was treated by either the lady 
 or her husband in a patronising way, but, on the contrary, on a 
 footing of equality, for the eldest son of tlie bard has a recollec- 
 tion of Mrs Riddel occasionally making friendly calls at his 
 father's house in Dumfries. 
 
 Mrs Riddel had already a little literary scheme of her own in 
 view, and wished to consult competent persons on the subject. 
 It was not, however, of a poetical nature, and therefore she does 
 not seem to have explained it to Burns. As it embraced, in an 
 account of a voyage to ]\Iadeira and the Leeward Isles, some 
 sketches of natural histoiy, she seems to have thought tliat 
 Burns's friend Smellie would be a good adviser respecting her 
 scheme. She asked the poet for an introduction. The idea 
 seems to have been startling to the bard. To present a bcau- 
 tifid, young, accomplished woman of fashion to tlic hirsute, rough- 
 spoken old naturalist, who called him Eahbie, and perhaps never 
 made a bow in his life to man or woman — how was it to be
 
 220 LIFE AND T/ORKS OF EUKNS. 
 
 accomplished ! Tlie -way in which Burns, after all, performed the 
 duty, is very amusing : 
 
 TO MR WILLIAM SMELLIE, TRINTER. 
 
 Dumfries, 52;; January 1792. 
 
 I SIT down, my dear sir, to introduce a young lady 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 arc too often thrown in tlie dimmest shades. Mrs 
 Kiddel, 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 to 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 
 ladjj-poetesses of the day. She is a great admirer of your book ;l 
 and hearing me say that I was acquainted with you, slie 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 relatiou, and your intimate friend, Craigdarroch, to have you 
 at his house while slie was tiiere ; 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 imlucky failing — a failing whicli you wiil easily discover, as she 
 seems rather pleased Avith indulging in it — and a failing that you 
 will easily pardon, as it is a sin which very nmch 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 
 seaso7i, 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 
 KOOL ; 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.' K. B. 
 
 TO MR peter hill, 
 
 DuMFr.Tr.s, 5th Feb. 1792. 
 My nr.Aii Friend — I send yon by the bearer, Mr Clarke, a parti- 
 cular friend of mine, six pounds and a shilling, which you will dispose 
 
 J 77ie Philosophp of Kaiiiral Iluiory,
 
 fergusson's tombstone. 221 
 
 of as follows: — five pounds ten shillings per account I owe jMr 
 11. Burn, architect, for erecting the stone over tlie grave of poor 
 Fergusson. lie was two years in erecting it after 1 had commissioned 
 him for it, and I have been two years in paying him, after he sent 
 me his account ; so he and 1 are quits. He liad the hardiesse to aslc 
 me interest on the sum ; but, considering that the money was due 
 by one poet for putting a tombstone over another, he may, with 
 grateful surprise, thank Heaven that he ever saw a farthing of it. 
 
 With the remainder of the money pay yourself for the Oflice of 
 a Messenger that 1 bought of you ; and send me by Mr Clarke a note 
 of its price. Send me likewise the fifth volume of the Observer by 
 Mr Clarke ; and if any money remain, let it stand to account. 
 
 My best compliments to Mrs Hill. 
 
 I sent you a maukin [hare] by last week's fly, which I hope you 
 received. Yours, most sincerely, II. B. 
 
 The account here spoken of has been preserved and copied. 
 Tlie following is a literal transcript : — 
 
 Mr Robert Burns 
 
 To J. & R. Bunrf. 
 June 23, 1789. 
 
 54 Feet Polished Craigkith Stone for a Ilcadstone for Robert ) £■> ,< « 
 Fergusson, at Is. ... . . / 
 
 10 Feet 8 inches dble Base Moulding, at Is. 6d. . . . 16 
 
 4 I-arge Iron Cramps, 2 10 
 
 2 Stones to set the base on, at Is 2 
 
 3-;0 Letters on do. at 83 15 8 
 
 Lead, and setting up Ditto, . . . . . . 5 
 
 Gravcdiggers' dues 5 
 
 Mr Robert Burn, in the letter accompanying the account, 
 addressed the poet with the familiarity of an acquaintance. After 
 apologising for the delay that had taken place in erecting the 
 stone, he facetiously says : ' I shall be liappy to receive orders of 
 a like nature for as many more of your friends that have gone 
 hence as you please.'^ 
 
 It was probaldy about this time that Burns inscribed the 
 following lines in a copy of The World, from which they have 
 been copied : — 
 
 Ill-fated genius ! Ilcaven-taught Fergusson ! 
 
 Wiiat heart that fools and will not yield a tear, 
 To think life's sun did set ere well begun 
 
 To shod its influence on thy bright career. 
 why should truest worth and genius ])ine. 
 
 Beneath the iron grasp of Want and Wo, 
 Wliilo titled knaves anil idiot greatness shine 
 
 In all tho splendour Fortune can bestow ! 
 
 ' O'eiitlcman's Magazine, Nov. 1823.
 
 222 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 TO MR JAMES C[LARKE], MOFFAT. 
 
 Dumfries, Ifth Feb. 1792. 
 
 My dear Sir — If this finds you at Moffat, or as soon as it finds 
 you at Moffat, you must without dehiy wait on Mr Riddel, as he has 
 been very kindly thinking of you in an affair that has occurred of a 
 clerk's place in Manchester, which, if your hopes are desperate in 
 your present business, he proposes procuring for you. I know your 
 gratitude for past, as well as hopes of future favours will induce you 
 to pay every attention to Glenriddcl's wishes ; as he is almost the 
 only, and undoubtedly the best friend that your unlucky fate has 
 left you. 
 
 Apropos, I just now hear that you have beat your foes, every tail 
 hollow. Huzza ! lo triumplie ! Mr Riddel, who is at my elbow, says 
 that if it is so, he begs that you will wait on him directly, and I 
 know you are too good a man not to pay your respects to your 
 saviour. Yours, R. R. 
 
 A letter written at this time to William Nicol explains itself as 
 drawn foi'tli by an epistle of reproachful advice to the poet : 
 
 TO MR WILLIAM NICOL. 
 
 mn 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, rattle-headed, Avrong - headed, round-headed 
 slave indebted to thy supereminent 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 pi'overbs and master of maxims, that antipode of folly and 
 magnet among the sages — the wise and witty Willife 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 lucerne 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 
 niy countenance be the delight of the godly, like the illustrious lord 
 of Laggan's many hills ? As for him, his works are perfect :
 
 ADVENTURE WITH A SMUGGLING VESSEL. 223 
 
 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 mtellectual 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 lieaven- bound 
 desires ; never did the vapours of impurity stain the unclouded 
 serene of thy cerulean imagination. O that like thme 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, thou 
 lamp of -wisdom and mirror of morality ! thy devoted slave, 
 
 R. B. 
 
 A few days after the date of the last letter occurred one of the 
 most remarkable events m the life of Burns. It may be related 
 in the words of Mr Lockhart, -who constructed this part of his 
 work from original and authoritative documents : — 
 
 'At that period [1792] a gi-eat deal of contraband traffic, chiefly 
 from the Isle of Man, was going on along the coasts of Galloway 
 and Ayrshire, and the whole of the revenue-officers from Gretna 
 to Dumfries were placed under the orders of a superintendent 
 residing in Annan, who exerted himself zealously in intercepting 
 the descent of the smuggling vessels. On the 27th of February, a 
 suspicious-looking brig was discovered in the Solway Firth, and 
 Burns was one of the party whom the superintendent conducted 
 to watch her motions. She got into shallow water the day 
 afterwards, and the officers were enabled to discover that her crew 
 were numerous, armed, and not likely to yield without a struggle. 
 Lewars, a brother exciseman, an intimate friend of our poet, Avas 
 accordingly sent to Dumfries for a guard of dragoons ; the 
 superintendent himself, Mr Crawford, proceeded on a similar 
 errand to Ecclefechan, and Burns was left with some men under 
 his orders, to watch tlie l)rig, and prevent landing or escape. From 
 the private journal of one of the excisemen — now in my hands— it 
 appears that Burns manifested considerable impatience wliile thus 
 occupied, being left for many hours in a wet salt-marsh, with a 
 force which he knew to be inadequate to the purpose it was meant 
 to fulfil. One of his comrades hearing him abuse his friend 
 Lewars in particular, for being slow about his journey, the man 
 answered that he also wished the devil had him for his pains, and 
 that Burns in tlie meantime would do well to indite a song upon 
 tlie sluggard : Burns said nothing ; but after taking a few strides
 
 22-i I-IFE AND WORKS OF BUKNS. 
 
 by himself among the reeds and shingle, rejoined his party, and 
 chanted to them the well-known ditty — 
 
 TUE DEIL'S AWA Wl' THE EXCISEMAN. 
 
 [Tune — The Looking -glass. 
 
 The deil cam fiddling through the town, 
 And danced awa wi' the Exciseman, 
 And ilka wife cries: ' Auld Mahoun, 
 I wisii you luck o' the prize man ! ' 
 The deil's awa, tlie deil's awa, 
 
 The deil's awa wi' the Exciseman ; 
 He's danced awa, he's danced awa, 
 He's danced awa wi' the Exciseman! 
 
 We'll male our maut, we'll brew our drink, 
 We'll dance, and sing, and rejoice, man ; 
 And niony braw thanks to the meikle black deil 
 That danced awa wi' tlie Exciseman. 
 Tiie deil's awa, the deil's awa, 
 
 The deil's awa wi' the Exciseman; 
 He's danced awa, lie's danced awa, 
 He 's danced awa wi' the Exciseman ! 
 
 There's threesome reels, there's foursome reels, 
 
 There's hornpipes and strathspeys, man ; 
 But tiie ae best dance e'er cam to the land 
 Was — the deil 's awa wi' the Exciseman. 
 The deil's awa, the deil's awa. 
 
 The deil's awa wi' the Exciseman ; 
 He's danced awa, he's danced awa. 
 He 's danced awa wi' the Exciseman !] 
 
 ' Lewars arrived shortly after with his dragoons ; and Buras, 
 putting himself at their head, waded sword in hand to the brig, 
 and was the first to board her. The crew lost heart and submitted, 
 though their numbers were greater than those of the assailing 
 force. The vessel was condemned, and, with all her arms and 
 stores, sold next day at Dumfries ; upon which occasion Burns, 
 wliose conduct had been highly commended, thought fit to pureliase 
 four carronades by way of trophy.' 
 
 Mr Lockhai-t goes on to say that the poet sent these guns as a 
 present ' to the French Convention,' Avith a letter testifying his 
 admiration and respect, and that the gift and letter were inter- 
 cepted at the custom-house at Dover. 
 
 The whole affair was treated by Allan Cunningham as of a 
 fabulous character ; but it has been substantiated in the main
 
 PRESENT OF CAXXOX TO THE FREXCII GOYERNMEXT. 225 
 
 particulars by Mr .Tosepli Train, the successor of Lewars as 
 supervisor at Dumfries, from the original diary of Mr Crawford; 
 an account of tlie seizure and sale of the vessel by Burns himself; 
 and a document written by Lewars detailing the circumstance of 
 Burns having purchased tlie four carronades, and despatched them 
 as a present to the French Convention. In the sale-catalogue, in 
 Burns's liandwriting, Avhich Mr Train possesses, tlie poet enters 
 himself as the purchaser of the four guns for £3.^ 
 
 Some doubt may nevertheless remain as to the gra^■ity of Burns's 
 faidt in his disposal of the guns. Mr Lockhart says : ' We were 
 not, it is true, at war with Fi-ance ; but every one knew and felt 
 that we were to be so erelong; and nobody can pretend that 
 Bums was not guilty on this occasion of a most absurd and 
 presumptuous breach of decorum.' 
 
 With all proper deference, we do pretend at least to doubt, if 
 not entirely to deny, that the act of Burns Avas necessarily to be 
 held as a breach of decorum. A careful investigation of dates 
 and attendant circumstances places the affair in a light very 
 different from that in which it is represented by Mr Lockhart. 
 At the time when Burns purchased the four carronades, there was 
 no such body in existence as the French Convention. Such a body 
 did come into being in the ensuing September ; but if Burns 
 delayed so long to send the guns, the fact should have been ascer- 
 tained and distinctly stated, as a few months in a year distinguished 
 by such a rapid course of events, and such extraordinary changes 
 of public sentiment, make all possible difference in the character 
 of the transaction. If, as is likely, Burns sent the guns to Paris 
 immediately on their being bought (for what other purpose could 
 he have made such a purchase ?), he must have addressed them to 
 tlie Lqiislo.tive Assemhhj — a body which liad as yet done nothing 
 to forfeit the respect of worthy Englishmen, which was at this 
 moment supporting a ministry of the Constitutional party around 
 Louis XVI., and holding fortli every demonstration of pacific 
 feeling towards England. On the 28th of February 1792, it was 
 less than a month from the time wlien George III. opened parlia- 
 ment with little besides congratulations on the peace and internal 
 prosperity of the country. The three per cents, ivcrc above ninelij- 
 six, and expected to go up to par. Not a whisper had yet 
 occurred of any proceedings of the British government with 
 regard to the bad blood arising between France and tlie emperor 
 of Germany. Not till August was the British ambassador recalled 
 from Paris ; not till the ensuing January was war proclaimed by 
 England against France. Burns, in sliort, was entitled, at this 
 
 1 Rco tlicse documents more particularly alluded to in Blackie'a edition of Burns, 
 I. ccxliii. 
 
 VOL. III. O
 
 226 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 particular moment, to make a friendly demonstration towards the 
 French government, -without necessarily being presumed to intend 
 a breach of decorum towards his own. It is true we are told 
 that the authorities at Dover intercepted the guns ; but we do 
 not know how long it was before they reached that place. In the 
 state of conveyances at that time, it could not be a very short 
 time. If they were not there before the end of April — war having 
 then been proclaimed by the French against the emperor — the 
 Eritish government might feel warranted in stopping the guns, 
 merely from a sense of the impi-opriety of sending even this small 
 modicum of aid to a power which was arraying itself against one 
 of our allies. Here it must not be supposed that we are imaware 
 that the British court viewed the proceedings of the Legislative 
 Assembly with dislike even so early as February. M. de Perigord 
 — afterwards so well known as Talleyrand — having then come to 
 sound the English ministry as to their sentiments on the possible 
 attack of the French on the emperor's Flemish domains, found 
 himself slighted at the levee, and was passed by the queen in the 
 drawing-room without notice. But these were only premonitory 
 symptoms of what was to follow. The essential fact of the case 
 is, that the minutest daily chronicles of the time bear no trace of 
 an apprehension on the part of the public that we were likely 
 to become the enemies of France.^ If Burns, then, despatched 
 these guns soon after purchasing them, he may be said at the 
 most to have committed, for a Scottish citizen and public officer, 
 a somewhat eccentric action ; but he cannot be accused of an 
 ' absurd and presumptuous breach of decorum ; ' nor does it 
 appear that his act was regarded in this light by any person 
 entitled to take notice of his conduct. 
 
 One inference hitherto unnoted is to be made from his purchase 
 of the four guns — that he possessed at this time a little spare 
 money. Of this there are other symptoms, as his settling Hill's 
 accoimt for books in December, and his soon after discharging 
 the debt for Fergusson's tombstone. He afterwards made an 
 acknowledgment to his brother Gilbert, that he had incurred 
 
 1 A few gleanings from the newspapers of the day will help ns to set a right 
 estimate on the act of Burns. 
 
 In the summer of IT.OI, a gentleman of Glasgow had communicated to Lafayette 
 a plan for artillery carried by horses, and four guns so mounted Avere in consequence 
 used by his troops with great effect at the battle of Maubeuge, June 9, 1792. 
 
 In the latter part of .January 1792, a subscription was opened at Glasgow ' to aid 
 the French in carrying on the war against the emigrant princes or any foreign 
 power by whom they may be attacked.' la the words of the paragraph — ' It is said 
 that £I200 have already been subscribed.' 
 
 In May 15th, it is stated as a report that sixteen sail of the line are to be fitted 
 out ; ' but we do not believe it, as we Iiope our ministry are too prudent to 
 think of involving this nation in any disputes that may arise from the French 
 lie volution."
 
 NOTE TO SAMUEL CLARKE, THE ORGANIST. 227 
 
 some debts in consequence of carelessness about expense on liis 
 coming to reside in Dumfries. Thus we see that Burns, when 
 he possessed any money over and above what was immediately 
 required for subsistence, easily allowed it one way or another 
 to slip through his hands. The small reversion of his farming 
 scheme did not probably survive his arrival m Dumfries many 
 months. 
 
 An interval of some months elapses, during which we have no 
 letters of Burns, nor any trace of his actions. It seems, however, 
 to have been a cheerful period of his life. He is first found 
 writing in July, on a trivial piece of business, to an Edinburgh 
 musical friend : — 
 
 TO MR SAMUEL CLARKE, EDINBURGH. 
 
 IGlh July 1792. 
 
 Mr Burns begs leave to present his most respectful compliments 
 to Mr Clarke. Mr B. some time ago did himself the honour of 
 writing Mr C. respecting coming out to the country, to give a little 
 musical instruction in a highly respectable fiimily, where Mr C. may 
 have his own terms, and may be as happy as indolence, the devil, and 
 the gout will permit him. Mr B. knows well how Mr C. is engaged with 
 another family ; but cannot Mr C. find two or three weeks to spare 
 to each of them ? Mr B. is deeply impressed with, and awfully con- 
 scious of, the high importance of Mr C.'s time, whether in the winged 
 moments of symphonious exhibition, at the keys of harmony, while 
 listening seraphs cease their own less delightful strains ; or in the 
 drowsy arms of slumberous repose, in the arms of his dearly-beloved 
 elbow-chair, where the frowsy but potent power of indolence circum- 
 fuscs her vapours round, and sheds her dews on the head of her 
 darling son. But half a line conveying half a meaning from Mr C. 
 would make Mr B. the happiest of mortals. 
 
 TO MRS DUNLOP. 
 
 Annan ■\Vatkr-foot, 22d -4(//7i(.?< 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, &c. has continued to punish me sufticiently. 
 
 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 wortli, 
 and to the honest, kind, pleasurable tie of, now old ac(iuaintance, and 
 I hope and am sure of progressive, increasing friendship— as for a 
 single day, not to think of you— to ask the Fates what they arc 
 dou)>' and about to do with my much-loved li'icud and her wide-
 
 228 LIFE AND -WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 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 T 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, souce over head and ears, 
 deep as the most unfatliomable abyss of the boundless ocean ! — but 
 the word love, owing to the intei-minr/ledoms 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 mes- 
 senger of Heaven, a})pearing 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 
 tlieir imaginations soar in transport — such, so delighting and so pure, 
 were the emotions of my soul on meeting the otiier day with Bliss 
 Lesley Baillie, your neighbour at M[aytield]. Mr B. witli his two 
 daughters, accompanied by Mr H. of G., passing through Dumfries a 
 few days ago, on tlieir way to England, did me the honour of calling 
 on me ; on which I took my liorse — 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 Ijallad beginning with — 
 
 ' My bnnnie Lizzie Raillie, 
 1 '11 rowe tlico in my plaidio,' &c. 
 
 So I parodied it as follows, which is literally the first copy, ' un- 
 anoiuted, unannealed,' as Hamlet says :— 
 
 BONNIE LESLKY. 
 
 saw ye bonnie Lesley, 
 
 As she gaed ower the Border ? 
 
 She's gane, like Alexander, 
 
 To sjjread 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 ; 
 
 Tliou art divine, fair Lesley, 
 The hearts o' men adore thee.
 
 CELEBRATES MISS LESLEY BAILLIE. 229 
 
 The deil he couhlna scaiih thee, 
 
 Or aii<;lit that ^va(l behiug tliee ; 
 He 'd look into tliy bonnic face, 
 
 And sav, ' I canna wrans: thcc !' 
 
 Tlie powers aboon will tent thee ; 
 
 Misfortune sha' na steer thee ; 
 Thou'rt like themselves sae lovely, 
 
 That ill they'll iie'er let near thee. 
 
 Return again, fair Lesley, 
 
 Keturn to Caledonie 1 
 That we may brag, we hae a lass 
 
 There 's nane again sae bonnie.^ 
 
 So much for ballads. I regret that yon are gone to the cas& 
 country, as I am to bo in Ayrshire in about a fortniglit. This world' 
 of ours, notwithstanding it has many good tilings in it, yet it has ever 
 had this curse — that two or three people, wlto would be the happier 
 tlie oftener they met together, are, almost without exception, always 
 so placed as never to meet but once or twice a year, which, consider- 
 iiig 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 tiio 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 }'0U in pity disclose the secret, 
 What 'Lis you are, and wc must shortly be? '2 
 
 A thousand times have I made tliis apostroplte to the departed sons' 
 of men, but not one of thcni 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, nnist make the experiment by 
 ourselves and for ourselves. However, 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 nudving us hapiiier men, that 
 I should take every care that your little godson, and every little 
 creature that sliall call me father, shall be taught them. 
 
 So ends this heterogeneous lettei-, written at this wild place of 
 the world, in the intervals of my labour of discharging a vessel of 
 rum from Antigua. I!. B. 
 
 ' Mis3 Lestcy Baillic became Jlrs Cummine of Logic, and died at Edinburgh, 
 July li!1.3. 
 * Blair's Grave,
 
 230 LIFE AND WOEKS OF BURNS. 
 
 TO MR CUNNINGHAM. 
 
 Dumfries, lOlh Septemher 1792. 
 
 No ! I win 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 coi'recting the press- 
 work of two difterent 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 3 
 (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 raeikle 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 tliou 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 witliout 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 
 
 ' Mr Creech to Mr Cadell, June 13, 1792: 'I enclose a sheet of Burns's Poems, 
 now going on, that you may have the plate in readiness. There will be fifty pages 
 of additional poems to this edition.' 
 
 The other work now in the course of being corrected by Burns as it passed 
 through the press was probably Johnson's Musical Museum. 
 
 2 '[Married] at Edinburgh (April 13, 1792), Mr Alexander Cunningham, ^\Tite^, 
 to Miss Agnes Moir, youngest daughter of the late Rev. Henry Moir, minister of 
 the gospel at Auchtortool.'— .S'co^s Maf/azine. 
 
 3 The diploma sent by this honourable body to the poet is in possession of his 
 son, Major J. G. Burns.
 
 LETTER TO ALEXANDER CUNNINGHAM. 261 
 
 advocate, or the tete-a-tete of a tea-sipping gossip, "while their tongues 
 run at tlie 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. * * * * 
 
 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 jugicm, a yoke ?) 
 Well, then, the scale of good Avifeship I divide into ten parts : 
 Good-nature, four ; Good Sense, two ; Wit, one ; Personal Charms — 
 namely, a sweet face, eloquent eyes, fine limbs, graceful carriage (I 
 would add a fine waist too, but that is 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, kc. divide the two remaining degrees 
 among them as you please; only, remember that all these minor 
 properties must be expressed hy 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 w-ith 
 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 wliich these two 
 stanzas make a part — 
 
 ' Thou, bonnie Lesley, art a queen, 
 Thy subjects we before thee ; 
 Tliou, bonnie Lesley, art divine, 
 The hearts o' men adore thee. 
 
 The very dcil he couldna 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 imagina- 
 tion, and shall lie read by thee, my dear friend, and by thy beloved 
 spouse, my other dear friend, at a more convenient season. 
 
 Now, to thee, and to tliy ])cfore-dcsigncd ioso?rt-companion, be 
 given the precious things brought forth by the sun, and the precious 
 things brought forth by the moon, and the benigncst influences of 
 the stars, and the living streams which flow from tlic fountains of 
 life, and by the tree of life, for ever and ever ! Amen ! E. B.
 
 232 WFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 The Scots Musical Museum of Johnson was orighially an 
 engraver's undertaking. The assistance of Burns unexpectedly 
 made it an ample repertory of the Scottish music and songs, 
 besides giving it the attractions of his own brilliant muse. It 
 had also the benefit of the co-operation of iMr Samuel Clarke, the 
 organist, in harmonising the airs. It was, however, a work of 
 plain appearance, and scarcely suitable in purity of taste for 
 refined society. 
 
 About the time at which we have now arrived, a small fraternity 
 of musical amateurs in Edinburgh had matured the design of a 
 collection of the Scottish airs with poetry, in a much more elegant 
 form, under more rigid editorial care, and with the novel advantage 
 of symphonies and accompaniments by the first musicians of 
 the continent. The person chiefly concerned was Mr George 
 Thomson, a man somewhat above Burns's own age, occupying 
 the situation of clerk in the office of the Board of Trustees for the 
 Encouragement of Manufactures in Scotland. Another was the 
 Honourable Andrew Erskine, brother of the musical Earl of 
 Kellie,^ a wit and versifier well known in aristocratic circles. 
 The former gentleman lived till February 1851 in the possession 
 of all his faculties, not less in the enjoyment of his favourite 
 music, and of all the rational pleasures of society — a remarkable 
 proof of what a moderate, cheerful mind, not unduly tasked by 
 business or crushed by care, will do in prolonging Hfe, and thus 
 forming a striking contrast to the hapless bard of Caledonia. 
 It was determined by the little group of amateurs that the 
 assistance of Burns should be asked, and Mr Thomson accordingly 
 addressed him. 
 
 MR THOMSON TO BURNS. 
 
 Edjnburgh, Scptemler 1792. 
 Sir — For some years past I have, with a friend or two, employed 
 many leisure hours in selecting and collating the most favourite of 
 our national melodies for publication. We have engaged Plcyel, the 
 most agreeable composer living, to put accompaniments to these, 
 and also to compose an instrtmiciital prehide and conclnsion to 
 each air, tlie better to fit them for concerts, botli public and private. 
 To render this work perfect, we are desirous to have the poetry 
 improved wherever it seems unworthy of the music ; and that it is 
 so in many instances is allowed by every one conversant with our 
 
 1 Third son of Alexander, fifth Karl of Kellie, by .Tanct, daughter of the cele- 
 brated j)hysician and wit, Dr I'iteairn. BIr Erskine was the author in part of a 
 ciirioiia and rare volume entitled Letters hetrrccn ike Hon. Andrew Erskine and James 
 JSom-cll, E.sq. London, 17f)3— an amusing specimen of youthful frolic and vivacity.
 
 AGREES TO VrRITE SONGS FOR MR THOJrSOX. 233 
 
 musical collections. Tlio editors of these seem in general to have 
 depended on the music proving an excuse for the verses ; and hence 
 some charming melodies are iniited to mere nonsense and doggrel, 
 while others are accommodated with rhymes so loose and indelicate 
 as cannot be sung in decent company. To remove this reproach 
 •would be an easy task to the author of tlic Cotter's Saturdaij Night; 
 and, for the honour of Caledonia, I would fain hope he may be 
 induced to take up the pen. If so, we shall be enabled to present 
 the public with a collection infinitely more interesting than any that 
 lias yet appeared, and acceptable to all persons of taste, whether 
 they wisli for correct melodies, delicate accompaniments, or charac- 
 teristic verses. We will esteem your poetical assistance a parti- 
 cular favour, besides paying any reasonable price you shall please 
 to demand for it. Proht is quite a secondary consideration with us, 
 and we are resolved to spare neither pains nor expense on tlie 
 publication. Tell me franlcly, then, whether you will devote your 
 leisure to writing twenty or twenty-five songs suited to the particular 
 melodies which I am prepared to send you. A few songs, exception- 
 able only in some of their verses, I will likewise submit to your 
 consideration, leaving it to you eitlicr to mend these or make new 
 songs in their stead. It is superfluous to assure you tliat I liave no 
 intention to displace any of tlie sterling old songs; those only will 
 Lc removed which appear quite silly or absolutely indecent. Even 
 these shall be all examined by Jlr Burns, and if he is of opinion 
 that any of them are deserving of tlie music, in such cases no divorce 
 shall take place. G. Tjiojisox. 
 
 BURN'S TO MR TIIOMSOX. 
 
 Dumfries, IC.Vj .Sr/if. 1/9?. 
 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 alLthe 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 cri dr guerre of my JIusc. 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, the 
 undoubted right of publishers to approve or reject, at your pleasure, 
 for your own j)ublication. Apropos, if you are for English verses, 
 there is, on my jjart, an end of the nnitter. Wliether in the simplicity 
 of the ballad, or the pathos of the song, I can only hojie to please 
 myself in being allowed at least a sprinkling of our native tongue.
 
 234 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 English verses, particularly the works of Scotsmen that have merit, 
 are certainly very eligible. Tweedside! Ah! the j)oor shepherd^s 
 mourn fid fate! Ah! Chloris, could I noio hut sit} &c. you cannot 
 mend; but such insipid stuff as To Fanny fair coidd I impart, kc. 
 usually set to The Mill, 3Iill, ! 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 called on for my 
 strictures and amendments— I say amendments, for I will not alter 
 except where I myself, at least, think that I amend. 
 
 As to any remuneration, 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, &c. would be downright prostitution 
 of soul ! 2 A proof of each of the songs that I compose or amend I 
 shall receive as a favour. In tlie rustic phrase of the season, ' Gude 
 speed the wark!' I am, sir, your very humble servant, 
 
 E. Burns. 
 
 In August, Johnson published the fourth volume of his Scots 
 Musical Museum, containing a number of songs by Burns, either 
 wholly original, or improvements upon rude ditties of the olden 
 time. Such as have not already been inserted in connection with 
 particular dates and circumstances are here presented : 
 
 CRAIGIEBURN WOOD. 
 
 Sweet closes the eve on Craigieburn Wood, 
 
 And blithely awaukens the morrow ; 
 But the jiridc of the spring in the Craigieburn Wood 
 
 Can yield mc nothing but sorrow. 
 
 Beyond thee, dearie, beyond thee, dearie, 
 And oh, to be lying beyond thee ! 
 
 sweetly, soundly, weel may he sleep 
 That's laid in the bed beyond thee. 
 
 I see the spreading leaves and flowers, 
 
 I hear the wild birds singing ; 
 But pleasure they hae nane for me, 
 
 While care my heart is wringing. 
 
 I canna tell, I maunna tell, 
 
 I darcna for your anger; 
 But secret love will break my heart, 
 
 If I conceal it langer. 
 
 • In manuscript a clause here erased by Bums : ' except, excuse my vanity, you 
 should for Gilderoi/ prefer my own song, " From thee, Eliza, I must go." ' 
 
 2 This expression was altered by Currie. In the original manuscript, a stronger 
 term was employed.
 
 CRAIGIEEURX WOOD. 235 
 
 I see tlicc gracefu', straight, and tall, 
 
 I see thee sweet and bonnie ; 
 But oh, what will my torments be, 
 
 If thou refuse thy Johnnie ! 
 
 To see thee in another's arms. 
 
 In love to lie and languish, 
 'Twad be my dead, that will be seen, death 
 
 My heart wad burst wi' anguish. 
 
 But, Jeanie, say thou wilt be mine, 
 
 Say thou loes nane before me ; 
 And a' my days o' life to come 
 
 I'U gratefully adore thee. 
 
 [The above, he himself tells us, was composed as a representation of the 
 passion which a Mr Gillespie, a particular friend of his, had for a young lady 
 named Lorimer, who had been born at Craigieburn Wood, a beautiful place near 
 Moffat. The names of Gillespie and Lorimer arc still to be seen inscribed on a 
 pane in the poet's parlour window at Ellisland. As Miss Lorimer was born in 1775, 
 she must have been only sixteen at most when wooed vicariously in those impas- 
 sioned stanzas. It was not her destiny to become Mrs Gillespie ; but it was 
 reserved for her to be the subject of many other lays by Burns, as will be learned 
 more particularly from a subsequent part of these memoirs. Burns afterwards 
 altered and reduced the song of Craigieburn Wood into the following more correct, 
 but also tamer form :— ' 
 
 Sweet fa's the eve on Craigieburn, 
 
 And blithe awakes the morrow ; 
 But a' the pride o' spring's return 
 
 Can yield me nocht but sorrow. 
 
 I see the flowers and spreading trees. 
 
 I hear the wild birds sinjjinnf ; 
 But what a weary wight can please, 
 
 And cai'c his bosom wringing ? 
 
 Fain, fain would I my griefs impart. 
 
 Yet darena for your anger ; 
 But secret love will break my heart 
 
 If I conceal it langcr. 
 
 If thou refuse to pity me, 
 
 If thou shalt love anitlicr. 
 When yon green leaves fade frae the tree. 
 
 Around my grave they'll wither.
 
 236 LIFE AND WORKS OP BURNS. 
 
 FRAE THE FRIENDS AND LAND I LOVE. 
 
 Air — Carron Side. 
 
 Frae tlie friends and land I lovo 
 
 Driven by fortune's felly spite, 
 Frae my best beloved I rove, 
 
 Never niair to taste delight ; 
 Never inair maun hope to find 
 
 Ease frae toil, relief frae care : 
 When remembranee wracks the mind, 
 
 Pleasures but unveil despaii'. 
 
 Brightest climes shall mirk appear, 
 
 Desert ilka blooming shore. 
 Till the Fates nae mair severe. 
 
 Friendship, love, and peace restore; 
 Till Revenge, wi' laurelled head. 
 
 Bring our banished hame a":ain ; 
 And ilk loyal bonnie lad 
 
 Cross the seas and win his ain. 
 
 [' Bums says of this song : " I added the last four lines by way of giving a turn to 
 the theme of the poem, sueh as it is." The whole song, however, is in his own 
 handwriting, and 1 have reason to believe it is all his own.' — Slenhoiisc.J 
 
 MEIKLE THINKS MY LOVE. 
 TtJNE — 3fi/ Tocher's the Jewel. 
 
 O meiklo thinks my luve o' my beauty, 
 
 And meikle thinks my luve o' my kin; 
 But little thinks my luve I ken brawlie 
 
 j\Iy tocher 's the jewel has charms for him. 
 It's a' for the apple he'll nourish the tree; 
 
 It's a' for the honey he'll cherish the bee; 
 Jly laddie's sae meikle in hive wi' the siller. 
 
 He canna hae luve to spare for mc. 
 
 Yonr proffer o' hive's an arlc-pcnny, 
 
 My tocher's the bargain ye wad buy ; 
 But an ye be craftj', I am cunnin', 
 
 F>ae ye wi' another your fortune maun try. 
 Ye're like to the timmer o' yon rotten wood, 
 
 Ye're like to the bark o' yon rotten tree, 
 Ye '11 slip frae me like a knotless thread, 
 
 And ye'll crack your credit wi' mae uor me. 
 
 [AHhmi^li this song appears in the Musnitn with the name of Burns, Mrs Beg? 
 affirms that it is in reality only an improvement by her brother upon an old song.]
 
 now CAN I BE BLITHE AND GLAD? 237 
 
 WHAT CAN A YOUNG LASSIE ? 
 IvsE—lflicit can a Young Lassie do wV an Aiild Man ? 
 
 "Wliat 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 minnio 
 To sell her poor Jenny for siller and Ian'! 
 
 He's always compleenin' frae mornin' to o'enin', 
 
 He hoas'ts and he hirples the weary day lang ; coughs 
 
 He's doyl't and he's dozin', his bluid it is frozen, 
 
 dreary's the night wi' a crazy auld man ! 
 
 He hums and he hankers, he frets and he cankers, 
 
 1 never can please him, do a' that I can ; 
 He's peevish and jealous of a' the young fellows: 
 
 O dool on tlie day I met wi' an auld man ! 
 
 My auld auntie Katie upon mc takes pity, 
 
 I'll do my endeavour to follow her plan ; 
 I'll cross him, and wrack him, until I heart-break him, 
 
 And then his auld brass will buy me a new pan. 
 
 now CAN I BE BLITHE AND GI/AD? 
 TijME— TAe I3onnie Lad (hat's far awa. 
 
 hov/ can I be blithe and glad, 
 
 Or how can I gang brisk and braw, 
 "When tlie bonnie lad that I loo best 
 
 Is ower the hills and far awa 2 
 
 It's no the frosty winter wind, 
 
 It's no the driving drift and snaw ; 
 But aye the tear comes in my ce, 
 
 To think on him that's far awa. 
 
 Jly father pat mc frae his door, 
 
 My friends they hae disowned mc a' ; 
 
 But i hue ane will tak my part. 
 The bonnie lad that's far awa. 
 
 A pair o' gloves he bought to me. 
 
 And silken snoods he gao me twa ; 
 And I will wear them for his sake, 
 
 The bonnie lad that's far awa. 
 
 ['lie took the fust line, .ind even some hints of hia vcrsca, from nn old smig in 
 Herd's collection, which hcgins, lluiv can I be blithe (rr<jl<x<l, or in my mind contented 
 hey—Stcnhmise.]
 
 238 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 I DO CONFESS THOU ART SAE FAIR. 
 
 I do confess thou art sae fair, 
 
 I wad been ower the lugs in love, 
 Had I na found the slightest prayer 
 
 That lips could spealc thy heart could move. 
 I do confess thee sweet, but find 
 
 Thou art sae thriftless o' thy sweets, 
 Thy favours are the silly wind, 
 
 That kisses ilka thing it meets. 
 
 See yonder rose-bud, rich in dew, 
 
 Amang its native briers sae coy ; 
 How sune it tines its scent and hue 
 
 When poued and worn a common toy ! 
 Sic fate, ere lang, shall thee betide. 
 
 Though thou may gaily bloom awhile ; 
 Yet sune thou shalt be thrown aside 
 
 Like ony common weed and vile. 
 
 [Altered into the Scotch language by Burns from an English poem by Sir Robert 
 Ayton, private secretary to Anne, consort of James VI. Sir Robert's verses are as 
 follow :— • 
 
 I do confess thou 'rt sweet ; j'et find 
 
 Thee such an unthrlft of thy sweets, 
 Thy favours are but like the wind. 
 
 That kisseth every thing it meets ; 
 And since thou canst with more than one, 
 Thou 'rt worthy to be kissed by none. 
 
 The morning rose that untouched stands, 
 
 Armed with her briers, how sweetly smells ! 
 But plucked and strained through ruder hands. 
 
 Her scent no longer with her dwells. 
 But scent and beauty both are gone. 
 And leaves fall from her one by one. 
 Such fate, ere long, will thee betide, 
 
 When thou hast handled been awhile ; 
 Like sun-flowers to be thrown aside, 
 
 And I shall sigh while some will smile : 
 So see thy love for more than one, 
 Has brought thee to be loved by none.] 
 
 YON WILD MOSSY MOUNTAINS. 
 
 Tune— Yon wild Mossy Blouniains. 
 
 [' This tunc is by Oswald : the song alludes to a part of my private history which 
 it is of no consequence to the world to know.'— Burns.] 
 
 Yon wild mossy mountains sae lofty and wide, 
 
 That nurse in their bosom the youth o' the Clyde, 
 
 ■yVherc the grouse lead their coveys through the heather to feed, 
 
 And the shepherd tents his flock as he pipes on his reed.
 
 O FOR ANE-AND-TWENTY, TASr. 239 
 
 Not Cowrie's rich valleys, nor Fortli's sunny shores, 
 To me hae the charms o' yon wild mossy moors ; 
 For there, by a lanely and sequestered stream, 
 Besides a sweet lassie, my thought and my dream. 
 
 Amang thae wild mountains shall still be my path, 
 Ilk stream foaming down its ain green, narrow strath ; 
 For there, wi' my lassie, the day lang I rove, 
 While o'er us unheeded flee the swift hours o' love. 
 
 She is not the fairest, although she is fair ; 
 O' nice education but sma' is her share ; 
 Her parentage humble as humble can be ; 
 But I loe the dear lassie because she Iocs me. 
 
 To beauty what man but maun yield him a prize, 
 In her armour of glances, and blushes, and sighs! 
 And when wit and refinement hae polished her darts, 
 They dazzle our een, as they flee to our hearts. 
 
 But kindness, sweet kindness, in the fond sparkling ee, 
 Has lustre outshining the diamond to me ; 
 And the heart beating love as I'm clasped in her arms, 
 Oh, these are my lassie's all-conquering charms ! 
 
 FOR ANE-AND-TWENTY, TAM. 
 
 Tune — The Moudiewort. 
 
 [' The subject of this song had a real origin : a young girl having been left some 
 property by a near relation, and at her own disposal on her attaining majority, was 
 pressed by her relations to marry an old rich booby. Iler affections, liowevcr, had 
 previously been engaged by a young man, to whom she liad pledged lier troth when 
 she should become of age, and she of course obstinately rejected tlic solicitations 
 of her friends to any other match. Burns represents the lady addressing her youth- 
 ful lover in the language of constancy and affection.' — Slcnhousc.'] 
 
 And O for ane-and-twenty, Tam, 
 
 And hey, sweet anc-and-twcnty, Tam, 
 
 I'll learn my kin a rattlin' sang. 
 An I saw anc-and-twcnty, Tam. 
 
 They snool me sair, and baud me down, snub 
 
 And gar me look like bluntie, Tam ! a sniveller 
 
 But three sliort years will soon wheel roun' — 
 And then cornea anc-and-twenty, Tam.
 
 240 
 
 LIFE AND WOr.KS OF BURNS. 
 
 A plcib o' Ian', a claut o' gear, 
 
 Was lefc me by my auiitic, Tarn ; 
 
 At kith or kin I nccdna spier. 
 An I saw ane-and-twenty, Tam. 
 
 lump 
 
 ask 
 
 They'll hae me wed a wealthy coof, fool 
 
 Tlioiigh I mysei' liae plenty, Tani ; 
 
 But hear'st thou, laddie — there's my loof— palui 
 I'm thine at ane-and-twenty, Tam. 
 
 BKSS AND HER SPI NN 1 NG- WHEEL. 
 
 Tu>f E — The Su)L'ct Lass that Iocs mc. 
 
 O Iceze mo on my spinning-wheel, 
 
 O leeze me on my rock and reel ; 
 
 Frae tap to tae that deeds me bien, comfortably 
 
 And haps me fiel and warm at e'en ! wraps clean 
 
 I'll set me down and sing and spin, 
 
 While laigh descends the simmer snn, low 
 
 Blest wi' content, and milk and meal — 
 
 O leeze me on my spinning-wheel ! 
 
 On ilka hand tlie burnies trot, 
 And meet below my theekit cot; 
 The scented birk and hawthorn white, 
 Across the pool their arms nnitc, 
 Alike to screen the birdie's nest, 
 And little fishes' caller rest : 
 The sun blinks kindly in the biel', 
 Where blithe I turn my siiinning-whecl. 
 
 On lofty aiks the cushats wail, 
 And echo cons the doolfu' tale ; 
 The lintwhites in the hazel braes, 
 ])eli":hted, rival ither's lavs : 
 The craik amang the clover hay, 
 The paitrick whirrin' o'er the ley, 
 The swallow jinkin' round my sliiel, 
 Amuse me at my spinning-wlieel. 
 
 Wi' sma' to sell, and less to buy, 
 Aboon distress, below envy, 
 O wha M'ad leave tliis humble state, 
 For a' the pride of a' the great ? 
 Amid their flaring, idle toys, 
 Amid their cumbrous, dinsome joys, 
 Can they the peace and pleasure feel 
 Of Bessy at her spinning-wlieel? 
 
 cool 
 shed 
 
 wood-pigeons 
 
 linnets 
 
 Uind-rciil
 
 COUNTRY LASSIE. 241 
 
 NITHSDALE S WELCOME HAME. 
 
 [■Written when Lady Winifred Maxwell, the descendant of the forfeited Karl of 
 Nithadale, returned to Scotland and rebuilt Terregles House, in the stewartry of 
 Kirkcudbright. Captain IJiddel of Glenriddel furnished the air to which Burns 
 composed the verses. ] 
 
 The noble IVraxwells and their powers 
 
 Are coming o'er tlie Border, 
 And they'll gao bigg Terregles towers, 
 
 And set tliem a' in order. 
 And they declare Terregles fair, 
 
 For their abode they choose it ; 
 There's no a heart in a' the land 
 
 Eut's lighter at the news o't. 
 
 Though stars in skies may disappear. 
 
 And angry tempests gather, 
 Tlie happy hour may soon be near 
 
 That brings us pleasant weather: 
 The weary night o' care and grief 
 
 May liae a joyful morrow; 
 So dawning day has brought relief — • 
 
 Fareweel our night o' sorrow ! 
 
 COUNT II Y LASSIE. 
 Tune — The Country Lass. 
 
 In simmer, when the hay was mawn, 
 
 And corn waved green in ilka field, 
 "While claver blooms white o'er the lea. 
 
 And roses blaw in ilka bield; 
 BHthe Bessie in the milking shiel, 
 
 Says: ' I'll be wed, come o't what will.' 
 Out spak a dame in wrinkled cild : 
 
 *0' guid advisement conies nac ill. 
 
 • It's ye hae wooers mony ane. 
 
 And, lassie, ye 're but young, yc ken; 
 Then wait a wee, and cannie wale 
 
 A routhie butt, a routine l)en : 
 There's Johnnie o' tlie Buskie Glen, 
 
 Fu' is his barn, fu' is his byre ; 
 Tak this frae me, my bonnie hen. 
 
 It's plenty beets the luver's fire.' 
 
 *For Johnnie o' the Buskic Glen, 
 
 I dinna care a single file; 
 He Iocs sac weel his craps and kye, 
 
 lie has nac luve to spare for nio: 
 VOL. III. P
 
 242 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 But blithe 's the blink o' Eobbie's ee, 
 And, weel I wat, he loes me dear : 
 
 Ae blink o' him I wadna gie 
 
 For Buskie Glen and a' his gear.' 
 
 ' thoughtless lassie, life 's a faught ; 
 
 The canniest gate, the strife is sair ; wisest way 
 
 But aye fou han't is fechtin best, 
 
 A hungry care 's an unco care . 
 But some will spend, and some will spare, 
 
 And wilfu' folk maun hae their will ; 
 Syne as ye brew, my maiden fair, 
 
 Keep mind that ye maun di'ink the yill.' 
 
 * O gear will buy me rigs o' land, 
 
 And gear will buy me sheep and kye ; 
 But the tender heart o' leesome luve ^ 
 
 The gowd and siller canna buy. 
 We may be poor — Robbie and I, 
 
 Light is the burden luve lays on ; 
 Content and luve brings peace and joy — 
 
 What mair hae queens upon a throne V 
 
 FAIR ELIZA. 
 
 [Bums composed this song to a Highland air which he found in Macdonald's 
 collection. In the original manuscript, tlie name of the heroine is Rahina, which 
 he is understood to have afterwards changed to Eliza, for reasons of taste. Mr 
 Stenhouse relates that the verses were designed to emhody the passion of a Mr 
 Hunter, a friend of the poet, towards a Rahina of real life, who, it would appear, 
 was loved in vain, for the lover went to the West Indies and there died soon after 
 his arrival.] 
 
 Turn again, thou fair Eliza, 
 
 Ae kind blink before we part. 
 Rue on thy despairing lover ! 
 
 Canst thou break his faithfu' heart ? 
 Turn again, thou fair Eliza ; 
 
 If to love thy heart denies, 
 For pity hide the cruel sentence, 
 Under friendship's kind disguise ! 
 
 Thee, dear maid, hae I offended? 
 
 The offence is loving thee : 
 Canst thou wreck his peace for ever, 
 
 Wha for thine wad gladly die ? 
 While the life beats in my bosom, 
 
 Thou shalt mix in ilka throe ; 
 Turn again, thou lovely maiden, 
 
 Ae sweet smile on me bestow-
 
 THE POSIE, 243 
 
 Not the bee upon the blossom, 
 
 In the pride o' sunny noon ; 
 Not the little sporting fairy, 
 
 All beneath the simmer moon : 
 Not the poet in the moment 
 
 Fancy lightens on his ee. 
 Kens the pleasure, feels the rapture 
 
 That thy presence gies to me. 
 
 LUVE WILL VENTURE IN. 
 
 TvNE— The Posie. 
 
 O luve will venture in where it daurna weel be seen ; 
 
 luve will venture in where wisdom ance has been ; 
 
 But I will down yon river rove, among the Avood sae green — 
 And a' to pu' a posie to my 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- 
 And a' to be a posie to my ain dear May. 
 
 1 '11 pu' the budding rose, when Phoebus peeps in view, 
 For it's like a bauniy kiss o' her sweet bonnie mou' ; 
 The hyacinth for constancy, wi' its unchanging blue — 
 
 And a' to be a posie to my ain dear May. 
 
 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 — 
 And a' to be a posie to my ain dear May. 
 
 The hawthorn I will pu' wi' its locks o' siller gray. 
 Where, like an aged man, it stands at break of day ; 
 But the songster's nest within the bush I winna tak away- — 
 And a' to be a posie to my ain dear May. 
 
 The woodbine I will pu' when the e'cning 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 — 
 And a' to be a posie to my ain dear May. 
 
 I'll tie the posie round wi' tlie 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 tlie band siiall ne'er remove- 
 And this shall be a posie to my ain dear May.
 
 g44 LIFE AND -WOrvKS OF BURNS. 
 
 THE BANKS OF BOON. 
 Tune — Caledonian Hunt's dclUjht. 
 
 Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon, 
 
 How can ye bloom sac fresb and fair ; 
 How can yc chant, ye little birds, 
 
 And I sae weary fu' o' care ! 
 Thou'It break my heart, thou warbling bird. 
 
 That wantons through the flowering thorn : 
 Thou minds me o' departed joys, 
 
 Departed — never to return ! 
 
 Aft hae I roved by bonnie Doon, 
 ^ To see the rose and Avoodbine twine ; 
 
 And ilka bird sang o' its luve. 
 
 And fondly sae did I o' mine. 
 Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose, 
 
 Fu' sweet upon its thorny tree ; 
 And my fause luver stole my rose. 
 
 But ah ! he left the thorn wi' me. 
 
 This, it will be observed, is a second version of the ballad which 
 
 r.urns produced in 1787 upon the sad fate of Miss Peggy K . 
 
 Although none of Burns's songs has been more popular than 
 this, one cannot but regret its superseding so entirely the original 
 ballad, which in touching simplicity of expression is certainly 
 much superior. 
 
 WILLIE WASTLE. 
 
 Tune— 27ie Eight Men of Moidarl. 
 
 Willie Wastle dwalt on Tweed, 
 
 The spot they called it Linkum-doddie; 
 Willie was a wabster guid. 
 
 Could stown a clew wi' ony bodie. 
 He had a wife was dour and din, hard 
 
 Oh, Tinkler Madgie was her mither — 
 Sic a wife as Willie had, 
 
 I wadna gie a button for her. 
 
 She has an ee — she lias but ane, 
 
 The cat has twa the very colour; 
 Five rusty teeth, forbye a stump, 
 
 A clapper-tongue wad deave a miller : 
 A whiskin' beard about her mou'. 
 
 Her nose and chin they threaten ither — 
 Sic a wife as Willie iiad, 
 
 I wadna gie a button for her.
 
 FLOW GENTLY, SWEET AFTON. 245 
 
 She's bough-lionghed, she's hein-shinned, 
 
 Ae limpiu' leg a hand-breed shortci" ; 
 She's twisted right, she's twisted left, 
 
 To balance fair in ilka quarter : 
 She has a hump upon her breast, 
 
 The twin o' that upon her shouther — 
 Sic a wife as Willie had, 
 
 I wadna gie a button for her. 
 
 Auld baudrons by the ingle sits, the eat 
 
 And wi' her loof her face a-washin' ; palm 
 But Willie's wife is nae sae trig. 
 
 She dights her grunzie wi' a luishion ; mouth cushion 
 Her walie nieves like midden-creels, huge fists 
 
 Her face wad fvle the Lo";an- Water — 
 Sic a wife as AVillie had, 
 
 I wadna gie a button for her. 
 
 FLOW GENTLY, SWEET AFTON. 
 Tune — The Yellow-haired Laddie. 
 
 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 through 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, 
 Yax marked with the courses of clear winding rills; 
 There daily I wander as noon rises high, 
 !JIy flocks and my Mary's sweet cot in my eye. 
 
 How pleasant tliy banks and green valleys below, 
 Wlicre wild in the woodlands the primroses blow ; 
 There oft as mild evening weeps over the lea. 
 The sweet-scented birk shades my Mary and me. 
 
 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 flowerets she stems thy clear wave. 
 
 Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes, 
 Flow gently, sweet river, the theme of my lays; 
 My Clary's asleep by thy murmuring stream. 
 Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb uot her dream.
 
 2-46 LIFE AND TVOEKS OF EUENS. 
 
 Dr Currie states that this song was composed in honour of Mrs 
 Stewart of Stair, whose paternal property was situated on the 
 banks of the Afton, an Ayrshire tributary of tlie Nith, near New 
 Cumnock. Mrs Stewart, it will be recollected, was one of the 
 first persons of rank who knew or extended any friendship to 
 Burns. In a paper by Mr Gilbert Burns, communicating to Mr 
 George Thomson memoranda of the subjects of his brother's 
 songs, Floio gently, Sweet Afton is thus noticed : — ' The poet's 
 Highland Mary. But Dr Currie gives a different account of it. 
 . . . . G. B. thinks Dr C. misinformed in several of the above 
 particulars ; but he must not be contradicted.' It may be doubted 
 if Mr Gilbert Burns was rightly informed on the subject. 
 
 THE SMILING SPRING. 
 
 Tune— 2%e Bonny Bell. 
 
 The smiling spring comes in rejoicing, 
 
 And surly winter grimly flies ; 
 Now crystal clear are the falling waters. 
 
 And bonnie blue are the sunny skies. 
 Fresh o'er the mountains breaks forth the morniii"-. 
 
 The evening gilds the ocean's swell ; 
 All creatures joy in the sun's returning, 
 
 And I rejoice in my bonnie Bell. 
 
 The flowery spring leads sunny summer, 
 
 And yellow autumn presses near, 
 Then in his turn comes gloomy winter, 
 
 Till smiling spring again appear. 
 Thus seasons dancing, life advancing, 
 
 Old Time and Nature their changes tell, 
 But never ranging, still unchanging, 
 
 I adore my bonnie Bell. 
 
 THE GALLANT WEAVER. 
 
 TvNK— The Weavers' March. 
 
 Wliere Cart rins rowin' to the sea, 
 By mony a flower and spreading tree, 
 There lives a lad, the lad for me. 
 He is a gallant weaver. 
 
 O I had wooers aucht or nine, 
 They gicd me rings and ribbons fine ; 
 And I was feared my heart would tine, 
 And I gied it to the weaver.
 
 she's faik and fause. 247 
 
 Sly daddie signed my tocher-band, dowry-bond 
 
 To gie the lad that has the land ; 
 But to my heart I'll add my hand, 
 And gie it to the weaver. 
 
 AYhile birds rejoice in leafy bowers ; 
 While bees delight in opening flowers ; 
 "While corn grows green in simmer showers, 
 I'll love my gallant weaver. 
 
 she's fair and pause. 
 
 Tune — She 's Fair and Fause. 
 
 She 's fair and fause that causes my smart, false 
 
 I loed her meikle and lang ; 
 She's broken her vow, she's broken my heart, 
 
 And I may e'en gae hang. 
 
 A coof cam in wi' routh o' gear, fool abundance 
 
 And I hae tint my dearest dear ; lost 
 
 But woman is but warld's gear, 
 Sae let the bonnie lass gang. 
 
 Whae'er ye be that woman love, 
 
 To this be never blind — ■ 
 Nae fcrlie 'tis though fickle she prove, wonder 
 
 A woman has't by kind. 
 
 O woman, lovely woman fair ! 
 An angel form 's fa'n to thy share, 
 'Twad been owcr meikle to gien thee raair— 
 I mean an angel mind. 
 
 [In a song entitled The Address, -which appears in The Lark (2 vols. 17G5), there 
 is a passage which perhaps sugscstcd the thought in the fourth stanza of the above 
 song— 
 
 'Twixt pleasing hope and painful fear 
 
 True love divided lies ; 
 With artless look and soul sincere. 
 
 Above all mean disguise. 
 For Celia thus my heart has moved, 
 
 Accept it, lovely fair; 
 I 've liked before, but never loved. 
 Then let ine not despair. 
 
 My fate before your feet I lay, 
 
 Sentence your willing slave ; 
 Remember that though tyrants slay. 
 
 Yet heavenly powers save.
 
 248 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS, 
 
 To bless is heaven's peculiar grace. 
 
 Let me a blessing find ; 
 And since you tvcar an angd's face, 
 
 shew an anr/cl's mind.^ 
 
 Mrs Dunlop had written to Burns regarding lier ■widowed 
 daughter, Mrs Henri, who had gone to France with her infant, in 
 order to introduce him to his father's family. The dethrone- 
 ment of the king and proclamation of a republic, and the wild 
 outrageous proceedings against all persons of rank suspected of 
 royalist feelings, had involved the young Avidow in serious 
 troubles, to which the state of her own health was no light 
 addition. 
 
 TO MRS DUNLOP. 
 
 Dumfries, 2t(h September 1792. 
 
 I HAVE this moment, my dear madam, yours of the 23d. All 
 your other kind reproaches, your news, &c. are out of my head, 
 wlien I read and tliink on Mrs Henri's situation. Good God ! a 
 licart-wounded, helpless yoimg woman — in a strange, foreign land, 
 and that land convulsed witli 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 
 * * * I cannot say that I give him joy of his life as a farmei". 
 '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 
 liis herds ; shearing his flocks ; rejoicing at Christmas ; and begetting 
 sons and daughters, imtil he be the venerated, gray-haired leader 
 of a little tribe — 'tis a heavenly life ! but devil take the life of 
 reaping tlie fruits that another must cat. 
 
 Well, your kind wishes will be gratified as to seeing me when I 
 make my Ayrshire visit. I cannot leave Mrs B. until her nine 
 months' race is run, which may, perhaps, be in three or four Aveeks. 
 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 bo so much 
 the more pleased. I hope, if I am spared with them, to shew 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 charmingl}', but is a very devil. 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. 
 
 ' A son of Mrs Dunlop.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE OF JfRS RIDDEL AND MR SMELLIE. 249 
 
 You know how readily we get into prattle upon a subject dear to 
 our heart — you can excuse it. God bless you and yours ! R. B. 
 
 It so happened, nevertheless, that Mrs Burns brought her 
 husband a girl, born on the 21st November. The child was 
 named Elizabeth Riddel, in honour of the lady of Friars' Carse, 
 and lived to be a great favourite with her father. A native of 
 Dumfries puts Burns into an attitude more than usually pleasing to 
 contemplate, in describing him, as she has often seen him, sitting 
 in the summer evenings at his door with this little infant in his 
 arms, dandling her, singing to her, and trying to elicit her mental 
 faculties. It Avill be found that the child was not destined to a 
 long life, and that her death was a source of the deepest affliction 
 to our poet at a time when other woes were pressing upon him. 
 
 Mrs Riddel had visited Edinburgh in January, had made the 
 acquaintance of jMr Smellie, and soon after (March 7th) we find 
 her transmitting to that sage her manuscript of travels. In an 
 accompanying letter she alludes to our poet. ' Robbie Burns dined 
 with us the other day. He is in good health and spirits ; but I fear 
 his Muse will not be so frequent in her inspirations, now that he 
 has forsaken his rural occupations.' Smellie read the lady's manu- 
 script with surprise. lie says, March 27th : ' When I considered 
 your youth, and still more your sex, the perusal of your ingenious 
 and judicious work, if I had not previously had the pleasure of 
 your conversation, the devil himself could not have frightened me 
 into the belief that a female human creature could, in the bloom 
 of youth, beauty, and consequently of giddiness, have produced 
 a performance so much out of the line of your ladies' works. 
 Smart little poems, flippant romances, are not uncommon ; but 
 science, minute observation, accurate description, and excellent 
 composition, are qualities seldom to he met witli in the female 
 world.' ^ It seems worth while to transcribe these sentences of 
 Smellie, in order to help out our picture of a lady who certainly 
 was one of the most intimate friends that Burns ever had, and 
 whose character of course, on the principle of nosdtur a socits, 
 serves as an illustration of his own. 
 
 A small volume being put by Mrs Riddel to Smellie's press, 
 the acquaintance between that pair advanced during the summer, 
 and at length in Septem1)er, when the book was nearly ready for 
 publication,2 the eccentric naturalist came to Dumfries, and spent 
 
 ' Kerr's Jfemnirs of William FlmcUlc, 2 volH. 
 
 * Mrs Hiildol's work is announced in the Si-uts Magazine of November 1/92, ns pub- 
 lished, uniler the following title :— Ko.v.';''.' '" Ihe Madeira and Laioard Caribbcc 
 Itlands ; with Skelrhet of the Natural Histori/ of thac Islands. By Maria U ♦ * ♦ * * * 
 Cadull, London ; Hill, Edinburgh.
 
 250 LIFE AND WOEKS OF BURNS. 
 
 some time with tlie lady and liis friend Rahbie. The gay young 
 authoress seduced Smellie to present his extraordinary figure at 
 one of the assemblies of Dumfries, and it is understood that he 
 and Burns received some species of public entertainment from 
 the ma"-istrates. There must have been some brilliant though 
 mixed scenes at Woodley Park and elsewhere on this occasion — 
 vivid gaiety from the lady, wit, sense, knowledge from Smellie, 
 flashes of electric genius from Burns. They would differ from 
 such reunions in our own time, in as far as there was then less 
 restraint of speech. Even a woman of refinement in those days 
 had to stand a great deal from her male friends. For example, 
 we find Smellie telling Mrs Riddel, after a two months' acquaint- 
 ance : ' Your name, to quiet your conscience, shall be contracted 
 
 Maria R , though I stUl think it would do great honour to any 
 
 ***** in Britain.' The blank left by our authority can of course 
 be easUy supplied. 
 
 MR THOMSON TO BURNS. 
 
 Edinburgh, 13tJi Oct. 1792, 
 
 Dear Sir — I received with much satisfaction your pleasant and 
 obliging letter, and I return my warmest acknowledgments for the 
 enthusiasm witli which you have entered into our undertaking. We 
 have now no doubt of being able to produce a collection highly 
 deserving of public attention in all respects. 
 
 I agree with you in thinking English verses, that have merit, very 
 eligible, wherever new verses are necessary, because the English 
 becomes every year, more and more, the language of Scotland ; but 
 if you mean that no English verses, except those by Scottish authors, 
 ought to bo admitted, I am half inclined to differ from you. I should 
 consider it unpardonable to sacrifice one good song in the Scottish 
 dialect, to make room for English verses ; but if we can select a few 
 excellent ones suited to the unprovided or ill-provided airs, would it 
 not be the very bigotry of litei'ary patriotism to reject such, merely 
 because the authors were born south of the Tweed ? Our sweet air, 
 3fy Nannie, ! which in the collections is joined to the poorest stuff 
 that Allan Ramsay ever wrote, beginning. While some for pleasure 
 pawn their health, answers so finely to Dr Percy's beautiful song, 
 Nancy, ivilt thou rjo with me ? that one Avould think he wrote it on 
 purpose for the air. However, it is not at all our wish to confine you 
 to English verses : you shall freely be allowed a sprinkling of your 
 native tongue, as you elegantly express it ; and, moreover, we will 
 patiently wait your own time. One thing only I beg, which is, that, 
 however gay and sportive the Muse may be, she may always be decent. 
 Let her not write what beauty would blush to speak, nor wound that 
 charming delicacy which forms the most precious dowry of our 
 daughters. I do not conceive the song to be the most proper vehicle
 
 THE LEA-EIG. 251 
 
 ■"or witty and brilliant conceits; simplicity, I believe, sliould be its 
 prominent feature ; but in some of our songs the writers have con- 
 founded simplicity with coarseness and vulgarity ; although, between 
 the one and the other, as Dr Beattie well observes, there is as great 
 a difference as between a plain suit of clothes and a bundle of rags. 
 Tlie humorous ballad or pathetic complaint is best suited to our 
 artless melodies ; and more interesting, indeed, in all songs, than the 
 most pointed wit, dazzling descriptions, and flowery fancies. 
 
 With these trite observations, I send you eleven of the songs, for 
 which it is my wish to substitute others of your writing. I shall soon 
 transmit the rest, and, at the same time, a prospectus of the whole 
 collection ; and you may believe we will receive any hints that you 
 are so kind as to give for improving the work with the greatest 
 pleasure and thankfulness. I remain, dear sir, &c. 
 
 BURNS TO MR THOMSOX. 
 
 Mv 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 who shall mend the matter? Who shall rise up and 
 say, 'Go to! I will make a better?' For instance, on reading over 
 Tlie 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 : — 
 
 THE LEA-RIG. 
 
 •Tune — TAc Lm-Rig. 
 
 When o'er the hill the eastern star 
 
 Tells buglitin time is near, my jo ; folding 
 
 And owsen frac the furrowed field, 
 
 Return sae dowf and weary ; dull 
 
 Down by the burn, where scented birks 
 
 Wi' dew are hanging clear, my jo, 
 I'll meet thee on the lea-rig, 
 
 lily ain kind dearie 0. 
 
 In mirkest glen, at midnight honr, 
 
 I'd rove, and ne'er be eerie (>, afraid 
 
 If througli tiiat glen I gaed to thee, 
 
 My ain kind dearie O. 
 Although the night were ne'er sac wct,i 
 
 And I were ne'er sae wearic 0, 
 I 'd meet tlice on the lea-rig. 
 
 My ain kind dearie O. 
 
 ' This word, whioli raises an unpleasant idea as to the situation of the lovers, 
 was Bubsoqucntly altered by, the poet to wild— ' evidently a great improvement,' 
 says Dr Currie.
 
 252 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Tour observation as to the aptitude of Dr Percy's ballad to the 
 air, Xaiiiiie, 0! 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 sim- 
 plicity, a something that one may call the Doric style and dialect of 
 vocaf 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, ! 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 
 lialf 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, ! the name of the river is 
 horridly prosaic. I will alter it : 
 
 ' Behind j'on hills where I.iigar 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;i so, with my 
 best compliments to honest Allan, Gude be wi' ye, &c. 
 
 Friday night. 
 
 Saturdai/ morning. 
 
 As I find I have still an hour to spare this morning before my 
 conveyance goes away, I will give you Nannie, 0! at length. 
 
 Your remarks on Eive-bughts, Marion,a.re 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 Eioe-hmjlits ; 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 miglit 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, 
 Avould have defaced the legend of my heart, which was so faithfully 
 inscribed on them. Their uncouth simplicity was, as they say of 
 wines, tlieir race. 
 
 [Here follows the song, M'ill yc go io the Indies, my Mary? Mr Thomson did not 
 adopt the song in his collection.] 
 
 Gala Water and Auld Rob Morris, I think, will most probably be 
 
 ' The postage marked on the first letter of Burns to 3Ir Thomson is 8d. — so 
 modestly did the poet regard theEc brilliant contributions to his friend's work.
 
 BURNS TO MR THOMSON. 253 
 
 the next subject of my musings. However, even on my verses, 
 speak out your criticisms witli cijual frankness. My wish is, not to 
 stand aloof, the uncomplying Ligot of opinidtrete, but cordially to 
 johi issue with you^ in the furtherance of the work. 
 
 A temporary absence occm-red at this time. On his return, the 
 bard found a letter of Mrs Dunlop, informing him of the melan- 
 choly death of her daughter, Mrs Henri.^ 
 
 TO MRS DUNLOP. 
 
 [DuMFRiKs, Cf(o6cr 1792.] 
 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 mucli- 
 valued, much-aflflicted friend? I can but grieve with you; consola- 
 tion I have none to offer, except that which religion holds out to the 
 children of affliction— (f/uYf/re/i of aJjlidion!—\\oyf ]v\si the expres- 
 sion!)— 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 
 nio-ht "of misery— like the gloom which blots out the stars, one by 
 on'c, 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 
 
 K. B. 
 
 BURNS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 November 8, 1732. 
 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 tlian you are aware of. Tiiere is a 
 peculiar rhytiimus in many of our airs, and a necessity of adapting 
 .syllables to the emi)hasis, or what I would call tiie feature-notes of 
 the tune, that cr.amp the ]ioet, and lay him under .almost insuperable 
 difficulties. For instance, in the air, Mij WIf'' '.f a Wanton Wpc Thiiifj, 
 if a few lines smooth and pretty can bo adapted to it, it is all you 
 can expect. The following were made extempore to it; and though, 
 on further study, I might give you something more profound, yet it 
 
 'It will be observcil that IJurns here uses a familiar I'-nglish law-tonu in a 
 contrary .sense. 
 
 *'Sept. 15, [died] at Mu^'es, Aiguillon, Mrs Henry, widow of the late Janiea 
 Henry, Ki<i.'— Scots Maij. 17'J^.
 
 254 LIFE AND WOKKS OF BURNS. 
 
 might not suit the light-horse gallop of the air so well as this random 
 clink : — 
 
 MY wife's a winsome WEE THING. 
 
 She is a winsome wee thing, 
 She is a handsome wee thing, 
 She is a bonnie wee thing,i 
 This sweet wee Avife o' mine. 
 
 I never saw a fairer, 
 
 I never loed a dearer ; 
 
 And neist my heart I '11 wear her, 
 
 For fear my jewel tine. 
 
 leeze me on my wee thing, 
 My bonnie blithesome wee thing ; 
 Sae lang 's I hae my wee tiling, 
 
 1 '11 think my lot divine. 
 
 Though warld's care we share o 't. 
 And may see meikle mair o't; 
 Wi' her I'll blithelv bear it. 
 And ne'er a word repine. 
 
 I have just been looking over the Collier's Bonnie Dochier ; and if 
 the following rhapsody, which I composed the other day on a 
 charming Ayrsliire girl, Miss Lesley Baillie of Mayfield, as she passed 
 through this place to England, will suit your taste better than the 
 Collier Lassie, fall on and welcome : — 
 
 [Here follows Bonnie Lesley, which see antea.'] 
 
 I have hitherto deferred the sublimer, more pathetic airs, until 
 moi'e leisure, as they will take, and deserve, a greater effort. How- 
 ever, 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, &c. 
 
 BUENS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 Uth November 1792. 
 HIGHLAND MARY. 
 
 IvNJ^^Eaiharinc Ogle. 
 
 Ye banks, and braes, and streams around 
 
 The castle o' Montgomery, 
 Green be your woods, and fair your flowers. 
 
 Your Avaters never drumlie ! muddy 
 
 1 Manuscript—' She is a winsome wee thing. ' The alteration was by Mr Thomson.
 
 HIGHLAND MAEY. 255 
 
 Tliere simmer first iinfauld her robes, 
 
 And there the langest tarry; 
 For there I took the last fareweel 
 
 0' my sweet Highland Mary. 
 
 How sweetly bloomed the gay green birk, 
 
 How rich the hawthorn's blossom, 
 As underneath their fragrant shade 
 
 I clasped 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. 
 
 WV mony a vow, and locked embrace. 
 
 Our parting was fu' tender ; 
 And, pledging aft to meet again, 
 
 "\Ve 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. 
 
 That wraps my Highland Mary ! 
 
 pale, pale now, those rosy lips, 
 
 I aft hae kissed sae fondly ! 
 And closed for aye the sparkling glance 
 
 That dwelt on me sae kindly : t 
 
 And mouldering now in silent dust 
 
 That heart that loed me dearly ! 
 But still within my bosom's core 
 
 Shall live my Highland Mary. 
 
 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 
 so often 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 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 nuich flattered to 
 see the verses set to an air which would insure 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 Euh 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 cercmonie, make what use you choose of the productions. 
 Adieu, &c.
 
 25G LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 In those days, the little theatre of Dumfries was pretty regu- 
 larly open each winter under the care of a Mr Sutherland, whom 
 we have already seen Burns patronising while he resided at Ellis- 
 land. In the co7-j)s dramatique was a Miss Fontenelle, a smart 
 and pretty little creature, who played Little Pickle in the Sjmled 
 Child, and other such characters. Burns, who was fond of the 
 English drama, admired the performances of Miss Fontenelle, and 
 was disposed to befriend her. "NVe find him taxing his muse in 
 her behalf. 
 
 THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN, 
 AN OCCASIONAL ADDRESS SPOKEN EY MISS FONTENELLE ON HER BENEFrT 
 
 NIGHT [Nov. 26, 1702.] ' 
 
 While Europe's eye is fixed on mighty things, 
 The fate of empires and the fall of kings ; 
 While quacks of state must each produce his plan, 
 And even cliildren lisp the llights of Man ; 
 Amid tliis mighty fuss just let me mention, 
 The llights of Woman merit some attention. 
 
 First, in the sexes' intermixed conuectiou, 
 One sacred Right of Woman is — Protection. 
 The tender flower that lifcs its head, elate. 
 Helpless, must fall before the blasts of fate, 
 Sunk on the earth, defaced its lovely form, 
 Unless your shelter ward th' impending storm. 
 
 Our second Iliglit — but needless here is caution, 
 To keep that right inviolate 's the fiishion. 
 Each man of sense has it so full before him, 
 He'd die before he'd wrong it — 'tis Decorum. 
 There was, indeed, in far less polislied days, 
 A time when rough rude man had naughty ways ; 
 Would swagger, swear, get drunk, kick up a riot, 
 Nay, even thus invade a lady's quiet. 
 Now, thank our stars ! these Gothic times are fled ; 
 Now, well-bred men — and you are all well-bred — 
 Most justly think (and we are much the gainers) 
 Such conduct neither spirit, wit, nor manners. ^ 
 
 For Right the third, our last, our best, our dearest, 
 That right to fluttering female hearts the nearest, 
 
 ' The bin of tlio ni^ht announces the Coutitr// Girl as the play, and that, there- 
 after. 'Miss Fontenelle will deliver a new Oeeasional Address, written by Mr 
 llobert Burns, called The liighls nf Woman.'— JJum/rie: Times Newspaper. 
 
 2 An ironical allusion to the annual saturnalia of the Caledonian Hunt at 
 Dumfries.
 
 TO MISS FONTENELLE. 257 
 
 Which even the Rights of Kings in low prostration 
 Most liunibly own— 'tis dear, dear Admiration ! 
 In that blest sphere alone we live and move ; 
 There taste that life of life — immortal love. 
 Smiles, <j;lances, sighs, tears, fits, flirtations, airs, 
 'Gainst such an host Avliat flinty savage dares — 
 When awful Beauty joins with all her charms, 
 Who is so rash as rise in rebel arms ? 
 But truce with kings and truce with constitutions, 
 With bloody armaments and revolutions. 
 Let majesty your first attention summon, 
 Ah! ^a iral the majesty of woman ! 
 
 TO MISS FONTENELLE. 
 
 Madam— In such a bad world as onrs, those who add to the 
 scanty sum of our pleasures are i)Ositively our benefactoi-s. _ To you, 
 madam, on our humble Dumfries boards, I have been more indebted 
 for entertainment than ever I was in prouder theatres. Your charms 
 as a woman would insure applause to the most indifferent actress, 
 and your theatrical talents would insure admiration to the plainest 
 figure. Tliis, madam, is not tlie unmeaning or insidious compliment 
 of the frivolous or interested ; I pay it from the same honest impulse 
 that the sublime of nature excites my admiration, or her beauties 
 give me delight. 
 
 Will the foregoing lines be of any service to you in your approach- 
 ing benefit night \ If tliey will, I shall be prouder of my Muse than 
 ever. They are nearly extempore : I know they have no great 
 merit ; but though they should add but little to the entertainment 
 of the evening, they give me the happiness of an opportunity to 
 declare how much I have the honour to be, &c. 15. B. 
 
 TO MISS FOXTENEI.I.E, O.V SEEING IIEU IN A F.VVOUKITE 
 
 CHARACTEU. 
 
 Sweet naivete of feature. 
 
 Simple, wild, enclianting elf. 
 Not to thee, but thanks to Nature, 
 
 Thou art acting but tliyself. 
 
 Wert thou awkward, stifle, aflfectcd, 
 » Spurning nature, torturing art ; 
 Loves and graces all rejected, 
 Then indeed thou'dst act a part. 
 VOL. III. Q
 
 258 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 The November of this year — the time -when his daughter was 
 given to him, and when he found leisure and spirits to attend the 
 theatre and confer on a favom-ite actress the help of his pen — 
 appears to have been a period of darkness with Burns. We can 
 see in some of his letters of this period the contortions of a spirit 
 which felt itself under an unworthy bondage, and altogether out of 
 harmony with circumstances. 
 
 Mrs Itiddel was about to bespeak a play at the theatre : 
 
 TO MRS RIDDEL. 
 
 I am thinking to send my Address to some periodical publication, 
 but it has not got your sanction ; so pray look over it. 
 
 As to the Tuesday's play, let me beg of you, my dear madam, to 
 give us The Wonder, a Woman keeps a Secret! to which please 
 add The Spoilt Child — you will highly oblige me by so doing. 
 
 Ah, what an enviable creature you are ! There now, this cursed 
 gloomy blue-devil day, you are going to a party of choice spirits — 
 
 ' To play the shapes 
 Of frolic fancy, and incessant form 
 Those rapid pictvires, an assembled train 
 Of fleet ideas, never joined before, 
 Wlicre lively wit excites to gay surprise ; 
 Or folly-painting humour, grave himself. 
 Calls laughter forth, deep shaking every nerve.' 
 
 But as you rejoice with them that do rejoice, do also remember to 
 ■weep with them that weep, and pity your melancholy friend, 
 
 K. B. 
 
 » 
 
 Another lady had agreed to honour a benefit with her patron- 
 age ; 
 
 TO 
 
 Madam — You were so very good as to promise me to honour my 
 friend with your presence on his benefit night. That night is fixed 
 for Friday first : the play a most interesting one — -The Way to Keep 
 Him. I liave the pleasure to know Mr G. well. His merit as an 
 actor is generally acknowledged. He has genius and v/orth which 
 would do honour to patronage : he is a poor and modest man ; claims 
 which, from their vei"y silence, have the more forcible power on the 
 generous heart. Alas, for pity ! that from the indolence of those 
 who have the good things of this life in their gift, too often does 
 brazen-fronted importunity snatch that boon, the rightful due of 
 retiring, humble want ! 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.' what insignificant, sordid 
 wretches are they, however chance may have loaded them with
 
 A FIT OF MELANCHOLY — ITS CAUSE. 259 
 
 •wealth, who go to their graves, to their magnificent mausoleums, with 
 hardly the consciousness of having made one poor honest heart 
 happy. 
 
 But I crave your pardon, madam; I came to beg, not to preach. 
 
 E.B. 
 
 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 
 flntil noon. Fine employment for a poet's pen! There is a 
 species of the human genius 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; Avliile here I sit, altogether Novem- 
 
 berish, a 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. 
 
 It is somewhat startling to find this sudden access of melan- 
 choly in the midst of a bustling routine of business which left 
 little time for meditation, and while the Muse was eager to use 
 every spare moment for those pastoral effusions which so much 
 gratified Mr Thomson. The source of the evil does not seem 
 to have been in any part of the external lot of Bm-ns. Again 
 ' iioi-JiEME ' was his Avorst enemy. 
 
 In the summer of 1790, as well as in that of the subsequent jea,i; 
 Mrs Burns had left her husband for several weeks, whUe she 
 visited her father and mother at Mauchlino. It was natural 
 for the young wife to desire to spend a little tune with her own 
 relations, and to shew tliera her thriving young brood ; but it 
 was an injudicious step for the wife of such a liusband : it tended 
 to break the good domestic habits which for some time our 
 poet had been forming. His sister Agnes, who had been 
 at Ellisland from the beginning superintending the dairy, used 
 
 ' A small cotton-mill belonging to a Mr Mimdcll was at this time in full activity 
 in Dumfries.
 
 260 I-IFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 to say that slie never knew him fail to keep good hours at night 
 till the lirst unlucky absence of her sister-in-law in Ayrshire. 
 AVhen there is no loved one at the fireside to be pleased by a 
 husband's early return to that region of connubial happiness, one 
 great reason for regularity in tlie life of the husband is Avanting. 
 When u wife is long absent, the loyalty of the most devoted 
 husbands will be apt in some small degree to abate. These 
 dangers were particularly great in the case of a social -spirited, 
 impressionable man like Robert Burns, of whom we have seen 
 his brother state that, with regard to his bachelor loves, ' while 
 one was reigning paramount in liis affections, he was frequently 
 encountering other attractions, which formed so many under-plotS 
 in the drama of his love.' That openness to a succession of 
 new and supervening passions which had been closed since his 
 marriage two years ago, appears to have been renewed during 
 the absence of the legitimate divinity. Burns, in short — and it 
 seems best to be at once brief and explicit — forgot on this 
 occasion a sacred obligation, and established what was to him a 
 source of distressful recollection for the remainder of his life. 
 The story is one of bitterness and humiliation to all the admirers 
 of this great genius, for who can but grieve to think of noble 
 qualities of mind and heart degraded by such errors? Yet it is 
 not a tale without its redeeming traits. It presents us, first, a 
 poor girl, lost to the reputable Avorld; next Burns, seeking an 
 asylum for a helpless infant at his brother's ; ^ then a magnanimous 
 wife interposing witli the almost romantically -generous offer to 
 become herself its nurse and guardian. Here one could almost 
 persuade himself he saw a final cause for sin in the generous 
 atoning sacrifices which it may evoke from the innocent for the 
 sake of the guilty. The babe was soon after found by Jean's 
 father in the same cradle with a child of her own, and drew from 
 him the surprised inquiry if she had again liad twins; when 
 she quietly answered, that the second baby was one of whom she 
 was taking temporary charge for a sick friend. She brought up 
 the little girl to womanhood with an unvarying kindness of 
 demeanour which created a filial degree of attachment; and we 
 cannot doubt that she never uttered one word of complaint on 
 the subject to her repentant husband. 
 
 It was just at the crisis at which we are now arrived that Mrs 
 Burns accidentally became aware of the evil consequences of her 
 Mauchline visits. Though the fact was regarded on her part 
 
 1 This cliild obtained the name of Elizabeth, which was a favourite one with 
 Burns, and borne by each of all the three daughters born to him. She is now (1851) 
 a, Mrs Thomson, in humble life at PoUoekshaws, Uenfrewshire, and ia said to be of 
 all his children the only one strikingly like himself.
 
 MR THOMSON TO BURNS. 261 
 
 with a heavenly mildness, the consciousness of his error did not 
 the less gall the sensitive spirit of our poet. Let us hope that 
 his mental pains did not solely refer to the mere discovery of his 
 guilt, or to the penalty of vexatious and hard-borne expenses 
 which it brought upon him. It is, however, a significant fact, that 
 one of those fits of melancholy tinged with splenetic views of 
 society which make their appearance in Burns's letters, coincided 
 in time with an affiiir which we know must have been attended 
 with grievous self-accusations. May we not reasonably suspect that 
 others of his misanthropic effusions sprang from the heart's owru 
 bitterness with itself? Alas ! is not this the ordinary explanation of 
 ^uch effusions? Is there really in the world anything greatly to 
 discompose a man, besides the Promethean vulture of a sense of 
 his own errors? 
 
 Amidst all chafings of the pained spirit, our bard could carry 
 on his pleasant correspondence with Mr Thomson respecting 
 new songs proposed for old melodies — pastoral sighings breathed 
 while his own soul was wholly out of joint, and most men were 
 gazing appalled at what appeared an outbreak of Tartarus in a 
 neighbouring country. 
 
 MR THOMSON TO BURNS. 
 
 Edinburgh, Nov. 17.''" 
 Dear Sir — I was just going to write to you, that on meeting with 
 your Nannie I had fallen violently in lovo with her. I tliank you, 
 tlicrefore, for sending the charming rustic to me, in the dress you 
 wish lier to appear before the public. She docs you great credit, 
 and will soon be admitted into the best company. 
 
 I regret that your song for the Lea-Rig is so sliort : the air is 
 easy, soon sung, and very pleasing; so that, if the singer stops at the- 
 end of two stanzas, it is a pleasure lost ere it is well possessed. 
 
 Although a dash of our native tongue and manners is doubtless; 
 peculiarly congenial and approj)riate to our melodies, yet I sliall be 
 able to j)resent a considerable luimbcr of the very Flowers of English 
 song, well adapted to those melodies, which, in England at least, will 
 be tiie means of reconnnending them to still greater attention than 
 they liavc procured there. lUit you Mill observe my plan is, that 
 every air shall, in the first i)lace, liave verses wholly by Scottish 
 poets ; and that those of English writers shall follow as additional 
 songs for the clioice of the singer. 
 
 What vou .«ay of the Eiw-hufjhtti is just ; I admire it, and never 
 meant to supplant it. All I re<iuested was, that you would try your 
 band on some of the inferior stanzas, which are ap])areiitly no part 
 of tlie original song ; but this I do not urge, because the song is of
 
 2G2 LIFE AND WOKKS OF BURNS. 
 
 sufficient Icnglli though those inferior stanzas be omitted, as they 
 ■will be by the singer of taste. You must not think I expect all the 
 sono-s to be of superlative merit ; that were an unreasonable expec- 
 tation. I am sensible that no poet can sit down doggedly to pen 
 verses, and succeed well at all times. 
 
 I am highly pleased with your humorous and amorous rhapsody 
 on Bonnie Lesley : it is a thousand times better than the Collier's 
 Lassie. ' The deil he couldna scaith thee,' &c. is an eccentric and 
 happy thought. Do you not think, however, that the names of such 
 old heroes as Alexander sound rather queer, unless in pompous or 
 mere burlesque verse ? Instead of the line, ' And never made 
 anither,' Iv>'ould humbly suggest,' And ne'er made sic anither ;' and 
 I would fain have you substitute some other line for ' Return to 
 Caledonie,' in the last verse, because I think this alteration of the 
 orthography and of the sound of Caledonia, disfigures the word, and 
 renders it Hudibrastic. 
 
 Of the other song, My Wife's a Winsome Wee Thing, I think the 
 first eight lines very good; but I do not admire the other eight, 
 because four of them are a bare repetition of the first verses. I 
 have been trying to spin a stanza, but could make nothing better 
 than the following : do you mend it, or, as Yorick did with the love- 
 letter, whip it up in your own way : — 
 
 O leeze me on my wee thing, 
 My bonnie blithesome wee thing ; 
 Sae lang's I hae my wee thing, 
 I'll think my lot divine. 
 
 Though warld's care we share o't, 
 And mav see meikle niair o't, 
 Wi' her'i'Il blithely bear it, 
 And ne'er a word repine. 
 
 You perceive, my dear sir, I avail myself of the liberty which you 
 condescend to allow me by speaking freely what I think. Ee 
 assured, it is not my disposition to pick out the faults of any poem 
 or picture I see ; my first and chief object is to discover and be 
 delighted with the beauties of the piece. If I sit down to examine 
 critically, and at leisure, what perhaps you have written in haste, I 
 may happen to observe careless lines, the reperusal of which might 
 lead you to improve them. The wren will often see what has been 
 overlooked by the eagle. I remain yours faithfully, &c. 
 
 P. S.—YovLY verses upon Highland Mary are just come to hand : 
 they breathe the genuine spirit of poetry, and, like the music, will 
 last for ever. Such verses, united to such an air, with the delicate 
 harmony of Pleyel superadded, might form a treat worthy of being 
 presented to Apollo himself. I have heard the sad story of your 
 Mary ; you always seem inspired when you write of her.
 
 COMPLETE VERSION OP THE LEA-PwIG. 
 
 BURNS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 Dumfries, 1st Dec. 1793. 
 
 Your alterations of 3Iy JSfannie, ! are perfectly right. So are 
 those of My Wife's a Wi>isovie Wee Thing. Your alteration of the 
 second stanza is a positive improvement. Now, my dear sir, with 
 the freedom which characterises our correspondence, I must not, 
 cannot alter Bonnie Lesley. You are right ; the word ' Alexander ' 
 malces the line a little uncouth, but I think the thought is pretty. 
 Of Alexander, beyond all other heroes, it may be said, in the 
 sublime language of Scripture, that ' he went forth conquering and 
 to conquer.' 
 
 For nature made her what she is, 
 
 And never made anitlier. (Such a person as she is.) 
 
 This is, in my opinion, more poetical than ' Ne'er made sic anitlier.' 
 However, it is immaterial ; make it either way. ' Caledonie,' I agree 
 with you, is not so good a word as could be wished, though it is 
 sanctioned in three or four instances by Allan Ramsay ;\but I can- 
 not help it. In short, that species of stanza is the most difficult 
 that I have ever tried. 
 
 The Lea-Big is as follows : — 
 
 THE LEA-RIG. 
 
 Tune — The Lea - Jli(j. 
 
 "When o'er the hill the eastern star 
 
 Tells bughtin time is near, my jo; 
 And owscn frae the furrowed field 
 
 Return sae dowf and wcaiy O : 
 Down by the burn, where scented birks ^ 
 
 Wi' dew are hanging clear, my jo, 
 I'll meet thee on the lea-rig, 
 
 My ain kind dearie O. 
 
 In mirkest glen, at midnight Iiour, 
 
 I'd rove, and ne'er be eerie <), 
 If through that glen I gaed to thee, 
 
 My ain kind dearie O. 
 Although the night were ne'er sao wild, 
 
 And I were ne'er sae wcarie O, 
 I 'd meet thee on the lea-rig, 
 
 My ain kind dearie 0. 
 
 ' For ' scented birks,' in some copies ' birkcn buds.'
 
 264 LIFE AND WOKKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Tlic hunter loes the morning sun, 
 
 To rouse the mountain deer, my jo ; 
 At noon the iisher seeks the glen, 
 
 Along the burn to steer, my jo ; 
 Gic me the hour o' gloamin gray. 
 
 It maks my heart sae cheery O, 
 To meet thee on the lea-rig, 
 
 My ain kind dearie 0. 
 
 I am interrupted. Yours, &c. 
 
 BURNS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 AULD ROB MORRIS. 
 
 ilh December 1792. 
 
 There's auld Rob Morris that wons in yon glen, dwells 
 
 He's the king o' guid fellows and wale o' auld men ; choice 
 He has gowd in iiis coffers, he has owsen and kine, 
 And ae bonnie lassie, his darling and mine. 
 
 She's fresh as the morning, the fairest in May ; 
 She's sweet as the evening aniang the new hay ; 
 As blithe and as artless as tlie lambs on the lea, 
 And dear to my heart as the light to my ee. 
 
 But oh ! she's an heiress, auld I?obin's a laird, 
 
 And my daddie has nought but a cot-house and yard ; 
 
 A wooer like me maunna hope to come speed. 
 
 The wounds I must liide 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, 
 And I sigh as my heart it wad burst in my breast. 
 
 had she but been of a lower degree, 
 
 1 then might hae hoped she wad smiled upon me ! 
 O how past descriviiig had then been my bliss, 
 As now my distraction no words can express ! 
 
 DUNCAN GRAY, 
 
 Duncan Gray cam here to woo. 
 
 Ha, ha, the wooing o't, 
 On blithe Yule-night when we were fou', 
 
 Ha, ha, the wooing o't.
 
 DUNCAN GRAY. 2G5 
 
 Mag;gie coost licr head fii' high, 
 Looked asklent and unco skeigh, coy 
 
 Gart poor Duncan stand abeigh ; aloof 
 
 Ha, ha, the wooing o't. 
 
 Duncan fleeched, and Duncan prayed; flattered 
 
 Ha, ha, &c. ; 
 Jleg was deaf as Ailsa Craig,l 
 
 Ha, ha, &c. 
 Duncan sigliod baith out and in, 
 Grat his ccn baith bleert and blin', wept 
 
 Spak o' lowpin' ower a linn ; 
 
 Ha, ha, kc. 
 
 Time and chance are but a tide, 
 
 Ha, ha, &c. ; 
 Slijrhted love is sair to bide, 
 
 Ha, ha, &c. 
 Shall I, like a fool, quoth he, 
 For a haughty liizzic die ? jade 
 
 She may gae to — France for rac ! 
 
 Ha, ha, &c. 
 
 How it comes let doctors tell, 
 
 Ha, ha, &c. ; 
 Meg grew sick — as he grew heal, 
 
 Ha, ha, &c. 
 Sonictliing in her bosom wi-ings. 
 For relief a sigli she brings ; 
 And oh, licr eon, they spak sic things ! 
 
 Ha, ha, &c. 
 
 Duncan was a lad o' grace, 
 
 Ha, ha, &c. ; 
 Maggie's was a piteous case, 
 
 Ha, ha, &c. 
 Duncan couldna be her deatli, 
 Swelling pity smoored his wnith ; 
 Now tliey're crouse and canty baith ; 
 
 Ha, ha, kc. 
 
 The foregoing I submit, my dear sir, to your better judgment. 
 Acquit them or condemn them as secmeth good in your sigiit. 
 DiDtatn Clrtuj is that kind of light-liorsc gallop of an air which 
 precludes sentiment. The ludicrous is its ruling feature. 
 
 Auhl Roh Morria was written l)y Burns on the basis of a rude 
 old ditty which appears in Juhiisoii's Mmeum, and of -Nvhich he 
 
 ' A Wfll-knywn rocky iBlet in the Firth of Clyde.
 
 266 LIFE AND "WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 retained only the two initial lines. The second stanza was designed 
 as a description of Charlotte Hamilton. So Burns himself told 
 Miss Dunlop, who communicated the fact to Major Adair, Char- 
 lotte's son, who again is my informant. 
 
 Duncan Gray is likewise composed on the basis, and to the 
 tune, of a rude old song in Johnson's Museum, the name of 
 the hero being alone retained. 
 
 The first eighteen months of Burns's life in Dumfries present 
 him as occupying a very small dwelling on the first floor of the 
 house in the Wee Vennel (now Bank Street.) He has three small 
 apartments, each with a window to the street, besides perhaps a 
 small kitchen in the rear. The small central room, about the size 
 of a bed-closet, is the only place he has in which to seclude himself 
 for study. On the ground -floor immediately underneath, his 
 friend John Syme has his office for the distribution of stamps. 
 Over head is an honest blacksmith called George Haugh, whom 
 Burns treats on a familiar footing as a neighbour. On the 
 opposite side of the street is the poet's landlord. Captain Hamilton, 
 a gentleman of fortune and worth, who admires Burns, and often 
 asks him to a family Sunday dinner. The Kith rolls within a 
 hundred yards, but it is not here a shining, pebbly stream, as at 
 EUisland, with green, broomy banks, but a sluggish tidal river, 
 admitting of small craft from Cumberland and Liverpool. It was 
 professionally a busy time with Burns ; so much so, that one would 
 have thought he had little time for dissipation. Nevertheless, he 
 did not escape the snare. 
 
 Dumfries was then a great stage on the road from England to 
 the north of Ireland; the Caledonian Hunt occasionally honoured 
 it with their meetings; and the county gentlemen were necessarily 
 often within its Avails. Its hotels were consequently well fre- 
 quented ; and when a party of strangers found themselves 
 assembled there, with no other means of passing an evening, they 
 were very apt to make an efi'ort to obtam the company of Burns, 
 the brilliant intellectual prodigy of whom fame spoke so loudly. 
 Now it certainly was a most unreasonable thing for such persons 
 to expect that they were to draw Burns away from his humble 
 home, and his wife and little ones, to bestow his time, strength, 
 and spirits merely for the amusement of a set of people whom he 
 probably never saw before and was never to see again. Equally 
 absurd was it for Bums to yield to such invitations, and render 
 himself up a voluntarily-enslaved Samson to make sport for such 
 a set of Phihstines. Yet so it is, that gentlemen, or what were 
 called such in those days, would send messages for Burns, bidding 
 him come to the 'King's Arms,' the ' George,' or the 'Globe,' as 
 it might be, and there drink with them. And equally true it is,
 
 BURXS CALLED TO THE COilPAKY OF STRANGERS. 267 
 
 though most lamentable, that Burns did not feel called upon by 
 any prmciple, either of respect to himself or regard for his gentle 
 •wife and innocent children, to reject these imworthy invitations. 
 Sure was he to answer on the spur of the moment in some such 
 good-humoured terms as these — 
 
 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 sure was he in time to make his appearance before the 
 strangers, meditating at &st of course only a social hour, but 
 certain to be detained for hour after hour, till perhaps the cock 
 had given his fost, if not his second accusing crow. 
 
 According to all accounts, it was not a love of debauchery for 
 its own sake that rendered Burns the victim of this system. Nor 
 can we doubt that he felt himself in error in giving way to such 
 temptations. TMiy, then, could he not resist them? Need we 
 answer that the first grand cause was his social, fervent tempei'a- 
 ment, his delight in that ideal abnegation of the common selfish 
 policy of the world which arises amongst boon-companions over the 
 bowl ? He could not but know the hollowness of convivial friend- 
 ship ; yet he could not resist the pleasing deceit. Burns, more- 
 over, though a pattern of modesty amongst poets, was not by any 
 means so insensible to flattery as his more ardent admirers would 
 in general represent him. He would have been more than mortal 
 if he had been beyond all sensibility to distinction on account of 
 his extraordinary intellect. Notwithstanding, then, his great pride, 
 and the powerful self-assertion which he had sometimes shewn, he 
 certainly felt no small pleasure in being so signalised by these 
 gentlemen strangers, and in seeing himself set up amongst them as 
 a luminary. It was the ready compensation for that equality with 
 common functionaries, and that condemnation to a constant contact 
 with the vulgar, in which his professional fate condemned him to 
 spend the most of his time. A vigorous will might have saved 
 him from falling under this influence ; but here again our poet was 
 sadly deficient. And yet he was occasionally sensible that his 
 course was a wrong one. Of this there is proof in a very interest- 
 ing anecdote preserved jjy the family of his neighbour, George 
 Haugh. One summer morning, this worthy citizen had risen some- 
 what earlier than usual to work : Burns soon after came up to his 
 shop-door, on his way home from a debauch in the ' King's Arms.' 
 The poet, though excited by the liquor he had drunk, addressed 
 his nciglibour in a sufficiently collected manner. ' George,' said 
 he, ' you are a happy man ; you have risen from a refreshing sleep,
 
 2G8 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 and left a kind wife and children, while I am returning a self- 
 condemned wretch to mine.' And j'et he would go sinning on. 
 
 Clarinda's visit to the West Indies had proved unfortunate. 
 Her husband received her coldly; his temper was insupportably 
 bad; and she was mortified to find how grossly unfaitliful he had 
 been during the period of their separation. She was at the same 
 time admonished by the state of her health, that she could not 
 expect long to bear the effects of a warm climate. She therefore 
 returned to Scotland in August, and recommenced that quiet 
 course of life which sustained no further interruption till her 
 death — an event postponed to take place amidst a different gene- 
 ration. In consequence, probably, of the weakened state to which 
 she was reduced by her voyage, she did not immediately write to 
 Burns. The bard addressed two letters to her friend, Mary Pea- 
 cock, inquiring after the quondam ' mistress of his soul ; ' but they 
 imfortunately miscarried. He had concluded to write no more, 
 when that sensibility to anniversaries which he had already 
 shewn in the case of Highland IMary, overthrew his resolution. 
 He remembered the parting of the Gth of December in the past 
 year, with its anguished outburst : ' Had we never loved sae 
 khidly,' and penned a third brief epistle to the young lady. 
 
 TO MISS MARY PEACOCK. 
 
 Dec. 6, 1792. 
 Dear Madam — I have written so often to you and have got no 
 answer, that I had resolved never to lift up a pen to you again ; but 
 this eventful day, the sixth of December, recalls to my memory such 
 a scene ! Heaven and earth ! when I remember a far-distant person ! 
 ■ — but no more of this until I learn from 30U a pro})er address, and 
 why my letters have lain by you unanswered, as this is the third I 
 have sent you. Tlie opportunities will be all gone now, I fear, of 
 sending over the book I mentioned in my last. Do not write me 
 for a week, as I shall not be at home, but as soon after that as 
 possible. 
 
 Ancc mair I hail thee, thou gloomy December, 
 Ance mair I hail thee wi' sorrow and care ; 
 Dire was the parting thou bids me remember, 
 Parting wi' Nancy, oh, ne'er to meet mair! 
 Yours, R. B.l 
 
 It appears from this letter that the return of Mrs M'Lehose in 
 the preceding August was as yet unknown to Burns. We shall 
 speedily see the subject revived ; but in the meantime sterner 
 matters call for attention. 
 
 1 This letter first ai)pcaretl in PicUering's edition of Burns's Focras.
 
 POLITICAL CRISIS OF 1792. 269 
 
 A most eventful year -was no-w drawing to a close. In France, 
 under the threatened interference of the German states and the 
 emigres, moderation and constitutionalism had been forced to give 
 way before wild democracy; the king was a prisoner, threatened 
 with capital punishment; the blood of thousands of loyalists had 
 been shed without form of law in Paris; a republic was estab- 
 lished, threatening with the aid of its victorious arms to revolu- 
 tionise other countries. AYe have seen that in February scarcely 
 any apprehension was felt for either the contagion of French 
 politics or the possibility of war. A rapid change had taken 
 place during tlie year. Paine's Essay on the Eights of Man, and 
 other publications believed to be of a seditious tendency, had 
 appeared. In the course of summer, societies taking the name of 
 Friends of the People Avere established in many parts of the 
 empire, manifesting only a desire of ' stemming the torrent of 
 coiTuption,' and bringing about ' a redress of real grievances,' 
 calling for as specific measures ' a full, free, and equal represen- 
 tation of the people,' and a shortening of the duration of parlia- 
 ments — carefully disclaiming all extreme and dangerous courses, 
 and professing to seek by timely reform the permanence of the 
 ancient institutions of the country — yet felt by those in the 
 management of affairs, and by the gi-eat bulk of the influential 
 classes, to be, in their practical bearing on the time, of evil omen 
 to the peace of society. Such societies were supported by a 
 mere handful of men above the vulgar; and the general feeling in 
 England was one of good affection towards the reigning sovereign 
 and the institutions of the country. Indeed, Paine himself had 
 been mobbed at Dover; and disloyal men generally found them- 
 selves by no means in favour with the public. Nevertheless, 
 towards the close of the year the government became seriously 
 uneasy about seditious publications and seditious practices and 
 opinions. It was now contemplating hostilities against the 
 French, on the ostensible ground of their infraction of the rights 
 of the Dutch in the opening of the Scheldt, but in reality for the 
 purpose of repelling, and, if possible, extinguishing, a spirit whicli 
 was felt to be dangerous to all aUars and all thrones. A sound 
 spirit in its own officers of all grades and services might well in 
 such circumstances be felt of importance. 
 
 15urns had continued to sympathise with the French, notwith- 
 standing all blots in their reforming career. He did not hesitate 
 in company to express an unfavourable opinion of the warlike 
 policy about to be adopted I)y the English ministry, and to avow 
 Ills persevering desire of those reforms which had long been 
 demanded by the AMiIg party. lie would even, in the heat of 
 discourse, denounce public men in terms far less remarkable for
 
 270 LIFE AND ■WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 tlieir justice than tlieir vehemence and severity. It does not 
 appear that he had gone the length of openly joining any of the 
 affiliated societies called Friends of the People ; but his other 
 demonstrations were sufficiently imprudent. As an example : — a 
 paper called the Gazetteer had been started in Edinburgh by a 
 gentleman named Captain Johnstone, for the purpose of advocating 
 the reforming views. Now Johnstone was so noted as a reformer, 
 that at an aggregate meeting or convention of representatives 
 from the different societies, which took place in James's Court, 
 Edinburgh, on the 22d of November, he being observed in 
 the room, was unanimously called to take the chair, which, 
 however, he declined doing. A few months afterwards he was 
 imprisoned by the authorities, as was likewise the succeeding 
 editor of the Gazetteer. I have heard even the printer — who, 
 by the by, had been an honest Jacobite — tell how his being 
 concerned in this ill-odoured paper stopped his credit at banks 
 and made him a marked man, till his entering a loyal volunteer 
 regiment in 'some degree restored his good name. Burns, like 
 Willie Gairlace and his friends in Hector M'Neill's poem, ' gat the 
 Gazetteer;'' and these were the terms in which he ordered it: 
 
 TO CAPTAIN JOHNSTONE. 
 
 Dumfries, Nov. 13, 1792, 
 Sir — I have just read your prospectus of the Edinburgh Gazetteer. 
 If you go on in your paper with tlie same spirit, it will, beyond all 
 comparison, be the first composition of the kind in Europe. I 
 beg leave to insert my name as a subscriber, and if you have already 
 published any papers, please send me them from the beginning. 
 Point out your own way of settling payments in this place, or I shall 
 settle with you through the medium of my friend, Peter Hill, 
 bookseller in Edinburgh. 
 
 Go on, sir ! Lay bare with undaunted heart and steady hand 
 that hoi-rid mass of coiTuption called politics and state-craft. Dare 
 to draw in their native colours those — 
 
 ' Calin-thinking villains whom no faith can fire,' 
 
 whatever he the shibboleth of their pretended party. 
 
 The address to me at Dumfries will find, sir, your very humble 
 servant, PiObert Burns. 
 
 "Whether this letter was ever seen by any emissary of power it 
 is not likely that the fact of Burns getting the Gazetteer was 
 unobserved in Dumfries. I would not assert that that fact for 
 certain operated to his disadvantage ; but when I remember that, 
 so lately as 1817, an emissary of the Lord Advocate traced out 
 the subscribers to a liberal newspaper then started in Edinburgh
 
 SONG IN HONOUR OF THE WHIG PARTY. 271 
 
 — tlae first that could obtain a footing after the Gazetteer — ^I must 
 admit that, if the fact was known, it could not fail, as being an 
 overt tangible act on his part, to draw down upon him the dis- 
 pleasiire of those who trembled for the safety of the national insti- 
 tutions. At anyrate we see in it the tendency of Burns's mind 
 regarding the fearful questions at this time agitating the public, 
 and the degree of fervour with which he allowed himself to speak 
 even to those ha whose prudence he had no reason to place con- 
 fidence. It is to be feared also that he gave voice to some of his 
 feelings in the form which was the most apt to give them cuiTency, 
 and thus expose then- author. From the allusions, it seems 
 higlily probable that he at this time threw off the following song 
 complimentary to the leaders of the reforming party in the House 
 of Commons : — 
 
 here's a health to THEM THAT'S AWA. 
 TvsE— Here's a Health to them that 's awa. 
 
 Here's a health to them that's awa. 
 
 Here 's a health to them that 's aAva ; 
 
 And wha winna wish guid luck to our cause, 
 
 May never guid luck be their fa' ! 
 
 It's guid to be merry and wise, 
 
 It 's guid to be honest and true. 
 
 It 's guid to support Caledonia's cause. 
 
 And bide by the buff and the blue. 
 
 Here's a health to them that's awa. 
 
 Here's a health to them that's awa; 
 
 Here's a health to Charlie ' the chief o' the clan, 
 
 Althougli that his band be sma'. 
 
 Jlay liberty meet wi' success ! 
 
 Jlay prudence protect her frac evil ! 
 
 May tyrants and tyranny tine in the mist, 
 
 And wander their way to the devil ! 
 
 Here's a health to them that's awa. 
 
 Here's a health to them that's awa; 
 
 Here's a hcaUh to Tammie,^ the Norland laddie, 
 
 That lives at the lug o' tlie law ! 
 
 Here's frccdoui to liim that wad read, 
 
 Here's freedom to liiin that wad write ! 
 
 There's nane ever feared that the truth should be heard. 
 
 But they wham the truth wad indite.'' 
 
 ' Charles James Fox. Buffand blue formed his well-known livery at tlie Weat- 
 minster elections, and came to be an ensign of the Whig party generally. 
 - The Hon. Thomas ICrskine, afterwards Lord Krskine. 
 3 For indict, a Scotch law-plirasc meaning accuse.
 
 LIFE AND AVOEKS OF EUKXS. 
 
 Here's a health to them tliat's awa, 
 
 Here's a health to them that's awa ; 
 
 Here's Chieftani M'Leod, a-chieftain worth gowd,^ 
 
 Thougli bred amang mountains o' snaw ! 
 
 Here's friends on both sides of the Forth, 
 
 And friends on both sides of the Tweed; 
 
 And wha wad betray old Albion's rights, 
 
 May they never eat of her bread. 
 
 Verily, if such a song as this, known to be from the pen of 
 Burns, came under the eye of authority about the close of the 
 year 1792, it could not fail to obtain for liim distinction of a 
 certain kind. 
 
 On the Gth of December we find Burns, in a letter to Mrs 
 Dunlop, alluding to his sentiments on public affairs as of the 
 Opposition complexion, but stating that the sense of his situation 
 made him cautious in the expression of them. 
 
 TO JinS DUNLOP. 
 
 Dumfries, Cth December 179'J. 
 
 I SH/VLL be in Ayrshire, I think, next week; and, if at all possible, 
 I shall certainly, my much-csteenicd 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 acrpiaintances little 
 thought to meet with there so soon. Every other instance of tlie 
 mortality of our kind makes us cast an anxious look into the dread- 
 ful abyss of uncertainty, and sluiddor 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 ngo 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 their * staff' and shield.' By the way, 
 these helijless ones have lately got an addition : Mrs B. having given 
 
 1 M'Lcod of Dunvcgan, Islo of Skyc, at tliig time M.P. for the countj- of Inver- 
 nees. At the .James's Court meeting above alluded to, M'Leod made a speech in 
 which he declared his imalteruble determination to support and prosecute the 
 reforming objects which the society had in view, for which a unanimous vote of 
 thauka was tendered to him.
 
 LETTER TO MRS DUNLOP. 273 
 
 me a fine girl since I wrote yoii.i Tliere is a charmmg passage in 
 Thomson's Edward and Eleanora : 
 
 ' The valiant, in himself, what can he suffer ? 
 Or what need he regard his single woes ? ' — &c. 
 
 As I am got in the way of quotations, I shall give you another 
 from the same piece, peculiarly— alas ! too peculiarly— apposite, my 
 dear madam, to your present frame of mind — 
 
 ' Who so unwonhy but may proudly deck him 
 With his fair-weather virtue, that exults 
 Glad o'er the summer main ? The tempest comes, 
 The rough winds rage aloud ; when from the helm 
 This virtue shrinks, and in a corner lies 
 Lamenting. Heavens ! if privileged from trial, 
 How cheap a thing were virtue ! ' 
 
 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, fi'om 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 some of these to you formerly, as indeed, 
 when I write from the heart, I am apt to be guilty of such repeti- 
 tions. The compass of the heart, in the musical style of expression, 
 is much more bounded than tliat of the imagination, so the notes of 
 tlie former are extremely apt to run into one another; but in return 
 for the paucity of its compass, its few notes arc much more sweet. 
 I must still give you another quotation, which I am almost sure I 
 liave given you before, but I cannot resist the temptation. The sub- 
 ject is religion : spealcing of its importance to mankind, the author 
 says— 
 
 ' 'Tis this, my friend, that streaks our morning bright,' &c. 
 
 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 tlie re})ublican spirit of your part of the king- 
 dom. Indeed wo are a good deal in commotion ourselves. For me, 
 lam a placeman, you know; a very humble one indeed, liuavcn 
 knows, but still so much as to gag me. AVhat my private sentiments 
 arc you will find out without an interpreter. 
 
 I have taken uj) the subject, and the otlicr day, for a pretty 
 actress's benefit ni^dit, I wrote an Address, which I will give on the 
 otlier page, called The Bights of Woman. 
 
 I shall have the honour of receiving your criticisms in person at 
 Dunlop. li- 1^- 
 
 1 Elizabeth Riddel, born, as has been mentioned, on the 21st November. 
 VOL. 111. K
 
 274 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Burns did visit Ayrshire, and spent four days with Mrs Dunlop. 
 He appears to have been utterly unconscious of any impending 
 evil. At this very time, however, some information regarding his 
 political opinions, if not acts, was on its way to the Board of 
 Excise, and a cloud was about to burst on his head. 
 
 TO R. GRAHAM, ESQ., FINTRY. 
 
 iDccemher 1792.] 
 
 Sir — I have been surprised, confounded, and distracted by Mr 
 Mitchell, the collector, telling me that he has received an order from 
 your Board i to inquire into my political conduct, and blaming me as 
 a person disaifected 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 dis- 
 graced from a situation in which they had been respectable and 
 respected, and left almost without the necessary support of a miser- 
 able existence. Alas ! sir, must I think that such soon will be my 
 
 lot ! and from the d dark insinuations of hellish, groundless 
 
 envy too ! I believe, sir, I may aver It, and in the sight of Omni- 
 science, that I would not tell a deliberate falsehood, no, not though 
 even v/orse 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, uncon- 
 nected 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 coui-age 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 over- 
 whelm me, and which — with my latest breath I will say it — I have 
 not deserved. K. B. 
 
 To think of this great poet having to say that the consideration 
 of his wife and little ones unnerved courage and withered resolu- 
 
 1 The Commissioners of the Scottish Board of Excise were at this time George 
 BroAvn, Thomas Wharton, Jamea Stodart, Robert Graham (of Fintry), and John 
 Grieve, Esqrs.
 
 DENOUNCED TO THE EXCISE BOARD. 275 
 
 tion in the braving of any indignity ! There has been a dispute 
 about the nature and extent of the trouble Into -which Burns fell 
 on this occasion. His supervisor, Mr Alexander Findlater, who 
 survived till 1839, expressed his conviction that a very slight 
 hint of disapprobation or -warning -was alone given to Burns, 
 because, had it been of a more serious nature, he must neces- 
 sarily have been the channel through which it was communicated. 
 In support of this affirmation is the fact ascertained by Mr 
 Lockhart, that no notice of a reprimand to Burns appears in the 
 records of the Board of Excise. To the same effect is the trivial 
 notice taken of the matter by the poet a few days after, in a letter 
 to Mrs Dunlop, as weU as the little reference made to it by him 
 at any subsequent time. All this would make it seem that Burns, 
 In his letter to Mr Graham, expressed an unnecessary alarm and 
 warmth of Indignation. On the other hand, we shall see that the 
 rumour of the day represented the unfortunate poet as dismissed 
 from his situation for his political heterodoxy, and that the poet 
 himself, in a letter which he wrote to Mr Erskine of Mar, in 
 April 1793, stated that, but for Mr Graham's Intercession, this 
 dismissal would have taken place. With that fact before us, and 
 remembering the character of the time, the jealousy of all men in 
 power, and the sense they could not but have of the danger of 
 Burns's hostility to government within the sphere of his personal 
 influence, we cannot doubt that the affair was one of a serious 
 character, calculated to sink deeply Into the spii'It of our poet, 
 already sufficient at war with fortune and all circumstances, social 
 and domestic. 
 
 TO MRS DUNLOP. 
 
 Dumfries, 3Ut December 1792. 
 Dear Madam — A hurry of business, thrown in lieaps by my 
 absence, has until now prevented my returning my grateful acknow- 
 ledgments 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 plcasantest I ever enjoyed. Alas, my 
 dearest friend ! how few and fleeting arc 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. 2d 1793. 
 
 I HAVE just received yours of tlie .30th, and feel much for your 
 
 situation. However, 1 heartily rejoice in yoiir 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
 
 276 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 insinuate, that in my way of life I want exercise. Of that I have 
 enougii ; but occasional liard drinlving is the devil to mc. Against 
 this 1 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, tliat do mc the mischief — but even this I have more 
 than half given over.i 
 
 Mr Corbet can be of little service to me at present; at least I 
 should be shy of applying. I cannot possibly bo settled as a super- 
 visor 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 wisli to let that matter 
 settle before I offer myself too much in tiie 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 shew tlio imdisguised emotions of my soul. 
 War I deprecate: misery and ruin to thousands are iu the blast that 
 announces the destructive demon. * * * * j^_ j^ 
 
 TO THE SAME.2 
 
 5lh January 1793. 
 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 
 
 ' The following extract from a letter addressed by Mr Bloomfield to the Earl of 
 Buchan contains so interesting an exhibition of the modesty inlierent in real 
 worth, and so philosophical, and at the same time so poetical an estimate of tlie 
 different characters and destinies of Hums and its antlior, tliat I should esteem 
 myself culpable were I to withhold it from the public view : — 
 
 ' The illustrious soul that lias left amongst us the name of Burns has often been 
 lowered down to a comparison with mc; but the comparison exists more in circum- 
 stances than in essentials. That man stood up with the stamp of superior intellect 
 on his brow — a visible greatness: and great and patriotic subjects would, only 
 have called into action the powers of his mind, which lay inactive while he played 
 calmly and exquisitely the pastoral pipe. 
 
 ' The letters to which I have alluded in my preface to the Rural Tales were 
 friendly warnings, pointed with innnediate reference to the fate of that extra- 
 ordinai-y man. " Remember Burns I " has been the watchword of my friends. I do 
 remember Burns; but I am not Burns! — neither have 1 his fire to fan or to quench, 
 nor passions to control ! Where, then, is my merit if I make a peaceful voyage on 
 a smooth sea, and with no mutiuy on board ■* To a lady— I have it from herself — 
 who remonstrated with him on his danger from drink, and the pursuits of some of 
 his associate's, he replied: " Madam, they would not thank me for my company if 
 I did not drink with them. I must give them a slice of my constitution." How 
 much to be regretted that he did not give them thinner slices of his constitution, 
 that it might have lasted longer ! ' — C'roim kk. 
 
 - In l)r Curriu'8 edition this letter is dated January 1792, and appears in the 
 place appropriate to that date. The present editor, entertaining no doubt that the 
 real date is 1793, has tiansferred it from the fomier to the present place. What 
 gives reason to believe the latter the true date is the allusion to the ' political blast' 
 that had threatened the poet's welfare.
 
 EFFECTS OF THE WALLACE CUP. 277 
 
 sheet the political blast that threatened my welfare is overblown. 
 I liave corresponded with Commissioner Graham — for the Board 
 liad made me the subject of their animadversions ; and now I have 
 the pleasure of informinn; you tliat all is set to rights in that quarter. 
 
 Now as to these informers, may tlie devil be let loose, to . But, 
 
 liold ! I was praying most fervently in my last sheet, and I must not 
 so soon fall a-swearing in this. 
 
 Alas! liow little do the wantonly or idly officious think what 
 mischief they do by their malicious insinuations, indirect imperti-" 
 nence, or thoughtless blabbings. What a difference there is in 
 intrinsic worth, candour, benevolence, generosity, kindness — in all 
 the charities and all the virtues — between one class of human beings 
 and another. For instance, the amiable circle I so lately mixed 
 with in the hospitable hall of Dunlop, their generous hearts, theiy 
 uncontaminated dignified minds, their informed and polished under- 
 standings — 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 inifortunate 
 being, his faithful wife, and prattling innocents, turned over to 
 beggary and ruin.i 
 
 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 whigmaleerie cup, and told them that it had been a 
 family- piece among the descendants of AVilliani "Wallace. This 
 roused sucli an enthusiasm that they insisted on bumpering the 
 punch round in it ; and by and by never did your great ancestor lay 
 a siithron 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 rctunis of tiie season ! 
 Jlay ail good things attend you and yours, wherever tliey are 
 scattered over the earth ! B. B. 
 
 ' Mr Gilbert I?urns, speaking of such a crisis, says that on the side of the 
 government will be fi)unil ranged a great part of the wise and jiriident ; ' but on tliut 
 Bide also will be found a great host of a very difl'ereut description — all the satellites 
 of power and tlie parasites of greatness, with all the worthless and detestable crew 
 of time-serving and officious informers. At such times loyalty comes to be esteemed 
 the cardinal virtue, capable of " hiding a multitude of sins;" an<l many who are 
 conscious how worthless and hollow-hearted they are, seek to ]iieee up their repu- 
 tation, and ingratiate themselves with their superiors, by an extraordinary display 
 of loyalty and attachment to the existing order of things, and a virtuous zeal in 
 hunting down whoever has the audacity to question the conduct of men in power. 
 
 'To persons of that description the imprudent i)oet had made himself peculiarly 
 obnoxious by the unguarded freedom with which he expressed his opinions of tho 
 wonderful events then attracting the notice of every one ; and their enmity was 
 heightened by his im(|ualified expression, general and particular, of his contempt 
 for such sycophantic characters, liy .such " Lviinl yitlires " was the conduct of o\ir 
 poet strictly watched, with the view of detecting every political transgression or 
 private fault; every imprudence or failing was magnified and exaggerated to a 
 frightful degree ; and the public alarm which brotight such characters into contact 
 with the respectable orders of society, procured the admission and circulation of 
 these injurious reports in such circles as made them bu received without suspieiou.'
 
 278 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 So lately as the 2d of the month, our poet had told Mrs 
 Dunlop that he had of late ' greatly succeeded' in giving up hard 
 drinking. Since then, perhaps on that same evening, he had had 
 two worthy fellows dining with him, and, producing an old family 
 cup which had been presented to him by Mrs Dunlop, he had set 
 it into such active operation, as to lay his guests prostrate. Such 
 are the rapid strides of Burns from profession to the opposite 
 kind of practice. So soon, too, does he forget the indignity of the 
 inquiry into his political conduct. Well might he liken himself, as 
 he often did, to an ignis fatuus. The merry-making in question is 
 very likely identical with one which has been heard of from a 
 clerical acquaintance of Burns. The bard, not being on good 
 tei'ms with the parish clergy, and no great favourite at this time 
 with any of the cloth, had still retained the friendship of one, who 
 has been described as a most worthy as Avell as able man, but not 
 much of a clergyman, the Rev. Mr M'Morine of Caerlaverock. 
 Meeting this gentleman in Dumfries on a market-day, when the 
 country clergy usually came to town to hear the news, he had 
 engaged him to come next forenoon to baptise his recently born 
 infant ; and Mr M'Morine came accordingly, but at an earlier 
 hour than was perhaps expected. On being shewn into Burns's 
 parlour, he found a party composed of the poet and two 
 companions, who had evidently sat down the previous evening. 
 The description which the clergyman gave of the two visitors 
 corresponds exactly with what Burns hints at in his account 
 of the effects of the cup. The poet seemed taken by surprise, but 
 in perfect possession of himself, and he very quickly put matters 
 in decent order for the performance of the intended cere- 
 mony. It may be remarked that Mr M'Morine, though he 
 clung to Burns's friendship when all the other clergy of the 
 district looked coldly on him, used to relate the story with an 
 imfavourable leaning towards the poet. He both was shocked by 
 the idea of so prolonged a debauch, and thought meanly of the 
 appearance of the two guests. Now, if the circumstances be 
 identical, we see that Burns had reason to regard the men as 
 ' worthy fellows,' and there was a special feeling about the Wallace 
 cup which had operated in promoting the conviviality, not to 
 speak of the recognised licence of the season, the date being 
 apparently the second day of the new year.i Many other things 
 which have been related unfavourably to Burns might prove 
 
 1 AMiat greatly confirms our supposition of this being the affair alluded to hy Mr 
 M'Morine is that the 2d of January was a Wednesday, the Dumfries market- 
 day. Burns had written to Mrs Dunlop on that forenoon. The cup afterwards 
 arrived. In the evening, he had the two worthy fellows dining with him. Mr 
 M'Morine came next morninR, the 3d. and on Saturday, the 5th, the poet speaks 
 of the circumstances in a new letter to Mrs Dunlop.
 
 SONG — PUIETITH CAULD. 279 
 
 susceptible of a similar explanation if we knew the whole of the 
 connected facts. 
 
 BURNS TO MR THOJISON. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 Tune — Cauld Kail in Aberdeen.^ 
 
 O poortith cauld, and restless love, 
 
 Ye wreck my peace between ye ; 
 Yet poortith a' I could forgive, 
 
 An 'twere na for my Jeanie. 
 O why should Fate sic pleasure have, 
 
 Life's dearest bands untwining ? 
 Or why sae sweet a flower as love, 
 
 Depend on Fortune's shining ? 
 
 This warld's wealth, when I think on 
 
 Its pride, and a' the lave o't; 
 Fie, fie on silly coward man 
 
 That he should be the slave o't! 
 O wby, &c. 
 
 Her con sae honnie blue betray 
 
 How she repays my passion ; 
 But prudence is licr o'erword aye, 
 
 She talks of rank and fasliion. 
 why, &c, 
 
 O wha can prudence think upon, 
 
 And sic a lassie by him ? 
 wha can prudence think iipon, 
 
 And sae in love as I am i 
 why, &c. 
 
 How blest the humble cotter's fate !'' 
 
 He wooes his simple dearie ; 
 The silly bogles, Avealtli and state, 
 
 Can never make them eerie. 
 O why, &c. 
 
 1 TliiH pong is usually suui; to the tune of / ha<J n Iforsc, I had nnr mnir. 
 
 2 In the originul nianuaciipt, ' liow bleat the wild-wood Indian's fate.'
 
 280 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 GALA WATER.^ 
 
 Thei-e's Lraw, braw lads on Yarrow braes, 
 That wander through the blooming heather ; 
 
 But Yarrow braes, nor Ettrick shaws, 
 Can match the lads o' Gala Water. 
 
 But there is ane, a secret ane, 
 
 Aboon them a' I loe him better; 
 And I'll be his and he'U be mine, 
 
 The bonnie lad o' Gala Water. 
 
 Although his daddie was nae laird, 
 
 And though I hae na meikle tocher; 
 Yet rich in kindest, truest love, 
 
 AVe'U tent our flocks by Gala W^ater. 
 
 It ne'er was wealth, it ne'er was wealth. 
 That coft contentment, peace, or pleasure ; 
 
 The bands and bliss o' mutual love, 
 that's the chief'est warld's treasure ! 
 
 Jan. 1793. 
 Many returns of the season to you, my dear sir. How comes on 
 your publication ?— will these two foregoing be of any service to 
 you? I should like to know what songs you print to each tune, 
 besides the verses to which it is set. In short, I would wish to give 
 you my opinion on all the poetry you publish. You know it is my 
 trade, and a man in the way of his trade may suggest useful hints 
 
 1 Some years before composing the present lieautiful song, B)irns had given to 
 the Scots Musical Museum the following improved version of the original homely 
 ballad— which, it may be mentioned, referred not to the lads, but to a lass of Gala 
 AVater : — 
 
 Braw, braw lads of Gala AVater ; 
 
 O braw lads of Gala Water : 
 I '11 kilt my coats aboon my knee, 
 
 And follow my love through the water. 
 
 Sae fair her hair, sae brent her brow, 
 
 Sae bonnie blue her een, my dearie ; 
 Sae white her teeth, sae sweet her mou' ; 
 
 The mair I kiss she 's aye my dearie. 
 
 O'er yon bank and o'er yon brae, 
 
 O'erj'on moss amang the heather; 
 I 'il kilt my coats aboon my knee. 
 
 And follow my love through the water. 
 
 Down amang the broom, the broom, 
 
 Down amang the binom, my dearie. 
 The lassie lost her silken snood, 
 
 That cost her mony a blirt and blear ee.
 
 SONXET ON HIS BIRTHDAY, 1793. 281 
 
 that escape men of much superior parts and endowments in other 
 things. 
 
 If you meet with my dear and much-valued Cunningliam, greet 
 liim in my name with tiie compliments of the season. Yours, &c. 
 
 Mr Gilbert Burns, in his memoranda as to heroines, written for 
 Mr Thomson, places opposite Poortith CVfwicZ— 'AMiss Jane Black- 
 stock, afterwards Mrs AVhiter of Liverpool.' In the manuscript, 
 Mr Thomson makes a pencil-note in the margin. ' These verses, 
 I humbly think, have too much of uneasy and cold reflection for 
 the air, which is pleasing and rather gay than otherwise.' The 
 letter having apparently been returned to Burns, he adds : ' The 
 objections are just, but I cannot make it better. The s^m^ won't 
 bear mending ; yet for private reasons I should like to see it iu 
 print.' 
 
 SONNET, 
 
 WRITTEN ON THE 25TH JANUARY 1793, THE BIRTHDAY OF THE AUTHOR, ON HEARING 
 A THRUSH SING IN A MORNING WALK. 
 
 Sing on, sweet thrush, upon the leafless bough, 
 
 Sing on, sweet bird, I listen to tliy strain ; 
 
 See aged Winter, 'mid his surly reign. 
 At thy blithe carol clears his furrowed brow. 
 
 So in lone Poverty's dominion drear, 
 
 Sits meek Content with light unanxions heart ; 
 AVclcomcs the rapid moments, bids them part, 
 
 Kor aslvs if tliey bring onght to hope or fear. 
 
 I thank thee, Author of this opening day! 
 
 Thou whose bright sun now gilds yon orient skies ! 
 
 Iliclies denied, tliy boon was i)urer joys. 
 What woaltii could never <'ive nor take awav ! 
 
 Yet come, thou child of poverty and care, 
 
 The mite high Heaven bestowed, that mite with thee I'll share. 
 
 MR THOMSON TO BURNS. 
 
 KniNRunnii, Sn/Zi Jan. I'M. 
 You make me hnjipy, my dear sir, and tliousands will be hap])y 
 to sec the charming songs you have sent mc. Many merry returns 
 of the season to you, and may yon long continue among the sons and 
 daughters of Caledonia, to delight them and to honour yourself.
 
 282 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 The four last songs with which you favoured me for Auld Rob 
 Morris, Duncan Gray, Gala Water, and Cauld Kail, are admirable. 
 Duncan is indeed a lad of grace, and his humour will endear him to 
 everybody. 
 
 The distracted lover in Auld Rob, and the happy shepherdess in 
 Gala Water, exhibit an excellent contrast : they speak from genuine 
 feeling, and powerfully touch the heart. 
 
 The number of songs which I had originally in view was limited, 
 but I now resolve to include every Scotch air and song worth sing- 
 ing ; leaving none behind but mere gleanings, to which the publishers 
 of omnegatherum are welcome. I would rather be the editor of a 
 collection from which nothing could be taken away, than of one to 
 which nothing could be added. We intend presenting the sub- 
 scribers with two beautiful stroke-engravings, the one characteristic 
 of the plaintive, and the other of the lively songs; and I have Dr 
 Beattie's promise of an essay upon the subject of our national music, 
 if his health will permit him to Avrite it. As a number of our songs 
 have doubtless been called forth by particular events, or by the 
 charms of peerless damsels, there must be many curious anecdotes 
 relating to them. 
 
 The late Mr Tytler of Woodhouselee, I believe, knew more of this 
 than anybody ; for he joined to the pursuits of an antiquary a taste 
 for poetry, besides being a man of the world, and possessing an 
 enthusiasm for music beyond most of his contemporaries. He was 
 quite pleased with this plan of mine, for I may say it has been solely 
 managed by me, and we had several long conversations about it 
 when it was in embryo. If I could simply mention the name of the 
 heroine of each song, and the incident which occasioned the verses, 
 it would be gratifying. Pray, will you send me any information of 
 this sort, as well with regard to your own songs as the old ones ? 
 
 To all the favourite songs of the plaintive or pastoral kind will be 
 joined the delicate accompaniments, &c. of Pleyel. To those of the 
 comic and humorous class, I think accompaniments scarcely neces- 
 sary ; they are chiefly fitted for the conviviality of the festive board, 
 and a tuneful voice, with a proper delivery of the words, renders them 
 perfect. Nevertheless, to these I propose adding bass accompani- 
 ments, because then they are fitted either for singing, or for instru- 
 mental performance, Avhen there happens to be no singer. I mean 
 to employ our right trusty friend Mr Clarke to set the bass to these, 
 which he assures me he will do con amore, and with much greater 
 attention than he ever bestowed on anything of the kind. But for 
 this last class of airs I Avill not attempt to find more than one set 
 of verses. 
 
 That eccentric bard, Peter Pindar, has started I know not how 
 many difficulties about writing for the airs I sent to him, because of 
 the peculiarity of their measure, and the trammels they impose on 
 his flying Pegasus. I subjoin, for your perusal, the only one I have 
 yet got from him, being for the fine air Lord Gregory. The Scots 
 verses printed with that air are taken from the middle of an old
 
 ANECDOTES OF SCOTCH SONGS. 283 
 
 ballad, called The Lass of Lochroyan, -which I do not admire. ^ I 
 have set down the air therefore as a creditor of yours. Many of the 
 Jacobite songs are replete with wit and humour — might not the best 
 of these be included in our volume of comic songs ? 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 FKOM THE HON. ANDREW ERSKINE. 
 
 Mr Thomson has been so obliging as to give me a perusal of your 
 songs. Highland Mary is most encliantingly pathetic, and Duncan 
 Gray possesses native genuine humour — ' Spak o' lowpin' o'er a linn,' 
 is a line of itself that should make you immortal. I sometimes hear 
 of you from our mutual friend Cunningham, who is a most excellent 
 fellow, and possesses above all men I know the charm of a most 
 obliging disposition. You kindly promised me, about a year ago, a 
 collection of your unpublished productions, religious and amorous. 
 I know from experience how irksome it is to copy. If you will get 
 any trusty person in Dumfries to write them over fair, I will give 
 Peter Hill whatever money he asks for his trouble, and I certainly 
 shall not betray your confidence. I am your hearty admirer, 
 
 Andrew Erskine. 
 
 BURNS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 26(^ 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, 
 &c. 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 
 Ids own mouth. I am such an enthusiast, that in the course of my 
 several peregrinations tln-ougli Scotland I made a pilgrimage to the 
 individual spot from wliicii every song took its rise — Lochaher and 
 the Braes of Ballenden excepted. So far as the 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 ofiFencc? In the meantime,, do 
 not you think that some of them, particularly The Sow^s Tail to 
 Geordic, a.s an air, witli other words, might be well worth a place 
 in your collection of lively songs I 
 
 If it were possible to procure songs of merit, it would be proper 
 to have one set of Scots words to every air, and tliat the set of words 
 to which the notes ought to be set. There is a naivete, a pastoral 
 
 1 Thi-i t):illail lias since been printed in several collections. It is possessed of 
 consideruble lucrit.
 
 284 LIFE AND WORKS OF BX3RNS. 
 
 simplicity, in a slight intermixture of Scots words and phraseolofry, 
 ■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. 
 Tlie very name of Peter Pindar is an acquisition to your work.i 
 His Gregory is beautiful. I have tried to give you a set of stanzas 
 in Scots on the same subject, which arc 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. 
 
 mirk, mirk is this midnight hour, 
 
 And loud the tempest's roar ; 
 A waefu' wanderer seeks thy tower. 
 
 Lord Gregory, ope thy door. 
 
 An exile frae her father's ha', 
 
 And a' for loving thee; 
 At least some ^jity on me shaw, 
 
 If love it may na be. 
 
 Lord Gregory, mind'st thou not the grove 
 
 J3y bonnie Irwine side. 
 Where first I owned that virgin-love 
 
 I lang, lang had denied? 
 
 How aften didst thou pledge and vow 
 
 Thou wad for aye be mine ; 
 And my fond heart, itsel' sae true, 
 
 It ne'er mistrusted thine. 
 
 1 The song of Dr Wolcot (Pctor Pindar) on the same subject, is as follows:— 
 
 • Ah ope, Lord Gregory, thy door ! 
 
 A midnij;ht wanderer sighs; 
 Hard rush the rains, the tempests roar, 
 
 And liglitnings cleave the sliies.' 
 
 ' Who comes with wo at this drear night — 
 
 A pilgrim of the gloom ? 
 If she whose love did onee delight, 
 
 Jly cot shall yield her room." 
 
 ' Alas ! thou heard'st a pilgi'im mourn. 
 
 That once was prized by thee : 
 Think of the ring by yonder burn 
 
 Thou gav'st to love and me. 
 
 ' But should'st thou not poor Marion know, 
 
 I '11 turn my feet and part ; 
 And think the storms that round me blow 
 
 Far kinder than thy heart.' 
 
 It is but doing justice to Dr Wolcot to mention that his song is the original. 5Ir 
 Hnrns saw it, liked it, and immediately wrote the otiier on the same subject, whiuU 
 is derived from the old Scottish ballad of uncertain origin. — Cuiirie.
 
 LETTER TO CLAEINDA. 285 
 
 Hard is tliy lieart, Lord Gregory, 
 
 And flinty is tliy breast : 
 Tliou dart of heaven that flashest bv, 
 
 O wilt thou give me rest! 
 
 Ye mustering tluinders from above 
 
 Your willing victim see ! 
 But spare and pardon my fause love, 
 
 His wrangs to Heaven and me ! 
 
 Miss Peacock had answered Burns's letter of the 6th of 
 December, giving him an account of the return of Mrs M'Lehose 
 to Scotland, but ap^aareutly not encouraging him to renew his 
 correspondence with that lady. The letter did not reach the 
 hands of the poet for a considerable time, in consequence of an 
 accident. "When at length made aware that his Clarinda was 
 once more in Edinburgh, he addressed her — and the letter is 
 certainly very characteristic : 
 
 TO CLAUINDA. 
 
 I SUPPOSE, my dear madam, that by your neglecting to inform 
 me of your arrival in Europe — a circumstance that could not be 
 indifferent to me, as indeed no occurrence relating to you can — you 
 meant to leave me to guess and gather that a correspondence I once 
 had the honour and felicity to enjoy is to be no more. Alas! wliat 
 heavy-laden sounds are these — '2\o more!' The wretch who lias 
 never tasted pleasure has never known wo ; what drives the soul to 
 madness is the recollection of joys that are 'no morel' But tliis 
 is not language to the world : they do not understand it. l!ut 
 come, ye few — the children of Feeling and Sentiment! — ye wliose 
 trembling bosom-chords ache to unutterable anguish as recollection 
 gushes on the heart! — ye who are capable of an attachment keen as 
 the arrow of Deatli, and strong as tlie vigour of immortal being — - 
 
 come! and your ears shall drink a tale -Hut, husli! I must not, 
 
 cannot tell it; agony is in the recollection, and frenzy in the recital ! 
 
 But, madam, to leave tlie ])aths tiuit lead to madness, I congratulate 
 your friends on your return ; and I hope that the i)i'ecious health, 
 which Miss P. tells me is so mucli injiu-ed, is i-estored or restoring. 
 There is a fatality attends Miss Peacock's correspondence and mine. 
 Two of my letters, it seems, she never received ; and her last came 
 ■while I was in Ayrsliii-c, was unfortunately mislaid, aiul only found 
 about ten days or a fortnight ago, on reuioving a deslc of drawers. 
 
 I present you a book ; may I hope you will accept of it. I daresay 
 you will have brought your books with you. The fourth volume of 
 the Scot-n Soiiijs is ])ublished; I will jiresuuie to send it you. Shall I 
 hear from you J But first hear me. No cold language — no prudential 
 documents; I despise advice and scorn control. If you are not to
 
 286 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 ■write sucli language, such sentiments as you know I shall wish, shall 
 delight to receive, I conjure you, by wounded pride, by ruined peace, 
 by frantic, disappointed passion, by all the many ills that constitute 
 that sum of human woes, a broken heart! ! ! — to me be silent for 
 ever. * * * « K, B. 
 
 The pride of Burns, and that impatience under reproach which 
 his pride dictated, are here strongly delineated. Clarinda would 
 probably in reply revert to her former wish that Sylvander could 
 have been brought ' to feel a little of genuine gospel humility.' 
 Yet he was capable of the deepest self-humiliation — only it was 
 necessaiy, for the development of the feeling, that no fellow- worm 
 should presume to taunt, or even to advise him. 
 
 TO MR CUNNINGHAM. 
 
 3d March 1793. 
 
 Since I wrote to you the last lugubrious sheet, I have not had 
 time to write 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 reno- 
 vating year. Now I shall in good earnest take up Thomson's songs. 
 I daresay he thinks I have used him unkindly ; and, I must own, 
 with too much appearance of truth. Apropos, do you know the 
 much-admired old Highland air called The Sutor^s Dochter ? It is 
 a first-rate favourite of mine, and I have written what I reckon one 
 of my best songs to it. I will send it to you as it was sung, with 
 great applause, in some fashionable cu'cles, by Major Eobertson of 
 Lude, who was here with his corps. 
 
 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 I have gotten one of your Highland pebbles, which I 
 fancy would make a veiy 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 matri- 
 culated, 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 arton^ my arms. On a field, azure, a holly-busli, 
 seeded, proper, in base ; a shepherd's pipe and crook, saltier-wise. 
 
 1 Some of the earlier letters to Mr Thomson retain the impression of a small seal 
 witli the device, very characteristic of and suitable to our poet, of a heart transfixed 
 by cross darts.
 
 ESTEEM FOR DAVID ALLAN. 287 
 
 also proper, in chief. On a wreath of the colours, a ■woodlark 
 perching on a sprig of hay-tree, proper, for crest. Two mottoes : 
 round the top of the crest, Wood-notes ivild ; at the hottom of the 
 shield, in the usual place, Better a wee hush than nae hield,^ By the 
 shepherd's pipe and crook I do not mean the nonsense of painters of 
 Arcadia, but a stoch and horn, and a cluh, such as you see at the head 
 of Allan Kamsay, in Allan's quarto edition of the Gentle Shepherd. 
 By the by, 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 — 1 would have bought it, but I was told that it was printed and 
 engraved for subscribers only. He is the oidy 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 birdlime 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 cele- 
 brity of that merit will richly repay it. R. B. 
 
 BURNS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 20(71 March 17.13. 
 
 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, enter- 
 taining, and witty. 
 
 What is become of the list, &c. 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 1 will not, cannot, bear rivalship from you nor anybody else. 
 
 ' A Bcal witli tht'Bc fanciful bearings was actually cut for tlio poet, and used by 
 him for the remainder of liis life. Its iniiiression is represented under a pruiile of 
 the poet in Mr Cunningham's edition of Hums, vol. viii. p. 16H. 
 
 " The poet here alludes to David Allan, painter, usually called the Scottish 
 Hogarth. He was born at Alloa in 17*1. and educated through the kindness of 
 some generous ladies. His serious paintings are not much admired ; but he had a 
 happy knack at hitting oil' Scottish rustic figures. At his death in 1/96, he left a 
 Bcries of drawings illustrative of Uurns's works. 
 
 •^ See Vol. L, p. 7'. 'Ihe song is here headed by the poet with a reference to the 
 tune of Duncan DavUlsiin. For this is sul)stituted in Mr Thomson's hand, Hide yc 
 yit. The song was adajited by the late John Wilson, vocalist, to the tunc of 
 Merry may tite Maid be, which is certainly much more suitable.
 
 288 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 BURNS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 WANDERING WILLIE. 
 
 March 1733. 
 
 Here awa, there awa, wandering Willie, 
 
 Now tired with wandering, hand awa har.ie ; 
 
 Come to my bosom, my ae only dearie, 
 
 And tell me thou bring'st me my Willie the same. 
 
 Loud blew the cauld winter Minds at our parting, 
 It wasna the blast brought the tear in my ee ; 
 
 Now welcome the simmer, and welcome my AVillie, 
 The simmer to nature, my Willie to me. 
 
 Ye hurricanes rest in the cave of your slumbers, 
 O how your wild horrors a lover alarms ! 
 
 Awaken, ye breezes ! row gently, ye billows ! 
 And waft ray dear laddie ance mair to my amis ! 
 
 But if he 's forgotten his faithfullest Nannie, 
 
 O still flow 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 ! 
 
 T leave it to you, my dear sir, to determine whether the above, or 
 the old Through the Lamj Muir be the best. 
 
 TO MISS BENSON.' 
 
 Dumfries, 21j( Ilurch 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 ac(piaiiitance 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 
 
 1 Afterwards Mrs Basil Montagu.
 
 BURNS AT ARBIGLAND. 289 
 
 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 tho\ights; and I 
 make no doubt that he is perfectly acquainted with my sentiments 
 respecting Jliss Benson: how much I admired her abilities and 
 valued her worth, and how very fortunate I thought myself in her 
 acquaintance. For tliis last reajion, my dear madam, I must 
 entertain no hopes of the very great pleasure of meeting with you 
 again. 
 
 Miss Hamilton tells me that she is sending a packet to you, and I 
 heg leave to send you the enclosed sonnet ; though, to tell you the 
 real truth, the sonnet is a mere pretence, that I may have the 
 opportunity of declaring with how much respectful esteem I have 
 the honour to be, &c. K. B. 
 
 Burns was acquainted with Mr Craik of Arbigland, through his 
 friend and landlord, Captain Hamilton, a connection of the family. 
 He had at Arbigland met Miss Benson, who was there on a visit. 
 The lady lias related the following anecdote of the occasion : 
 
 ' I dined with Burns at Ai'bigland ; he was witty, drank as 
 others drank, and was long in coming to the tea - table. It 
 was then the fashion for young ladies to be busy about some- 
 thing — I was working a iiower. The poet sat down beside 
 me, talked of the beauty of what I was imitating, and put his 
 hand so near the work, that I said : " Well take it, and do a bit 
 yourself." "0 ho!" said he, "you think my hand is unsteady 
 
 with wine. I cannot work a flower, madam; but" he pulled 
 
 the thread out of the needle, and re-threaded it ifi a moment. 
 "Can a tipsy man do that?" He talked to mc of his children, 
 more particularly of his eldest son, and called him a promising 
 boy. " And yet, madam," he said, with a sarcastic glance of his 
 eye, " I hope he will turn out a glorious blockhead, and so make 
 his fortune."' — Allan Cunnwc/haiiCs Life of Burns (p. 2G7.) 
 
 The eldest son of the poet was now a boy between six and seven 
 years old, and already noted for his aptitude to learn, being 
 possessed of an extraordinary memox-y for facts, and no small 
 portion of his father's gift of language. Burns, with a feeling 
 hereditary in his case, was most laudably anxious about the educa- 
 tion of his children. Finding that the really excellent school of 
 Dumfries was patent at a lower scale of fees to the children of 
 burgesses, he recalled that, at his first visit to the place in .luno 
 1787, he had been invested with an honorary burgess ticket, so that 
 he was all but entitled to the privilege he thouglit so desirable 
 for his offspring. He accordingly addressed the folloAving appli- 
 cation to the municipal authorities : 
 
 VOL. III. S
 
 290 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 TO THE HON. THE PROVOST, BAILIES, AND TOWN -COUNCIL 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, to give my young ones that education 
 I wish, at the high school-fees wlucli a stranger pays, will bear hard 
 upon me. 
 
 Some years ago, your good town did me the honour of making me 
 an honorary burgess. AVill you allow me to request that this mark 
 of distinction may extend so far as to put me on the footing of a real 
 freeman of the town in the schools 1 
 
 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 oificially 
 serve you ; and wiU, if possible, increase that grateful respect with 
 which I have the honour to be, gentlemen, &c. K. B. 
 
 The request was immediately complied with, and young Eobert 
 Burns, with one or two of his brothers, were in the way of receiving 
 an excellent education at little expense when their distinguished 
 father died. 
 
 BURNS TO MR THOMSON. 
 OPEN THE DOOR TO ME, OH ! 
 
 ' O open the door, some pity to shew, 
 
 O open the door to me, oh ! 
 Though thou hast been false, I'll ever prove true, 
 
 open the door to me, oh! 
 
 • Cauld is the blast upon my pale cheek, 
 
 But caulder thy love for me, oh.' 
 The fi'ost that freezes the life at my heart, 
 Is nought to my pains frae thee, oh ! 
 
 • The wan moon is setting behind the white wave, 
 
 And time is setting with me, oh ! 
 False friends, false love, farewell ! for mair 
 I'll ne'er trouble them, nor thee, oh !' 
 
 She has opened the door, she has opened it wide ; 
 She sees his pale corse on the plain, oh! 
 
 • My true love ! ' she cried, and sank down by lais side, 
 
 Never to rise again, oh ! 
 
 I do not know whether this song be really mended.
 
 A NEW EDITION OF THE POEMS. 291 
 
 BURNS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 YOUNG JESSIE. 
 Tune — Bonnie Dundee. 
 
 True-hearted was he, the sad swain o' the Yarrow, 
 
 And fair are the maids on the banks o' the Ayr, 
 But by the sweet side o' the Nith's winding river, 
 
 Are lovers as faithful, and maidens as fair : 
 To equal young Jessie seek Scotland ' all over; 
 
 To equal young Jessie you seek it in vain; 
 Grace, beauty, and elegance fetter lier lover, 
 
 And maidenly modesty fixes the chain. 
 
 O fresh is the rose in the gay dewy morning. 
 
 And sweet is the lily at evening close ; 
 But in the fair presence o' lovely young Jessie 
 
 L'nseen is the lily, unheeded the rose. 
 Love sits in her smile, a wizard ensnaring; 
 
 Enthroned in her een he delivers his law : 
 And still to her charms she alone is a sti'anffer — ■ 
 
 Her modest demeanour's the jewel of a'! 
 
 In this song Burns meant a compliment to Miss Janet Staig, 
 second daughter of the Provost of Dumfries, and subsequently 
 the wife of Major "William Miller, one of the sons of the poet's 
 former landlord. Mrs Miller must have now been a very young 
 lady, for her monument in Dumfries cliurcbyard states that she 
 died in March 1801, at the early age of 26. 
 
 TO PATRICK MILLER, ESQ., OF DALSWINTON. 
 
 Dumfries, April IT!)."?. 
 
 Sir — My poems having just come out in another edition, will you 
 do me the honour to accept of a copy ? A mark of my gratitude to 
 you, as a gentleman to wliose goodness I liave been much indebted ; 
 of my respect for you, as a patriot who, in a venal, sliding age, stands 
 forth the champion of the liberties of my country ; and of my vene- 
 ration for you, as a man whose benevolence of heart docs honour to 
 human nature. 
 
 There tvcui a time, sir, when I was your dependent : this languag^c 
 then would have been like the vile incense of flattery — I could not 
 
 ' Burns Lad written Scotia, which Mr Thomson altered to Scotland.
 
 292 LIFE AND WORKS OF BUKNS. 
 
 have used it. Now that that connection^ is at an end, do me the 
 lionoui" to accept of this honest tribute of respect from, sir, vour 
 much indebted humble servant, R. B. 
 
 TO JOHN M'MURDO, ESQ., DRUSILANRIG. 
 
 Dumfries, 179^. 
 Will Mr M'Murdo do me the favour to accept of these volumes ?- 
 a trifling but sincere mark of the very high respect I bear for his 
 ■worth as a man, Lis manners as a gentleman, and his kindness as a 
 friend. However inferior now, or afterwards, I may rank as a poet, 
 one honest virtue to which few poets can pretend, I trust I shall ever 
 claim as mine — to no man, whatever his station in life, or his power 
 to serve me, have I ever paid a compliment at the expense of 
 TRUTH. The Author. 
 
 TO THE EARL OF GLENCAIRN. 
 
 My Lord — When you cast your eye on the name at the bottom of 
 this letter, and on the title-page of the book I do myself the honour 
 to send your lordship,'' a more pleasurable feeling than my vanity 
 tells me that it must be a name not entirely unknown to you. The 
 generous patronage of your late illustrious brother found me in the 
 lowest obscurity : he introduced my rustic muse to the partiality of 
 my country ; and to him I owe all. My sense of his goodness, and 
 the anguish of my soul at losing my truly noble protector and friend, 
 I have endeavoured to express in a poem to his memory, which I 
 have now published. This edition is just from tlie press ; and in 
 my gratitude to the dead, and my respect for the living (fame belies 
 you, my lord, if you possess not the same dignity of man, which was 
 your noble brother's characteristic feature), I had destined a copy for 
 the Earl of Glencairn. I learnt just now that you are in town: 
 allow me to present it you. 
 
 I know, my lord, such is the vile, venal contagion which pervades 
 the world of letters, that professions of respect from an author, 
 particularly from a poet to a lord, are more than suspicious. I claim 
 my by-past conduct, and my feelings at this moment, as exceptions 
 to the too just conclusion. Exalted as are the honours of your 
 lordship's name, and unnoted as is the obscurity of mine ; with tlie 
 uprightness of an honest man, I come before your lordsliip, with 
 an offering, however humble, 'tis all I have to give, of my gi-ateful 
 
 ' Alluding to the time -when lie held the farm of Ellisland, as tenant to Jlr 
 Jliller., 
 
 2 A copy of the now edition of Iiis jiocnis. It was in two volumes. 
 
 3 A copy of the new edition of his i)oeni8.
 
 SCNG — ' WANDERING WILLIE.' ' 295 
 
 respect ; and to beg of you, my lord, 'tis all I have to ask of you, 
 that you will do me the honour to accept of it. I have the honour 
 to be, K. B. 
 
 MR THOMSON TO BURNS. 
 
 Edinburgh, 2d April 1793. 
 
 I WILL not recognise the title you give yourself, ' the prince of 
 indolent correspondents ;' but if the adjective were taken away, I 
 think the title would then fit you exactly. It gives me pleasure to 
 find you can furnish anecdotes with respect to most of the songs : 
 these will be a literary curiosity. 
 
 I now send you my list of tlie songs, which I believe will be found 
 nearly complete. I have put down the first lines of all the English 
 songs which I propose giving in addition to the Scotch verses. If any 
 others occur to you, better adapted to the character of the airs, pray 
 mention them when you favour me with your strictures upon every- 
 thing else relating to tlic work. 
 
 Pleyel has lately sent me a number of the songs, with his sympho- 
 nies and accompaniments added to them. I wish you were here, that 
 I might serve up some of them to you with your own verses, by way 
 of dessert after dinner. There is so much delightful fancy in the 
 symphonies, and such a delicate simplicity in the accompaniments — 
 they are indeed beyond all praise. 
 
 I am very much pleased with the several last productions of your 
 muse : your Lord Gregory, in my estimation, is more interesting than 
 Peter's, beautiful as his is. Your Here cava, Willie, must undergo 
 some alterations to suit the air. iMr Erskine and I have been 
 conning it over ; he will suggest what is necessary to make them. 
 a fit match.i 
 
 ' Wandering Willie, as altered by Mr Erskine and Mr Thomson ;— 
 
 Here awa, there awa, wandering Willie, 
 
 Here awa, there awa, liaiul av.a liaiiie ; 
 Come to my boaom, my aiii only dearie. 
 
 Tell me thou bring'st me my Willie the same. 
 
 Winter windablcw loud and caul' at our parting. 
 Fears for my Willie brought tears in my ee; 
 
 Welcome now simmer, and welcome my Willie, 
 Ab simmer to nature, so Willie to me. 
 
 Rest, ye wild storms, in the cave o' your slumbers. 
 
 How your dread howling a lover alarms ! 
 Uiow soft, ye breezes ! roll gently, ye billows ! 
 
 And waft my dear laddie ance iiiair to my arms. 
 
 Hut oh, if he's faithless, and minds na his Nannie, 
 Flow still between us, thou dark heaving main! 
 
 May I never see it, may I never trow it, 
 
 While, dying, I think that my Willie 's my ain. 
 
 ' Ourpnot, with his usual judgment, ailoptcd some of these alterations, and rejected 
 others. The last edition is as follows :^
 
 294 LIFE AND WORKS OF EURNS. 
 
 The gentleman I have mentioned, whose fine taste you are no 
 stranger to, is so well pleased, both witli the musical and poetical 
 part of our work, that he has volunteered his assistance, and has already 
 written four songs for it, which, by his own desire, I send for your 
 perusal. 
 
 BURNS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 THE soldier's RETURX.l 
 
 Air— The Mill, Mill 0. 
 
 When wild war's deadly blast was blawn, 
 
 And gentle peace returning, 
 Wi' niony a sweet babe fatherless. 
 
 And monv a widow mourning :- 
 
 Here awa, there awa, -wandering Willie, 
 
 Here awa, there awa, haud awa hame ; 
 Come to my bosom, my ain only dearie, 
 
 Tell me thou bring'stme my Willie the same. 
 
 Winter winds blew loud and cauld at our parting. 
 Fears for my Willie brought tears in my ee ; 
 
 Welcome now simmer, and Avclcome my Willie, 
 The simmer to nature, my Willie tome. 
 
 Best, ye wild storms, in the cave of your slumbers. 
 
 How your dread howling a lover alarms ! 
 Wauken, ye breezes ! row gently, ye billows ! 
 
 And waft my dear laddie ance mair to my arms ! 
 
 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. 
 
 ' Several of the alterations seem to be of little importance in themselves, and were 
 adopted, it may be presumed, for the sake of suiting the Avords better to the music. 
 The Homeric epithet for the sea, dark-hcavinfi , suggested by Mr Erskine, is in itself 
 more beautiful, as well perhaps as more sublime, than vride-roaring, which he has 
 retained, but as it is only applicable to a placid state of the sea, or, at most, to the 
 swell left on its surface after the storm is over, it gives a picture of that element not 
 BO well adapted to the ideas of eternal separation, which the fair mourner is supposed 
 to imprecate. From the original song of Here aifa, Willie, Burns has borrowed 
 nothing but the second line and part of the first. The superior excellence of this 
 beautiful poem will, it is hoped, justify the different editions of it which we have 
 given.' — CuRRiE. 
 
 ' ' Burns, I have been informed, was one summer evening at the inn at BroAATihill 
 with a couple of friends, when a poor wayworn soldier passed the window: of a 
 sudden, it struck the poet to call him in, and get the story of his adventures ; after 
 listening to which, he all at once fell into one of those fits of abstraction not unusual 
 with him. He was lifted to the region where he had his " garland and singing robes 
 about him," and the result was the admirable song which he sent you for The Mill, 
 Mill 0.' — Correspondent of Mr George Thomson. Mill - Mannoch, a sweet pastoral 
 Ecene on the Coyl, near Coylton Kirk, is supposed to have been the spot where the 
 poet imagined the rencontre of the soldier and his mistress to have taken place. 
 2 Variation — ' And eyes again with pleasure beamed. 
 That had been bleared w-ith mourning.'
 
 THE soldier's RETURN. 295 
 
 I left the lines and tented field, 
 
 Wliere lang I'd been a lodger, 
 My humble knapsack a' my wealth, 
 
 A poor but honest sodger. 
 
 A leal, light heart was in my breast, 
 
 My hand unstained wi' plunder : 
 And for fair Scotia, hame again, 
 
 I cheery on did wander. 
 I thought upon the banks o' Coil, 
 
 I thought upon my Nancy ; 
 I thought upon the witching smile 
 
 That caught my youthful fancy. 
 
 At length I reached the bonnie glen 
 
 Where early life I sported ; 
 I passed the mill, and trysting thorn. 
 
 Where Nancy aft I courted : 
 Wha spied I but my ain dear maid 
 
 Down by her mother's dwelling ! 
 And turned me round to hide the flood 
 
 That in my een was swelling. 
 
 Wi' altered voice, quoth I, ' Sweet lass, 
 
 Sweet as yon hawthorn's blossom, 
 O happy, happy may he be, 
 
 That's dearest to thy bosom ! 
 My purse is light, I've far to gang. 
 
 And fain would be thy lodger ; 
 I've served my king and country lang — 
 
 Take pity on a sodger ! ' 
 
 Sae wistfully she gazed on me. 
 
 And lovelier was than ever ; 
 Quo' she, * A sodger ance I loed, 
 
 Forget him shall I never : 
 Our humble cot and hamely fare 
 
 Ye fi-cely shall partake o't ; 
 That gallant badge, the dear cockade, 
 
 Ye're welcome for the sake o't.' 
 
 She gazed — she reddened like a rose — • 
 
 Syne pale like ony lily; 
 She sank within my anus, and cried, 
 
 ' Art thou my ain dear Willie ?' 
 ' Ey Him who made yon sun and sky, 
 
 IJy whom true love's regarded, 
 I am the man ; and thus may ttill 
 
 True lovers bo rewarded.
 
 296 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 The wars are o'er, and I 'm come hame, 
 
 And find thee still true-hearted ! 
 Though poor in gear, we're rich in love, 
 
 And mair we'se ne'er be parted.' 
 Quo' she, ' My grandsire left mc gowd, 
 
 A mailen plenished fairly ; farm 
 
 And come, my faithfu' sodgcr lad, 
 
 Thou'rt welcome to it dearly.' 
 
 For gold the merchant ploughs the main, 
 
 The farmer ploughs the manor; 
 But glory is the sodger's prize, 
 
 The sodger's wealth is honour. 
 The brave poor sodgcr ne'er despise, 
 
 Nor count him as a stranger ; 
 Remember he's his country's stay 
 
 In day and hour of danger. 
 
 MEG O' THE MILL. 
 
 Air— Bo7tnie Lass, trill ymi lie in a Barracli ? 
 
 O ken ye what Meg o' the Mill has gotten? 
 
 And ken ye what Meg o' the Mill has gotten ? 
 
 She has gotten a coof wi' a claut o' siller, fool lump 
 
 And broken the heart o' the barley Miller. 
 
 The Miller was strappin', tlie Miller was ruddy ; 
 A heart like a lord, and a hue like a lady : 
 The Laird was a widdiefu', blccrit knurl ; ' — 
 She's left the guidfellow and taen the churl. 
 
 The Miller he hccht her a heart leal and loving ; offered 
 The Laird did address her wi' matter more moving, 
 A fine pacing horse wi' a clear chained bridle, 
 A whip by her side, and a bonnie side-saddle. 
 
 O wae on the siller, it is sae prevailing ! 
 And wae on the love that is fixed on a mailen ! 
 A tocher's nae word in a true lover's parle, 
 But gic me my love, and a fig for the warl ! 2 
 
 1 A poor little creature. , ^ . , -,r 
 
 2 The poet had retouched !in old song of tliis name for Johnson s Museum- m 
 1788 It appeared in the sixth volume, as ' written for this work by Robert Hums,' 
 but is 80 rude and wretched a production, tliat we cannot believe many words of 
 it to have been supplied by so masterly a pen.
 
 RAMSAY'S 'lass O' PATIE'S MILL.' 297 
 
 BURNS TO MR TIIOMSOX. 
 
 'th April 1/93. 
 
 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, &c. ballad-making is now as completely my hobby-horse 
 as ever fortification was Uncle Toby's ; so I '11 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 tee a' hue been! and, raising my last looks to 
 the whole human race, the last words of the voice of Coila^ shall be, 
 Oood-niglit, and Joy be ici' you a'/ So much for my last words : 
 now for a few j)rcsent 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 Itamsay ! — 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 is 
 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 dift'erent ones — which I 
 think pretty : — 
 
 ' Now my dear lad maun face his faes, 
 Far, far frae me and Logan braes.' 
 
 My Patie is a Lonr gay, is unequal. * His mind is never muddy,' 
 is a muddy expression indeed. 
 
 ' Then 111 resign and marry Pate, 
 And sync 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 thrash a few loose sentiments out of it, I 
 will submit it to your consideration. The Lass o' Patie's Mill is ono 
 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 John 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, 
 wiiich I had from the present Sir William Cunningham of Robert- 
 land, who had it of the late John, Earl of Loudon, I can, on such 
 authorities, believe : — 
 
 ' Hums hero calls himself the ' Voice of Coiln,' in imitation of 0?8ian, v ho 
 denominates himself the ' Voice of Cona.' f^af Mcrrij iis iir a' haf hcfn! and G'vvd- 
 tiiylil, and Joy he u'»' you a'.' are the iiuuieb of two Scottish tunes. — CuitHiB.
 
 298 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Allan Eamsay was residing at Loudon Castle with the then Earl, 
 father to Earl John ; and one forenoon, riding or wallving out 
 together, his lordship and Allan passed a sweet, romantic spot on 
 Irvine 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. Eamsay 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. Were there ever such banns published 
 as a purpose of marriage between Adonis and Mary ! I agree with 
 you that my song There'' s nought hut Care on every Hand, is much 
 superior to Puirtith Caidd. The original song, The Mill, Mill 0! 
 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 Banlcs of the 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 sang 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 mral imagery is always comparatively 
 flat. If I could hit on another stanza, equal to 'The small birds 
 rejoice,' &c. I do myself honestly avow that I think it a superior 
 fiong.l 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 j but not so your 
 comic ones. Where are Tullochyorum, Lumj^s 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 Museimi, which never was known out of the immediate 
 neighbourhood, until I got it taken dov.'n from a country girl's 
 singing. It is called Cragiebttrn Wood, and, in the opinion of Mr 
 Clarke, is one of the 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 riglit in inserting the last five in your list, though 
 they are certainly Irish. She2)herds, 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 to it, a good while ago, which I think * * *, 
 but in its original state it is not quite a lady's song. I enclose an 
 
 * The bard did produce a second stanza of The Chevalier's Lament (to which ho 
 hero alludes), worthy of the first. — CunuiE, See both verses in Vol. II. of the 
 present work, page 250.
 
 ESCAPES OF POLITICAL FEELING. 299 
 
 altered, not amended, copy for yon, if you choose to set the tune to 
 it, and let the Irish verses folio v/.i 
 
 Mr Erskine's songs are all pretty, but his Lone Vale is divine. 
 Tours, &c. 
 
 Let me know just how you like these random hints. 
 
 Burns was not quite a silent and complying observer of the war 
 carried on against the patriotic party in France. 
 
 When General Dumourier, after unparalleled victories, deserted 
 the army of the Republic, April 5, 1793, only prevented by 
 narrow accidents from betraying his troops into the hands of the 
 enemy, some one expressing joy in the event where Burns was 
 present, he chanted almost extempore the following verses, to the 
 tune oi Rohin Adair: — 
 
 You're welcome to Despots, Dumourier ; 
 
 You're Avelcome to Despots, Dumourier. 
 
 How does Dampierre do ? 
 
 Ay, and Beurnonville tool- 
 
 Why did they not come along with you, Dumourier ? 
 
 ' Mr Thomson, it appears, did not approve of this song, even in its altered state. 
 It docs not appear in the correspondence ; but it is probably one to be found in his 
 manuscripts beginning 
 
 Yestreen I got a pint of wine, 
 
 A place whore body saw na ; 
 Yestreen lay on this breast of mine 
 
 The gowdon locks of Anna. 
 [Thehungiy Jew in wilderness, 
 
 Rejoicing o'er his manna, 
 Was naething to my liinny bliss 
 
 Upon tlic lips of Anna. 
 
 Ye monarchs tak the cast and west, 
 
 Frae Indus to Savannah, 
 Gie me within my straining grasp 
 
 The melting form of Anna. 
 There I '11 despise imperial charms, 
 
 An empress or sultana, 
 While dying raptures in her arms, 
 
 1 give and take with Anna ! 
 
 Awa, thou flaunting god o" day ! 
 
 Awa, thou pale Diana ! 
 Ilk star gae hide thy twinkling r.iv, 
 
 Wlien I 'm to meet my Anna. 
 Come, in th)' raven pluningo, night ! 
 
 Sun, moon, and stars witlulrawn a' ; 
 And bring an angel pen to write 
 
 My transports wi' my Anna !] 
 
 It is highly charactoristie of our bard, but the strain of sentiment docs not correspond 
 with the air to which he proposes it should be allied. — CuRRiit. 
 
 2 Dampierre was one of Dumotiricr's generals, whom he exprrtod to desert along 
 with him. Ilcurnonville was an emissary of the Convention, so much his friend that 
 ho had similar hopes of liim, which, luiwcvcr, were disappointed. The latter person 
 lived to figure in the crisis uf the Kcsturation in lijl4.
 
 300 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 I will fight France wltli you, Dumoiiricr ; 
 
 I will fight France with you, Dumourier; 
 
 I will fight Franco with you, 
 
 I will take my chance Avith you f 
 
 By my soul, I'll dance a dance with you, Dumourier. 
 
 Then let us fight about, Dumourier ; 
 
 Then let us fight about, Dumourier ; 
 
 Then let us fight about, 
 
 Till freedom's spark is out, 
 
 Then we'll be damned, no doubt — Dumourier. 
 
 As will be afterwards seen, there are other compositions of our 
 imprudent bard, expressing ardent sympathy with the French, as 
 against the powers banded for the suppression of tlie Republic. 
 Nor could he always keep his tongue from betraying the senti- 
 ments of his heart. Thus, for instance, at a private dinner party, 
 on the health of Mr Pitt being proposed, Burns called for a toast 
 to Washington, as a much greater man, and was sullen because 
 Lis request was not obeyed. 
 
 We now come to the remarkable letter which he wrote to Mr 
 Erskine of Mar, with reference to the late animadversions on his 
 conduct by the Excise Board. Mr Erskine — grandson of the 
 rebel earl of 1715, and himself subsequently restored to the family- 
 titles — was a zealous Whig. Like other men of wealth of that 
 party, he thought himself bound to do all in his power to compen- 
 sate for the severity with which the government was treating some 
 of the humbler liberals. Having heard that Burns was dismissed 
 from his situation, he wrote to Mr liiddel of C41enriddel, another 
 of the notables in the recent movements for parliamentary- 
 reform, offering in that case to head a subscription in the poet's 
 behalf. Burns consequently addressed Mr Erskine as follows : — 
 
 TO JOHN FRANCIS ERSKINE, ESQ., OF Jf AR. 
 
 Dumfries, I3th 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 exain})le have I now before me, when you, sir, came 
 forward to patronise and befriend a distant obscure stranger, merely 
 because poverty had made him helpless, and his British hardihood 
 of mind had provoked the arbitrary wantonness of power. My much- 
 esteemed fricnd,Mr Kiddel 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.
 
 LETTER TO MR ERSKINE OF MAR. 301 
 
 You have been misinformed as to my final dismission from tlie 
 Excise ; I am still in the service. Indeed, but for tlie exertions of a 
 gentleman Avho 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 liearing, or tlie slightest previous intimation, 
 been turned adrift with my helpless family to all the horrors of want. 
 Had I had any other resource, probably I might have saved them the 
 trouble of a dismission ; but the little money I gained by my publi- 
 cation 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 bo 
 my sentiments of republics, ancient or modern, as to Britain I abjured 
 the idea — that a constitution which, in its original principles, expe- 
 rience 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 IiEFORif : but that, where I nmst 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 tldnk; and that, wliatever 
 might be men or measures, it was for me to be silent and obedient. 
 
 Mr Corbet was likewise my steady friend ; so between Sir 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 maidy and independent sentiments, which 
 I trust will be found in the man. Keasons of no less weight than 
 the support of a wife and family, liave pointed out as the eligible, 
 and, situated as I was, the only eligible line of life for me, my 
 present occui)ation. Still my honest fame is my dearest concern; 
 and a tliousand times have I trembled at the idea of those deijradinf] 
 epithets that malice or misrepresentation may affi.x to my name. I 
 have often, in blasting anticij)ation, listened to some future hackney 
 scribbler, with theheavy malice of savage stujndity, exulting in his 
 hireling paragraj)hs — 'Buuns, notwithstanding the pin/aronaJe of 
 independence to be found in his works, and after having been held 
 forth to public view and to jtublic estimation as a man of somo 
 genius, yet, quite destitute of resources M'ithin himself to support his
 
 302 LIFE AND TVORKS OF EUEXS. 
 
 liorrowed 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 — / iviU 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 many more. I have three sons, who, I 
 see already, have brought into the world souls ill qualified to inhabit 
 the bodies of slaves. Can I look tamely on, and see any machina- 
 tion to Avrest 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 
 concern of a nation ? 
 
 I can tell him that it is on such individuals as I that a nation has 
 to rest, both for the hand of support and the eye of intelligence. 
 The uninformed 3I0B 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 impei-tinent 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 inte- 
 rested 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 ivoidd ruin the j^oor 
 BARD ybr 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, E. B. 
 
 MR THOMSON TO BURNS. 
 
 Edinburgh, April 1793, 
 I REJOICE to find, my dear sir, that ballad-making continues to be 
 your hobby-hoi'se. Great pity 'twould be were it otherwise. I hope 
 you will amble it away for many a year, and ' witch the world Avith 
 your horsemanship.'
 
 criticism: on songs. 303 
 
 I know there are a good many lively songs of merit that I have 
 not put do^^^^ in the list sent you ; but I have them all in my eye. 
 My Patie is a Lover gay, though a little unequal, is a natural and 
 very pleasing song, and I humbly think we ought not to displace or 
 
 alter it, except the last stanza [Here followed a number of 
 
 observations on the Scottish songs, and on the manner of adapting 
 these to the music] 
 
 BURNS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 April 1793. 
 
 I "akXT. yours, my dear sir, this moment. I shall answer it and 
 your former letter, in my desultory way of saying whatever comes 
 uppermost. 
 
 The business of many of our tunes wanting at the beginning what 
 fiddlers call a starting-note, is often a rub to us poor rhymers. 
 
 ' There's braw, braw lads on Yarrow braes. 
 That wander through the blooming heather,' 
 
 you may alter to 
 
 ' Braw, braw lads on Yarrow braes. 
 Ye wander,' ' &c. 
 
 My song, Ilere awa, there cava, as amended by Mr Erskine, I 
 entirely approve of, and return you.^ 
 
 Give me leave to criticise your taste in the only thing in which it 
 is, in my opinion, reprehensible. You know I ought to know 
 something of my own trade. Of pathos, sentiment, and point you 
 are a complete judge; but there is a quality more necessary than 
 either in a song, and which is the very essence of a ballad — I mean 
 simplicity : now, if I mistake not, this last feature you are a little 
 apt to sacrifice to the foregoing. 
 
 Ramsay, as every other poet, has not been always equally happy 
 in his pieces ; still I cannot approve of taking such liberties with an 
 author as Mr AV[alker] proposes doing with IVie Last Time I came o\r 
 the Mcjor. Let a poet, if he chooses, take up the idea of another, and 
 work it into a piece of his own ; but to mangle the works of the 
 poor bard whose tuneful tongue is now mute for ever in the dark 
 and narrow house — by Heaven, 'twould be sacrilege ! I grant that 
 Mr W[alker]"s version is an improvement; but I know Mr W[alkcr] 
 well, and esteem him nmch ; let him mend the song, as the High- 
 lander mended his gun — he gave it a new stock, a new lock, and a 
 new barrel. 
 
 I do not by this object to leaving out improper stanzas, where 
 
 ' In manuscript, ' Rove amang the blooming heather.' Mr Thomson had subsc- 
 qucntly adopted, ' Yc wander." 
 
 2 The rcadLT has already seen that Durns did not finally adopt all of Mr Erskinc's 
 alterations.— C u r ni e.
 
 304 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 that can be done without spoiling the whole. One stanza in The 
 Lass o' Paties Alill must be left out : the song will be nothing worse 
 for it. I am not sure it" we can take the same liberty with Corn- 
 rigs are Bonnie. Perhaps it might want the last stanza, and be the 
 better for it. Cauld Kail in Aberdeen you must leave with me yet 
 awhile. I have vowed to have a song to tliat air on tiie lady whom 
 I attempted to celebrate in the verses Puirtith Cauld and Pestless Love. 
 At anyrate, my other song, Green groiu the Rashes, will never suit. 
 That song is current in Scotland under the old title, and to the 
 merry old tune of that name, which of course would mar the 
 progress of your song to celebrity. Your book will be the standard 
 of Scots songs for the future : let this idea ever keep your judgment 
 on the alarm. 
 
 I send a song on a celebrated toast in this country to suit Bonnie 
 Dundee. I send you also a ballad to Tlie Mill, Mill 0/' 
 
 The last Time I came o'er the Moor I would fain attempt to make a 
 Scots song for, and let Ramsay's be the English set. You shall hear 
 from me soon. When you go to London on this business can you 
 come by Dumfries ? I have still several MS. Scots airs by me, 
 which I have picked up mostly from the singing of country lasses. 
 They please me vastly ; but your learned lugs - would perhaps be 
 displeased with the very feature for which I like them. I call 
 them simple ; you would pronounce them silly. Do you know a 
 fine air called Jackie Ilume^s Lament ? I have a song of considerable 
 merit to that air. I'll enclose you both the song and tune, as I had 
 them ready to send to Johnson's Museum? I send you likewise, to 
 me, a beautiful little air, which I had taken down from viva voce.^ 
 Adieu. 
 
 BURNS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 April 1703. 
 The last time I came o'er the moor, 
 
 And left Maria's dwelling. 
 What throes, what tortures passing euro, 
 
 Were in my bosom swelling: 
 Condemned to see my rival's reign, 
 
 While I in secret languish; 
 To feel a fire in every vein. 
 
 Yet dare not speak my anguish. 
 
 1 TliR snn!» to the tune of Bonnie Dundee 13 tliat named .Tesxie. The bailad to 
 The Mill, Mill ! is that beginning ' When wild war's deadly blast was blawn.'— 
 
 CURRIE. 
 
 2 Ears. 
 
 3 The Roni; hero mentioned is that given in a preceding letter, hen ye ivhat Mep 
 o' the Mill lias i/ollen V 'J'his song is surely Mr I'.urns's own writing, though he doea 
 not generally prai-e his own songs so mueh.— A'oie hy Mr Tliomson. 
 
 4 The air here mentioned is that for which he wrotL' the ballad of Bonnie Jean.— 
 
 CURRIE.
 
 * THE LAST TIME I CAME O'eE THE MOOE.' 305 
 
 Love's veriest wretch, despairing, I 
 
 Fain, fain my crime would cover: 
 The unweeting groan, the bursting sigh, 
 
 Betray the guilty lover. 
 I know my doom must be despair. 
 
 Thou wilt nor canst relieve me ; 
 But, O Maria, hear niy prayer, 
 
 For pity's sake, forgive me! 
 
 The music of thy tongue I lieard. 
 
 Nor wist while it enslaved me ; 
 I saw thine eyes, yet nothing feared. 
 
 Till feai'S no more had saved me. 
 Tlie unwary sailor thus aghast 
 
 Tlie wheeling torrent viewinir. 
 In circling horrors yields at last 
 
 In overwhelmino; ruin! 
 
 My dear Sir — I had scarcely put my last letter into the post- 
 office when I took up the subject of The Last Time I came o'er the 
 Moor, and ere I slept drew the outlines of the foregoing. How far 
 I have succeeded I leave on this, as on every other occasion, to you 
 to decide. 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 h.ave 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 I'leyel docs, 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. 
 
 The sentiments expressed in the song which the poet transcribed 
 in tlie above letter are not pleasing. They hint at a discreditable 
 passion, in which no pure mind could possibly sympathise ; 
 therefore they must be held as uniitted for song. It can scarcely 
 be doubted that they were suggested by some roving sensations 
 of the bard towards the too -witching Mrs Iliddel, though that 
 these bore no great proportion to the mere metier of the artist 
 aiming at a certain literary effect is equally probable. It will be 
 found that Burns afterwards made considerable alterations in the 
 
 MR THOMSON TO BURNS. 
 
 Edinburoh, 26M April l?.**?. 
 I HEARTiT.v thank you, my dear sir, for your last two letters, and 
 the songs which accompanied them. I am always both instructed 
 VOL. in. T
 
 306 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS, 
 
 and entertaiued by your observations, and the frankness witli which 
 you speak out your mind is to me highly agreeable. It is very 
 possible I may not have the true idea of simplicity in composition. 
 I confess there are several songs, of Allan Ramsay's for example, that 
 I think silly enough, which another person, more conversant than I 
 have been with country people, would perhaps call simple and natural. 
 But the lowest scenes of simple nature will not please generally, if 
 copied precisely as they are. The poet, like the painter, must select 
 ■^vhat will form an agreeable, as well as a natural picture.^ On this 
 subject it were easy to enlarge ; but at present suffice it to say, that 
 I consider simplicity, rightly understood, as a most essential quality 
 in composition, and the groundwork of beauty in all the arts. I will 
 gladly appropriate your most interesting new ballad, ' AVhen wild 
 war's deadly blast,' &c. to Tlie Mill, 31 ill 0! as well as the two 
 other songs to their respective airs ; but the third and fourth lines of 
 the first verse must undergo some little alteration in order to suit 
 the music. Pleyel does not alter a single note of the songs. That 
 would be absurd indeed ! With the airs which he introduces into 
 the sonatas, I allow him to take sucji liberties as he pleases j but that 
 has nothing to do with the songs. 
 
 P. S. — I wish you would do as you proposed v/ith your Eigs of 
 Barley. If the loose sentiments are thrashed out of it, I will find 
 an air for it ; but as to this there is no hurry. 
 
 TO MR ROBERT AINSLIE, ST JAMES'S STREET, EDINBURGH. 
 
 April 26, 1793.2 
 
 I AM out of humour, my dear Ainslie, and that is the reason 
 
 why I take up the pen to you : 'tis the nearest way {probatum est) to 
 recover my spirits again. 
 
 I received your last, and was much entertained with it ; but I will 
 not at this time, nor at any other time, answer it. Answer a letter ! — 
 I never could answer a letter in my life. I have written many a 
 letter in return for letters I have received; but then — they were 
 original matter — spurt-away ! zig here, zag there ; as if the devil, 
 that my grannie (an old woman indeed!) often told me, rode on Will- 
 o'-wisp, or, in her more classic phrase, Spunkie, were looking over 
 my elbow. A happy thought that idea has engendered in my head ! 
 Spunkie, thou shalt henceforth be my Symbol, Signature, and Tute- 
 laiy Genius ! Like thee, hap-stcp-and-loup, here-awa-there-awa, 
 higglety-pigglety, pell-mell, hither- and -yont, ram-stam, happy-go- 
 lucky, up tails-a'-by-the-liglit-o'- the -moon — has been, is, and shall 
 be, my progress through the mosses and moors of this vile, bleak, 
 barren wilderness of a life of ours. 
 
 Come, then, my guardian spirit ! like thee, may I skip away, amus- 
 
 1 The orthodox doctrine as against the Wordsworthian heresy. 
 
 2 So indorsed by Mr Ainslie.
 
 REMOVAL TO A BETTER HOUSE. 307 
 
 ing myself by and at my own liglit; and if any opaque-souled lubber 
 of mankind complain that my elflne, lambent, glimmerous wanderings 
 have misled his stupid steps over precipices or into bogs, let the thick- 
 headed blunderbuss recollect that he is not Spuxkie : — that 
 
 ' Spunkie's wanderings could not copied be ; 
 Amid these perils none durst walk but he.' 
 
 1 feel vastly better. I give you joy. ... I have no doubt but 
 scholarcraft may be caught, as a Scotchman catches the itch, by 
 friction. How else can you account for it, that born blockheads, by 
 mere dint of Jiandling books, grow so wise that even they themselves 
 are equally convinced of and surprised at their own parts ? I once 
 carried this philosophy to that degree, that in a knot of country folks 
 who had a library amongst them, and who, to the honour of their 
 good sense, made me factotum in the business ; one of our members, 
 a little, wise-looking, squat, upright, jabbering body of a tailor, I 
 advised him, instead of turning over the leaves, to bind the book on his 
 back. Johnnie took the hint, and as our meetings were every fourth 
 Saturday, and Pricklousc having a good Scots mile to walk in coming, 
 and of course another- in retxn-ning, Bodkin was sure to lay his hand 
 on some heavy quarto or pondei'ous folio, with, and under which, 
 wrapt up in his gray plaid, he grew wise as he grew weary, all the 
 way home. He carried this so far, that an old musty Hebrew con- 
 cordance, which we had in a present ^ from a neighbouring priest, by 
 mere dint of applying it, as doctors do a blistering plaster, between 
 his shoulders. Stitch in a dozen pilgrimages acquired as much rational 
 theology as the said priest had done by forty years' perusal of the pages. 
 
 Tell me, and tell me truly, what you tliink of this theory. 
 Yours, Spunkie. 
 
 Although it cannot be said of Burns and Jean, as of Dr Prim- 
 rose and his worthy partner, that ' all their adventiu-es were by 
 the fireside, and all their migrations from^the blue bed to the 
 brown,' there nevertheless does attach to such domestic particulars 
 in their case a certain importance, proportioned to the difficulty 
 which is experienced in obtaining a clear and authentic view of tlie 
 life of the great poet. It becomes tolerably certain, from the 
 removal which they effected at Whitsunday 1793,2 from their little 
 floor of a house in the Wee Vennel to a small detached or inde- 
 pendent dwelling in the Mill-hole Brae or Mill Vennel, that they 
 felt themselves at that time in circumstances to justify an enlarge- 
 ment of expense for the sake of greater comfort. It would be 
 only an advance from a £G or £7 rent to one of £10 or £12; yet 
 this, in their humble circumstances, was a considerable improve- 
 
 • Tn a prMfn<— Scotticism for at a prctent. 
 
 2 Allan Cunningliam places this event at Midsummer 1704, a, time of gloom 
 to Hums. The above is iiscertained as the tr\io date by an account for a, grato 
 furnished to the new dwelling by George Uaugh, blacksmith, amounting, with the 
 fender and other articles, to £1, 7s. Id.
 
 SOS LIFE AND WORKS OF BUKNS. 
 
 ment, and one betokening cheerful views of the future. Their 
 new house was a neat one of two floors ; containing kitchen, parlour, 
 one or two good bedrooms, together with several lesser apart- 
 ments, useful for the accommodation of a young family. It is just 
 possible that by the time the house came to be occupied, the 
 cheerful views under which it had been taken were somewhat 
 overcast, for the first few months of the war had intervened, pro- 
 ducing a general difficulty throughout the nation. Burns contem- 
 plated the downward progress of his country at that time with 
 feelings of keen indignation, which would occasionally escape in 
 commmiications to his more intimate friends: 
 
 TO MR PETER HILL. 
 
 [Dumfries, May 1793?] 
 * -X- -;:- -;:• -» 
 
 I HOPE and trust that this unlucky blast which has overturned so 
 many, and many worthy characters, who four months ago little 
 dreaded any such thing — will spare my friend. 
 
 may the wrath and curse of all mankind liaunt and harass 
 these turbulent, unprincipled miscreants who have involved a People 
 in this ruinous business ! 
 
 1 have not a moment more. Blessed be he that blessoth thee, and 
 cursed be he that curseth thee, and the wretch whose envious 
 malice would injure thee; may the Giver of every good and perfect 
 gift say unto him, ' Thou shalt not prosper!' R. B, 
 
 BURNS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 Jutie 1793. 
 When I tell you, rfiy dear sir, that a friend of mine, in whom I 
 Tim much interested, has fallen a sacrifice to these accursed times, 
 you will easily allow tliat 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 ! ^ What you 
 
 ■ 1 The lines were the third and fourth :— 
 
 ' Wi' mony a sweet babe fatherless, 
 
 And mony a widow mourning.' 
 As our poet had mainta.ined a long silence, and the first number of Mr Thomson's 
 musical work was in the press, this gentleman ventured, by Mr Erskine's advice, to 
 substitute fur them in that publication — 
 
 ' And eyes again with pleasure beamed 
 
 That had been bleared with mourning.' 
 Though better suited to the music, these lines are inferior to the original. This is 
 the only alteration adojjted by Mr Thomson which Uurns did not approve, or at 
 least assent to. — Curiuj;:.
 
 SOXG — ' BLITHE IIAE I BEEN ON YON HILL.' 309 
 
 think a defect, I esteem as a positive beauty ; so you see how doctors 
 <litter. I shall now, with as much alacrity as I can muster, go on 
 Avith your commands. 
 
 You know Frasei', the hauthoy-player in Edinburgh — he is here 
 instructing a band of music for a fencible corps quartered in this 
 county. Among many of his airs that please me, there is one, well 
 known as a reel, by the name of 2Vie Quakti's Wife ; and which, I 
 remember, a grand -aunt of mine used to sing by the name of 
 Ligrjeram Cosh, inij Bonnie Wee Lass. Mr Fraser plays it slow, and 
 with an expression that quite chai'ms me. I became such an enthu- 
 siast about it, that I made a song for it, which I here subjoin, and 
 enclose Eraser's set of the tune. If they hit your fiincy, tliey are 
 at your service; if not, return me the tune, and I will put it in 
 Johnsoii's Museum. I thinli the song is not in my worst manner. 
 
 BLITHE HAE I BEEN ON YON UILL. 
 Tune — Liggcram Cosh. 
 
 Blithe hae I been on yon hill, 
 
 As the lambs before me ; 
 Careless ilka thought and free. 
 
 As the breeze flew o'er me : 
 Now nae longer sport and play, 
 
 Mirth or sang can please mo ; 
 Lesley is sae fair and coy. 
 
 Care and anguish seize me. 
 
 Heavy, heavy is the task, 
 
 Hopeless love declaring ; 
 Trembling, I (low noclit but glower, 
 
 Sighing, dumb, despairing ! 
 If she winna ease the thraws 
 
 In my bosom swelling, 
 Underiieatii the grass-green sod. 
 
 Soon maun be my dwelling. 
 
 I should wish to hear how this pleases yoii. 
 
 BURNS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 25lh June 1793. 
 
 Have yon ever, my dear sir, felt your bosom ready to burst with 
 indignation, on reading of tlioso mighty villains who divide king- 
 dom against kingdom, desolate provinces, and lay nations waste, out 
 of the wantonness of ambition, or often from still more ignoble 
 passions I In a mood of this kind to-day I recollected the air of
 
 310 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Logan Watcj; and it occurred to me that its querulous melody pro- 
 bably 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 : — 
 
 LOGAN BRAES, 
 
 Tune — Logan Watef^ 
 
 O Logan, sweetly didst thou glide 
 That day I was my Willie's bride ! 
 And years sinsyne hae o'er us run, 
 Like Logan to the simmer sun. 
 But now thy flowery banks appear 
 Like drumlie winter, dark and drear. 
 While my dear lad maun face his faes, 
 Far, far frae me and Logan braes. 
 
 Again the merry month o' May 
 
 Has made our hills and valleys gay ; 
 
 The birds rejoice in leafy bowers. 
 
 The bees hum round the breathing flowers : 
 
 Blithe morning lifts his rosy eye, 
 
 And evening's tears are tears of joy : 
 
 My soul, delightless, a' surveys. 
 
 While Willie's far frae Logan braes. 
 
 Within yon milk-white hawthorn bush, 
 Amang her nestlings sits the thrush ; 
 Her faithfu' mate Avill share her toil, 
 Or wi' his songs her cares beguile : 
 But I wi' my'sweet nm-slings here, 
 Nae mate to help, nae mate to cheer. 
 Pass widowed nights and joyless days, 
 While Willie 's far frae Logan braes, 
 
 ' The air of Logan Ifa/cr is old, and there are several old songs to it. Imme- 
 diately before the rise of Burns, Mr John Maync, who afterwai-ds beeame known 
 for a poem entitled the Siller Gun, wrote a very agreeable song to the air, beginning, 
 
 ' By Logan's streams, that rin sae deep.' 
 
 It was published in the Star newspaper, May 23, 1789. Burns, ha\'ing heard that 
 song, and supposing it to be an old composition, adopted into the above a couplet 
 from it, which he admired— 
 
 ' AVliile mj' dear lad maun face his faes, 
 Far, far frae me and Logan braes.' 
 
 Mr Mayne liyod to a good old age, and died, March 14, 1836, at Lisson Grove, near 
 London. ,
 
 SONG — ' GIN MY LOVE WERE YON RED ROSE.' 311 
 
 O -R-ae upon you, men o' state, 
 That brethren I'ouse to deadly hate ! 
 As ye make many a fond heart mourn, 
 Sae may it on your heads return ! 
 How can your flinty hearts enjoy 
 The widow's tear, the orphan's cry ? ^ 
 But soon may peace bring happy days, 
 And Willie hame to Logan braes ! 
 
 Do you know the following beautiful little fragment, in Wither- 
 spoon's collection of Scots songs ? 
 
 Air — Hughie Graliam. 
 
 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' ! 
 
 O there, beyond expression blest, 
 
 I 'd feast on beauty a' the night ; 
 Sealed on her silk-saft faulds to rest, 
 
 Till fleyed awa by Phojbus' 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 fi-ankly confess ; but 
 if worthy of insertion at all, they might be fii'st in place, as every 
 poet who knows anything of his trade will husband his best thoughts 
 for a concluding stroke. 
 
 o 
 
 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 renewed. 
 
 Originally, 
 
 • Yo mind na, 'mid yniir cruel joys, 
 Thu widow's tears, tho orphan's cries."
 
 312 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 MR THOMSON TO BURNS. 
 
 Monday, \st July 1793. 
 
 I AM extremely sorry, my good sir, that anything should happen to 
 imhinge you. The times are terribly out of tune, and when harmony 
 ■will be restored, Heaven knows. 
 
 The first book of songs, just published, will be despatched to you 
 along with this. Let me be favoured with your opinion of it, frankly 
 and freely. 
 
 I shall certainly give a place to the song you have written for the 
 Qualcer''s Wife ; it is quite enchanting. Pray, will you return the 
 list of songs, with such airs added to it as you think ought to be 
 included ? The business now rests entirely on myself, the gentlemen 
 who originally agreed to join the speculation having requested to be 
 oif. No matter, a loser I cannot be. The superior excellence of the 
 work will create a general demand for it as soon as it is properly 
 known ; and were the sale even slower than it promises to be, I 
 should be somewhat compensated for my labour by the pleasure I 
 shall receive from the music. I cannot express how much I am 
 obliged to you for the exquisite new songs you are sending me ; 
 but thanks, my friend, are a poor return for what you have done — as 
 I shall be benefited by the publication, you must suffer me to enclose 
 a small mai'k of my gratitude,^ and to repeat it afterwards when I 
 find it convenient. Do not return it, for, by Heaven ! if you do, 
 our correspondence is at an end ; and tliough this would be no loss 
 to you, it would mar the publication, which, under your auspices, 
 cannot fail to be respectable and interesting. 
 
 Wednesday morning. 
 
 I thank you for your delicate additional verses to the old fragment, 
 and for your excellent song to Logan Water — Thomson's truly 
 elegant one will follow for the English singer. Your apostrophe 
 to statesmen is admirable, but I am not sure if it is quite suitable to 
 the supposed gentle character of the fair mourner who speaks it. 
 
 BURNS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 idJiilylldZ. 
 My dear Sir — I have just finished the following ballad, and, as 
 I do think it in my best style, I send it you. Mr Clarke, who 
 wrote down the air from Mrs Burns's wood-note wild, is very fond of 
 it, and has given it a celebrity by teaching it to some young ladies of 
 the first fashion here. If you do not like the air enough to give it a 
 
 1 Five pounds.
 
 SONC — ' BONNIE JEAN.' 313 
 
 place in your collection, please return it. The song you may keep, 
 as I remember it. 
 
 BONNIE JEAN. 
 
 There was a lass, and she was fair. 
 
 At kirk and market to he seen ; 
 When a' tlie fairest maids were met. 
 
 The fairest maid was bonnie Jean. 
 
 And aye she wrought her mammie's wark, 
 
 And aye she sang sac merrilie : 
 The blithest bird upon the bush 
 
 Had ne'er a lighter heart than slic. 
 
 But hawks will rob the tender joys 
 
 That bless tlic little lintwhite's nest ; 
 And frost will blight the fairest flowers. 
 
 And love will break the soundest rest. 
 
 Young Robie was the brawest lad. 
 
 The flower and pride of a' the glen ; 
 And he had owscn, sheep, and kye, 
 
 And wanton naigies nine or ten. 
 
 He gaed wi' Jennie to the tryste, 
 
 He danced wi' Jeanic on the down ; 
 And laug ere witless Jeanie wist, 
 
 Her heart was tint, her peace was stown. 
 
 As in the bosom o' the stream 
 
 The moonbeam dwells at dewy e'en, 
 So trembling, pure, was tender love 
 
 Within the breast o' bonnie Jean.' 
 
 And now she works her mammie's wark, 
 And aye she sighs wi' care and pain ; 
 
 Yet wist na what her ail might be, 
 Or what wad mak her weel again. 
 
 But did na Jeanie's heart loup light. 
 
 And did na Joy blink in her ee, 
 As Robie tauld a tale o' love 
 
 Ae e'cnin on the lily lea ? 
 
 ' Tn the original manuscript, our poet asks Mr Tbomson If this stcnza is not 
 original.— CuRRiE.
 
 314 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 The sun was sinking in the west. 
 
 The birds sang sweet in ilka grove ; 
 His cheek to hers he fondly prest, 
 
 And whispered thus his tale o' love : 
 
 * Jeanie fair, I loe thee dear ; 
 
 O canst tliou think to fancy me ; 
 Or wilt thou leave thy mammie's cot, 
 
 And learn to tent the farms wi' me ? 
 
 *At barn or byre thou shalt na drudge, 
 
 Or naething else to trouble thee ; 
 But stray amang the heather-bells, 
 
 And tent the waving corn wi' me.' 
 
 Now what could artless Jeanie do ? 
 
 She had nao will to say him na ; 
 At length she blushed a sweet consent, 
 
 And love was aye between them twa. 
 
 I have some thoughts of inserting in your index, or in my notes, 
 the names of the fair ones, the themes of my songs. I do not mean 
 the name at full, but dashes or asterisms, so as ingenuity may find 
 them out. 
 
 The heroine of the foregoing is Miss Macmurdo, daughter to Mr 
 Macmurdo of Drumlanrig, one of your subscribers. I have not 
 painted her in the rank which she holds in life, but in the dress 
 and character of a cottager.^ 
 
 •'b^ 
 
 Mr Macmurdo at this time resided at or in the immediate 
 neighbourhood of Dumfries. Mr Clarke acted as music-master 
 
 to his daughters. 
 
 BURNS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 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 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 bypast 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 sentence does not appear in the original letter.
 
 ini THOMSON'S FIRST VOLUME PUBLISHED. 315 
 
 Thank you for my copy of your publication. Never did my eyes 
 behold in any musical worlc 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 effort 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 o' 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 hao seen the smiling o' fortune beguiling,* 
 
 are worthy of a place, were it but to immortalise the aiithor of them, 
 who is an old lady of my acquaintance, and at this moment living in 
 Edinburgh. She is a Mrs Cockburn, I forget of what place, but from 
 Koxburghshire.i What a charming apostrophe is 
 
 ' O fickle fortune, why this cruel sporting. 
 Why, why torment us, poor sons of a day !* 
 
 The old ballad, / vnsh I were uihere Helen lies, is silly, to contcmp- 
 tibility. My alteration of it, in Johnson, is not much better. Bir 
 Pinkerton, in his, what he calls, ancient ballads — many of them 
 notorious, though beautiful eilough, forgeries — has the best set. It 
 is full of his own interpolations — but no matter. 
 
 In my next I will suggest to your consideration a few songs which 
 may have escaped your hurried notice. In the meantime allow me 
 to congratulate you now, as a brother of the quill. You have com- 
 mitted your character and fame, which will now be tried, for ages to 
 come, by the illustrious jury of the Sons and Daughters of Tastk 
 — all whom poesy can please, or music charm. 
 
 Being a bard of nature, I have some pretensions to second-siglit ; 
 and I am warranted by the spirit to foretell and affirm, that your 
 great-grandchild will hold up your volumes, and say, Avith honest 
 pride, 'This so- much- admired selection was the work of my 
 ancestor ! ' - 
 
 In a postscript, Burns mentions a few gentlemen of his acquaint- 
 ance who had become subscribers for the Melodies, no doubt at 
 his own mtcrcession. lie adds — ' all your subscribers here are 
 determined to transmit you the full price, without the intervention 
 of those harpies the l^ooksellers.' ^ Tliis will l)c smiled at, I tru.st, 
 by gods, men, and booksellers, all alike ; but it at least shews tlie 
 
 1 Alison Kuthcrford of Fcrnileo, in Sclkirl;shire, by marriage Mrs Patrick 
 Coeliliurn. She died in 1791, at an adviinccd age. 
 
 ^ The children of tlie far-renowned Charles Dickens are the proat-Rrandchildrcn 
 of Mr Thomson. It may he hojicd that some one of them will have such a. fcilius 
 for Scottish nnisic, and fur their ancestor's meritorious laboiu'S, as to realise tho 
 prediction of Hums. 
 
 -' Original manuscript.
 
 316 LIFE AND -WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 gi-eat good-will of Burns towards Mr Thomson, and his anxiety to 
 see his undertaking prove remunerative. 
 
 The strong, almost fierce, determination of Bums to accept no 
 pecuniary recompense from Mr Thomson has excited much sur- 
 prise. It has been remarked by Mr Lockhart as the more wonder- 
 ful, in as far as the poet felt no scruple in accepting hundreds of 
 pounds from Mr Creech as the profits of his volume of poems. 
 The biographer might have added that Burns even condescended 
 to undertake journeys for the purpose of collecting the moneys 
 received by friends in particular districts for the subscribers' copies 
 of his poems. The fact is, our bard deemed an author fully entitled 
 to any reward which might arise from his works published in the 
 ordinary manner. He liimself says in a letter to Jlr Carfrae, dated 
 1789 : ' The profits of the labours of a man of genius ai-e, I hope, 
 as honoiu-able as any profits whatever.' And on this principle he 
 acted as for as ordinary modes of publishing were concerned. Yet 
 he appears to have had at the same time an insuperable aversion to 
 deliberately writing for money.^ And this he applied in the oases of 
 Messrs Johnson and Thomson. He had, besides, a peculiar feeling 
 about these men, regarding them as amateurs of Scottish music 
 and song like himself, who were taking trouble and undergoing 
 risk for the honour and glory of a cause interesting to all true- 
 hearted Scotsmen. In such a business, he must act for love, if he 
 was to act at all. It might, one would think, have occm-red to him 
 that Messrs Johnson and Thomson were in the way of possibly 
 making some profit by their respective publications. All that can 
 be said on the other hand is, that amateurship was truly the basis 
 of both publications, that Johnson's had not proved a source of 
 profit, and that Mr Thomson's turning out difierently was highly 
 problematical. Burns accordingly beheld these men as honest 
 enthusiasts, whom it would be a pleasure to assist, but from whom 
 it would be ungenerous to accept of pecuniary honoraria in respect 
 of any help which his muse might render them. Such delicacy 
 would not now be felt by many English poets ; but, whatever may 
 be thought of their principles of action, we must at least admit 
 that the Scottish bard was animated by a sentiment highly 
 
 ' In a brief anonj-mous memoir of Bums, puWished in the Scots ^Iaga:ine for 
 January 1797, and which appears to have been the composition of one who knew 
 him and had visited him at Ellisland, it is stated that he considered it below him 
 to be an author by profession. ' A friend,' adds the writer, ' knowing his family to 
 be in great want [an exaggeration, certainly], urged the propriety, and even neces- 
 sity, of publishing a few poems, assuring him of their success, and shewing the 
 advantage that would accrue to his family from it. His answer was: " No ; if a 
 friend desires me, and if I'm in the mood for it, I'll write a poem, but I'll be 
 d if ever I write for money." ' 
 
 This writer, like Mr Robert Ainslie, seems to have thought the household of 
 Bums at Ellisland deficient in the neatness which might have been expected.
 
 EEJECTION OF REMUNEEATIOX. 317 
 
 honourablo to liim, and in entire keeping with tlie general strain 
 of his character. In judging of the degree of seK-denial exerted 
 by Burns in forbidding future remittances of money from Mr 
 Thomson it is necessary to know how liis pecuniary circumstances 
 actually stood at this time. It will be afterwards shewn that his 
 poverty, as a general fact, has been exaggei'ated ; yet I believe that 
 in July 1793, when Burns spoke so firmly to I\Ir. Thomson, a few 
 pounds would have been of essential service to him. It will be 
 readily admitted that the spirit of Burns was one which never could 
 be comfortable under the burden of debt, and that he would there- 
 fore be anxious to clear himself of that encumbrance, even in its 
 pettiest forms, when in his power. Yet there is evidence that the 
 trifle (10s.) due to Jackson of the Dumfries Journal newspaper 
 for advertising the sale of his stock at EUisland, was now, after 
 twenty months, still unpaid. It was dischai-ged on the 12th of the 
 month mentioned, proljably out of the very money transmitted by 
 Mr Thomson. 1 There is further reason for believing, that it was at 
 this tim.e that he addressed to some unknown patron a note, of 
 which a fragment without date or superscription has alone been 
 preserved, containing the following distressing lines : ' This is a 
 painful, disagreeable letter, and the first of the kind I ever wrote. 
 / 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 tliis year at least lopped off a full tliird 
 of my income ; and with my large family, this to me is a distress- 
 ing matter.' Strange that he would rather humble himself to be 
 a borrower than accept of money from a man willing to give it to 
 him as a payment of honourable service. One miglit have at least 
 expected that, if he was to be a boiTower at all, he would have 
 deemed Mr Tliomson entitled or called upon to be the lender. 
 Yet no— this would liave in some degree perilled ' the uprightness 
 of the statue of Kobekt Bukns's integrity. ' His seems to have 
 been a nature wliich recoils the more from dubiously - acquu-ed 
 money the more pressingly it is needed. 
 
 ' The account is in possession of Mr Robert Cole. 
 
 END OF VOL. III.
 
 THE 
 
 LIFE AND WOEKS 
 
 OF 
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 
 
 EDITED BY ROBERT CHAMBERS. 
 
 IN FOUR VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. IV. 
 
 EDINBURGH: 
 WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. 
 
 1852.
 
 EDINBURGH : 
 PRINTED BY W. AND R. CHAMBERS.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 *** The Italic letters indicate the publication in which the several compositions 
 respectively appeared : see note prefixed to the Contents of Volume I. Pieces which 
 have not appeared in any previous edition of the poet's works are marked n. The 
 letter o refers to the authorised edition of the Letters to Clarinda, Edinbxu-gh, 1843. 
 
 DUMFRIES. 
 Decejiber 1791 — Juj-Y 1796. — (continued.) 
 
 A time of National Distress, July 1793 ; Burns suffers amongst 
 
 others, - - - - - - -13 
 
 Letter to Mr Peter Hill, July. Bad times. Sad remembrances 
 
 of old Edinburgh companions, - - - « 13 
 
 Excursion of Burns and Syme tlirough Galloway ; Kenmurc ; 
 Airds, ...... 
 
 Epitaph on a Lap-dog, - - - - - 
 
 Gatehouse — a Storm — Kirkcudbright, 
 
 St Mary's Isle— Earl of Selkirk— Urbahi, - 
 
 Anecdote of Burns and a Clergyman at Airds Hill, - 
 
 Exasperated spirit of Burns at this time, - - - 
 
 Letter to M'lss Craih of A rhigkmd, Aug. Misery of Toets, 
 
 Mr Thomson to Burns, Aug. 1, - 
 
 Burns to Mr Thomson, Aug. Georgium Sidus out of tune, 
 
 Burns to Mr Thomson, Aug. Phillis the Fair, 
 
 Mr Thomson to Burns, Aug. Robin Adair, &c., - 
 
 Bums to Mr Thomson, Aug. Had I a Cave. Some airs com- 
 mon to Scotland and Ireland, - - - e 23 
 
 Burns to Mr Thomson, I'Jth Aug. Bj/ Allan's Stream I chanced 
 
 to rove, - - - ' • - - e 2i 
 
 
 14 
 
 e 
 
 15 
 
 
 15 
 
 10, 
 
 ,17 
 
 
 18 
 
 
 19 
 
 e 
 
 19 
 
 e 
 
 20 
 
 e 
 
 21 
 
 e 
 
 21 
 
 e 
 
 22
 
 VI CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Burns to Mr Thomson, Aug. Whistle, and I'll come to you, my 
 
 Lad. A down winding Nith I did wander, - - - e 25 
 
 Favourite Walks of Burns, . . _ _ 25 
 
 Peter Pindar over-estimated by Burns, - - - 27 
 
 Burns to Mr Thomson, 28th Aug. Co7ne, let me take thee to my 
 
 Breast, - - - - - - - e 27 
 
 Burns to Mr Thomson, 28th Aug. Dainty Davie, - - e 28 
 
 Affairs at Home and in France, - - - - 29 
 
 Mr Thomson to Burns, 1st Sept. Delighted with the 
 
 productions of Burns's Muse. Asks twenty-three Songs, e 30 
 Burns to Mr Thomson, Sept. Hey, Tuttie Taitie. Eraser's 
 
 Hautboy. Song — Bruce to his Men, &c., - - - e 30 
 
 Circumstances of the composition of Scots, ivlia hae, &c., - 32 
 
 Burns to Mr Thomson, Sept. Behold the Hour, - - e 33 
 
 Mr Thomson to Burns, 5th Sept. Criticism on Bruce's Address, e 33 
 Bums to Mr Thomson, Sept. Doicn the Burn, Davie. Habits in 
 
 Song- writing. Observations on Mr Thomson's list of Tunes 
 
 requiring Songs. Thou hast left me ever. Where are the 
 
 Joys ? &c. Auld Lang Syne, - - - - e 35 
 
 Burns to Mr Thomson, 8th Sept. Rexased copy of Bruce's 
 
 Address, - - - ' - - - -e39 
 
 Mr Thomson to Burns, 12th Sept. James Balfour's singing. 
 
 Criticisms, - - - - - -e40 
 
 Burns to Mr Thomson, 15th Sept. Where are the Joys^ &c., e 41 
 Bums to Mr Thomson, Sept. Deluded Swain, the Pleasure. Irish 
 
 Airs, - - - - - - -e43 
 
 Library at Dumfries. Present of a Book to, by Burns. 
 
 Anecdotes of the time of Terror, ... 44 
 
 Bums to Mr Thomson, 29th Oct. Death of Hon. Andrew 
 
 Erskine. TTiitie am I, my faithful Fair. Songs by Gavin 
 
 TurnbuU, ..-..-- 
 Impromptu on Mrs Bidders Birthday, - - . 
 
 Burns at Brownhill Inn — an Impromptu, - - . 
 
 Nicol and Masterton Avith Burns at Dumfries — Impromptus, 
 Mr Thomson to Burns, 7th Nov. Apprehensions— Thanks, 
 Burns to Mr Thomson, Dec. My Spouse Nancy, 
 Letter to John M'Murdo, Esq., Dec. Paying a Debt, 
 Collection of traditionary Songs, .... 
 Letters enclosing Bruce's Address. To Captain . — To the 
 
 Earl of Buchan. — To Captain Miller, Dalswinton, 
 Mrs Walter lliddel, her Penelope -like Life, . - - 
 
 JVo^e <o 3/rsi?jWe/, promising to attend a Play, - 
 
 e 
 
 46 
 
 
 48 
 
 I 
 
 49 
 
 
 49 
 
 
 50 
 
 e 
 
 51 
 
 e 
 
 52 
 
 
 52 
 
 51 
 
 , 55 
 
 
 55 
 
 
 66
 
 PARE 
 
 
 56 
 
 
 57 
 
 
 58 
 
 e 
 
 58 
 
 
 59 
 
 e 
 
 60 
 
 e 
 
 61 
 
 
 61 
 
 J 
 
 62 
 
 
 64 
 
 e 
 
 65 
 
 h 
 
 67 
 
 67, 
 
 74 
 
 
 70 
 
 74, 
 
 76 
 
 
 76 
 
 *e 
 
 77 
 
 CONTENTS. Vii 
 
 Anecdote of Burns from Mrs Basil Montague, 
 Burns gives an Imprudent Toast — Troubles, 
 A season of Intemperance. Scene at Woodley Park, 
 Letter to Mrs Riddel— Tcnitence, ... 
 
 Alienation of the Riddels from Burns. His ' stubborn some- 
 thing,' .----._ 
 Letters to Mrs Riddel — Satires on her by Burns, 
 Monody on a Lady famed for her Caprice, - - - 
 
 Williamson, an actor, - - - - _ 
 
 Epistle from Esopus to Maria, - - . . 
 
 Mr John Bushby — a quarrel with, - . - 
 
 Letter to Mr Alexander Cunningham, 25tli Feb. 1794. Misery. 
 
 Consolations in religion, .... 
 
 Letter to Mr James Johnson. Balmerino's dirk, 
 Fifth volume of Johnson's Museum, Songs in, by Burns, 
 Lincluden Abbey — a hannt of Burns, ... 
 
 Sixth volume of Johnson's Museum, Songs in, by Burns, 
 Bad effects of tlie Riddel quarrel and lampoons. 
 Death of Riddel of Glenriddel — Sonnet on, by Burns, 
 
 Letter to Miss . Obscure allusions to his disrepute. 
 
 Requests return of a volume lent to Glenriddel, - - e 78 
 
 Mr Tliomson to Burns, 17th April. A proposed meeting with 
 Burns. The melanclioly Carlini. Mr Allan has begun a 
 sketch from ' The Cotter's Saturday Night,' - - e 79 
 
 Burns to Mr Thomson, May. David Allan's sketches. The 
 
 Banks of Cree, - - - - - e 80 
 
 David M'Cullocli of Ardwell — anecdote of Bums, - - 81 
 
 Recovery of Burns from the late depressing circumstances, 81 
 
 Letter to Mr David 3PCulloch, 21st June — a tour in 
 
 Galloway, - - - - - - J 82 
 
 Letter to Mis Dunlop, 25th June. Poor health. Stanzas on 
 
 Liberty, - - - - - - e 82 
 
 Last letter to Clarinda. At a solitary inn. His favourite toast 
 
 for a married lady, - - - - - o 8a 
 
 Burns to Mr Thomson, July. Pleyel in France. Address to 
 Miss Graham of Fintry, witli a copy of Mr Thomson's 
 collection, - - - - - - e 8.^ 
 
 Escapes of democratic sentiment — The Creed of Poverty — The 
 
 Tree of Liberty, - - - - - / 86, 89 
 
 Mr Thomson to Bums, 10th Aug. Docs not expect to hear 
 
 from Pleyel soon. Hopes for more Songs, - . e 90 
 
 Burns to Mr Thomson, 30th Aug. On the Seas and far away, e 90
 
 Viii CONTENTS. 
 
 PARS 
 
 Mr Thomson to Burns, 16th Sept. Criticisms, - - e 91 
 
 Bu7-ns to Mr ITiomson, Sept. Ca' the Yowes to the Knowes, e 92 
 
 Burns to Mr Tho?nson, Sept. She sat/s she Iocs me best of a\ 
 
 Epigram on Miss Jessie Staig, - - - e 93 
 
 Mr Thomson to Burns. Suggests dramatic writing, - e 95 
 
 Mr Thomson to Burns, 14th Oct. Eitson's Collection of 
 Scottish songs. Difficult to ohtain Scottish melodies in 
 their original state, - - - - -e96 
 
 Burns to Mr Thomson, 19th Oct. A lady inspirer. Saio ye my 
 Phely ? Donocht-Head. How long and dreary is the Night ! 
 Let not Woman e'er complain. The Lover's morning Salute to 
 his Mistress. The Auld Man, - - - e 97 
 
 Story of Chloris, --.--. 103 
 
 Verses— To Chloris, 104 
 
 Letter to Mr Peter Hill, Oct. A kipper. Eamsay and 
 
 Cameron, - - - - - *n 107 
 
 On seeing Mrs Kemhle in Yarico, - - - 108 
 
 Mr Thomson to Burns, 27th Oct. "Wishes he knew the 
 
 inspiring fair one. Allan's sketch of Maggie Lauder, e 109 
 
 Burns to Mr Thomson, Nov. Has begun his anecdotes. My 
 Chloris, mark how Green the Groves. It loas the Charming 
 Month of May. Lassie wi' the Lint-white Locks. Farewell, 
 thou Stream, &c. Tune of Ye Banks and Braes, how com- 
 posed. Instance of the difficulty of tracing the origin of 
 ancient airs, - - - - - - e 109 
 
 Mr Thomson to Burns, 15th Nov. Thanks for Songs, - e 115 
 Burns to Mr Thomson, 19th Nov. Philly and Willy. Contented 
 wi' Little. Canst thou leave me thus ? &c. Description of the 
 stock and horn, - - - - - - e 115 
 
 /nsoMciance of Burns, - - - - - 120 
 
 Mrs Riddel. Song by her to Bums, . - . \2\ 
 
 Mr Thomson to Burns, 28th Nov. David Allan, - 122 
 
 Mr Perry proposes to Burns for contributions to the Morning 
 
 Chronicle, ....__ 123 
 
 Letter to Peter Miller, Jan., Esq. Declines being a contributor 
 
 to the Morning Chronicle, - - - A 123 
 
 Burns's official income. His poverty has been overstated. 
 
 His style of housekeeping at Dumfries, - - - 124 
 
 Burns to Mr Thomson, 9th Dec. My Nannie's awa, - e 126 
 
 Letter to Mrs Dunlop, 20th Dec. Appointed to act for the 
 
 Supervisor. Reflections on the slipping away of Life, e 126 
 
 Vicarious Courtship — Love-letters for a friend, - - *n *128
 
 CONTENTS. IX 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Letter to Editor of Morning Chronicle, - - - /* 129 
 
 Burns's daily life in Dumfries, - - - - 130 
 
 Bums to Mr Thomson, Jan. 1795. For a" that and a' that, e 133 
 
 Political Terror subsiding, - - - - 134 
 
 Correspondence with Captain Hamilton, Jan., - n 135 
 Keconciliation with Mrs Jliddel. A Song by her, regarding 
 
 Burns, ------- 136 
 
 Mr Thomson to Burns, 30th Jan. Thanks for Songs, e 137 
 
 Burns in a Snow-storm at Ecclefechan, . - - 138 
 
 Burns to Mr Thomson, 7th Feb. Confined in an Inn, e 138 
 Burns to Mr Thomson, 9th Feb. Lassie, art thou Sleeping 
 
 yefi e 130 
 
 Mr Thomson to Burns, 25th Feb., - - - e 140 
 
 Kirkcudbright Election, Ballads on, March 1795, - - 141 
 
 First, - - - - - - i 141 
 
 Second, - / 143 
 
 Letter to Mr Heron of Heron, _ . . 146 
 
 Third Ballad ; John Bushby's Lamentation, - - n 147 
 
 Song — The Dumfries Volunteers, - - - rf 151 
 
 Toast for the 12th of April, - - - - 152 
 
 Neglect of Bums by the Ministry, - - - 153 
 Letter to [Richard A. Oswald, Esq.'], 23 J April, enclosing 
 
 Election Ballads, - - - - - n 153 
 Letter to John Syme, Esq. Mr and Mrs Oswald. Will not 
 
 court the great, - - - - - cl54 
 
 Song — Oh, wat ye wha's inyon Town? . . - d 155 
 
 John Syme in 1826. His Reminiscences of Burns, - 150 
 Burns to Mr Thomson. Address to the Woodlark. On Chloris 
 
 being ill. Their Groves o' Sweet Myrtle. 'Ticas na her bonnie 
 
 blue ee, &c., - - - - - - e 158 
 
 Mr Thomson to Burns. Sends a picture by Allan as a present, e 161 
 Bums to Mr Thomson, 9th May. JIow cruel are the Parents! 
 
 Mark yonder Pomp of costly Fashion, - - - e 161 
 Burns to Mr Thomson. May. Thanks for the picture. Eemarks 
 
 on his own portraits, - - - - e 1 02 
 
 Mr Thomson to Bums, 13th May. Gratitude, - - e 103 
 
 Mr Thomson's attempts to remunerate Burns, - 104 
 
 Proposed removal of Bums to Lcitli, - - - 104 
 
 Burns to Mr Thomson. Forlorn, my Lmvc, &c., - - e 165 
 Bums to Mr Thomson, 3d July. Last May a bratu Wooer. 
 
 Why, tchy tell thy Lover? . . - . e 105 
 
 Mr Thomson to Burns, 3d June. Gateslack and Dalgamock, e 107
 
 X CONTENTS. 
 
 FAGB 
 
 Burns to Mr Thomson, 3d Aug. this is no my ain Lassie. 
 
 Now Spring has clad the Grove in Green. Bonnie tvas yon 
 
 Rosy Brier, ...... e 167 
 
 Mr Thomson to Burns, 3d Aug. Admiration of his Songs, e 170 
 
 Inscription Jbr an Altar to Independence, - - - e 171 
 
 Burns's antipatliy to the Duke of Queensberry, - 171 
 
 Verses on the Destruction of the Woods near Drumlanrig, - ^- 172 
 
 Rencontre of Burns with Mr Pattison of Kelvin Grove, 173 
 Burns's liabits. Perplexing because of the various aspects he 
 
 presented. Mr James Gray, - - - - 174 
 
 Death of Burns's Daughter, - - - - 175 
 
 Broken Health of Burns in Autumn '95, - - - 176 
 
 Visit of Professor Walker to Burns, - - - 176 
 
 Letter to Mrs Dunlop, 15th Dec. Gloomy Reflections, e 178 
 
 Miss Pontenelle — Address for her Benefit Night, - - e 179 
 
 Rhymed Note— To Collector Mitchell, - - . - e 180 
 National Distress — The Sedition Bill — Displacing of Harry 
 
 Erskine from the Deanship, . _ . - 181 
 
 The Dean of Faculty, a Ballad, - - - A ?n 182 
 
 Burns irremediably destroys his health, - - 183 
 
 Better to Mrs Riddel, 20th Jan. 1796. Anacharsis's Travels, e 184 
 
 Present of a Kipper to Mr Peter Hill, » . _ 184 
 
 Letter to Mrs Dunlop, 31st Jan. Affliction, - - e 184 
 
 Rhymed Note — To Colonel De Peyster, - - - 185 
 
 Progressive Illness of Burns, ... - 187 
 
 ]\Ir Thomson to Burns, 5th Feb. An awful Pause, - e 187 
 
 Burns to Mr Tliomson, Feb. Hey for a Lass ivi' a Tocher, e 188 
 
 Mr Thomson to Burns. Allan's Etchings, - - e 1 89 
 Burns requests a return of lent money from Mr Clarke, the 
 
 Schoolmaster, - - - - - -189 
 
 Letter of Mr Clarke, ----- 189 
 
 Rencontre of Miss Grace Aiken Avith Burns, - - 190 
 
 Burns's Salary reduced during his Illness, - - 191 
 Burns to Mr Thomson, April. His wretched Health. Allan's 
 
 Etchings, - - - - - - e 192 
 
 Mr Thomson to Burns, 4th May. Sympathy, - e 193 
 Burns to Mr Tliomson. [17th May.] Jessy. Introduces John 
 
 Lewars, - - - - - - e 193 
 
 Jessy Lewars. Songs on her, - _ - - 194 
 
 Kirkcudbright Election of Summer '96. Song for it — Troggin, j 195 
 
 Progressive Illness of Burns, - - - - 198 
 
 Versicles on Jessie Lewars, - - - - 199 
 
 Note to Mrs Riddel, 4th June. Cannot attend a Ball, - e 199
 
 CONTENTS. XI 
 
 rAOE 
 
 Burns again addresses Mr James Clarke for Money, 26th June, 200 
 
 Letter to Mr James Johnson, 4th July. The Museum, 201 
 
 Eemoves to Brow for Sea-bathing, - - - 201 
 
 Burns to Air Thomson, 4th July. Extreme Illness, - e 201 
 
 Final Visit to JVIrs Riddel, ----- 202 
 Letter to Mr Cunningham, 7th July. Tears he is dying. His 
 
 reduced Salary, . . - . . e 203 
 
 Letter to Mr Gilbert Burns, 10th July. His expected Death, 204 
 
 Last Letter to Mrs Dunlop, 12th July. Farewell, - e 204 
 Harassed by a Debt. Letters craving assistance fi'om Sir 
 
 James Burnes and Mr George Thomson, - - 205 
 
 Song — Fairest Maid on Devon Banks, - - - c 206 
 
 Mr Thomson to Burns, 14th July. Sends Five Pounds, e 207 
 
 Note to Mr James Grade, 13th July. Letter to Mrs Burns, j 208 
 
 Anecdote of Burns, . . _ - . 208 
 
 Letter to Mr James Armour, 18th July. Expecting Deatli, j 209 
 
 Death of Burns, ...... 209 
 
 Public Regret. The Poet's Funeral, - - - 210 
 
 Dr Currie's Description of Burns, - - - - 211 
 
 Mrs Riddel's Obituary Notice of Burns, - - 213 
 
 Remarks on Burns's Character and Talents, - - 217 
 
 POSTHUMOUS HISTORY OF BURNS. 
 
 Burns's Debts, ------ 221 
 
 Generous Conduct of Mr James Burnes, - - 222 
 
 Debt of Gilbert Burns. Generous Conduct of Mrs R. Burns, 222 
 Syme, Maxwell, and Cunningham exert themselves for Burns's 
 
 Family, ------- 223 
 
 Dr Currie becomes Biographer and Editor of Burns, - 223 
 
 Subscription for the Poet's Family, . . - 224 
 
 Editorial Proceedings of Dr Currie, _ - - 225 
 
 Mrs M'Lehose. Mr George Thomson, . _ _ 225 
 
 Publication of Currie's Edition of Burns's Works, - 228 
 
 Subsequent History of Mrs R. Burns, ... 229 
 
 The Poet's Sons, - - . . . 229 
 
 Gilbert Burns— his Edition, 1820, - - - 231 
 
 Monument to Burns, ----- 233
 
 Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Versicles of Burns, ----- 235 
 
 Songs of which the Date is not Known, - - 248 
 
 Old Songs improved by Burns, - . - d 251 
 
 Notes to Johnson's Musical Museum, - - 278 
 
 Pkose Articles unplaced, _ . . . 292 
 
 Pieces doubtfully attributed to Burns, - - 295 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 No. 13. Eeputation of Burns in his latter Years, - 299 
 
 1 4. Subscriptions for Burns's Family, - - - 304 
 
 15. The Cranium of Burns, . . _ 307 
 
 16. Bibliography of Burns, - - - - 312 
 
 Index — ■ 
 
 List of the Poems, - - - - - 321 
 
 Index to the Songs, . . . _ - 324 
 
 General Index, - - - - - 327
 
 LIFE AND WORKS 
 
 OF 
 
 R B E E T B U E N S. 
 
 DUMFRIES. 
 
 December 1791— July 1796— (continued.) 
 
 We have seen that, in July 1793, when Burns was asserting his 
 independence of remuneration for his songs, lie was in circum- 
 stances to render the receipt of a little money highly desirable. 
 It was a time of general difliculty and distress, in consequence of 
 the disturbance which the war created in the usual course of 
 commei-ce, and the additional burdens which it threw upon the 
 country. Consols, which had been at 96 in the beginning of the 
 preceding year, wero down to 78. In the montli of July, tlie 
 number of Scottish bankrupts was forty -three, or about four 
 times the average. Burns suffered among the rest, for an extra 
 income which he derived from the unloading of foreign vessels 
 was now at an end. 
 
 TO MR PETEU HILL. 
 
 [PiMPniES, JnJp 1793?] 
 
 Mv DEAR Sir — * * * * Now tliat business is over, how are you, 
 
 and liow do you weather this ivccursed time? God only knows 
 
 wliat will be the conseciuence ; but in the nieantinio tlie country, at 
 
 least in our part of it, is still j)rogressivc to the devil. For my part,
 
 14 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 ' I jouk, and let the jaw flee o'er.'i As my hopes in this world are 
 but slender, I am turning rapidly devotee, in the prospect of sharing 
 largely in the world to come. 
 
 How is old sinful Smellie coming on ? Is there any talk of his 
 second volume? If you meet with my much -valued old friend, 
 Colonel Dunbar of the Crochallan Fencibles, remember me most 
 affectionately to him. Alas ! not unfrequontly, when my heart is 
 in a wandering humour, I live past scenes over again. To my 
 mind's eye, you, Dunbar, Cleghorn, Cunningham, &c. present their 
 friendly phiz[es], and my bosom aches with tender recollections. 
 Adieu! E. B. 
 
 In the latter part of July, the poet had an excursion through 
 Galloway with his friend Mr Syme, who communicated to Dr 
 Currie an animated account of their adventures : — 
 
 ' I got Burns a gray Highland shelty to ride on. We dhied 
 the first day, 27th July 1793, at Glendonwyne's of Parton — a 
 beautiful situation on the banks of the Dee. In the evenmg, we 
 walked out, and ascended a gentle eminence, from which we had 
 as fine a view of Alpine scenery as can well be imagined. A 
 delightful soft evening shewed all its wilder as well as its grander 
 graces. Immediately opposite, and within a mile of us, we saw 
 Airds, a charming romantic place, where dwelt Lowe, the author 
 of Mary loeep no more for me? This was classical ground for 
 Burns. He viewed " the highest hill which rises o'er the source 
 of Dee;" and would have stayed till "the passing spirit" had 
 appeared, had we not resolved to reach Kenmure that night. 
 We arrived as Mr and Mrs Gordon "^ were sitting down to supper. 
 
 ' Here is a genuine baron's seat. The castle, an old building, 
 stands on a large natural moat. In front, the river Ken winds for 
 several miles through the most fertile and beautiful Tiolm,^ till it 
 expands into a lake twelve miles long, the banks of which, on the 
 south, present a fine and soft landscape of green knolls, natural 
 wood, and here and there a gray rock. On the north, the aspect 
 is great, wild, and, I may say, tremendous. In short, I can 
 
 1 A Scottish proverbial expression, as much as to say, ' I duck, and let the wave 
 pass over me." 
 
 2 A beautiful and well-known ballad, which begins thus — 
 
 ' The moon had climbed the highest hill 
 
 Which rises o'er the source of Dee; 
 And from the eastern summit shed 
 Its silver light on tower and tree.' 
 
 3 Mr Gordon was representative of the Viscounts Kenmure— a title restored in 
 his person in 1824. 
 
 * The level low ground on the banks of a river or stream. This word should be 
 adopted from the Scottish, as, indeed, ought several others of the same n.ature. 
 That dialect is singularly copious and exact in the denominations of natural objects. 
 — Currie.
 
 EXCURSION WITH SYME IN GALLOWAY. 15 
 
 scarcely conceive a scene more terribly romantic than the castle 
 of Kenmure. Burns thinks so highly of it, that he meditates a 
 description of it in poetry : indeed, I believe he has begun the 
 work. We spent three days with Mr 'Gordon, whose polished 
 hospitality is of an original and endearing kind. Mrs Gordon's 
 lap-dog. Echo, was dead. Slie would have an epitaph for him. 
 Several had been made. Burns was asked for one. This was 
 setting Hercules to his distaff. He disliked the subject, but to 
 please the lady, he would try. Here is what he produced — 
 
 •' In wood and wild, ye warbling throng, 
 Your heavy loss deplore ! 
 Now half extinct your powers of song, 
 Sweet Echo is no more. 
 
 Ye jarring, screeching things around, 
 Scream your discordant joys ! 
 
 Now half your din of tuneless song 
 With Echo silent lies." 
 
 ' We left Kenmure and went to Gatehouse. I took liim the 
 moor - road, where savage and desolate regions extended wide 
 around. The sky was sympatlietic with the wretchedness of the 
 soil; it became lowering and dark. The hollow winds sighed, 
 tlie lightnings gleamed, the thunder rolled. The poet enjoyed 
 the awful scene: he spoke not a word, but seemed rapt in medi- 
 tation. In a little while, the rain began to fall; it poured in 
 floods upon us. For three hours did the wild elements rumble 
 their belli/ full upon our defenceless heads. Oh ! oh ! Hwas foul. 
 We got utterly wet ; and, to revenge ourselves, Burns ursisted at 
 Gatehouse on our getting utterly drunk. 
 
 ' From Gatehouse, we went next day to Kirkcudbright, througli 
 a fine country. But here I must tell you tliat Burns had got a 
 pair of Jemnnj boots for the journey, which had been thorougldy 
 wet, and which had been dried in such manner that it was not 
 possible to get them on again. The brawny poet tried force, and 
 tore them to shreds. A whiffling vexation of this sort is more 
 trying to the temper than a serious calamity. We were going to 
 St diary's Isle, the seat of the Earl of Selkirk, and the forlorn 
 Burns was discomfited at the tliought of his ruined boots. A 
 sick stomach and a lieadacho lent their aid, and tlic man of verse 
 was quite accable. I attempted to reason with him. Mercy on 
 us, how he did fume and rage ! Nothing could reinstate him in 
 temper. I tried various expedients, and at last hit on one that
 
 16 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 succeeded: I shewed him the house of [Garlieston?^], across the 
 Bay of Wigton. Against [the Earl of Galloway?^], with whom he 
 Avas offended, he expectorated his spleen, and regained a most 
 agreeable temper. He was in a most epigrammatic humour 
 indeed ! He afterwards fell on humbler game. There is one 
 ****** whom he does not love : he had a passing blow at 
 him— 
 
 " When , deceased, to the devil went down, 
 
 'Twas nothing would serve him but Satan's own crown ; 
 Thy fool's head, quoth Satan, that crown shall wear never, 
 I grant tliou'rt as wicked, but not quite so clever." 
 
 'Well, I am to bring you to Kirkcudbright along with our 
 poet without boots. I carried the torn ruins across my saddle 
 in spite of his fulminations, and in contempt of appearances; 
 and, what is more, Lord Selkirk^ carried them in his coach to 
 Dumfries. He insisted they were worth mending.'* 
 
 ' We reached Kirkcudbright about one o'clock. I had promised 
 that we should dine with one of the first men in our country, 
 J. Dalzell.-^ But Burns was in a wild and obstreperous humour, 
 and swore he would not dine where he should be under the smallest 
 restraint. We prevailed, therefore, on Mr Dalzell to dine with 
 us in the inn, and had a very agreeable party. In the evening, 
 we set out for St Mary's Isle. Robert had not absolutely regamed 
 the milkiness of good temper, and it occurred once or twice to 
 liim, as he rode along, that St Mary's Isle was the seat of a lord ; 
 yet that lord was not an aristoci-at, at least in his sense of the 
 word. We arrived about eight o'clock, as the family were at tea 
 
 1 Left blank by Currie. 2 Also left blank by Currie. 
 
 3 This was the formal Lord Selkifk, of whom Sir Walter Scott tells so amusing 
 an anecdote in his ilalagrowlher Letters. 
 
 * Mr II. Cole, of London, preserves in his curious collection of original papers, 
 several of the accounts for household and other articles furnished by Dumfries 
 tradesmen to Robert Burns. It is just possible that the reader may feel some 
 interest in learning that the hard had his boots from Robert Anderson, at L.l, 2s. 
 a pair, being four times the price of a pair of men's shoes in those days. This is su 
 respectable a price in relation to our poet's income, that one cannot much wonder 
 at liis vexation in losing his 'jemmy boots." 
 
 5 John Dalzell of Barncroch, near Kirkcudbright, was a man of mirthful spirit 
 and social character, highly calculated to gain the love of our bard ; and accordingly 
 they were very good friends. Mr Dalzell was also on intimate terms with Mr 
 Gordon of Kenmure, who once sent him a present of a snuff tmiU. The acknow- 
 ledgment of the gift was in much the name terms as those which Burns might have 
 been expected to use on a similar occasion : 
 
 ' Your present I received, and letter ; 
 No compliment could please me better. 
 Ex DONo Kkn.iiiire ru put on it. 
 And crown it wi' a silver bonnet. 
 
 In spite of a' the deils in , 
 
 Your hun)ble servant, 
 
 John Dalzell.'
 
 BURNS AT ST MAKY's ISI.E. 17 
 
 and coffee. St Mary's Isle is one of tlie most delightful places 
 that can, in my opinion, be formed by the assemblage of every soft 
 but not tame object which constitutes natural and cultivated beauty. 
 But not to dwell on its external graces, let me tell you that we 
 found all the ladies of the family (all beautiful) at home, and some 
 strangers ; and, among others, who but Urbani ! ^ The Italian sang 
 us many Scottish songs, accompanied with instrumental music. 
 The two young ladies of Selkirk sang also. We had the song of 
 Lord Gregory, which I asked for, to have an opportunity of 
 callinsr on Burns to recite Ids ballad to that tune. lie did recite 
 it ; and such was the effect, that a dead silence ensued. It was 
 such a silence as a mind of feeling naturally preserves when it is 
 touched with that enthusiasm which banishes every other thought 
 but tlie contemplation and indulgence of the sympathy produced. 
 Burns's Lord Gregory is, in my opinion, a most beautiful and 
 affecting ballad. The fastidious critic may perhaps say, some of 
 the sentiments and imagery are of too -elevated a kind for sucli a 
 style of composition ; for instance, " Thou bolt of heaven tliat 
 passest by;" and, "Ye mustering thunder," &c.; but this is a 
 cold-blooded objection, which will be said rather X\\M\fdf. 
 
 ' We enjoyed a most happy evening at Lord Selkirk's. We 
 had, in every sense of the word, a feast, in which our minds and 
 our senses were equally gi-atitied. The poet was delighted with 
 his company, and accpiitted himself to admiration. The lion that 
 had raged so violently in the morning, was now as mild and gentle 
 as a lamb. Next day we returned to Dumfries ; and so ends our 
 peregrination. I told you that, iu tlie midst of the storm, on the 
 wilds of Kenmure, Burns was rapt in meditation. What do you 
 think he was about? He was charging the English army, along 
 with Bruce, at Bannockburii. He was engaged in the same 
 manner on our ride home from St Mary's Isle, and I did not 
 disturb him. Next day, he produced me the following address of 
 Bruce to his troops, and gave me a copy for Dalzell : 
 
 « Scots, wlia hac wi' Wallace bled," ' &c. 
 
 By the kindness of Mr Joseph Train, I am enabled to add a 
 statement by j\Ir Carson, one of the gentlemen whom Burns 
 and Syme met at Kenmure : — 
 
 ' The only friends of the host and hostess invited to meet the 
 travellers. Burns and Syme, at Ivenmure, were the .Bev. John 
 Gillespie, the highly-esteemed minister of the parish (Kells), and 
 myself. 
 
 ' Pictro t'lbani, nn Italinn iiiiisician, now ECttlcd in Edinburgh. He edited a 
 collection of the Sung-Musii; of bcothind. 
 VOL. IV. D
 
 18 LIFE AND WORKS OP BURNS. 
 
 ' On the evening preceding their departure, the bard having 
 expressed his intention of climbing to. the top of "the highest 
 hill that rises o'er the source of Dee," there to see the arbour of 
 Lowe, the author of tlie celebrated song, Mary's Dream, Mr 
 Gordon proposed that they should all sail down the loch in his 
 barge GlenJcens, to the Airds Hill below Lowe's seat. Seeing 
 that this proposal was intended in compliment by the worthy 
 host both to the bard and to Mr Gillespie, who had been the 
 patron of Lowe, the gentlemen all concurred; and the weather 
 proving propitious next morning, the vessel soon dropt down 
 to the foot of Loch Ken with all the party on board. Mean- 
 while, Mr Gordon's groom led the travellei's' horses round to the 
 Boat-o'-Rhone, saddled and bridled, that each rider might moimt 
 on descending from the poet's seat ; but the barge unfortunately 
 gi'ounded before reaching the proposed landing-place — an obstruc- 
 tion not anticipated by any of the party. Mr Gordon, with the 
 assistance of an oar, vaulted from the prow of the little vessel to 
 the beach, and was soon followed in like manner by Mr Syme 
 and myself; thus leaving only the venerable pastor of Kells 
 and the bard on board. The former, bemg too feeble to jump, 
 as we had done, to land, expressed a desire to remain in the vessel 
 till Mr Gordon and I retiu-ned; upon hearing which, the generous 
 bard instantly slipt into the water, which was, however, so deep 
 as to wet him to the knees. After a short entreaty, he succeeded 
 in getting the clergyman on his shoulders ; on observing which, 
 Mr Syme raised his hands, laughed immoderately, and exclaimed: 
 " Well, Burns, of all the men on earth, you are the last that I 
 could have expected to see priest-ridden ! " We laughed also, but 
 Burns did not seem to enjoy the joke. He made no reply, but 
 carried his load silently through the reeds to land. 
 
 ' When Mr Syme's account of this excursion with the bard into 
 Galloway appeared in Dr Currie's first edition of the Life and 
 Worhs of Eobert Burns, the Glenkens people, who were actors 
 in this part of the drama, were very much surprised to find the 
 above incident not even alluded to ; but we plainly perceived that 
 Syme had only taken a few incidents of the journey as pegs to 
 hang other drapery upon. We were all fully satisfied that it was 
 by the bard's wading in the loch that his neio hoots were so 
 thoroughly wet, and that the choler or independence next day 
 manifested by him to Syme was only the result of his wounded 
 feelings at having been made such a laughing-stock by his friend 
 for merely rendering the assistance due by common humanity 
 to old age or infirmity, which Mr Gordon and myself charged 
 ourselves afterwards for having overlooked in that instance.'" 
 
 The impulsive, kritable, wayward temper of Burns is strongly
 
 PAINFUL VIEW OP THE POET'S DESTINY. 19 
 
 sliewn in Mr Syme's narration. This, however, is not the Bums 
 of former days : it is tlie Bvu-ns of a troublous time, exasperated 
 by national movements in politics contrary to his judgment and 
 best feelings, and by a tyrannous control of circumstances over the 
 natural privileges which he most dearly esteemed. Reflections 
 on his own impulsive career, which had embayed him in a posi- 
 tion destructive of his independence and humiliating to his pride, 
 probably mingled with his mood. He growls and vents epigrams 
 at persons with whom he was causelessly offended ; he starts 
 at the idea of going to the house of a nobleman, though that 
 nobleman was a Whig, and the father of his old acquaintance 
 Lord Daer, by whose easy manners he had been disabused of 
 earlier prejudices of the like kind, and who was now distinguishing 
 himself by his demonstrations in favour of that cause which Burns 
 had at heai-t. These are traits which we coidd not have expected 
 from the poet in the days of Blair and Castle-Gordon. It is 
 worthy of remark, that Syme himself, Mr Clordon of Kenmure, 
 Mr Dalzell, and the earl, were all Whigs. Burns had been from 
 the first, notwithstanding his Jacobitism, taken up by that party ; 
 and his present circle of friends was mainly composed of it. 
 
 We see the aggi-avated sensitiveness of the poet in a letter 
 Avritten very soon after the excursion with Syme. 
 
 TO SIISS CRAIK.l 
 
 Dumfries, Aufftist 1793. 
 
 Madam — Some rather unloolfcd-for accidents have prevented my 
 doinf^ myself the honour of a second visit to Arbigland, as I was so 
 hospitably invited, and so positively meant to have done. However, 
 I still hope to have that pleasure before the busy months of harvest 
 begin. 
 
 I enclose you two of my late pieces, as some kind of return for tlic 
 pleasure I have received in perusing a certain MS. volume of poems 
 in the possession of Captain lUddcl. To repay one with an old sour; 
 is a proverb whose force you, madam, I know, will not allow. What 
 is said of illustrious descent is, I believe, e([iially true of a talent for 
 poetry — none ever dcs])ised it who had pretensions to it. The fates 
 and characters of the rhyming tribe often employ my thoughts when 
 I am disposed to bo melancholy. There is not, among all the 
 martyrologies that ever were penned, so rueful a narrative as the 
 lives of the poets. In the comparative view of wretches, the criieriou 
 is not what they arc doomed to suffer, but how they are formed to 
 bear. Take a being of our kind, give him a stronger inuigination 
 and a more delicate sensibility, wiiich beUveeu them will ever 
 engender a more ungovernable set of passions than arc the usual lot 
 of man ; implant in him an irresistible impulse to some idle vagary, 
 
 ' DuJightcr of Mr Craik of Arbigland, in the Stcwartry of KirlcciKlbriglit.
 
 20 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 such as arranging wild -flowers in fantastical nosega3-s, tracing the 
 grasshopper to his haunt by his chirping song, watching the frisks 
 of the little minnows in tlie sunny pool, or hunting after the 
 intrigues of butterflies — in short, send him adrift after some pursuit 
 which shall eternally mislead him from the paths of lucre, and yet 
 curse him with a keener relish than any man living for the plea- 
 sures 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 counter- 
 balance this catalogue of evils. Bewitching poetry is like bewitching 
 woman : she has in all ages been accused of misleading mankind 
 from the councils of wisdom and the paths of prudence, involving 
 them in difiiculties, baiting them with poverty, branding them with 
 infamy, and plunging them in the whirling vortex of ruin; yet 
 where is the man but must own that all our happiness on earth is 
 not worthy the name— that oven the holy hermit's solitary prospect 
 of paradisiacal bliss is but the glitter of a northern sun rising over 
 a frozeo region— compared with the many pleasures, the name- 
 less raptures, that we owe to the lovely queen of the heart of 
 man ! E. B. 
 
 MR THOMSON TO BUKNS. 
 
 Edinburgh, \sl Aiipust 17S3. 
 Dear Sir — I had the pleasure of receiving your last two letters, 
 and am happy to find you are quite pleased with the appearance 
 of the first book. When yon come to liear the songs sung and 
 accompanied, you will be charmed with them. 
 
 7Vie Bonnie Brucl-et Lassie certainly deserves better verses, and 
 I hope you will match her. Caiild Kail in Aberdeen, Let me in this 
 ae Night, and several of the livelier airs, wait the Muse's leisure ; 
 these are peculiarly worthy of her choice gifts ; besides, you '11 notice 
 that in airs of this sort the singer can always do greater justice to 
 the poet than in the slower airs of The Bush aboon Traquairf Lord 
 Grerjoru, and the like ; for in the manner the latter were frequently 
 sung, you must be contented with the sound without the sense. 
 Indeed, both the airs and words are disguised by the very slow, 
 languid, psalm-singing style in which they are too often performed ; 
 they lose animation and exjiression altogether, and instead of speak- 
 ing to the mind, or touching the heart, they cloy upon the ear, and 
 set us a-yawning ! ■ 
 
 Your ballad. There was a Lass, and she was Fair, is simple and 
 beautiful, and shall undoubtedly grace my coUcctiou.- 
 
 1 I am tempted out of my usual track to remark the justice of this; criticism. The 
 slowness with which a certain class of the Scottish airs arc sung, is assuredly much 
 to be regretted. 
 
 - Mr Thomson had here added aome verbal criticism, to which allusion was made 
 in course by Burns.
 
 * PniLLIS THE FAIR.' 21 
 
 BUKXS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 Aiigusl 1793. 
 
 My DEAR TnoMSON — I hold the pen for our friend Clarke, who at 
 present is studying the music of the splieres at my elbow. The 
 Georcium Sidus he thinks is rather out of tunc ; so until he rectify 
 that matter, he cannot stoop to terrestrial affairs. 
 
 He sends you six of the rondeau subjects, and if more are wanted, 
 lie says you sliall have them. 
 
 Confound ' your long stairs ! S. Clarke. 
 
 BURNS TO Jill THOMSON. 
 
 AiiguH 1793. 
 Your objection, my dear sir, to the passages in my song of Lor/an 
 Water, is riglit in one instance ; the phrase ' cruel joys' is there 
 improper ; but it is difiicult to mend it : if I can, I will. Tlie otlier 
 passage you object to docs not appear in the same light to me. 
 
 [Here Burns transcribed a Eonj; nf six stanzas which he had just composed on the 
 basis of an old song culled, Lit me in this ac Ai<;ht. It is so much below the standard 
 of his compo.sitions of that class, that Curric had thought proper to leave it in the 
 manuscript,] 
 
 I have tried my hand on Rohiii Adair, and, you will probably 
 think, with little success ; but it is such a cursed, cramp, out-of-the- 
 way measure, that I despair of doing anything bettor to it. 
 
 rKII.LlS THE FAIR. 
 Tune — Robin Adair. 
 
 While larks with little wing 
 
 Fanned the pure air. 
 Tasting the breathing spring, 
 
 Forth I did i'are : 
 Gay the sun's golden eye 
 Peeped o'er the mountains high; 
 Such thy morn ! did I cry, 
 
 riiillis the fair. 
 
 In each bird's careless song. 
 
 Glad did I share ; 
 AVIiile yon wild-flowers among. 
 
 Chance led me there : 
 Sweet to the opening day, 
 Rosebuds bent the dewy spray; 
 Such thy bloom ! did I say, 
 
 I'hillis the fair. 
 
 1 So in Currie : in mnnuEcript, a stronger word. Tlic eignalurc ' 8. Clarke ' jb 
 iu (;iarke'8 bund.
 
 22 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Down in a shady walk 
 
 Doves cooing were ; 
 I marked the cruel hawk 
 
 Caught in a snare : 
 So kind may fortune be, 
 Such make his destiny, 
 He who would injure thee, 
 
 Phillis the fair. 
 
 So much for namby-pamby. I may, after all, try my hand on it in 
 Scots verse. There I always find myself most at home. 
 
 I have just put the last hand to the song I meant for Cauld Kail in 
 Aberdeen.^ If it suits you to insert it, I shall be pleased, as the 
 heroine is a favourite of mine : if not, I shall also be pleased ; 
 because I wish, and will be glad, to see you act decidedly on the 
 business. 'Tis a tribute as a man of taste, and as an editor, which 
 you owe yourself. 
 
 Burns is understood to have in Phillis the Fair represented the 
 tender feelings which Clarke entertained towards Miss Philadelphia 
 M'Murdo, one of his pupils. This lady afterwards became Mrs 
 Norman Lockhart of Carnwath. 
 
 MR THOMSON TO BURNS. 
 
 August 1793. 
 
 My good Sir — I consider it one of the most agreeable circum- 
 stances attending this publication of mine, that it has procured me 
 so many of your much-valued epistles. Pray make my acknowledg- 
 ments to St Stephen for the tunes : tell him I admit the justness of 
 his complaint on my staircase, conveyed in his laconic postscript 
 to your jeii, d'' esprit, which I perused more than once without dis- 
 covering exactly whether your discussion was music, astronomy, or 
 politics; though a sagacious friend, acquainted with the convivial 
 habits of the poet and the musician, offered me a bet of two to one 
 you were just drowning care together ; that an empty bowl was the 
 only thing that would deeply affect you, and the only matter you 
 could then study how to remedy ! 
 
 I shall be glad to see you give Eohin Adair a Scottish dress. 
 Peter is furnishing him with an English suit for a change, and you 
 are well matched together. Robin's air is excellent, though he 
 certainly has an out-of-the-way measure as ever poor Parnassian 
 wight was plagued with. I wish you would invoke the Muse for a 
 single elegant stanza, to be substituted for the concluding objection- 
 able verses of Down the Burn, Davie, so that this most exquisite song 
 may no longer be excluded from good company. 
 
 ' The song now usually called Puirtith Cauld.
 
 'had I A CAVE.' 23 
 
 Mr Allan has made an inimitable drawing from your Julr^i 
 Anderson imj jo, which I am to have engraved as a frontispiece to 
 the humorous class of songs : you will be quite charmed with it, I 
 promise you. The old couple are seated by the fireside. Mrs 
 Anderson, in great good-humour, is clapping John's shoulders, while 
 he smiles and looks at her with such glee, as to shew that he fully 
 recollects the pleasant days and nights when they were 'first acquent.' 
 The drawing would do honour to the pencil of Teniers. 
 
 BUKNS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 August 1793. 
 
 That crinkum - crankum tune, Itohin Adair, has run so in my 
 head, and I succeeded so ill in my last attempt, that I have ventured, 
 in this morning's walk, one essay more. You, my dear sir, will 
 remember an unfortunate part of our worthy friend Cunningham's 
 story, which happened about three years ago. That struck my 
 fancy, and I endeavoured to do the idea justice as follows : — 
 
 HAD I A CAVE. 
 
 Tune — Robin Adair. 
 
 Had I a cave on some wild distant shore, 
 
 Where the winds howl to the waves' dashing roar ; 
 
 There would I weep my woes, 
 
 There seek my lost repose. 
 
 Till grief my eyes should close, 
 Ne'er to wake more ! 
 
 Falsest of womankind ! canst thou declare, 
 All thy fond-plighted vows— fleeting as air ! 
 
 To thy now lover hie. 
 
 Laugh o'er tliy perjury; 
 
 Tlien in thy bosom try 
 What peace is there ! 
 
 By the way, I have met with a musical Highlander in Brcadal- 
 banc's Fenciblcs, which are quartered here, who assures mo that lie 
 well remembers his mother singing Gaelic songs to both liohin Adair 
 and Gramachree, They certainly have more of the Scotch than Irish 
 taste in them. 
 
 This man comes from the vicinity of Inverness, so it could not be 
 any intercourse with Ireland that could bring them ; except wliat I 
 shrewdly suspect to bo the case — the wandering minstrels, harpers, 
 and i)ipers, used to go frequently errant through the wilds both of
 
 24 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Scotland and Ireland, and so some favourite airs might be common to 
 both. A case in point — they have lately, in Ireland, published an 
 Irish air, as tliey say, called Cauii du. delLsh. The fact is, in a publi- 
 cation of Corri's a great while ago, j^ou will find the same air, called 
 a Highland one, with a Gaelic song set to it. Its name there, I 
 think, is Ora/i Gaoil, and a fine air it is. Do ask honest Allan, or the 
 llcv. Gaelic parson, about these matters. 
 
 Cunningham had wooed a young lady of many personal attrac- 
 tions ; but, on another lover pi*esenting himself, with some superior 
 pretensions of an extrinsic character, she deserted the poet's friend 
 with a degree of coolness which seems to have for the time excited 
 great and general surprise. 
 
 BURNS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 [19^/i] Aiiomt 1793. 
 
 My dear Sir — Let me in this ae JVig/d I will reconsider. I am 
 glad that you are pleased with my song. Had I a Cave, &c. as I liked 
 it myself. 
 
 I walked out yesterday evening with a volume of the Museum in 
 my hand, when, turning up Allan Water, What Numbers shall the 
 2Iuse repeat, kc. as the words appeared to me rather imworthy of 
 so fine an air, and recollecting that it is on your list, I sat and raved 
 under tho shade of an old thorn, till I wrote one to suit the measure. 
 I may be wrong, but I think it not in my worst style. You must 
 know that in Kamsay's Tea- Table, where the modern song first 
 appeared, the ancient name of the tune, Allan says, is Allan Water, 
 or M;/ Love Annie''s verij Bonnie. This last has certainly been a 
 line of the original song ; so I took up the idea, and, as you will see, 
 have introduced the line in its place, which I presume it formerly 
 occupied ; though I likewise give you a choosing line, if it should 
 not hit the cut of your fancy : 
 
 BY ALLAN STREAM I CHANCED TO ROVE. 
 
 IvTiv.— Allan Water. 
 
 By Allan stream I chanced to rove, 
 
 While Phosbus sank beyond Benlcdi ; 
 The winds were whispering through the grove. 
 
 The yellow corn was waving ready : 
 I listened to a lover's sang, 
 
 And thought on youtlifu' pleasures monyj 
 And aye the wild-wood echoes rang — 
 
 Oh, dearly do I love thee, Annie !
 
 BURNS S WALKS AT DUMFRIES. 2i> 
 
 Oh, happy be the Avoodbine bower, 
 
 Nae nightly bogle make it eerie ; 
 Nor ever sorrow stain the hour, 
 
 The place and time I met my dearie! 
 Her head upon my throbbing- breast. 
 
 She, sinking, said, ' I 'in thine for ever ! ' 
 While mony a kiss the seal imprest, 
 , The sacred vow, we ne'er should sever. 
 
 The hannt o' Spring's the primrose brae. 
 
 The Simmer joys tlie flocks to follow ; 
 How cheery througli her shortening day, 
 
 Is Autunm, in her weeds o' j'cliow ! 
 But can they melt the glowing heart. 
 
 Or chain the soul in speechless pleasure? 
 Or through each nerve the rapture dart. 
 
 Like meeting her, our bosom's treasure ? 
 
 Bravo! say I ; it is a good song. Sliould you think so too (not else), 
 you can set the music to it, and let the other follow as English verses. 
 
 Autumn is my propitious season. I make more vei'ses in it than 
 all the year else. God bless you ! ' 
 
 BUr.XS TO MU TIIOMSOX. 
 
 Anpust I'm. 
 
 You may readily trust, my dear sir, that any exertion in my power 
 is heartily at yonr service. But one thing I must liint to you : the 
 very name of Peter Pindar is of great service to your publication ; 
 so get a verse from him now and then, though I iiave no objection, 
 jis well as I can, to bear the burden of tlie business.^ 
 
 Is Wli.iiitle,(uid Pll come to you, mi/Lad, one of your airs I I admire 
 
 1 ' While he lived in Dumfries, he hnd throe favourite walks : on the Dock-Crcen 
 hy the river-side— among tlic ruins of Lincludon Collevcc — and towiirds tlio Martin^;- 
 ilon-ford, on the north side of the Nith. This latter plaee was sjcUiiled, commandeil 
 a view of the distant hills, and the romantie towers of I.ineludtn, and art'ordrd 
 soft p-ecnsward banks to rest upon, and the sii;ht and sound of the stream. Hero 
 he composed many of his finest son^s. As soon ua he was heard to hum to himself, 
 his wife taw that he had somcthiu'^ in his mind, and was prepared to see hiui 
 snatch up his hat, and set silently otV for his musinKuround. Wl:en hy himself, 
 and in the open air, his ideas arranged themselves in their natural order — words 
 eame at will, and he seldom returned without having finished .a song. In ease of 
 interiuption, he set ahout completing it at thi' fireside ; he balanced himself on the 
 liind-legs of his armchair, and rocking to and fro, continued to hum the tune, and 
 seldom failed of success. When the vers-s were finished, he pa.'-scd them through 
 the ordeal of Mrs Hiirns's voice ; listcneil attentively when she sang; asked her if 
 any of the words were diflicult ; and when one happ( luil to lie too rough, he readily 
 foimd a smoother— but he never, save at the resolute entreaty of a scientific musi- 
 cian, sacrificed sense to sound. 'I'he autumn was his favourite season, and the 
 twilight his favourit^^ hour of study.'— .1. Cuimiiujhnm. 
 
 " I)r Carrie has transferrf<l this paragraph from the present, ite proper place, to 
 the head oJ a subsequent letter.
 
 26. LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 it much, and yesterday I set the following verses to it. Urbani, whom 
 I have met with here, begged them of me, as he admires the air 
 much ; but as I understand that he looks with rather an evil eye on 
 your work, I did not choose to comply. However, if the song does 
 not suit your taste, I may possibly send it him. He is, entre nous, a 
 narrow, contracted creature ; but he sings so delightfully, that what- 
 ever he introduces at your concert must have immediate celebrity. 
 The set of the air which I had in my eye is in Johnson^ s Museum. 
 
 "WHISTLE, AND I 'LL COME TO YOU, MY LAD. 
 
 TuNK — Whistle, and I'll come to you, mi/ Lad. 
 
 O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad, 
 O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad ; 
 Though father and mither and a' should gae mad, 
 O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad. 
 
 But warily tent, when ye come to court mc, 
 And come na unless the back-yett be a-jee ; 
 Syne up the back-stile, and let naebody see, 
 And come as ye were na comin' to me. 
 
 At kirk, or at market, Avhene'er ye meet me, 
 Gang by me as though that ye cared nae a flie ; 
 But steal me a blink o' your bonnie black ce. 
 Yet look as ye were na lookiu' at me. 
 
 Aye vow and protest that ye care na for me, 
 And M'liiles ye may lightly my beauty a wee ; 
 But court na anither, though jokin' ye be. 
 For fear that she wile your fancy frae me. ^ 
 
 Another favourite air of mine is The Mucking o' Geordie's Byre. 
 When sung slow with expression, I have wished that it had had 
 better poetry : that I have endeavoured to sujjply as follows : — 
 
 ADOWN WINDING NITH I DID WANDER. 
 Tune— T/jc Mucking o' Geordie's Byre. 
 
 Adown winding Nith I did wander, 
 
 To mark the sweet flowers as they spring ; 
 
 Adown winding Nith I did wander, 
 Of Phillis to muse and to sing. 
 
 Awa wi' your belles and your beauties, 
 
 They never wi' her can compare : 
 Whaever has met wi' my Phillis, 
 
 Has met wi' the queen o' the fair. 
 
 > The two first stanzas of this song had appeared in the second volume of the Scots 
 
 Musical Museum.
 
 PETER PINDAR. 27 
 
 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 rose-bud's the blush o' my charmer, 
 Her sweet balmy lip when 'tis prest : 
 
 How fair and how pm-e is the lily, 
 But fairer and purer her breast. 
 
 Yon knot of gay flowers in the ai'bour. 
 
 They ne'er wi' my Phillis can vie : 
 Her breath is the breath o' the woodbine, 
 
 Its dew-drop o' diamond her eye. 
 
 Her voice is the song of the morning, 
 
 That wakes through the green-spreading grove, 
 
 When Phcebus 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. 
 
 Mr Clarke begs you to give Miss Phillis a corner in your book, 
 as she is a particular flame of his. She is a Miss Phillis M'Murdo, 
 sister to ' Bonnie Jean.' They are both pupils of his. You shall 
 hear from me the very fii'st grist I get from my rhyming-mill. 
 
 A modern reader will be surprised by the terms in which Burns 
 speaks of Peter Pindar, whose works are now condemned to 
 oblivion. He certauily was a remarkable example of the extent 
 to which moderate abilities, exerted in subserviency to popular 
 prejudices, and with a ribald recklessness towards all true taste 
 in literature, will carry their possessor on the way to what appears 
 for the time literary distinction. It must ever be a humiliating 
 consideration tliat this modern Aretin was richly pensioned by 
 the booksellers, while Burns, the true sweet singer, lived in 
 comparative poverty. 
 
 BUUNS TO MR TIIOMSO.V. 
 
 [28/A] Aiioiist 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 ; i when 
 
 ' Gloamin, twili-^ht — prob.iWy frcm glooming. A bonutiful poetic word, which 
 ought to be adopted in KngluiiJ. A gloamin-shot, a twilight interview.— Currijk.
 
 28 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURKS. 
 
 the Muse that presides o'er the shores of Nith, or rather my old 
 inspiring dearest nymph, Coila, whispered me tlie following. I have 
 two reasons for thinking that it was my early, sweet simple inspircr 
 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 
 native haunts, not a fragment of a poet has arisen to cheer her 
 solitary musings, by catching inspiration from her, so I more than 
 suspect that she has followed me hither, or at least makes me occa- 
 sional 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 JoJinson's Museum. 
 
 COMK, LET ME TAKE TIIEE TO MY BREAST. 
 Air — Cauld Kail. 
 
 Come, let me take thee to my breast, 
 
 And pledge we ne'er shall sunder ; 
 And I sliall spurn as vilest dust 
 
 Tlie warld's wealth and grandeur : 
 And do I hear my Jeanie own 
 
 That equal transports move her ? 
 I ask for dearest life alone 
 
 That I may live to love her. 
 
 Thus in my arms, wi* all thy charms, 
 
 I clasp my countless treasure ; 
 I'll seek nae mair o' heaven to share, 
 
 Than sic a moment's pleasure : 
 And by thy een sae bonnie blue, 
 
 I swear I 'ni thine for ever ! 
 And on thy lips I seal my vow, 
 
 And break it shall I never ! 
 
 If you think the above will suit your idea of your favourite air, I 
 shall be highly pleased. The I'xst Time I came o'er the Moor I cannot 
 meddle with as to mending it ; and the musical world have been so 
 long accustomed to Kamsay's words, that a different song, though 
 positively superior, would not be so well received. I am not fond 
 of choruses to songs, so I have not made one for the foregoing. 
 
 BURNS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 DAINTY DAVIE. 
 Tune — Dainty Davie. 
 
 [28^0 Auguit 1703. 
 
 Now rosy May comes in wi' flowers, 
 To deck her gay, green-spreading bowers ; 
 And now come in my happy hours, 
 To wander wi' my Davie.
 
 ACTIVITY IN SONG-WRITING IN AUTUMN '93. 29 
 
 Meet me on the warlock knowc, 
 
 Dainty Davie, dainty Daviu ; 
 Tliere I'll spend the day wi' you, 
 
 My ain dear dainty Davie. 
 
 Tlie crystal waters round us fa'. 
 The merry birds are lovers a', 
 The scented breezes round us blaw, 
 A-wandering wi' my Davie. 
 
 When purple morning- starts the hare, 
 To steal upon her early fare, 
 Then througli the dews I will repair, 
 To meet my foithfu' Davie. 
 
 When day, expiring in the west. 
 The curtain draws o' nature's rest, 
 I <lee to his arms I loc best. 
 And that's my ahi dear Davie. 
 
 So much for Davie. The chorus, you know, is to the low part 
 of the tune. See Clarke's set of it in the Museum. 
 
 jV.B. — In the Miisevm, they have drawled out the tunc to twelve 
 
 lines of poetry, which is nonsense. Four lines of song, and 
 
 four of chorus, is the wav. 
 
 The tunc of Dainty Davie had been in Burns's hands some 
 years before, wlien he composed to it a song with the awkward 
 Inirden, The Gardener ivi^ Ms Paidle.^ His taste suggesting to 
 him the impossibility of any such song Ijecoming po])ular, he now 
 I)ut the verses into the above improved fasliion. It is understood 
 tliat tlie homely old song which Burns thus superseded was 
 composed upon an 'adventure of tlie Rev. David AVilliamson, in 
 the time of ' the Persecution.' Williamson died mhiister of St 
 Cutlibert's, near Edinburgli, after having married seven wives. 
 
 The letters of tiiis montli shew a remarkable activity in song- 
 v/riting. Tlie commercial distresses of the country were great ; 
 the government was preparhig to try Muir and Palmer for 
 sedition, and no mercy was expected ; the world, in Bunis's 
 opinion, was out of joint. Yet we see him full of entluisiasm 
 in writing and criticising f>cottish songs, and making only that 
 faint glance at politics, in the remark on the (Icorgium Sidus. 
 It must not be supposed from this fact, that he had forced himself 
 into an inditlercncc towards either tiie state of affairs in France, 
 where the unfortunate (iirondists were now pcrisiiing in tliu 
 
 1 Sec volume lii., p. 109,
 
 30 LIFE AND WOKKS OF BURNS. 
 
 fields and on the scaffold, or to the progress of the reaction at 
 home, which threatened to crush every sentiment of liberty in 
 which England had formerly gloried. But the beauty of the 
 season had come over him with its benign influence, and he gladly 
 sought some relief from the exasperations of public affairs in the 
 soothing blandishments of the Doric muse. 
 
 MR THOMSON TO BURNS. 
 
 Edinburgh, Ist Sept. 1793. 
 
 My dear Sir — Since writing you last, I have received half-a- 
 dozen songs, with which I am delighted beyond expression. The 
 humour and fancy of Whistle, and I'll come to you, my Lad, will 
 render it nearly as great a favourite as Duncan Gray. Gome, let 
 one take thee to my Breast, Adoivn winding Nith, and By Allan 
 Stream, &c. are full of imagination and feeling, and sweetly suit the 
 airs for which they are intended. Had I a Gave on some ivild distant 
 Shore, is a striking and affecting composition. Our friend, to whose 
 story it refers, reads it with a swelling lieart, I assure you. The 
 union we are now forming, I tliink, can never be broken: these 
 songs of yours will descend, with the music, to the latest posterity, 
 and will be fondly cherished so long as genius, taste, and sensibility 
 exist in our island. 
 
 "While the IMuse seems so propitious, I think it right to enclose a 
 list of all the favours I have to ask of her — no fewer than twenty 
 and three ! I have burdened the pleasant Peter with as many as it 
 is probable he will attend to : most of the remaining airs would 
 puzzle the English poet not a little — they are of that peculiar 
 measure and rhythm, that they must be familiar to him who writes 
 for them. 
 
 BURNS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 Sept. 1793. 
 You know that my pretensions to musical taste are merely a 
 few of nature's instincts, untaught and imtutored by art. For this 
 reason many musical compositions, particularly where much of the 
 mci'it lies in counterpoint, liowever they may transport and ravish 
 the ears of you 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, 
 Jley, tuttie taitie, may rank among this number; but well I know 
 that, with Fraser's hautboy,^ it has often filled my eyes with tears. 
 
 ' Frasei" was many j'oars after the hautboy- player in the orchestra of the Edin- 
 burgh theatre, where his solos were always gi'catly admii-cd.
 
 ' bruce's address.' 31 
 
 There is a tradition, -wliich I have met witli in many places in 
 Scotland, tliat it was Robert Bruce's march at the battle of Bannock- 
 burn. This thought, in my yesternight's evening walk, warmed me 
 to a pitch of enthusiasm on tlic 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 MEN AT BANNOCKBURX. 
 
 TirNE — Ilcy, tuttie iaitic. 
 
 Scots, wha hae wi' "Wallace bled, 
 Scots, wham Bruce has aften led, 
 Welcome to your gory bed, 
 Or to victory ! 
 
 Xow's the day, and now's the hour; 
 See the front o' battle lour : 
 See approach proud Edward's power — 
 Chains and slavery ! 
 
 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 Avill strongly draw, 
 Freeman stand, or freeman fa', 
 Let him follow me ! 
 
 By oppression's woes and pains ! 
 By your sons in servile chains ! 
 AVc will drain our dearest veins, 
 
 But they shall be free ! 
 
 Lay the proud usui-pcrs 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 ! Amen. 
 
 P. 8. — I shewed the air to Urbani, who was highly pleased with 
 it, and begged mc to malvc soft verses for it ; but I had no idea of 
 giving myself any troulilo on tlie subject, till the accidental recollec- 
 tion of that glorious struggle for freedom, associated with tlic 
 glowing ideas of some other struggles of the same nature, not quite 
 so ancient, roused my rliyming mania. Clarke's set of the tune, with 
 his bass, you will find in the ^fvxfum, though I am afraid that the 
 air is not what will entitle it to a place in your elegant selection.
 
 32 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 So the magnificent ode of ' Bruce to his Men ' sjarang partly from 
 the inspiration aft'orded by tlie success of tlie French in beating 
 back the arrogant enemies of tlieir republic ! According to Mr 
 Syme, in his letter on the Galloway excursion of July, Burns was 
 engaged in the composition of this ode while riding in the storm 
 from Kenmure to Gatehouse, and when passing on the second 
 morning thereafter on his way from Kirkcudbright to Dumfries. 
 Mr Syme adds, that tlie poet presented him with a copy of the 
 poem next day, along with a second one for INIr Dalzell. There 
 is a discrepancy here, which can only be cleared up by supposing 
 that Mr Syme, writing at the distance of some years, had mis- 
 applied circumstances to dates, or been misled by his imagination. 
 The discrepancy had been observed by Dr Currie ; but lie unfor- 
 tunately adopted a way of overcoming the difficulty little credit- 
 able to himself, for he altered the expression ' my yesternight's 
 evening walk ' into ' my solitary wanderings ' — a vitiation of the 
 original letter, wdiich has only been of late detected. I do not 
 indeed see in Burns's letter conclusive proof that tlie composition 
 Avas not commenced or thought of during the Galloway excursion, 
 for a person of all desirable fidelity of mind, in relating an 
 indifferent matter to a friend, may give it in such an abbi'eviated 
 form, or with such a suppression of particulars, as may amount to 
 a kind of misrepresentation. For example — It is not doubted 
 that Burns composed Tarn o' Shunter, as has been related, while 
 wandering one day by the banks of the Nith, in the autumn of 
 1790; yet, on the 22d of January 1791, he says in a letter to 
 Alexander Cunningham : ' I liave just Jinishcd a poeni [2\im o' 
 Shanier), which you will receive enclosed.' Is'o one oould have 
 supposed from this expression that the whole poem had been 
 produced at a heat three or four months before, and that only a 
 few corrections at most had lately been administered to it by the 
 hand of its autlior. It is impossible, however, to observe in this 
 letter of September the expressions that lie had thought no more 
 of Urbani's request till ' the accidental recollection,' &c. in his 
 ' yesternight's evening walk,' ' warmed ' him ' to a pitch of enthu- 
 siasm,' and continue to believe that Burns had given Syme a copy 
 the day after the conclusion of their excursion at the beginning 
 of the preceding niontli. And an error being proved here, it ma}' 
 be the more doubted if Burns was at all engaged in such a 
 subject of poetic meditation during that storm on the wilds of 
 Kenmure.
 
 'behold the hour.' 33 
 
 BIRNS TO MR THOMSOX. 
 
 ISept, 1793.] 
 I DARESAY, my dear sir, that jou will begin to think my corre- 
 spondence is persecution. No matter, I can't help it : a ballad is my 
 hobby-horse, ■which, though otherwise a simple sort of harmless 
 idiotical beast enough, has yet this blessed headstrong property, that 
 when once it has fairly made off with a hapless wight, it gets so 
 enamoured with the tinkle-gingle, tinkle-gingle of its own bells, tiiat 
 it is sure to run poor pilgarlick, the bedlam jockey, quite beyond any 
 useful point or post in the common i-ace of men. 
 
 The following song I have composed for Oran Gaoil, the Highland 
 air that you tell me in your last you have resolved to give a place to 
 in your book. I have this moment finished the song, so you have it 
 glowing from the njint. If it suit you, well ! if not, 'tis also well ! 
 
 BEHOLD THE HOUR. 
 
 Tu.VE— Oran Gaoil. 
 
 Behold the hour, the boat arrive; 
 
 Thou goest, tiiou darling of my heart ! 
 Severed from thee, can I survive ? 
 
 But fate has willed, and we must part. 
 I'll often greet this surging swell, 
 
 Yon distant isle will often hail : 
 * E'en here I took the last farewell ; 
 
 There latest marked her vanished sail.' 
 
 Along the solitary shore. 
 
 While flitting sea-fowl round me cry, 
 Across the rolling, dashing roar, 
 
 I'll westward turn my wistful eye: 
 Happy thou Indian grove, I '11 say, 
 
 Where now my Nancy's path ma)' be! 
 While through thy sweets site loves to stray, 
 
 Oh, tell me, docs she muse on me \ 
 
 MR THOMSON TO DURNS. 
 
 Kni.vuuROH, 5/A Sept. 1793. 
 
 I BELIEVE it is generally allowed that tlic greatest modesty is the 
 sure attendant of the greatest merit. While you are sending mo 
 verses that even Shakspcare migiit be proud to own, you speak of 
 them as if they were ordinary productions ! Your heroic ode is to 
 nic the noblest composition of the kind in the Scottish language. I 
 
 VOL. IV. ^
 
 S-i LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 liappened to dine yesterday with a party of your friends, to whom I 
 read it. They were all charmed with it ; entreated me to find out a 
 suitable air for it, and reprobated the idea of giving it a tune so totally 
 devoid of interest or grandeur as Hey, tidtie taitie. Assuredly your 
 partiality for this tune must arise from the ideas associated in your 
 mind by the tradition concerning it, for I never heard any person, and 
 I have conversed again and again with the greatest enthusiasts for 
 Scottish airs — I say, I never heard any one speak of it as Avorthy 
 of notice. 
 
 I have been running over the whole hundred airs, of which I lately 
 sent you the list ; and I think Lewie Gordon is most happily adapted to 
 your ode ; at least with a very slight variation of the fourth line, which 
 I shall presently submit to you. There is in Lewie Gordon more of 
 the grand than the plaintive, particularly when it is sung with a 
 degree of spii'it, which your words would oblige the singer to give it. 
 I would have no scruple about substituting your ode in the room of 
 Lewie Gordon, which has neither the interest, the grandeur, nor the 
 poetry, that characterise your verses. Now, the variation I have to 
 suggest upon the last line of each verse — the only line too short for 
 the air — is as follows : 
 
 Verse 1st, Or to gloriozis victory. 
 
 2d, Chains — chains and slavery. 
 3d, Let him, let him turn and flee. 
 4th, Let him bravely follow me. 
 .5th, But they shall, they shall be free. 
 6th, Let us, let us do or die ! 
 
 If you connect each line with its own verse, I do not think you 
 will find that either the sentiment or the expression loses any of its 
 energy. The only line which I dislike in the whole of the song is, 
 'Welcome to your gory bed.' AVould not another word be preferable 
 to 'welcome ?' In your next, I will expect to be informed whether 
 you agree to what I have proposed. The little alterations I submit 
 with the greatest deference. 
 
 The beauty of the verses you have made for Oixm Gaoil will insure 
 celebrity to the air. 
 
 Mr Thomson is here imfortunate in his criticism, particularly as 
 to the choice of an air for Bruce's Address. Lewie Gordon is a 
 tame melody, quite unsuited for such a heroic outburst. Besides, 
 the necessity of inserting expletive syllables in each verse to make 
 it suit that air, is insufferable. Mr Thomson carried his point 
 against the better sense of Burns for the time; but the public in a 
 few years reversed the judgment, and Heu, tuitie taitie was united 
 to the song for ever.
 
 OBSERVATIONS ON A LIST OF SONGS. 35 
 
 BUENS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 Sept. 1793. 
 
 I HAVE received your list, my dear sir, and here go my observa- 
 tions on it.i 
 
 Doicn the Burn, Davie — I have this momeut tried an alteration, 
 leaving out the last half of the third stanza, and the first half of the 
 last stanza ; thus : 
 
 As down the bum they took their way, 
 
 And through 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.' - 
 
 Through the Wood, Laddie — I am decidedly of opinion that both in 
 this, and There HI never he Peace till Jamie comes Harae, 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. 
 
 C'owdcn-lcnoices—VvGmemhQY 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 w as his Christian name. 
 
 Laddie, lie near me, must lie by me for some time. I do not 
 know tlic air ; and until I am complete master of a tune, in my own 
 singing (such as it is), I can never compose for it. Jly way is : I 
 consider the poetic sentiment correspondent to my idea of tlie musical 
 expression ; then choose my theme; begin one stanza: when tiiat is 
 composed, whicli 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 tlie cogitations of 
 my fancy, and workings of my bosom ; liumming every now and then 
 the air with tlie verses I have framed. "When I feel my Muse 
 beginning to jade, I retire to the solitary fireside of my study, and 
 there conunit my effusions to paper ; swinging at intervals on the 
 
 ' Mr Tlujnison's listofsonRS for his publication. In Iiis remarks, thobard proceeds 
 in order, ;md goes through the whole ; but on many of them he meivly signifies his 
 approbation. All his remarks of any importance are presented to the reader.— 
 
 C I! R R I K. 
 
 - This alteration Mr Thomson has adopted (or at least intended to adopt), instead 
 of the last stanza of the original song, which is objectionable in point of delicacy. — 
 CuRRie.
 
 56 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 liind-Iegs of my elbow-chair, by way of callinpf forth my own critical 
 strictures as my pen goes on. yeriously, this, at home, is almost 
 invariably my way. 
 
 What cursed egotism ! 
 
 Gill Morice I am for leaving out. It is a plaguy length ; tlie 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, Craigiehurii 
 Wood and Boys Wife. The first, beside its intrinsic merit, has 
 novelty ; and the last has high merit, as well as great celebrity. I 
 liave the original words of a sonji: for the last air, in the handwritln'' 
 of the lady who composed it ; and they are superior to any edition 
 of the song which the public has yet seen. 
 
 Highland Laddie — Tiie 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 Ilif/hlaiid Laddie, which pleases me more than either of 
 them. It is sometimes called Gingliii Johnnie; it being the air of an 
 old humorous tawdry song of that name. You will find it in the 
 Museum, / hae been at Crookimen, &c. I would advise you, in this 
 musical quandary, to oflt'er 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 liit on a 
 judicious choice. Prohatum est. 
 
 Atdd Sir Simon I must beg you to leave out, and put in its place 
 The Quaker's Wife. 
 
 Blithe hae I been o'er the 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 ])urpose 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. 
 
 Dainty Davie I have heard sung nineteen thousand, nine hundred, 
 and ninety-nine times, and always with the chorus to 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 proposed, we will lay two of the 
 stanzas together, and then make the chorus follow. 
 
 Fee him. Father — I enclose you Fraser'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 Fraser gives it in playing, it would make an admirably' 
 pathetic song.^ I do not give these verses for any merit they have. 
 I composed them at the time in which ' Patie Allan's mither died — 
 that was, about the back o' midnight,' and by the lee-side of a bowl 
 of puncli, which had overset every mortal in company except the 
 liautbois and the Muse. 
 
 ' I well recollect, about the j'car 1821, hearing Fraser play Fee hitn, father, on his 
 benefit nif^ht, in the Edinburgh theatre, ' in the manner in which he had played it 
 to Hums ' It was listened to with breathless attention, as if the house had felt 
 it to be a medium of communion with the spirit of the departed bard.
 
 A FRAGMENT — 'WHERE ARE THE JOYS,' &C. 37 
 
 THOU HAST LEFT ME EVER. 
 
 Tune — Fichiin, Father. 
 
 Thou liast left me ever, Jamie ! thou hast left me ever; 
 Tliou hast left me ever, Jamie ! thou hast left me ever : 
 Aften hast thou vowed that death only should us sever ; 
 2fo\v thou'st left thy lass for aye — I mauu see thee never, Jamie, 
 I'll see thee never. 
 
 Thou hast me forsaken, Jamie ! thou hast me forsaken ; 
 Tliou hast me forsaken, Jamie ! thou hast me forsaken : 
 Thou canst love anithcr jo, while my lieart is breaking; 
 Soon my weary een I'll close — never mair to waken, Jamie, 
 Ne'er mair to waken ! i 
 
 Jocl'ie and Jenny I would discard, and in its place would put 
 There's nae Luck about the Ilowic, which has a very pleasant air, and 
 which is positively the finest love-ballad in that style in the Scottish, 
 or perhaps in any otlier lanii;uage. When she rame ben she bohbit, as 
 an air, is more beautiful tluin either, and in the andante way would 
 iniite with a charminj' sentimental ballad. 
 
 Sail} ye my Father? is one of my greatest favourites. The evening 
 before last, I wandered out, and began a tender song, in what I thiniv 
 is its native style. I must j)remise, that the old way, and the wa^' 
 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 yc my Father? &c. 
 
 My song is but just begun; and I should like, before I proceed, 
 to know your opinion of it. I have sprinkled it witii the Scottish 
 dialect, but it may be easily turned into correct Englisli. 
 
 FRAGMENT, 
 TiTNE — Saw lie iiii/ Father? 
 
 Where are the joys I liae met in the morning, 
 
 That danced to the lark's early sang ? 
 Wliere is tlie jieace tlnit awaited my wandering, 
 
 At e'enin' the wild woods amangJ 
 
 Nae mair a-winding the course o' yon river, 
 
 And marking sweet flowerets sae fair; 
 Nae mair I trace the liglit footsteps o' pleasure, 
 
 lint sorrow and sad sighing care. 
 
 ' It is siirprisinR th.it Hurns sliould liavc thoiii^lit it ncc'cflRiirj' to siibstitiito new 
 AiTHOB for the old .iijii.i{ t(i this iiir, «liich i« ono of tlie nioht cxqviisite cfl'tigions 
 of KC'i'iiiie niitunil Hontinii'iit in the whcili- riin:;e of Scottisli lyrical poetry. Its 
 merit is now fully apprceiiited, while Uurnb'a Bubstitutc song is scarcely ever sung.
 
 38 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Is it that simmer's forsaken our valleys, 
 
 And grim, surly winter is near? 
 No, no ! the bees humming round the gay roses 
 
 I'roclaim it the pride o' the year. 
 
 Fain wad I hide what I fear to discover, 
 
 Yet lang, lang too well I hae known ; 
 A' that has caused the wreck in my bosom 
 
 Is Jenny, fair Jenny, alonc.^ 
 
 Todlin Ilame. — Urbani mentioned an idea of his, which has long 
 been mine, that 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 Banlcs and Braes o' bonnie Boon. 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 
 lias 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 : — 
 
 AULD LANG SYNE. 
 
 Should auld acquaintance be forgot, 
 
 And never brought to mind ? 
 Should auld acquaintance be forgot, 
 
 And days o' lang syne ? 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 For auld lang syne, my dear. 
 
 For auld lang sync. 
 We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet, 
 
 For auld lang syne ! 
 
 We twa hae run about the braes. 
 
 And pu'd the gowans fine ; 
 But we 've wandered mony a weary foot, 
 
 Sin' auld lang syne. 
 
 We twa hae paidl't i' the burn, 
 
 Frae mornin' sun till dine ; 
 But seas between us braid hae roared. 
 
 Sin' auld lang syne. 
 
 And here's a hand, my trusty fiero. 
 
 And gie's a hand o' thine; 
 And we'll tak a right guid willie-waught, 
 
 For auld lang syne. 
 
 And surely ye '11 be your pint-stoup, 
 
 And surely I'll be mine ; 
 And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet 
 
 For auld lang syne. 
 
 1 In this case also, the old song, though ohjectionable in subject, has kept its 
 gi'ound against Burna's efl'oit to supplant it.
 
 BANNOCKBURN. 39 
 
 Now, I suppose, I have tired your patience liiirly. You must, 
 after all is over, have a number of ballads, properly so called. Gill 
 Morice, Tranent Muir, Macplierson^s Fareivell, Battle of Sheriff- 
 miiir, or. We ran and they ran (I know the author of this charming- 
 ballad, and his history), Ilardtknute, 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 Comjylaint — 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 Miisic. 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. 
 
 BURXS TO MR TUOMSOX. 
 
 [8//0 Seplcmher 1793. 
 
 I AM happy, my dear sir, that my ode pleases you so much. Your 
 idea, ' honour's bed,' is, though a beautiful, a hackneyed idea;- so, if 
 you please, we will let the line stand as it is. I have altered the 
 
 song as follows : — 
 
 BANNOCKBURN. 
 
 BOBERT BRUCE'S ADDRESS TO HTS ARMY. 
 
 Scots, wlia hae wi' Wallace bled, 
 Scots, wham Bruce lias aftcn led; 
 Welcome to your gory bed ! 
 Or to glorious victory ! 
 
 Now's the day, and now's the hour; 
 See the front o' battle lour: 
 See approach proud Edward's power — 
 Edward ! chains and slavery ! 
 
 ' The tunc here alliulcj to Tiy Buma, ami which was inserted in the fifth volume 
 of .Tohnson, in connection with tlie t'hcrni and the Ufai; was obtaineil by Mr Ititson 
 from Mward AVillianiR, a WelKlinian, who, it is thought, had probably noted it 
 <lown from memory. The true air of tlie Hanks of Ilcluun, ditTerent from the above, 
 was subsequently discovered in a manuscript now in the Advocates' Librarj", and 
 has been printed in Stcnhouse's notes to Joktison's Museum. 
 
 * From this passage it appears that Mr Thomson, in his h'ttor of the 5th instant, 
 had objected not merely to the word ' welcome,' in one of the lines of the ode, but 
 to a word of more importance ; or perhaps the objection has altogether been 
 misprinted or transplanted. Many such liberties appear to have been taken by 
 the original editor of this correspondence.
 
 40 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Wha will be a traitor knave ? 
 Wlia can fill a coward's grave ? 
 Wha sac base as be a slave i 
 
 Traitor! coward! turn, and flee! 
 
 Wha for Scotland's king and law 
 Freedom's sword will strongly draw, 
 Freeman stand, or freeman fa', 
 Sodger ! hero ! on wi' me ! 
 
 By oppression's woes and pains ! 
 By your sons in servile chains! 
 We will drain our dearest veins, 
 But they shall be — shall be free! 
 
 Lay the proud usurpers low ! 
 Tyrants fall in every foe! 
 Liberty 's in every blow ! 
 Forward! let us do or die! 
 
 N.B. — I have borrowed the last stanza from the common stall 
 edition of Wallace — 
 
 ' A false usurper sinks in every foe, 
 And liberty returns with every blow.* 
 
 A couplet worthy of Homer. Yesterday, you liad enough of my 
 correspondence. The post goes, and my head aches miserably. One 
 comfort ! I suffer so much just now in this world, for last night's 
 joviality, that I shall escape scot-free for it in the world to come. 
 Amen! 
 
 MR THOMSON TO BURNS. 
 
 12tt Septeinler 1793. 
 
 A THOUSAND thanks to you, my dear sir, for your observations on 
 the list of my songs. I am happy to find your ideas so much in 
 unison with my own, respecting the generality of the airs, as well 
 as the verses. About some of them we differ, but there is no dis- 
 puting about hobby-horses. I shall not fail to profit by the remarks 
 you make, and to reconsider the whole with attention. 
 
 Dainty Davie must be sung two stanzas together, and then the 
 chorus ; 'tis the proper way. I agree with you, that there may be 
 something of pathos, or tenderness at least, in the air of Fee fain. 
 Father, when performed with feeling; but a tender cast may be 
 given almost to any lively air, if you sing it very slowly, expressively, 
 and with serious words. I am, however, clearly and invariably for 
 retaining the cheerful tunes joined to their own humorous verses.
 
 REVISION OF ' BANNOCKBURN.' 41 
 
 wherever tlie verses are passable. Eut the sweet song for Fee him, 
 Fa(her,v,-h\ch you began about the back of niidniglit, I will publish as 
 an additional one. Mr James Balfour, the king of good-fellows, and 
 the best singer of the lively Scottish ballads that ever existed, has 
 charmed thousands of companies with Fee him. Father, and with 
 Todlin Ilame also, to the old words, wliich never should be disunited 
 from either of these airs.' Some bacchanals I would wish to discard. 
 Fij! let's a' to the Bridal, for instance, is so coarse and vulgar, tiiat I 
 think it fit only to be sung in a contjjany of drunken colliers ; and 
 iSVrw ye my Father ? appears to me both indelicate and silly. 
 
 One word more witli regard to your heroic ode. I think, with 
 great deference to the poet, that a prudent general would avoid 
 saying anything to his soldiers which might tend to make death 
 more frightful than it is. ' CJory ' presents a disagreeable image to the 
 )nind; and to tell them, ' Welcome to your gory bed,' seems ratlier 
 a discouraging address, notwithstanding the alternative which follows. 
 I have shewn the song to three friends of excellent taste, and each 
 of them objected to this line, which emboldens me to use the freedom 
 of bringing it again under your notice. I would suggest — 
 
 Now prepare for honour's bed. 
 Or for glorious victory ! 
 
 BURNS TO Jill TIIOMSOX. 
 
 IVMC\ September 1703. 
 
 'Who shall decide wlien doctors disagree?' j\Iy ode pleases mo 
 so mucli, that I cannot alter it. Your proposed alterations would, in 
 my opinion, make it tame. I am exceedingly obliged to you for 
 juitting me on reconsidering it, as I think I have much improved it. 
 Instead of 'sodger! hero!' 1 will have it 'Caledoniiin! on wi' mc!' 
 
 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 altogetlier, and adhere to your 
 tirst intention of adopting Logan's verses.- 
 
 ' Sec an account of Mr Balfour in the editor's IVtuUlioiif of Ediiiburijh. 
 
 - ' The reader will have obBorved, that Burns adojaed the alterations proposed by 
 his friend and eorre.spondent in furnur instances, with gnat readine^s•, perhaps, 
 indeed, on all indillLient occasions. In tlie |)resint instance, htiwever, ho rejected 
 them, thou^'h repeatedly urj^ed with dctennined residiuion. With every refipect for 
 tlie judi<Hient of .Mr 'Ihnnison and his friends, we may be Batislioil that he did ho. 
 ile who, in prejiarin^; for an onKanenuiil, attemiits to withdraw his imagination 
 from images of d<ath, will probably have but iiu|icrfeet success, and is not fitted to 
 stand in tlic raulis of battle, where the libcrtiis of a kingdom arc at issue. Of such 
 men, the conquerors of Bannoekburn were not composid. Brucc's troops were 
 inured to war, and familiar with all its sulVerinKS and dangers. On the eve of that 
 memorable day, their spirits were, without doubt, wound \\\t to a jjitch of cnthusiiisni 
 suited to the occasion ; a pitch of enthusiasm, at which diintfer becomes attractive, 
 and the most terrific forms of death are no lon;,'er terrible, tjuch a strain of senti- 
 mcnt this heroic " welcome" may be sujiposid well calculated to elevate — to raisi- 
 their hearts high above fear, and to nerve their arms to tlie utnicEt pitch of mortal
 
 42 LIFE AM) WORKS OF BURKS. 
 
 I have finished my song to San: ye my Father? and in English, as 
 you will see. That there is a syllable too much for the expression 
 of the ah", is true ; but, allow me to say, that the mere di\-iduig 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. 
 
 The old vei-ses have merit, though unequal, and are popular. 3Iy 
 advice is to set the air to the old words, and let mine follow as 
 English verses. Here they are : — 
 
 TVHEEE ARE THE JOTS? 
 TcxE — Sate ye my Father 9 
 
 TTliere are the joys I have met in the morning, 
 
 That danced to the lark's early song \ 
 AVhere is the peace that awaited my wandering, 
 
 At evening the wild- woods among? 
 
 No more a-winding the course of von river. 
 
 And marking sweet flowerets so fair ; 
 Xo more I trace the light footsteps of pleasure. 
 
 But sorrow and sad sishing: care. 
 
 Is it that summer's forsaken our valleys, 
 
 And grim, surlv winter is near ? 
 No, no ! the bees humming round the gay roses, 
 
 Proclaim it the pride of the year. 
 
 Fain would I hide what I feai- to discover, 
 
 Yet long, long too well have I known, 
 All that has caused this wreck in my bosom 
 
 Is Jenny, fair Jenny alone. 
 
 exertion. These observations might be illustrated and supported by a reference to 
 the martial poetry of all nations, from the spirit-stirring strains of Tyrta?us, to the 
 war-song of General Wolfe. Mr Thomson's observation, that ' • ' Welcome to your gon- 
 bed' is a discouraging address," seems not sufficiently considered. Perhaps, indeed, 
 it may be admitted, that the term gory is somewhat objectionable, not on account 
 of its presenting a frightful but a disagreeable image to the mind. But a great poet, 
 uttering his conceptions on an interesting occasion, seeks ahvays to present a 
 picture that is vivid, and is uniformly disposed to sacrifice the delicacies of taste on 
 the altar of the imagination. And it is the privilege of superior genius, by pro- 
 ducing a new association, to elevate expressions that were originally low, and thus 
 to triimiph over the deficiencies of language. In how many instances might this 
 be exemplified from the works of our immortal Shakspeare ! — 
 
 " 'Who -vfovld. fardels bear. 
 To groan and sweat under a weary life — 
 When he himself might his quietus make 
 With a bare bodkin?" 
 
 It were easy to enlarge, but to suggest such reflections is probably sufficient.'— 
 
 CURBIE.
 
 'deluded swaix, the pleasuee,' &c. 43 
 
 Time cannot aid me, my griefs are immortal, 
 
 Xoti hope dare a comfort bestow: 
 Come, then, enamoured and fond of my anguisli. 
 
 Enjoyment I'll seek in my wo. 
 
 Adieu, my dear sir! the post goes, so I shall defer some other 
 remarks until more leisure. 
 
 BURNS TO MR THOMSOX. 
 
 Srpkmhcr 1793. 
 
 I HAVE been turning over some volumes of songs, to find verses 
 
 whose measures would suit the airs for which you have allotted me 
 
 to find English songs. 
 
 [Tlic poet here transcribed a piece of his ov.-n, not sufficiently decorous for 
 publication, besides a number of pieces from old song-books, in a few instances 
 touched up and improved by himself.] 
 
 For Muirland WiUle,yo\\ have, in Ramsay's Tea-table, an excellent 
 song, beginning, ^/;, vhi/ those Tears in Nelh/s eyes? As for The 
 C'ollier''s Dochter, take the following old bacchanal : — 
 
 DELUDED SAVAIX, THE PLEASURn. 
 Tune — The Collie)-' s Bonnie Lassie. 
 
 Deluded swain, the pleasure 
 
 The fickle Fair can give thee, 
 Is but a fairy treasure — 
 
 Thy hopes will soon deceive thee. 
 
 The billows on the ocean. 
 
 The breezes idly roaming, 
 The clouds' uncertain motion — 
 
 They arc but types of woman. 
 
 Oh ! art thou not ashamed 
 
 To dote upon a feature ? 
 If man thou wouldst be named. 
 
 Despise the silly creature. 
 
 Go, find an honest fellow; 
 
 Good claret set before thee : 
 Hold on till thou art mellow, 
 
 And then to bed in glory. 
 
 The faulty line in Logan Water I mend thus : 
 
 IIow can your flinty hearts enjoy 
 The widow's tears, the orphan's cry ? 
 
 The song otherwise will pass. As to M'Gregoria liua-Bidh, you 
 ' So in manuscript— hitherto always printed Kor.
 
 44 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 will see a song of mine to it, with a set of the air superior to yours, 
 in the Mitseum, vol. ii. p. 181. The song begins, 
 
 ' Raving winds around lior blowing.' 
 
 Your Irish airs are pretty, but they are downright Irish. If they 
 were like the Banhs of Banna, for instance, though really Irish, yet 
 in tlie Scottish taste, you might adopt them. Since you are so fond 
 of Irish music, what say you to twenty-five of them in an additional 
 number? We could easily find this quantity of charming airs: I 
 will take care that you shall not want songs ; and I assure you, that 
 you would find it tlie most saleable of the whole. If you do not 
 approve of Iloifs Wife, for the music's sake, we shall not insert it. 
 Deil tak the Wars is a charming song ; so is Sato ye raij Pe(igy ? There's 
 nae Luck ahout the House well deserves a place. I cannot say that 
 O'er the Hills and far awa strikes me as equal to your selection. 
 2^his is no my ain House is a great favourite-air of mine ; .and if you 
 will send me your set of it, I will task my Muse to her highest effort. 
 What is your opinion of / hae laidaHerriu' in said? I like it much. 
 Your Jacobite airs are pretty, and there are many others of the same 
 kind pretty ; but you have not room for them. Yon cannot, I think, 
 insert Fy ! let 's a' to the Bridal to any other words than its own. 
 
 What pleases me, as simple and naive, disgusts you as ludicrous 
 and low. For this reason, Fy ! gie me my Coygie, Sirs; Fyf let's a' 
 to the Bridal, with several others of that cast, are to me highly 
 pleasing ; while, Saw ye my Father, or saw ye my Mother ? delights 
 me with its descriptive simple pathos. Thus my song. Ken ye luhat 
 Meg o' the Mill has gotten ? pleases myself so much, that I cannot try 
 my hand at anotlier song to the air ; so I shall not attempt it. I 
 know you will laugh at all this ; but ' ilka man wears his belt his 
 ain gait.' 
 
 A public library had been established by subscription among 
 the citizens of Dumfries in September 1792, and Burns, ever 
 eager about books, had been from the iirst one of its supporters. 
 Defore it was a week old, he had presented to it a copy of his 
 poems. He does not seem to have been a regularly admitted 
 member till 5th March 179.3, when ' the committee, by a great 
 majority, resolved to offer to Mr Eobert Burns a share in the 
 library, free of any admission-money [10s. 6d.] and the quarterly 
 contributions [2s. 6d.] to this date, out of respect and esteem for 
 his abilities as a literary man ; and they directed the secretary to 
 make this known to Mr Burns as soon as possible, that the 
 application which they understood he was about to make in the 
 ordinary way might be anticipated.' This is a pleasing testimony 
 to Burns as a poet, but still more so to Burns as a citizen and 
 member of society. His name appears in September as a member 
 of committee — an honour assigned by vote of the members. 
 
 On tlie 30th of this month, the liberal poet bestov/ed four books
 
 FEARS ABOUT AX INSCEIPTION. 45 
 
 upon the library — namely, Hiwiphry Clinl-ci; Julia de Rouligni, 
 Knox's History of the- Reformation, and Delohne on the British 
 Constitution. The present intelligent librarian, ]\Ir M'Eobert, 
 reports, respecting the last-mentioned work, a cm-ious anecdote, 
 •which he learned directly from the late Provost Thomson of 
 Dumfries. Early in the morning after Delolme had been pre- 
 sented. Burns cam.e to Mr Thomson's bedside before he was up, 
 anxiously desiring to see the volume, as he feared lie had written 
 something upon it ' which might bring him into trouble.' On tlie 
 volume being shewn to him, he looked at the inscription wliich 
 he had written upon it the previous night, and, having procured 
 some paste, he pasted over it the tly-leaf in such a way as 
 completely to conceal it. 
 
 The gentleman who has been good enough to communicate 
 these particulars, adds: — ' I have seen the volume, Avhich is the 
 edition of 1790, neatly bound, with a portrait of the author at the 
 beginning. Some stains of ink ^line through the paper, indicating 
 that tliere is something written on tlie back of the engraving; but 
 tlie fly-leaf being pasted down upon it, there is nothing legible. 
 On holding the leaf up to the light, however, I distinctly read, iu 
 the undoubted manuscript of the poet, the following words : — 
 
 " Mr Burns presents this book to the Library, and begs they 
 will take it as a creed of British liberty — until they find a 
 better. K. B." 
 
 ' The words, " until they find a better," are evidently those 
 which the poet feared "might bring him into trouble." I'robably, 
 if the inscription had not been written on the back of the 
 engraving, he might have removed it altogether : at all events, 
 his anxiety to conceal it shews what trivial circumstances were in 
 those days suflicient to constitute a political offence.' Ay, and 
 to think of this happening in the same month witli the writing of 
 Scots, wha hue wi' Wallace bled! 
 
 Fully to appreciate the feelings of alarm under which Burns 
 acted on this occasion, it must be kept in view that tlie trial of 
 Mr Thomas Muir for sedition had taken place on tlie 30th of 
 August, when, in the evidence against him, ai)peared that of his 
 servant, Ann Fisher, to the effect that lie liad purcliased and 
 distributed certain copies of I'aine's Riijhts <f Man. The stress 
 laid upon tliat testimony by the crown-counsel liad excited much 
 remark. It might well appear to a government officer like Burns, 
 that liis own conduct at such a crisis ought to be in the liighest 
 degree circumspect. We do not know exactly tlie time when 
 the incident whidi we are about to relate took place, but it appears 
 likely to liave been nearly that of Muir's trial. Our poet one day
 
 4G LIFE AND AVORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 called upon his quondam neighbour, George Haugh, the black- 
 smith, and, handing him a copy of Paine's Common Sense and 
 Rights of Man, desired him to keep these books for him, as, if 
 they were found in his own house, he should be a ruined man. 
 Haugh readily accepted the trust, and the books remained in 
 possession of his family down to a recent period. 
 
 BURNS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 [29//0 October 1793. 
 
 Your last lettei", my dear Thomson, was indeed laden with heavy 
 news. Alas, poor Erskine ! i Tiie recollection that he was a coadjutor 
 in your publication, has till now scared me from writing to you, or 
 turning my thoughts on composing for you. 
 
 I am pleased that you are reconciled to the air of the Quako^s 
 Wife, though, by the by, an old Highland gentleman, and a deep 
 antiquarian, tells me it is a Gaelic air, and known by the name of 
 Leifjer wS choss. The following verses, I hope, will please you, as an 
 English song to the air. 
 
 [The poet here transcribed his sonij, beginning Thine I am, my faithful Fair, 
 already printed in volume iii. p. 106.] 
 
 Your objection to the English song I proposed for John Anderso7i, 
 nny jo, is certainly just. The following is by an old acquaintance of 
 mine, and I think has merit. The song was never in print, which I 
 think is so much in yoiu- favour. The more original good poetry 
 your collection contains, it certainly has so much the more merit : — 
 
 SONG. — BY GAVIN TUR.VBULL. 
 
 condescend, dear charming maid, 
 My ■nTetched state to view ; 
 
 A tender swain to love betrayed. 
 And sad despair, by you. 
 
 AVIiile here, all melancholy, 
 
 Jly passion I deplore, 
 Yet, urged by stern, resistless fate, 
 
 I love thee more and more. 
 
 1 heard of love, and with disdain 
 
 The urchin's power denied ; 
 I laughed at every lover's pain, 
 And mocked them when they sighed. 
 
 1 The Honourable A. Erskine, whose melancholy death Mr Thomson had com- 
 municated in an exccUent letter, which he has suppressed. — Currie. Mr Erskine 
 was found dro^\-ncd in the Firth of Forth, with liis pockets full of stones. The 
 distressing event was believed to have been the consequence of a habit of gambling.
 
 XYEICS OF GAVIN TUENBULL. 47 
 
 But how my state is altered ! 
 
 Those happy days are o'er ; 
 For all thy unrelenting hate, 
 
 I love thee more and more. 
 
 O yield, illustrious hcauty, yield ! 
 
 No longer let me mourn ; 
 And though vietorious in the field. 
 
 Thy captive do not scorn. 
 
 Let generous pity warm thee. 
 
 My wonted peace restore ; 
 And, gi-ateful, I shall bless thee still, 
 
 And love thee more and more. 
 
 The following address of TurnbuU's to the Nightingale, will suit as 
 au English song to the air, There loas a Lass, and she was Fair. By 
 the by, Turnbull has a great many songs in MS. which I can com- 
 mand, if you like his manner. Possibly, as he is an old friend of 
 mine, I may be prejudiced in his favour; but I like some of his 
 pieces very much. 
 
 THE NIGHTINGALE. 
 
 Thou sweetest minstrel of the gi'ovc. 
 
 That ever tried the ijlaintive strain, 
 Awake thy tender tale of love, 
 
 And soothe a poor forsaken swain. 
 
 For though the Muses deign to aid, 
 
 And teach him smoothly to complain ; 
 Yet Delia, charming, cruel maid. 
 
 Is deaf to her forsaken swain. 
 
 All day, with fashion's gaudy sons. 
 
 In sport she wanders o'er the plain : 
 Their tales approve, and still she shuns 
 
 The notes of her forsaken swain. 
 
 When evening shades obscure the sky. 
 
 And bring the solemn liours again. 
 Begin, sweet bird, thy melody. 
 
 And soothe a poor forsaken swain. 
 
 I shall just transcribe another of Turnbull's, which would go 
 charmingly to Letcie Qordon. 
 
 LAURA. 
 
 Let me wander where T will, 
 By shady wood, or winding rill ; 
 Where the sweetest May-bom flowers 
 Paint the meadows, deeic the bowers; 
 Wlicrc the linnet's early song 
 Echoes sweet the woo<is among: 
 Let nie wander where I will, 
 Laura haunts my fancy still.
 
 48 LIFE AND "VVOKKS OF BURNS. 
 
 If at rosy dawn I clioosc 
 
 To indulge the smiling muse ; 
 
 If I court some cool retreat. 
 
 To avoid the noontide heat; 
 
 If beneath the moon's pale ray, 
 
 Through unfrequented wilds I stray: 
 
 Let me wander where I will, 
 
 Laura haunts my fancy still. 
 
 When at night the drowsy god 
 Waves his sleep-compelling rod, 
 And to fancy's wakeful eyes 
 Bids celestial visions rise ; 
 While with boundless joy I rove 
 Through the fairy land of love : 
 Let me wander where I will, 
 Laura haunts my fancy still. 
 
 The rest of youi* letter I shall answer at some other opportunity. 
 
 Gavin TarnbuU was the author of a now forgotten volume, 
 published at Glasgow in 1788, under the title of Poetical Essays. 
 Burns's overestimate of his merits must be obvious from the 
 pieces selected. Our bard had in this respect a resemblance 
 to Sir "Walter Scott, so remarkable for the generosity of his 
 judgments on the works of his friends. 
 
 iJirROJiriu 
 
 ON MRS riddel's BIRTHDAY, 4tH NOVKMBER 1703. 
 
 Old Winter, with his frosty beard, 
 Thus once to Jove his prayer preferred : 
 
 * What have I done of all tlie year. 
 To bear this hated doom severe? 
 
 My cheerless suns no pleasure know ; 
 Night's horrid car drags, dreary slow ; 
 My dismal months no joys are crowning, 
 But spleeny English, hanging, drowning. 
 
 * Now, Jove, for once be mighty civil. 
 To counterbalance all this evil ; 
 Give me, and I've no more to say, 
 Give me Maria's natal-day! 
 
 Tliat brilHant gift sliall so enrich me, 
 S[)ring, summer, autumn, cannot matcli me.' 
 ''Tis done!' says Jove ; so ends my story. 
 And Winter once rejoiced in glory. 
 
 Though we have not many professed impromptus of Burns, it 
 is certain that he shewed a remarkable readiness in producing
 
 IMPROMPTUS. 49 
 
 such trifles. His surviving companions could relate many 
 instances of his giving forth epigrams and (what was a favourite 
 form of verse with him) epitaphs upon individuals, as well as 
 gi'aces before and after meat, almost instantaneously after being- 
 requested to do so. It seemed to them something like a miracle. 
 Most of the versicles published under these names -were produced 
 in this unpremeditated manner, and with no design beyond the 
 raising of a laugh for the moment. It is scarcely just, there- 
 fore, to criticise them as a department of his works. Many 
 others, we are assured, have been forgotten, or rest only in the 
 memory of a fevj of those few who remain to describe Burns from 
 personal knowledge. 
 
 As an example of his ready powers of versification : A Mr 
 Ladyman, an English commercial traveller, alighting one day at 
 Brownhill Inn, in Dumfriesshire, found that he should have to 
 <line with a company in wiiich was Robert Burns. The dinner, at 
 which the landlord, Bacon, presided, passed off well, the prmcipal 
 /Jish behig the well-known namesake of the host, who, it may be 
 remarked, appeared to be looked on as something of a superfluitj'' 
 at his own table. The man had retired for a few minutes to see 
 after a fresh supply of toddy, when some one called upon Burns 
 to give the young Englishman some proof of his being really 
 Burns the poet, by composing some verses on the spur of the 
 moment ; and it was with liardly an interval for reflection that the 
 bard pronounced as follows : — ^ 
 
 At Brownhill we always get dainty good cheer, 
 And plenty of bacon each day in tlie year ; 
 We've all things that's nice, and mostly in season, 
 But why always Bacon — come, give me a reason I ' 
 
 Another instance : Nicol and Masterton had come to spend a 
 week of tlieir vacation at Dumfries, for the purpose of enjoying 
 the society of tlieir friend Burns. The scene of the Peclc o' Ahmt 
 was renewed every evening in the Globe Tavern. Excepting, 
 indeed, that Burns attended to his duty in tlie forenoon, and that 
 AVillie and Allan took a rattling walk before dinner, to give tliem- 
 
 • From Mr Ladyman "s own report of the incident, iu 1R24. 
 
 'At the sale of the efiofts of Jlr ]{:ieon, IJmwnhiU liiii, after his death in 1825, 
 liis snufl-box, being found to bear the inscription — 
 
 Ronr. iiirnNs, 
 
 OKFICBR 
 
 OF 
 
 TIIK KXCISE 
 
 -- nUhouKh only a horn pl.ninly mounted witli silver, hronnht L.5. It was nndor- 
 Btood to have been presented hy lliirnK to liaeon, with whom Uc hud spent many 
 a merry niKht." — Ayrshire Movthli/ Ncics-tettcr, Ai>rU 5, 1S41. 
 
 VOL. IV. V
 
 50 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 selves an appetite, it might be said that the week was one entire 
 and perfect chrysolite of merry-making. One day, when they 
 were to dine at the Globe, they found, on coramg in at three, that 
 no dinner had been ordered. As Burns had taken on himself 
 this duty, the fault was his, and the other two gentlemen were 
 wroth with him accordingly. ' Just Uke him,' quoth Mrs Hyslop : 
 'ye might hae kent that he's ne'er to lippen to.' 'Well, but 
 can we have anything to eat ? You know we must dine some- 
 how.' Mrs Hyslop, or as Burns called her, Meg, proved pro- 
 pitious. There was a tup's-head m the pot for John and herself; 
 and, if they pleased, they might have the first of it. 
 
 Now a good tup's-head, with the accompanying trotters — seeing 
 that, in the Scottish cuisine, nothing is taken off but the wool — 
 is a dish which will amply satisfy six, or even eight persons ;i so it 
 was no contemptible resource for the hungry trio. When it had 
 been disposed on the board, ' Bums,' said Nicol, ' we fine you 
 for your neglect of arrangements : you give us somethmg new as a 
 gi-ace.' Our poet instantly, with appropriate gesture and tone, 
 said : 
 
 O Lord, when hunger pinches sore, 
 Do thou stand us in need, 
 
 And send us from thy bounteous store, 
 A tup or wether head ! Amen. 
 
 They fell to and enjoyed their fare prodigiously, leaving, how- 
 ever, a miraculously ample sufficiency for the host and hostess. 
 'Now, Bums, we've not done with you. We fine you again. 
 Eeturn thanks.' He as promptly said: 
 
 O Lord, since we have feasted tlras, 
 
 Which we so Httle merit, 
 Send Meg to take away the flesh, 
 
 And Jock to bring the spirit ! Amen.- 
 
 MR THOMSON TO BURNS. 
 
 ']lh November 1793. 
 My good Sir — After so long a silence, it gave me peculiar 
 pleasure to recognise your well-known hand, for I had begun to be 
 apprehensive that all was not weU with you. I am happy to find, 
 however, that your silence did not proceed from that cause, and that 
 you have got among the ballads once more. 
 
 1 The editor bogs to say, that he here speaks with due caution : he has been 
 one of a party of eight persons who dined heartily on a tup's-head wth its 
 accompanying broth. 
 
 2 From a gentleman who was intimate with Bums at that time.
 
 ' MY SPOUSE NANCY.' 61 
 
 I have to thank you for your English song to Leiger «i' clioss, 
 which I think extremely good, although the colouring is warm. 
 Your friend Mr Tumbull's songs have doubtless considerable merit ; 
 and as you have the command of his manuscripts, I hope you may 
 find out some that will answer as English songs, to the airs yet 
 improvided. 
 
 BURNS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 December 1793. 
 
 Tell me how you like the following verses to the tune of Mi/ Jo 
 Janet ? — 
 
 MY SPOUSE NANCY. 
 Tune — My Jo Jancl. 
 
 ' Husband, husband, cease your strife, 
 
 Nor longer idly rave, sir ; 
 Though I am your wedded wife, 
 
 Yet I am not your slave, sir.' 
 
 ' One of two must still obey, 
 
 Nancy, Nancy ; 
 Is it man, or woman, say, 
 
 My spouse, Nancy ?' 
 
 ' If 'tis still the lordly word. 
 
 Service and obedience ; 
 I'll desert my sovereign lord. 
 
 And so good-by allegiance!' 
 
 * Sad will I be, so bereft, 
 
 Nancy, Nancy ; 
 Yet I'll try to make a shift, 
 
 My spouse, Nancy.' 
 
 ' My poor heart then break it must, 
 
 My last liour I'm near it: 
 When you lay me in the dust, 
 
 TJiink, think how you will bear it.' 
 
 'I will hope and trust ux Ileaveji, 
 
 Nancy, Nancy ; 
 Strength to bear it will be given, 
 
 My spouse, Nancy.' 
 
 ' Well, sii-, from the silent dead. 
 
 Still I'll try to daunt you; 
 Ever round your midnight bed 
 
 Horrid sprites sliail haunt you.'
 
 62 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 'I'll wed another like my dear, 
 
 Nancy, Nancv ; 
 Then all hell will fly for fear, 
 
 My spouse, Nancy.' i 
 
 TO JOHN M'jIURDO, ESQ. 
 
 Dumfries, Deccmlcr 1793. 
 
 Sir — It is said that we take the greatest liberties with our irreatest 
 friends, and I pay myself a very high compliment in the manner in 
 which I am going to apply the remark. I have owed you money 
 longer than ever I owed it to any man. Here is Ker's account, and 
 here are six guineas ; and now, I don't owe a shilling to man — or 
 
 woman cither. But for these d ■ dirty, dog-eared little pages, I 
 
 had done myself the honour to have waited on you long ago. Inde- 
 pendent of the obligations your hospitality has laid me under, the 
 consciousness of your superiority in the rank of man and gentleman, 
 of itself was fully as much as I could ever make head against j but 
 to owe you money, too, was more than I could face. 
 
 I think I once mentioned something of a collection of Scots songs 
 I have for some years been making — I send you a perusal of what 
 I have got together. I could not conveniently spare them above five 
 or six days, and five or six glances of them will probably more than 
 sufiice you. A very few of them are my own. When you are tired 
 of them, please leave them with Mr Clint, of the King's Arms. 
 There is not another copy of the collection in the world; and I 
 should be sorry that any unfortunate negligence should deprive me 
 of what has cost me a good deal of pains. 11. B. 
 
 It seems far from unlikely that Mr M'Murdo was the friend to 
 whom Burns applied for the loan of a few guineas in summer, 
 and that, having discharged an account of Mr Ker against that 
 gentleman, he was now clearing off the balance of the debt by 
 the enclosure spoken of. 
 
 From an early period of his career, Burns had begun to dabble 
 in verse conceived in a strain of licentious humour. Into this taste 
 he was led by his enthusiastic love of all the forms of his country's 
 elder muse. With a strange contradiction to the grave and 
 religious character of the Scottish people, they possessed a 
 wonderful quantity of indecoroixs traditionary verse — not of an 
 inflammatory character, but simply expressive of a profound sense 
 
 ' Dr Ciirrie here added the song, Will thou he my Dearie? It doc3 not appear 
 in the original manuscript. The reader will find it afterwards in a different 
 connection.
 
 CLANDESTINE POEMS. 5$ 
 
 of the liulici'OiTS In connection -wltli the sexual afifections.' Such 
 things, usually kept from public view, oozed out in merry com- 
 panies such as Burns loved to frequent. Men laughed at them 
 for the moment, and, in the sober daylight of next morning, had 
 forgotten them. When our poet was particularly struck by any 
 free - spoken ditty of the old school, he would scribble it down, 
 and transfer it to a commonplace - book. In time, what he thus 
 collected, he was led to imitate, apparently for no other object 
 than tliat of amusing such rough good-fellows as himself in their 
 moments of conviviality. We see that, in establishing his 
 commonplace-book in spring 1787, he designed to commit to it 
 a few of his compositions of this class. He afterwards repeated 
 copies of them, which he would, with his usual heedlessness, allow 
 to pass into the hands of his friends. We now see from the above 
 letter to Mr M'Murdo, that he had at length transcribed them uito 
 a volume, which he would occasionally intrust to the keeping of 
 a friend. These facts have been the cause of much reproach to 
 liurns; and I do not say that his conduct was excusable. I am, 
 nevertheless, convinced that it originated mainly in nothing worse 
 than his strong sense of the ludicrous. Of this, I venture to 
 say, there could be no doubt entertained by tlie public, if it were 
 allowable to bring the proper evidence into court. It is also to be 
 admitted that, to heighten the effect, he was too apt to bring in a 
 dash of levity respecting Scriptural characters and incidents — a 
 kind of bad taste, however, which was likewise exemplified to his 
 hand by the common conversation of his countrymen; for certain 
 it is, that the piety of the old Scotch people did not exclude a very 
 considerable share of what may be called an unconscious profanity. 
 There is a jocular ballad of Burns, of the khid described, which he 
 exhibited to his friends as if designed for the press, witli a prose 
 note from the publisher : ' Courteous Reader — The following is 
 certainly the production of one of those licentious ungodly (too 
 much abounding in this our day) wretches, who take it as a com- 
 pliment to be called wicked, provided you allow them to be witty. 
 Pity it is, that while so many tar-barrels in the cotmtry are empty, 
 and so many gibbets untenanted, some example is not made of 
 
 ' ' In Rritnin, ami particularly in reading Scotland, you know that the library 
 of tlie iK.'asant is composed chiefly of such coarse fictions as the }ijploil-': vf (leimje 
 liuchanan, the historiuH oi John Cheap the Chapman, Leper the Tailor, Lothian Tom, 
 Paddy from Cork, the CreHman'$ Cnurtshiji, Simpk John ami his Tirtlee Misfortunes, 
 and such like; all of them saturated with indecency, an<l forming' ii library of 
 facetia-, which, in spite of the cant of the day about tlic moral and religious 
 character of the countiy, prove how much the national humour and i)cculiaritics 
 of the people have been and still are imbued with coarseness and indelicacy. 
 
 ' In Prussia, I am incline<l to tliiiik that the vulgar taste isdifterent; at least if 
 the selection which I made be taken as a criterion. It is clear that there is far less 
 love of the prurient and coarsely humorous about the Cierinan jx-'ople, than among 
 cither the I'rench or the liti\.\t\\.'—IStrann's Geiinatiij in 1831. 2 vols. IKfti.
 
 54 LIFE AND WORKS OF BUKNS. 
 
 these profligates.' Unluckily, Burns's collection of these facetiae, 
 including his otoi essays in the same walk, fell after his death into 
 the hands of one of those publishers who would sacrifice the 
 highest interests of humanity to put an additional penny into their 
 own purses ; and, to the lasting grief of all the friends of our poet, 
 they were allowed the honours of the press. The mean-looking 
 volume which resulted should be a warning to all honourable men 
 of letters against the slightest connection with clandestine litera- 
 ture, much more the degradation of contributing to it. It may 
 also serve as a curious study to those who take a delight in 
 estimating the possible varieties of intellectual mood and of moral 
 sensation of which our nature is capable. 
 
 With his usual anxiety to communicate his new compositions to 
 his friends, Burns sent copies of Bruce's Address to various 
 gentlemen of the liberal complexion of politics, whom he thought 
 likely to be pleased with such an effusion at such a crisis. The 
 three following letters were all employed as enclosures of copies 
 of that poem: — 
 
 TO CAPTAIN .1 
 
 Dumfries, 5t1i December 1793. 
 
 Sir — Heated as I was with wine yesternight, I was perhaps 
 rather seemingly impertinent in my anxious wish to be honoured 
 with your acquaintance. You will forgive it — it was the impulse of 
 heartfelt respect. ' He is the father of the Scottish county reform, 
 and is a man who does honour to the business, at the same time that 
 the business does honour to him,' said my worthy friend Glenriddel 
 to somebody by me, who was talking of your coming to this country 
 with your corps. ' Then,' I said, ' I have a woman's longing to take 
 him by the hand, and say to him : " Sir, I lionour you as a man to 
 whom the interests of humanity are dear, and as a patriot to whom 
 the rights of your country are sacred." ' 
 
 In times like these, sir, when our commoners are barely able, by 
 tlie glimmering of their o^vn twilight understandings, to scrawl a 
 frank, and when lords arc what gentlemen would be ashamed to be, 
 to whom shall a sinking country call for help ? To the independent 
 country gentleman. To him who has too deep a stake in his country 
 not to be in earnest for her welfare ; and who, in the honest pride 
 of man, can view with equal contempt the insolence of office and 
 the allurements of corruption. 
 
 I mentioned to you a Scots ode or song I had lately composed, 
 and which, I think, has some merit. Allow me to enclose it. When 
 I fall in with you at the theatre, I shall be glad to have your opinion 
 of it. Accept of it, sir, as a very humble, but most sincere tribute 
 of respect from a man who, dear as he prizes poetic fame, yet holds 
 dearer an independent mind. I have the honour to be, R. B. 
 
 1 Not unlikely, Captain Robertson of Lude.
 
 MES RIDDEL. 55 
 
 TO THE EARL OF EUCHAN. 
 
 Dumfries, Hth January 1794. 
 
 My Lord — Will your lordship allow me to present you with the 
 enclosed little composition of mine, as a small tribute of gratitude 
 for the acquaintance with which you have been pleased to honour 
 me ? Independent of my enthusiasm as a Scotsman, I have rarely 
 met with anything in history \vhich 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, 
 devotmg themselves to rescue their bleeding country, or perish 
 vni\\ her. 
 
 Liberty! thou art a prize truly and indeed invaluable, for never 
 canst thou be too dearly bought ! 
 
 If my little ode has the honour of your lordship's approbation, it 
 will gratify my highest ambition. I have the honour to be, &c. 
 
 E. B. 
 
 to captain miller, dalswinton. 
 
 Dear Sir — The following ode is on a subject which I know you 
 by no means regard with indiiFerence. O Liberty, 
 
 ' Thou mak'st the gloomy face of nature gay, 
 Giv'st beauty to the sun, and pleasure to the day.' 
 
 It does me much good to meet with a man whose honest bosom 
 glows with the generous enthusiasm, the heroic daring of liberty, 
 that I could not forbear sending you a composition of my own on 
 the subject, which I really think is in my ])est manner. I have the 
 honour to be, dear sir, &c. R. B. 
 
 Mrs Riddel had gone to London in the April of 1793, and was 
 many months absent. There, during tlie gay season, ' I did,' 
 says she, ' so many things that I ought not to liave done, and 
 left undone so many things that I ought to have done, that at the 
 expiration of that time, there was no health left in me.' While 
 residing there, she had to part with her husband, suddenly 
 called away to attend to his affairs in the West Indies ; and now 
 she lived alone at Woodley Park. To quote her letter to Smellie^ 
 (November 1793) : ' I am as chaste and domestic, but perhaps not 
 quite so industrious, as Penelope in the absence of her hero. I 
 resemble rather the lilies of the field : " I toil not, neither do I 
 
 ' Memoirs of William Smcllic, by Uobcrt Kerr, 2 vols. 8vo.
 
 56 LIFE AND WOKKS OF BURNS. 
 
 spin ; " but I read, I write, I sing, and contrive to wile away the 
 time as pleasantly as any sociable being like myself can do in a 
 
 state of solitude, and in some measure of mortification I 
 
 shall,' she adds, ' write you more fully in my next, as to the nature 
 of my present pursuits, and how I found Burns and the other friends 
 here you left behind, for they were not few, I assure you.' In 
 such circumstances, she must have of course been unable to 
 indulge in the society of Burns as a visitor of her own. She 
 seems, however, to have desired his company on the occasion of 
 her attending a play at Dumfries. 
 
 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 wliicli greeted my 
 view was one of those lobster-coated puppies, sitting like another 
 dragon, guarding tlie Hesperian fruit. On the conditions and capi- 
 tulations you so obbgingly 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 inde- 
 pendent mind ; and to assure you that I am, thou most amiable and 
 most accompHslied of thy sex, with the most respectful esteem and 
 fervent regard, thine, &c. R. B. 
 
 A regiment lay at this time in Dumfries, and the officers were, 
 as usual, full of the loyalty of the day. Burns, dissenting from 
 much that was involved in the loyalty, dislilced those by whom it 
 was expressed. He also conceived himself to have just reason 
 for believing, that it was in consequence of reports from these 
 gentlemen that his good affection to the government had been 
 called in question by the Board of Excise. Mrs Basil Montagu, 
 who, as Miss Benson, was now visiting Miss Craik of Ai'bigland, 
 long after stated to Allan Cunningham, that she was at a ball 
 given by the Caledonian Hunt, and had stood up as the partner 
 of a young officer, when the whisper of ' There 's Burns ! ' ran 
 through the assembly. ' I looked round,' says the lady, ' and 
 there he was — his bright dark eyes full upon me. I shall never 
 forget that look ; it was one that gave me no pleasure. He soon 
 loft the meeting. I saw him next day. He would have passed 
 me ; but I spoke. I took his arm and said: " Come, you must see
 
 QUARREL WITH AN OFFICER. 57 
 
 me home." " Gladly, madam," said he ; " but I '11 not go down the 
 pkuistones, lest I have to share your company with some of those 
 epauletted puijpies with whom the street is full." ' 
 
 While burning with this ill-suppressed rage, he was so unfor- 
 tunate as one evening to give an officer an advantage over him, 
 through an imprudent escape of sentiment. It was in a private 
 company, where the wine had, in the fashion of the day, circulated 
 much too freely and too long. Burns gave as a toast : ' May our 
 success in the present war be equal to the justice of our cause,' 
 which Captain interpreted as a condemnation of the govern- 
 ment, and took up warmly. We learn from a letter written by 
 Burns next morning something of what passed on this occasion, 
 and see with grief and shame the liumiliation to whicli he was 
 reduced by the fears engendered by liis sense of dependence : 
 
 TO SIR SAMUEL CLARKE, JUN., DUMFRIES. 
 
 Sumlatj morninij. 
 Dear Sir — I was, I know, drunk last night, but I am sober this 
 morning. From the expressions Capt. - — made use of to me, had 
 I had nobody's welfare to care for but my own, wc should certainly 
 have come, according to the manners of the world, to the necessity 
 of murdering one another about the business. The words were such 
 as, generally, I l)elieve, end in a brace of pistols ; but I am still 
 pleased to think tliat I did not ruin the peace and welfare of a wife 
 and family of children in a drunken squabble. Further, you know 
 that the report of certain political o})inions being mine, has already 
 once before brought me to the brink of destruction. I dread lest last 
 night's business may be misrepresented in the same way. You, L 
 beg, will take care to prevent it. I tax your wish for 3Irs Burns's 
 welfare with the task of waiting, as soon as possible, on every 
 gcntlenuui who was present, and state this to him, and, as you jilease, 
 shew him this letter. What, after all, was the obnoxious toast { 
 ' May our success in the present war bo equal to the justice of our 
 cause' — a toast that the most outrageous frenzy of loyalty cainiot 
 object to. I request and beg that this niorniuij; you will wait on the 
 jiarties present at tlie foolish dispute. I shall otdy add, that I am 
 
 truly sorry that a man who stood so high in my estinuition as Mr 
 
 sliould use me in the manner in which I conceive he has done. 
 
 i{. 1?. 
 
 They who have rightly read the life and character of Burns, 
 will l)e able in some degree to appreciate tlie licart-throes witli 
 which he would indite a letter like the above. 
 
 The evil primarily lay in intemperance. Burns appears at this 
 time to have ])ecome involved to an unusual degree in society 
 where the bottle was pusiied too hard. It is to be feared tluit his
 
 68 LIFE AND WORKS OP BURNS. 
 
 friends at Woodley Park were among those -who took the lead in 
 thus seducing him from the quiet domestic life in which it was his 
 duty, and would otherwise have been his pleasure, to dwell. Mr 
 Walter Riddel had now returned from the West Indies, and at 
 such a time it was but natural that he should have his friends 
 about him, and the ever brilliant bard amongst the number. But, 
 unfortunately, at his board wine flowed in such profusion, that 
 the guests were deprived of reason and memory alike. A few 
 months after this time, the host was brought to the brink of 
 a duel on accoimt of some offensive expressions used by an 
 English gentleman named Baker, who, having left Dumfries next 
 day, was astonished some time after to receive a hostile visit from 
 Mr Riddel, he having not the slightest recollection of anything 
 which had taken place. ^ This may in some degree prepare the 
 reader to hear of Burns being present at a symposium in Woodley 
 Park, where the guests were raised to a pitch of Bacchanalian 
 fury. Our bard came into the drawing-room with the rest, and, 
 reason being off guard, he was guilty of an unheard-of act of 
 rudeness towai'ds the elegant hostess — a woman whom, in ^ his 
 ordinary moments, he regarded as a divinity not to be too rashly 
 approached. One can imagine frolics of this kind which may 
 involve no blame beyond that of the horrible drimkenness from 
 which, to appearance, they take their rise ; such was the pleading 
 of Burns himself next day, if the following be, as we conjecture, 
 the letter in which he sought the forgiveness of the lady: — 
 
 TO MRS RIDDEL. 
 
 Madam — I daresay 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 . 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 endm-e 
 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 Recollec- 
 tion — with a whip of scoi^pions, 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 
 
 ' Dumfries Journal, August 1794.
 
 QUARREL WITH MRS RIDDEL. 59 
 
 the men of the company I will make no apology. Your hushand, 
 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 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 forgive- 
 ness. 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 
 
 * * « * « 
 
 Eegret! 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, K. B. 
 
 He seems, at the same time, to have addressed a somewhat 
 less abject pleading to Mr Riddel — 
 
 The friend whom wild from wisdom's waj-. 
 
 The fumes of wine infuriate send 
 (Not moony madness more astray)^ 
 
 Who but deplores that hapless friend? 
 
 Mine was th' insensate frenzied part. 
 
 Ah ! why should I such scenes outlive ? — 
 
 Scenes so abhorrent to my heart ! 
 'Tis thine to pity and forgive. 
 
 One might have expected that such apologies from Bums would 
 have re-established his peace with Mr and Mrs Riddel, more 
 especially as the blame lay very mucli with the gentleman himself. 
 But, from whatever considerations, known or unknown, they were 
 unforgiving, though the breach did not become quite desperate 
 at first. 
 
 TO MRS BIDDEL. 
 
 Mada.ai — I return your commonplace-book. I have perused it 
 with much pleasure, and would liavo continued my criticisms, but as 
 it seems the critic has forfeited your esteem, his strictures must lose 
 their value.
 
 60 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 If it is true that * offences come only from the heart,' before you I m 
 am guiltless. To admire, esteem, and prize you, as the most accom- | 
 plished 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-has rigour may depress an 
 mioffending 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 v.'ish and prayer for your welfare, 
 peace, and bliss — I have the honour to be, madam, your most 
 devoted humble servant, R. B. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 I HAVE this moment got the song from Syme, and I am sorry to 
 see that he has spoilt it a good deal. It shall be a lesson to me how 
 I lend him anything again. 
 
 I have sent you Werter, truly happy to have any, the smallest 
 opportunity of obliging you. 
 
 'Tis true, madam, I saw you once since I was at Woodley; and 
 that once froze the very life-blood of my heart. Your reception of 
 me was such, that a wretch meeting the eye of his judge, about to 
 })ronounce sentence of death on him, could only have envied my 
 feelings and situation. But I hate the theme, and never more shall 
 write or speak on it. 
 
 One tiling I shall proudly say, that I can pay Mrs R. a higher 
 tribute of esteem, and appreciate her amiable worth more truly, 
 than any man whom I have seen approach her. R. B. 
 
 Time passed on, and tlie origincal breach was probably made 
 wider by the tittle-tattle of injudicious friends. Certain it is that 
 Burns became deeply incensed against this pair of ancient friends, 
 and stooped to express his rancour in strains truly unworthy of 
 at least his heart, if not his head. It was in the following 
 sti'ain that he lampooned the once admired Maria — a woman whom 
 lie had described as one of real talent, and who undoubtedly 
 was so.
 
 LAMPOONS ON MRS RIDDEL. CI 
 
 MONODV 
 
 ON A LADY FAMED FOR IIKR r APRICK. 
 
 How cold is that bosom -which folly once fired, 
 
 How pale is that cheek where the rouge lately glistened ! 
 
 How silent that tongue which the echoes oft tired, 
 How dull is that ear wkich to flattery so listened! 
 
 If sorrow and anguish their exit await, 
 
 From friendship and dearest affection removed ; 
 
 How doubly severer, Eliza, thy fate, 
 Tliou diedst unwept, as thou livcdst unloved. 
 
 Loves, Graces, and Virtues, I call not on yon ; 
 
 So shy, grave, and distant, ye shed not a tear : 
 But come, all ye offspring of Folly so true, 
 
 And flowers let us cull for Eliza's cold bier. 
 
 We '11 search through the garden for each silly flower. 
 We '11 roam through the forest for each idle weed ; 
 
 But chiefly the nettle, so typical, ^ower, 
 
 For none e'er approached her but rued tlic rash deed. 
 
 We'll sculpture the marble, we'll measure the lay ; 
 
 Hero Vanity strums on her idiot lyre; 
 There keen Indignation shall dart on her prey, 
 
 AVhich spurning Contempt shall redeem from his ire. 
 
 THK ElMTArit. 
 
 Here lies, now a prey to insulting neglect. 
 
 What once was a butterfly, gay in life's beam : 
 
 Want only of wisdom denied her respect, 
 AVant only of goodness denied her esteem. 
 
 At the head of tlie company of players at this tunc in Dum- 
 fries, was one named "NA'illiamson, who, like liurns, luul been 
 patronised to some extent by the gay Creole. Burns represente<l 
 this individual under the name of Esopus, addressing Maria 
 Riddel from a house of correction.
 
 62 LIFE AND WORKS ^F BURNS. 
 
 EPISTLE FROM ESOPUS TO MARIA .1 
 
 From those drear solitudes and frowsy cells, 
 Where infamy with sad repentance dwells ;2 
 Where turnkeys make the jealous portal fast, 
 And deal from iron hands the spare repast ; 
 Where truant 'prentices, yet young in sin, 
 Blush at the curious stranger peeping in ; 
 Where strumpets, relics of the drunken roar, 
 Resolve to drink, nay, half to whore no more ; 
 Where tiny thieves not destined yet to swing. 
 Beat hemp for others, riper for tlie string : 
 From these dire scenes my wretched lines I date, 
 To tell Maria her Esopiis' fate. 
 
 * Alas ! I feel I am no actor here !'3 
 
 'Tis real hangmen, real scourges hear ! 
 
 Prepare, Maria, for a horrid tale 
 
 Will turn thy very rouge to deadly pale ; 
 
 Will make thy hair, though erst from gipsy polled, 
 
 By barber woven, and by barber sold. 
 
 Though twisted smooth with Harry's nicest care, 
 
 Like hoary bristles to erect and stare. 
 
 The hero of the mimic scene, no more 
 
 I start in Hamlet, in Othello roar ; 
 
 Or haughty chieftain, 'mid the din of arms. 
 
 In Highland bonnet woo Malvina's charms ; 
 
 Wilde sans culottes stoop up the mountain high, 
 
 And steal from me Maria's prying eye. 
 
 Blest Highland bonnet ! once my proudest dress. 
 
 Now prouder still, Maria's temples press. 
 
 I see her wave thy towering plumes afar. 
 
 And call each coxcomb to the wordy war j 
 
 1 Whether the circumstances alluded to in the following advertisement of Mr 
 Williamson be connected with Burns's whim of representing the writer as in 
 confinement, is unknown to us : — 
 
 ' Theatre, Dumfries, Jan. 28, 1794. — Mr Williamson, after closing the theatrical 
 season, is extremely sorry to feel the necessity of obtruding himself upon the public 
 attention; but finding it has been very currently reported (to serve particular pur- 
 poses) that the performers have not been paid their stipulated salaries throughout 
 a long and a not most successful season, he respectfully begs the public to suspend 
 their belief of reports at once so false and so injurious to the credit of the undertaking. 
 Mr Williamson pledges himself to prove by the production of his accounts, to the 
 satisfaction of any person interested in the inquirj', that there is a considerable 
 balance due from the company to the last account of the theatre.'— JD««m/nc« Weekly 
 Journal. 
 
 2 to these dread solitudes and awful cells. 
 Where heavenly pensive contemplation dwells, &c. 
 
 Epistle of Eloisa to Ahclard. 
 
 2 Lj-ttlcton's Prologue to Thom.son's Coriolanus, spoken by Mr Quin.
 
 LAMPOONS ON MRS RIDDEL. G3 
 
 I see hei- face the first of Ireland's sons,i 
 
 And even out-Irish his Hibernian bronze ; 
 
 The crafty colonel - leaves the tartaned lines 
 
 For other wai's, where he a hero shines ; 
 
 The hopeful youth, m Scottish senate bred, 
 
 Who owns a Bushby's heart without the head, 
 
 Comes 'mid a string of coxcombs to display, 
 
 That veni, vidi, vici, is his way ; 
 
 The shrinking bard adown an alley skulks, 
 
 And dreads a meeting worse than Woolwich hulks ; 
 
 Though there, his heresies in church and state 
 
 Might well award him Muir and Palmer's fate : 
 
 Still she undaunted reels and rattles on, 
 
 And dares the public like a noontide sun. 
 
 (What scandal called Maria's jaunty stagger, 
 
 The ricket reeling of a crooked swagger ; 
 
 Whose spleen e'en worse than Bums's venom when 
 
 He dips in gall unmixed his eager pen — 
 
 And pours his vengeance in the burning line. 
 
 Who christened thus Maria's lyre divine ; 
 
 The idiot strum of vanity bemused, 
 
 And even th' abuse of poesy abused ; 
 
 Who called her verse a parish workhouse, made 
 
 For motley, foundling fancies, stolen or strayed ?) 
 
 A workhouse ! ah, that sound awakes my woes. 
 
 And pillows on the thorn my racked repose ! 
 
 In durance vile here must I wake and Aveep, 
 
 And all my frowsy couch in sorrow steep ! 
 
 That straw where many a rogue has lain of yore, 
 
 And vermined gipsies littered heretofore. 
 
 Why Lonsdale thus, thy wrath on vagrants pour; 
 
 Must earth no rascal save thyself endure ? 
 
 Must thou alone in guilt immortal swell, 
 
 And make a vast monopoly of hell ? 
 
 Thou know'st the virtues cannot hate thee worse; 
 
 The vices also, must they club their curse ? 
 
 Or must no tiny sin to others fall, 
 
 Because thy guilt's supreme enough for all ? 
 
 Maria, send me, too, thy griefs and cares ; 
 In all of thee sure thy Esopus shares. 
 As thou at all mankind tlie Hag unfurls, 
 Who on my fair one satire's vengeance hurls ? 
 Who calls thee pert, affected, vain coquette, 
 A wit in folly, and a fool in wit ? 
 
 1 Oillcspic. 
 
 - Cdloni;! M'Dowall of Logan, noted as the Lothario of hie county during many 
 long years.
 
 €4 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Who says that fool alone is not thy due, 
 
 And quotes thy treacheries to prove it true ? 
 
 Our force united on thy foes we'll turn, 
 
 And dare tlie war with all of woman born : 
 
 For who can write and speak as thou and I ? 
 
 My periods that deciphering defy, 
 
 And thy still matchless tongue that conquers all reply. 
 
 Burns alludes in this poem to a family which in his day occupied 
 a conspicuous place in Dumfriesshire society. Mr John Bushby 
 had risen from the humblest circumstances to wealth and importance, 
 first as a solicitor, and afterwards as a banker. There was a vivid 
 genius about him which rendered him almost as remarkable a 
 person as Burns himself; but it had taken a purely worldly direc- 
 tion. Still conducting business in Dumfries, he had established 
 himself as a country gentleman at Tinwald Downs, where he saw 
 a great deal of company, and among others, often had the poet 
 as his guest. It may be mentioned as a somewhat curious, but 
 undoubted fact, that Burns did not always dine Avith the other 
 gentlemen assembled in Mr Bushby's halls. There was a middle- 
 aged lady, reduced from better circumstances, who exercised the 
 duties of a housekeeper. In her room down stairs, Burns would 
 dine by his own choice, and tinally join the gentlemen in the 
 dining-room after the ladies had retired. A lady nearly related 
 to Mr Bushby, and who was occasionally in his house at that 
 time, remembers that Burns was less a favourite with the 
 ladies than the gentlemen. In the drawing-room one evening, 
 when some of the elder ladies spoke censoriously of some points 
 in his character, one young lady present ventured a pleading 
 in his defence. Our bard, hearing of the circumstance, sent 
 her a poetical address a few days afterwards, which she prized 
 as a fine effusion of his genius, but which has unfortunately 
 been lost. 
 
 A coldness in time took place between Burns and Bushby, and, 
 according to our informant's recollection, it proceeded from a very- 
 trivial circumstance. At dinner one day, the pudding had been 
 brought to table very hot. Mr Bushby, who had tasted and 
 smarted from it — remembering perhaps the boy's trick in similar 
 circumstances, which is the subject of a well-known story — recom- 
 mended his wife to admonish the cook not to allow the pudding 
 to become so cold in future before being sent up stairs. The 
 l)ard, engaged in conversation, and not attending particularly to 
 what was going on, fell into the snare, and in full confidence 
 as to the temperature of the pudding, took a large piece into his 
 mouth. The pain he expressed, as he desperately endeavoured
 
 AFFECTIXG LETTER TO MR CUNNINGnAM. 65 
 
 to swallow the scalding morsel, amused Mr Busliby exceedingly; 
 but our poet was far from relishing the joke. Tantaene animis. 
 So commenced a dislike on Burns's part towards Mr Bushby, 
 which probably other circumstances increased, and of whicli 
 we have hereafter various symptoms. The person, however, 
 more particularly alluded to in Esopus's Lines, was Mr Bushby 
 Maitland, sou of John Bushby, then a young advocate, and 
 supposed to be by no means the equal of his father in point 
 of intellect. 
 
 The only excuse which can be presented for Burns with respect 
 to his pasquinades on Mrs Riddel, lies in the excessive bitterness 
 of his own feelings during this winter. His misery is expressed 
 in a letter which shews that he had better resources than 
 satire for the soothing of his vexed spirit, so far as soothing 
 was possible : — 
 
 TO MR ALEXANDER CUNNINGHAM. 
 
 •lolh Fibniari) 1T94. 
 Canst thou nunistcv to a mind diseased '. Canst thou speak peace 
 and rest to a soul tost on a sea of troubles, without one friendly 
 star to puide her course, and drcadino; tliat the next surge may 
 overwhelm her '. Canst thou give to a frame, tremblingly alive as 
 the tortures of suspense, the stability and hardihood of the rock 
 that braves the blast? If thou canst not do the least of these, 
 wliy wouldst thou disturb me in my miseries witli thy inquiries 
 after me ? 
 
 For these two months, I have not been able to lift a pen. 3Iy 
 constitution and frame were, ah orir/ine, blasted with a deep, incur- 
 able taint of hypochondria, which poisons my existence. Of late, a 
 number of domestic vexations, and some pecuniary share in tlie ruin 
 of these cursed times— losses which, though tritling, were yet what 
 I could ill bear— have so irritated me, tliat my feelings at times 
 could only bo 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 case would have 
 been charmed witii my sentiments and reasonings ; but as to myself, 
 I was like Judas Iscariot preaching tlie gospel : he might melt and 
 mould the hearts of those around hini, l)iit his own kept its native 
 incorrigibility. 
 
 Still, there are two great pillars that bear us up amid the wreck 
 of misfortune and misery. The oni; is composed of the different 
 modiftcations of a certain noltle, 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 
 scejitic may deny them, or tlie enthusiast disfigure them, are yet, 1 
 
 VOL. IV. E
 
 66 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 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 witli, 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, 
 Avhile 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 Itnow 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 %vitli 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 growing 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 
 lierself into the presence of a witnessing, judging, and approving 
 God. R. B. 
 
 ' They,' says Mr Lockhart, ' who have been told that Burns 
 was ever a degraded being — who have permitted themselves to 
 believe that his only consolations were those of " the opiate guilt 
 applies to gi'ief," will do well to pause over this noble letter, and 
 judge for themselves.'
 
 Johnson's fifth volume. 67 
 
 [to MR JAMES JOHNSON.] 
 
 Dumfries, IFebruaryfl 1794. 
 
 Mt dear Sir — I send you by my friend, Mr Wallace,^ forty-one 
 songs for your fifth volume. Mr Clarke has also a good many, if 
 he have not, with his usual indolence, ccist them at the cocks. I have 
 still a good parcel amongst my hands in scraps and fragments ; so 
 that I hope we will make shift with our last volume. 
 
 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 / have almost hung my harp on the willoiv-trees. 
 
 In the meantime, at your leisure, give a copy of the 3Iuseum to 
 my worthy friend, Mr Peter Hill, bookseller, to bind for me, inter- 
 leaved 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. Our friend Clarke owes me an account, somewhere about 
 one pound, which would go a good way in paying the expense. I 
 remember you once settled an account in this way before, and as 
 you still have money-matters to settle with him, you might accommo- 
 date us both My best compliments to your worthy old 
 
 father and your better-half. — Yours, R. Burns. 
 
 The songs undoubtedly and -wholly, or ahnost wholly, by Burns, 
 fiu-nlshed for Johnson's fifth volume, were as follow: — 
 
 THE LOVELY LASS OF INVERNESS. 
 TuNK — Lass of Innerncts. 
 
 The lovely lass o' Inverness, 
 
 Nac joy nor pleasure can she see ; 
 
 For e'en and morn slie cries, alas! 
 And aye the saut tear blin's her ec ; 
 
 ' sir Wallace was a young ' writer' in Dumfries. He deserves honourable mention 
 in the Life of Hums, on account of tlie kiiul zeal lie displayed, two or three years 
 aftd' tliis date, iii behalf of the bereaved family of the i)oet.
 
 •€8 LIFE A^D WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Drumossie Moor — Drumossie-day — 
 
 A Avaefu' day it was to me ! 
 For there I lost my father dear — 
 
 My father deai-, and brethren three. 
 
 Their winding-sheet the bhiidy clay, 
 
 Their graves are growing green to see ; 
 And by them lies the dearest lad 
 
 Tliat ever blest a woman's ee ! 
 Now wae to thee, thou cruel lord, 
 
 A bluidy man I trow thou be ; 
 For mony a heart thou hast made sair. 
 
 That ne'er did wrong to thine or thee. 
 
 [The first half stanza of this soa^ is from an older composition, %\Iucli Biiraa 
 here improved upon.] 
 
 A RKD, KED ROSE. 
 
 Tune — Graham's Strathapey. 
 
 O my hive's like a red, red rose. 
 That's newly sprung in .June: 
 
 my hive's like the melodic. 
 That's sweetly played in tunc. 
 
 As fair art thou, my bonnie 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 dea;-. 
 And tlie rocks melt wi' the sun ; 
 
 1 will luve thee still, my dear. 
 
 While tlie sands o' life shall nm. 
 And fare thee weel, my only luve ! 
 
 And fare thee weel awliilc ! 
 And I will come again, my luve. 
 
 Though it were ten thousand mile. 
 
 [This song was wTitten by Burns as an improvement upon a street ditty, which 
 Mr Peter Buchan says v/as composed by a Lieutenant Hinches, as a farewell to his 
 sweetheart, when on the eve of parting. Various versions of the original song 
 are given in Hogg and Motherwell's edition of Burns, including one from a stall 
 sheet containing six excellent now songs, which Mr Jlotherwell conjectures to 
 have been printed about 1770, and of which his copy bore these words on its title, 
 in a childish scrawl believed to he that of the Ayrsliire hard, ' Kobine Burns 
 aught this bulk and no other.' A version more elegant than any of these was 
 communicated to me by the late Mr Robert Hogg in 1823 :— 
 
 O fare thee well, my own true love, 
 
 O fare thee well awhile ; 
 But I 'II come back and sec thee, 1 jve, 
 
 Though I go ten thousand mile.
 
 A VISION. 69' 
 
 Ten thousand mile is a long, long way. 
 
 When from me you arc gone : 
 You leave me here to lament and sigh, 
 
 But you never can hear my moan. 
 
 Though all our friends should never be pleaBciJ — 
 
 They are grown so lofty and high, 
 1 never will break the vows I have made, 
 
 Till the stars fall from the sky. 
 
 Till the stars fall from the sky, my love. 
 
 And the rocks melt wi' the sun : 
 1 '11 aye prove true to thee, my love, 
 
 Till all these things are done. 
 
 Do you not sec yon turtle-dove 
 
 That sits on yonder tree ? 
 It is making its moan for the loss of its love, 
 
 As I shall do for thee. 
 
 Now fare thee well, my dearest love. 
 
 Till I return on shore ; 
 And thou shalt be my onl}' love. 
 
 Though it were for evermore. 
 
 It is wortli while thus to preserve one or two of the original songs on which 
 Bums improved, if only to mark tlie vastness of the improvement.] 
 
 A VISION. 
 
 As I stood by yon roofless tower, 
 
 Wiiere the wa'-flower scents tlie dewy air 
 Where th' howlet mourns in her ivy bower, 
 
 And tells the midnight moon her care; 
 
 The winds were laid, the air was still, 
 The stars they shot alaiif,' the sky; 
 
 The fox was howling on the hill, 
 
 And the distant echoing glens reply. 
 
 The stream, adown its hazelly path, 
 Was rushing by the ruined wa's, 
 
 Hasting to join the sweeping Nitli,! 
 Whose distant roaring swells and fa's. 
 
 The cauld blue north was streaming forth 
 Her lights, wi' hissing eerie din ; 
 
 Alliort the lift they start and shift, 
 i^ike fortune's favours, tint as win. 
 
 ' y\tr. — To join yon river on the Strath.
 
 70 LIFE AND WORKS OP BURNS. 
 
 By heedless chance I turned mine eyes, 
 
 And, by the moonbeam, shook to see 
 A stern and stalwart ghaist arise, 
 
 Attired as minstrels wont to be.^ 
 
 Had I a statue been o' stane, 
 
 His darin' look had daunted me ; 
 And on his bonnet graved was plain, 
 
 The sacred posy — ' Libertie ! ' 
 
 And frae his harp sic strains did flow, 
 
 Might roused the slumb'ring dead to hear ; 
 
 But oh ! it was a tale of wo, 
 As ever met a Briton's ear. 
 
 He sang wi' joy the former day, 
 
 He weeping wailed his latter times ; 
 But what he said it was nae play — 
 
 I winna ventur't in my rhymes. 
 
 A favourite walk of Burns during his residence in Dumfries was 
 one along the right bank of the river above the town, terminating 
 at the ruins of Lincluden Abbey and Church, which occupy a 
 romantic situation on a piece of rising - ground in the angle 
 at the junction of the Cluden Water with the Nith. These rains 
 include many fine fragments of ancient decorative architecture, 
 and are enshrined in a natural scene of the utmost beauty. 
 Burns, according to his eldest son, often mused amidst the Lin- 
 cluden ruins. There is one position on a little mount, to the 
 south of the church, where a couple of landscapes of witching 
 loveliness are obtained, set, as it were, in two of the windows of 
 the ancient building. It was probably the 'Calvary' of the 
 ancient church precinct. This the younger Bums remembers to 
 have been a favourite resting-place of the poet. 
 
 Such is the locality of the grand and thrilling ode, entitled A 
 Vision, in which he hints — for more than a hint could not be 
 ventured upon — his sense of the degi-adation of the ancient 
 manly spirit of his country under the conservative terrors of 
 the passing era. 
 
 1 Piij'.— Now looking over firth and fauld 
 
 Her horn the pale-faced Cynthia reared; 
 When, lo ! in form of minstrel auld, 
 A stern and stalwart ghaist appeared.
 
 SONGS IN JOHNSON'S FIFTH VOLUME. 
 
 71 
 
 OUT OVER THE FORTH. 
 IvyE— Charlie Goi'don's welcome Hume. 
 
 Out over the Forth I look to the north, 
 
 But what is the north and its Highlands to me ? 
 
 The south nor the east gie ease to my breast, 
 The far foreign land, or the wild rolling sea. 
 
 But I look to the west, when I gae to rest. 
 
 That happy my dreams and my slumbers may be ; 
 
 For far in the west lives he I loe best, 
 The lad that is dear to my babie and me. 
 
 LOUIS, WHAT RECK I BY THEE? 
 Tune— iOM!*, tehat reck I hy thee ? 
 
 Louis, what reck I by thee. 
 
 Or Geordie on his ocean ? 
 Dyvor, beggar loons to me — bankrupt 
 
 I reign in Jeanie's bosom. 
 
 Let her crown my love her law, 
 
 And in her breast enthrone me : 
 Kings and nations — swith, awa ! 
 
 Reif randies, I disown ye ! thief-beggars 
 
 somebody! 
 
 Tune— For the Sake of Somebody. 
 
 My heart is sair — I dare na tell — 
 My heart is sair for somebody ; 
 I could wake a winter night 
 For the sake of 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, » 
 
 sweetly smile on somebody ! 
 Frac ilka danger keep him free. 
 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 ! 
 [' Tl>c wliolo of this Hong was wTittcn hy Rums, except the thinl an<l fourth linos 
 of stanza first, wliith are talicn from Uamsay'a song to the same tune.'— 5<«iAoiw<r.]
 
 72 IJFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 WILT THOU RE MY DEARIE ? 
 
 Air — The Sulor's Dochlcr. 
 
 Wilt thou be my dearie ? 
 
 AVlien sorrow wrings thy gentle heart, 
 
 Wilt thou let me cheer thee ? 
 
 By the treasure of my soul, 
 
 That's the love I bear thee ! 
 
 I swear and vow that only tliou 
 
 Shall ever be my dearie. 
 
 Only thou, I swear and vow, 
 
 Shall ever be my dearie. 
 
 Lassie, say thou loes mo ; 
 Or if thou wilt na be my ain, 
 Say na thou 'It refuse me : 
 If it winna, canna be, 
 Thou, for thine may choose nie. 
 Let me, lassie, quickly die. 
 Trusting that thou loes me. 
 Lassie, let me quickly die, 
 Trusting that thou loes me. 
 
 LOVELY POLLY STEWART. 
 Tlne— yt-'ra welcome, Charlie SUaavt. 
 
 -O lovely Tolly Stewart ! 
 
 O charming Polly Stewart ! 
 There's not a Hewer that blooms in Slay 
 
 Q'hat's half so fair as thou art. 
 The flower it blaws, it fades aud fa's. 
 
 And art can ne'er renew it ; 
 But worth and truth eternal youth 
 
 Will give to Tolly Stewart." 
 
 May he whose arms shall fauld thy charms, 
 
 Tossess a leal and true heart ; 
 To him be given to ken the heaven 
 
 He gi'asps in Polly Stewart. 
 lovely Tolly Stewart ! 
 
 charming Tolly Stewart ! 
 There's ne'er a flower that blooms in May 
 
 That's half so sweet as thou art. 
 
 [Polly Stewart was the daughter of a certain Willie Stewart, on whom Burns 
 wrote some impromptu stanzas. She was reared in comfortable circumstances, 
 a few miles from Burns's residence at EUisland, and was married to a gentleman 
 of large property. Sad to relate of one for whom Burns promised that worth and 
 truth would give her eternal youth, this poor woman fell aside from the path of 
 honour, and sunk into the most humble circumstances in her old age. It was 
 stated a few years ago, that she lived as 'a poor lavender' (to use a phrase of 
 Barbour's) in Maxwelltown. She is believed to have subsequently died in France.]
 
 SONGS IN JOHNSON'S FIFTH VOLUME. 73 
 
 COUI-D AUGHT OF SOXO.l 
 TiXE— J« SiiliDg Day. 
 
 Could aught of song declare my pains, 
 
 Could artful numbers move thee, 
 The Muse should tell, in laboured strains, 
 
 O Mary, how I love thee ! 
 They who but feign a wounded heart 
 
 Jlay teach tlie lyre to languish ; 
 Ikit what avails the pride of art, 
 
 When wastes the soul with anguisli ? 
 
 Then let the sudden bursting sigh 
 
 The heart-felt pang discover ; 
 And in the keen, yet tender eye, 
 
 O read th' imploring lover ! 
 For well I know thy gentle mind 
 
 Disdains art's gay disguising; 
 Eeyond wiuit fancy e'er refined, 
 
 The voice of nature prizing. 
 
 WAE IS JIY HEART. 
 
 Tt'NK— irac is my Heart. 
 
 Wac is my heart, and the tear 's in nij' ee ; 
 Lang, laug, joy's been a stranger to me : 
 Forsaken and friendless, my burden I bcai", 
 And the sweet voice o' pity ne'er sounds in my car. 
 
 Love, thou hast pleasures, and deep hae I loved : 
 J^jve, thou hast sorrows, and sair hae I proved ; 
 liut this bniistd heart that now bleeds in my breast, 
 I can foel its throbbings will soon be at rest. 
 
 Oh, if I wore happy, where liappy I hae been, 
 Down by yon stream, and yon bonnie eastlc-grecn ; 
 For tlicre he is waud'ring, and musing on me, 
 Wha wad soon dry the tiai- frae I'hiliis's ee. 
 
 1 
 
 The air to wliicli Hums wrote fhia soup, was the production of Dr Saiiiuul 
 Howard, orpauist of St Cloinciit's Danes in the middle of the last century. It 
 was composed for Kanisay's sonn, At Setting Day and Hiring Morn, and in this 
 connection attained some popularity.
 
 74 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 here's to thy health, my BONNIE LASS. 
 Tvv^—Laffgan Burn. 
 
 Here's to thy health, my bonnie lass, 
 
 Guid-night, and joy be wi' thee ; 
 I'll come nae mair to thy bower-door, 
 
 To tell thee that I loe thee. 
 
 dinna think, my pretty pink, 
 But I can live without thee : 
 
 1 vow and swear I dinna care 
 How lang ye look about ye. 
 
 Thou'rt aye sae free informing me 
 
 Thou hast nae mind to marry ; 
 I'll be as free informing thee 
 
 Nae time hae I to tarry. 
 I ken thy friends try ilka means, 
 
 Frae wedlock to delay thee ; 
 Depending on some higher chance — 
 
 But fortune may betray thee. 
 
 I ken they scorn my low estate, 
 
 But that does never grieve me ; 
 But I'm as free as any he, 
 
 Sma' siller will relieve me. 
 I count my health my greatest wealth, 
 
 Sae long as I'll enjoy it : 
 I'll fear nae scant, I'll bode nao want, 
 
 As lang's I get employment. 
 
 But far-off fowls hae feathers fair, 
 
 And aye until ye try them : 
 Though they seem fair, still have a care. 
 
 They may prove waur than I am. 
 But at twal at night, when the moon shines bright, 
 
 My dear, I '11 come and see thee ; 
 For the man that loes his mistress weel, 
 
 Nae travel makes him weary. 
 
 Of the songs which appeared in Johnson's fifth volume, there 
 are others which Burns had to some extent amended as they 
 passed through his hands; but as the songs themselves are of no 
 great merit, and the improvements by Burns make no conspicuous 
 appearance amidst their rough, and often indelicate stanzas, they 
 are postponed to a subordinate place in this work. 
 
 After all, the fifth volume of Johnson did not apparently 
 exhaust the contributions of the poet, for in a sixth, published in 
 1803, there are a few pieces undoubtedly by him.
 
 SONGS IN JOHNSON'S FIFTH VOLUME. 75 
 
 ANNA, THY CHARMS. 
 Tune— Bonnie Mary. 
 
 Anna, thy charms my Ijosom fire, 
 
 And waste my soul with care ; 
 But, ah ! how bootless to admire. 
 
 When fated to despair! 
 Yet in thy presence, lovely fair. 
 
 To hope may be forgiven ; 
 For sure 'twere impious to despair. 
 
 So much in sight of heaven. 
 
 MY lady's gown, there's gairs upon't. 
 
 * -it * * 
 
 Out ower yon muir, out ower yon moss, 
 Whare gor-cocks through the heather pass, 
 There wons auld Colin's bonnie lass — 
 A lily in a wilderness. 
 
 Sae sweetly move her gentle limbs, 
 Like music notes o' lovers' hymns : 
 The diamond dew is her een sae blue, 
 
 Where laughing love sae wanton swims. 
 
 » * * * 
 
 jockey's taen the parting kiss. 
 
 Tune — Jockey 's taen the parting Kiss. 
 
 Jockey's taen the parting kiss. 
 
 O'er the mountains he is gane ; 
 And with him is a' my bliss, 
 
 Nought but griefs with me remain. 
 Spare my luvc, ye winds that blaw, 
 
 Flashy sleets and beating rain ! 
 Spare my luve, thou feathery snaw, 
 
 Drifting o'er the frozen plain. 
 
 When the shades of evening crcc]) 
 O'er the day's fair, gladsome ee, 
 Sound and safely may he sleep, 
 
 Sweetly blitlio his waukcning be I 
 lie will tliink on her lie loves. 
 
 Fondly he'll repeat her name; 
 For where'er he distant roves. 
 
 Jockey 's heart is still at hame.
 
 7G LIFE AND WORKS OF TURNS. 
 
 O LAY THY LOOF IN MINE, LASS. 
 
 TuME — Conlwaincfs' March. 
 
 O lay thy loof in mine, lass, paim 
 
 In mine, lass, in mine, lass ; 
 And swear on thy white hand, lass, 
 Tliafc tliou wilt he my ain. 
 
 A slave to love's unbounded sway, 
 lie aft lias wrought me meikle wae ; 
 But now he is my deadly fae, 
 Unless thou be my ain. 
 
 There's mony a lass has broke my rest, 
 That for a blink I hae loed best; -n instant 
 
 But thou art queen within my breast, 
 For ever to remain. 
 
 O lay thy loof in mine, lass, 
 In mine, lass, in mine, lass ; 
 And swear on tliy white hand, lass, 
 That thou wilt be my ain. 
 
 o mally's meek, mally's sweet. 
 
 O Mally's meek, Mally's sweet, 
 
 Mally's modest and discreet, 
 Mally's rare, Mally's fair, 
 
 Mally's every way complete. 
 
 As I was walking up the street, ' 
 A barefit maid I chanced to meet ; 
 
 But oil, the i"oad was very hard 
 For that fair maiden's tender feet. 
 
 It were mair meet that those fine feet 
 Were weel laced up in silken shoon ; 
 
 And 'twere more fit that she should sit 
 Within yon chariot gilt aboon. 
 
 Iler yellow hair, beyond compare, 
 
 Comes trinkling down her swan-like neck ; 
 
 And her two eyes, like stars in skies, 
 Would keep a sinlcing ship frae wreck. 
 
 It is not of course to be supposed tliat Burns was to mend his 
 breach with the family at Woodley Park by lampooning the lady.
 
 DEATH OF GLENRIDDEL. 77 
 
 Nor could the scandal of this quarrel, and of its sequel of coarse 
 uivectives, be expected to extenuate the more general odium in 
 ■which politics had involved him. Nor did the evil stop here. 
 Very naturally, the good couple at Carse, by whose fireside he 
 had spent so many happy evenings, took part with their friends 
 at Woodley; and most sad it is to relate, that ' the worthy Glen- 
 riddel, deep read in old coins,' adopted sentiments of reprobation 
 and aversion towards the Bard of the "Wliistle. It camiot be; 
 doubted that this was a feeling which would pei'vade all within 
 the Riddel influence, as well as many unconcerned persons who. 
 having to judge between a pretty woman of fashion, and clever 
 Mr Burns — once a ploughman, and now an exciseman — would not 
 perhaps take much trouble to ascertain the extent to which the 
 lady had given provocation to so ungallant a muse. 
 
 In April, the Laird of Carsc died, um-econciled to our poet, who, 
 remembering only his worth and former kindness, immediately 
 penned an elegiac sonnet on the sad event. This must be admitted 
 as a magnanimous act on Burns's part, under the circumstances ; 
 and its merit is the greater, that it was done on the spur of a first 
 impulse — the sonnet being completed so early as to appear in the 
 local newspaper, beneath the announcement of Glenriddel's death. 
 
 [SOXNET ox THE DEATU OF GLEXRIDDEL.J 
 
 No more, yc warblers of the wood, no more ; 
 Nor pour your descant gratiii;j; (}ii my soid : 
 Thou young-eyed Spring, gay in thy verdant stoic — 
 
 More welcome were to me grim Winter's wildest roar. 
 
 How can yc charm, ye flowers, with all your dyes? 
 
 Ye blow uj)on tlie sod tliat wrajis my friend! 
 
 How can I to the tuneful strain attend? 
 That strain flows round th' untimely tomb where Kiddel lies. 
 
 Yes, pour, yc warblers, pour tlie notes of wo. 
 And soothe the Virtues weeping o'er liis bier: 
 Tlic Man of Wortli, and liatli not left his peer, 
 
 Is in his narrow liouse, for ever darkly low. 
 
 Thee, Spring, again with joy .shall others greet; 
 Mo, memory of my loss will only meet. 
 
 Burns, besides giving Glenriddcl an interleaved copy of the 
 MuHU-al Mi/.foiiii, enriclieil with many manuscript notes, had lent 
 him a private manuscript volume, in which lie kept such of Ids 
 minor occasional compositions as he deemed unworthy of being
 
 78 Lli^E AKD WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 printed. This volume not being returned before Glenriddel's 
 death, Burns, after a decent interval, bethought hun of reclaiming 
 it — a task rendered difficult by the relation in which he now stood 
 regarding the family. He adopted the resolution of seeking the 
 good offices of a sister of Mrs Eiddel ; and the letter which he 
 wrote to that lady fortunately survives, to reveal to us his senti- 
 * ments respecting the odium which had been cast upon him. It 
 fully appears that he was at this time suffering reproach for 
 ' imputed improprieties,' but considered himself as a victim of 
 prejudice and caprice. 
 
 TO MISS . 
 
 [Dumfries, May or June 1794 ?] 
 
 Madam — Nothing short of a kind of absolute necessity could have 
 made me trouble you with this letter. Except my ardent and just 
 esteem for your sense, taste, and worth, every sentiment arising in 
 my breast, as I put pen to paper to you, is painful. The scenes I 
 have passed with the friend of my soul, and his amiable connections ! 
 the wrench at my heart to think that he is gone, for ever gone from 
 me, never more to meet in the wanderings of a weary world ! and the 
 cutting reflection of all, that I had most unfortunately, though most 
 undeservedly, lost the confidence of that soul of worth, ere it tooli 
 its flight! — these, madam, are sensations of no ordinaiy anguish. 
 However you also may be offended with some imputed improprieties 
 of mine, sensibility you know I possess, and sincerity none will 
 deny me. 
 
 To oppose those prejudices which have been raised against me, is 
 not the business of this letter. Indeed, it is a warfare I know not 
 how to wage. The powers of positive vice I can in some degree 
 calculate, and against direct malevolence I can be on my guard ; but 
 who can estimate the fatuity of giddy caprice, or ward off the 
 unthinking mischief of precipitate folly ? 
 
 I have a favour to request of you, madam ; and of your sister, Mrs 
 [Riddel], through your means. You know that, at the wish of my 
 late friend, I made a collection of all my trifles in verse which I had 
 ever written. They are many of them local, some of them puerile 
 and silly, and all of them unfit for the public eye. As I have some 
 little fame at stake— a fame that I trust may live when the hate of 
 those ' who watch for my halting,' and the contumelious sneer of 
 those whom accident has made my superiors, will, with themselves, 
 be gone to the regions of oblivion— I am uneasy now for the fate of 
 those manuscripts. Will Mrs [Riddel] have the goodness to destroy 
 them, or return them to me? As a pledge of friendship they were 
 bestowed; and that circumstance, indeed, was all their merit. Most 
 unhappily for me, that merit they no longer possess; and I hope that 
 Mrs [Iiiddcl]'s goodness, which I well know, and ever will revere,
 
 GLOOHY SPRING OF 1794. 79 
 
 will not refuse this favour to a man whom she once held in some 
 degree of estimation. 
 Witlx the sincerest esteem, I have the honour to be, madam, &c. 
 
 E. B. 
 
 The fact that the sonnet on Glenriddel stands almost alone 
 as a composition of Burns during the first half of 1794/ is 
 tolerably expressive evidence of the vrretchedness which he 
 then endured. During this dismal period, even the favourite 
 pursuit into -R-hich he had been drawn by Mr Thomson was 
 nearly at a stand — the following being the only portions of the 
 coiTCspondence which belong to it : — 
 
 MR THOMSON TO BURNS. 
 
 Edinburgh, 17tA April 1794. 
 
 My dear Sir — Owing to the distress of our friend for the loss 
 of his child, at the time of his receiving your admirable but melan- 
 choly letter, I had not an opportunity, till lately, of perusing it.^ 
 How sorry I am to find Burns saying : * Canst thou not minister 
 to a mind diseased?' while he is delijjhtin"; others from one end 
 of the island to the other. Like the hypochondriac who went to 
 consult a physician upon his case — ' Go,' says the doctor, ' and see 
 the famous Carlini, who keeps all Paris in good -humour.' 'Alas! 
 sir,' replied the patient, ' I am that unhappy Carlini ! ' 
 
 Your plan for our meeting together pleases me greatly, and I 
 trust that by some means or other it will soon take place ; but your 
 bacchanalian challenge almost frightens me, for I am a miserably 
 weak drinker ! 
 
 Allan is much gratified by your good opinion of his talents. He 
 has just begun a sketch from your Cotter's Suturdai/ Ni<jhty and, 
 if it pleascth himself in the design, he will probably etch or engrave 
 it. In subjects of the pastoral and humorous kind he is, perhaps, 
 unrivalled by any artist living. He fails a little in giving beauty 
 and grace to his females, and his colouring is sombre, otiicrwise his 
 paintings and drawings would be in greater request. 
 
 I like the music of tlie Sutor's Dochtcr, and will consider whether 
 it shall be added to the last volume: your verses to it are pretty; 
 but your humorous English song, to suit Jo Janet, is inimitable. 
 Wliat think you of the air, WUItiii a Mile of Ediiibunih? It has 
 always struck me as a modern English imitation ; but it is said to bo 
 Oswald's, and is so much liked, that I believe I must include it. 
 The verses are little better than immby-pamby. Do you consider 
 it worth a stanza or two ? 
 
 ' On the 1st April I7!t4, Woodloy I'ark was ndvcrtiscil for salr. Mr WiiUrr 
 Riddel soon after inherileJ I'riars' Carse from his brother, and thul estate waa iji 
 like manner advertised in June. 
 
 ^ The letter to, Mr Cunningham, dated 25th February.
 
 80 LIFE AND WOEKS OF BURNS. 
 
 BURNS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 Man 1794. 
 
 My dear Sir— I return you the plates, with which I am highly 
 pleased ; I would humbly propose, instead of the younker knittino- 
 stockings, to put a stock and horn into his hands. A friend of mine' 
 who is positively the ablest judge on tlie 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 orio-iual 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 higliest 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 bo quite in song, as you shall see by and by. I know you 
 value a composition because it is made by one of the great ones as 
 little as I do. However, I got an air, pretty enough, composed by 
 Lady Elizabeth Heron of Heron, which she calls The Banks of Crc'c. 
 Cree is a beautiful romantic stream ; and as her ladyship is a parti- 
 cular friend of mine, I ha\ e written the following song to it : — 
 
 THE BANKS OF CRF.E. 
 
 Tune— T/iC Danks of Cree. 
 
 Here is the glen, and here the bower, 
 
 All underneath the birchen shade; 
 The villuge-bcll has tolled the hour, 
 
 what can stay my lovely maid i 
 
 'Tis not Maria's whispering call ; 
 
 'Tis but the balmy-breathing gale, 
 Mixed with some warbler's dying fall. 
 
 The dewy star of eve to hail. 
 
 It is Maria's voice I liear I — 
 
 So calls the woodlark in the grove. 
 His little faithful mate to cheer ; 
 
 At once 'tis music and 'tis love. 
 
 And art thou come ? — and art thou true ? 
 
 O welcome, dear, to love and me ! 
 And let us all our vows renew. 
 
 Along the flowery banks of Cree. 
 
 It is to the latter part of tlic half-year in question, that we 
 must assign an affecting anecdote which Mr Lockhart derived
 
 MEETING WITH DAVID M'CULLOCII. 81 
 
 from Mr David M'CuUoch of Ardwell — then a young man on 
 intimate terms with our bard.' According- to Mr Lockhart : 
 ' Mr M'Culloch was seldom more grieved than, wlien riding into 
 Dumfries one fine summer evening to attend a county 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 ladies and gentlemen, all drawn together for the 
 festivities of the night, not one of whom appeared willing to 
 recognise hirh. 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 Grizel Baillie's pathetic ballad : 
 
 " His bonnet stood ance fu' fair on his brow, 
 
 His auld ane looljcd better tlian mony anes new ; 
 But now lie let's wear ony gate it will hing. 
 And casts himsel' dowie upon thi^ corn-biiig. 
 
 Oh, 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 wercna my heart lUjht I wad die." 
 
 ' It was little in Burns's character to let liis feelings on certain 
 subjects escape in this fashion. He, immediately after citing these 
 verses, assumed the sprightliness of his most pleashig manner ; 
 and taking his yovmg friend home with him, entertained hmi very 
 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 
 }iad recently composed.' 
 
 Neither was it in Burns's character to remain permanently under 
 the dejectjon Avhich had beset him during the early part of this 
 year. The sunnncr came on, to tempt him into the country, and 
 cliarm him into song. Time softened away the odium bestowed 
 upon him by the superior circles in Dumfries. Even the political 
 horizon began to clear a little, now that reaction for moderation 
 was setting in at I'aris, and Robespierre's downfall was approaching. 
 Britain had stood the first shock of French propagandism ; a 
 great naval victory had cheered the mini.stry ; and tlie projjcr- 
 tied classes began to feel less nervous. After a few months had 
 
 1 In the minute of the mooting of the Dumfries St Andrew's Lodge for M-iy 
 fi, I7!)4, X>. M-CuUoch is admitted a member. Hums is not mentioned in the Ibt of 
 those present. 
 
 2 The King's Birthday of 1794 was pelebrated in I>umfrips with umisual rordiality 
 and variety of demonstrations. Two large dhnior-parfies met at the iiuis, and at 
 six o'eloek there was a grand n'uuun in the Town Hall, to drink the king's houlth. 
 The Lot/al Anlivc Club wore ribbons embroidered by loyal lailies in their hat-s, anil 
 the multitude wa-s regaled with bunflres. It Is very likely that this was the occasiou 
 of Mr M'CuUoch's rencontre with Hurtu. 
 
 VOL. IV. P
 
 82 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 passed over, Burns recovered in a great measure from his depressed 
 state, and once more thought that a supervisorship might be in 
 store for him. It is to be feared, however, that some degree of 
 permanent sourness towards ' respectable people' from this time 
 remained in his mind, accompanied by a greater tendency for 
 society beneath even his own humble grade. It also appears 
 that the vigour of his constitution was now beginning, at five-and- 
 thirty, to give way under the effects of his generally imprudent 
 course of life. 
 
 It was very probably in consequence of an appointment made at 
 their late rencontre, that Burns wrote as follows to Mr M'CuUoch. 
 The allusion to a visit to Mr Heron of Heron at Kerroughtree, is 
 characteristic of the proud poet, and also valuable as shewmg that 
 at least a Whig country gentleman deemed him presentable at this 
 time before good society. 
 
 TO DAVID M'CULLOCH, ESQ. 
 
 Dumfries, 2U« June 1794. 
 
 Mv DEAR Sir — My lonof-projected journey through your country is 
 at last fixed ; and on Wednesday next, if you have nothing of more 
 importance to do, take a saunter down to Gatehouse about two or 
 three o'clock ; I shall be happy to take a draught of M'Kune's best 
 with you. Collector Syme will be at Glen's about that time, and will 
 meet us about dish-of-tea hour. Syme goes also to Kerroughtree, and 
 let me remind you of your kind promise to accompany me there : I 
 will need all the friends I can muster, for I am indeed ill at ease 
 whenever I approach your honourables and right honourables. 
 Yours sincerely, R. B. 
 
 SO 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 so 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 healtli 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
 
 LAST LETTER TO CLAFaNDA. 83 
 
 theme is to me. I design it as an irregular ode for General Wash- 
 ington's birthday. After having mentioned the degeneracy of other 
 kingdoms, 1 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 ; 
 AVhere 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 yc not the hero's sleep, 
 Nor give the coward secret breath. 
 Is this the power in freedom's war. 
 
 That wont to bid the battle rage ? 
 
 With the additions of — 
 
 Behold that eye which shot immortal hate, 
 
 Braved usurpation's boldest daring; 
 That arm whicli, nerved witli thundering fate. 
 
 Crushed the despot's proudest bearing: 
 One quenched in darkness like tlie sinking star, 
 
 And one the palsied ai'm of tottering, powerless age. 
 
 You will probably have another scrawl from me in a stage 
 or two. II. B. 
 
 There has been preserved one moi*e letter to Clarinda, and from 
 several allusions contained in it, it seems not unlikely to have 
 been penned at the same time with the preceding epistle to Mrs 
 Dunlop. 
 
 TO* CLARTNDA. 
 
 BEPonE you ask me why I have not written yon, first let mo bo 
 informed by you, hoio I sliall write you? 'In friendsliip,' you say; 
 and I have many a time taken up my pen to try an epistle of 
 'friendship ' to you, but it will not do ; 'tis like Jove grasping a pop- 
 gun after having wielded his tiuiuder. Wlien I take up the pen, 
 recollection ruins me. Ah, my ever-dearest Clarinda! Clarinda! 
 What a host of memory's tenderest offspring crowd on my fancy 
 at that sound! But I must not indulge that subject; you have 
 forbid it. 
 
 I am extremely happy to learn that your precious health is rc- 
 cstablislied, and tliat you are once more tit to enjoy that satisfaction 
 in existence wliicii licalth alone can give us. My old friend Ainslio 
 has indeed been kind to you. Tell him, tlmt I cuvy him tlic power
 
 84 LIFE AND -^OEKS OF BURNS. 
 
 of serving j'ou. I had a letter from him awhile ago, but it was so 
 dry, so distant, so like a card to one of his clients, that I could scarce 
 bear to read it, and have not yet answered it. He is a good, honest 
 fellow, and can write a friendly lettei-, which would do equal honour 
 to his liead and his heart, as a whole sheaf of his letters which I 
 have by me will witness; and though Fame does not blow her 
 trumpet at my approach now as she did then, when he first honoured 
 me with his friendship, yet I am as proud as ever; and when I am 
 laid in my grave, I wish to be stretched at my full length, that I 
 may occupy every inch of ground I have a riglit to. 
 
 You would laugh were you to see me where I am just now. 
 Would to Heaven you were here to laugh with mo, though I am 
 afraid that crying would be our first employment ! Here am I set, a 
 solitary hermit, in the solitary room of a solitary inn, with a solitary 
 bottle of wine by me, as grave and as stupid as an owl, but, like that 
 owl, still faithful to my old song ; in confirmation of which, my dear 
 3Irs Mac, here is your good healtli ! i\Iay tlie hand-waled benisons 
 o' Heaven bless your bonnie face ; and the wratcli wha skellies at 
 your welfare, may the auld tinlder deil get him to clout his rotten 
 heart ! Amen. 
 
 You must know, my dearest madam, that these now many years, 
 wherever I am, in whatever company, wlien a married lady is called 
 as a toast, I constantly give you ; but as j'our name has never passed 
 my lips, even to my most intimate friend, I give you by the name of 
 Mrs Mac. Tliis is so well known among my acquaintances, that 
 when any married lady is called for, the toast-master will say : 
 ' Oh, we need not ask him who it is : here's Mrs Mac !' I have also, 
 among my convivial friends, set on foot a round of toasts, which I 
 call a round of Arcadian Shepherdesses — that is, a round of favourite 
 ladies, under female names celebrated in ancient song ; and then you 
 are my Clarinda. So, my lovely Clarinda, I devote tliis glass of wine 
 to a most ardent wish for your happiness. 
 
 In vain would Prudence, with decorous sneer, 
 Point out a censuring worId,*and hid me fear : 
 Above that M'orld on wings of love I rise, 
 1 know its worst, and can that worst despise. 
 
 * Wronged, injured, shunned, unpitied, imredrest; 
 The mocked quotation of the scorner's jest'— 
 Let Prudence' direst bodements on me fall, 
 Clarinda, rich reward ! o'erpays them all. 
 
 I have been rhyming a little of late, but I do not know if they are 
 worth postage. 
 
 Tell me what you think of the following monody. * * * * 
 The subject of the foregoing is a woman of fashion in this country, 
 •with whom at one period I was well acquainted. Ey some scanda- 
 lous conduct to me, and two or three other gentlemou here as well
 
 INSCRIPTION TO MRS GRAHAM OF FINTRY. 85 
 
 as nie, she steered so far to the north of my good opinion, that I have 
 inado lier the theme of several ill-natured things. The followinj: 
 epigram struck nie the other day as I passed her carriage. * * 
 
 o 
 
 llie monody was that Ona Lachj famed forher Caprice — namely, 
 the beautiful and accomplished Mrs Walter Eiddel. The epigram 
 is a composition even less worthy of Burns, and this not merely 
 in respect of ability, but of feeling. To have given expression to 
 such sentiments regarding a female, even though a positive wrong 
 had been inflicted, would have been totally indefensible; and still 
 more astounding is it to find, that the bard could think of exhibit- 
 ing such an effusion to another female. Strange that the generous 
 heart, which never failed to have ruth on human wo, which felt 
 even for ' the ourie cattle and the silly sheep,' which glowed with 
 patriotic fire, and disdained everything like a sordid or shabby 
 action, should have been capable of condescending to an expres- 
 sion of coarse and rancorous feeling against a woman, and one who 
 had shewn him many kindnesses! But yet such was Burns — the 
 irritable genius, as well as the humane man.' 
 
 BURNS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 Jul!/ 1794. 
 
 Is there no news yet of I'leyel ? Or is your work to he at a dead 
 stop, until the allies set our modern Orpheus at lihcrty from the 
 savage thraldom of democrat discords ? Alas the day ! And wo 
 is mo! That auspicious period, pregnant with the happiness of 
 millions * * * seems by no means near. 
 
 I have presented a copy of your songs to tlie daughter of a much- 
 valued and nuich-iionoured friend of mine, ^Ir Oraliam of Fintry. I 
 wrote on the blank side of the title-page the following address to the 
 young lady : — 
 
 Here, where tlic Scottish JInse immortal lives, 
 In sacred strains and tuneful nuinhers joined, 
 
 Accc]it the gift, though luiuible he wiio gives; 
 Rich is the tribute of the grateful mind. 
 
 So may no ruffian feeling in thy breast, 
 Discordant jar thy bosoni-cliords among; 
 
 Uut I'eace attuiu- thy gentle soul to rest, 
 Or Love ecstatic wake his seraph song : 
 
 Or I'ity's notes, iu luxury of tears, 
 
 As modest Want the tale of wo reveals; 
 
 Wliile conscious Virtue all the strain ciidcare, 
 And heaven-horn Piety her sanction seals. 
 
 ' Tlic manuscript of tlio oi«i;;raiii in quostion is in the I<0!<i>ctbion of Mr Vi . V. 
 ■Watson, Trinccs Street, Kdinburgli.
 
 86 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Tills letter contains an ironical tirade on the mishaps of Prussia 
 in her war against France, which Dr Currie had deemed unfit for 
 publication. 
 
 Though Burns had on several occasions, in 1793, acted on his 
 own principle, ' to jouk and let the jaw flee o'er,' it is to be feared 
 that he sometimes let himself out in this manner respecting passing 
 events, both in conversation and in private letters. Nor can we 
 suppose that so impetuous a spirit, which regarded the whole 
 anti-Gallic policy of Europe as an error, leading to the destruc- 
 tion of men and tlieir best interests, could have effectually chained 
 itself up. Even the foolish fears often expressed by the conser- 
 vative party of the day, and the paltriness of the means conde- 
 scended to in many instances for the preservation of the country 
 thi'oughout the crisis, were but too apt to provoke a manly nature 
 such as his to cry out and spare not. Being, on the other hand, 
 little apt to think his words of great consequence, it is to be feared 
 that he was much less cautious in the expression of his opinions 
 than was necessary for his escaping censure. We have already 
 had some of these escapes of political sentiment before us. Many 
 others have survived till these times on the breath of tradition and 
 otherwise. 
 
 In a lady's pocket-book, he inscribed an extempore quatrain: 
 
 Grant mc, indulgent Heaven, tliat I may live, 
 To see tlie miscreants feel the pains they give : 
 Deal Freedom's sacred treasures free as air, 
 Till slave and despot be but things which were. 
 
 More bitter was the verse which he called — 
 
 THE CREED OF POVERTY. 
 
 In politics if thou wouldst mix, 
 
 And mean thy fortunes be ; 
 Bear this in mind, be deaf and blind, 
 
 Let great follcs hear and see. 
 
 Burns and Syme, with a young physician named Maxwell, and 
 several others, all latitudinarians in most respects, and all of them 
 enemies of the system pursued by the government, held occa- 
 sional symposia of a secret, or at least strictly private nature, at 
 which they could enunciate their sentiments freely. It is said 
 that they locked the door of their place of meeting — a circum- 
 stance which would, of course, set the popular imagination at 
 work, and cause tliem to be suspected of something even worse 
 than what they were guilty of. In antagonism to them, was a
 
 DEMOCRATIC EFFUSIONS. 87 
 
 •club of Anti-Gallicans, who took upon themselves the name of 
 the Loyal Natives; and it appears that one of these gentlemen 
 ventured on one occasion to launch a political pellet at the three 
 friends of the people. A very miserable pellet it was : — 
 
 Ye sons of sedition, give ear to my song ; 
 Let Syme, Burns, and Maxwell pervade every throng ; 
 With Craken the attorney, and Blundell the quack, 
 Send Willie the monger to hell with a smack. 
 
 This being handed across the table to Burns at one of the 
 meetings of the disloyal corps, he instantly endorsed it with — 
 
 Ye true Loyal Natives, attend to my song, 
 
 In uproar and riot rejoice the night long; 
 
 From envy and hatred your corps is exempt, 
 
 But where is your shield from the darts of contempt? 
 
 It is far from likely that the whole of the democratic effusions 
 of Burns have come down to us. For many years, that kind of 
 authorship was attended with so much reproach, that men of 
 humanity studied to conceal rather than to expose the evidence 
 by which it could be proved against him. And even after the 
 poor bard's death, the interests of his young family demanded of 
 all the admirers of his name, that nothing should be brought 
 forward which was calculated to excite a political jealousy 
 regarding l\im. Hence, for many years there was a mystery 
 observed on this subject. During that time, of course, many 
 manuscripts might perish. As things now stand — the whole 
 matter being looked on as only a curious piece of literary 
 history — there can be no great objection to the publication 
 of any piece of the kind which may have chanced to be 
 preserved. There is one which, but for the manner in wliich it 
 introduces the name of the unfortunate Louis XVI., might have 
 now been read witliout any pain, as containing only the feelings 
 of a man who looked too sanguinely upon the popular cause in 
 France : — 
 
 THE TREE OF LIBERTY. 
 
 Heard ye o' the tree o' Franco, 
 I watiia wliat's tho name o't; 
 
 Around it a' tlic patriots dance, 
 Weed Europe kens tlic fame o't.
 
 88 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 It stands where ance the Bastile stood, 
 A prison built by kings, man, 
 
 "When Superstition's hellish brood 
 Kept France in leading-strings, man. 
 
 Upo' this tree there grows sic fruit, 
 
 Its virtues a' can tell, man ; 
 It raises man aboon the brute, 
 
 It maks him ken himsel, man. 
 Gif ance the peasant taste a bit, 
 
 He's greater than a lord, man, 
 And wi' the beggar shares a mite 
 
 0' a' he can afford, man. 
 
 This fruit is wortli a' Afric's wealtli. 
 
 To comfort us 'twas sent, man : 
 To gie the sweetest blush o' health. 
 
 And mak us a' content, man. 
 It clears the een, it cheers tlio heart, 
 
 Maks higii and low gude friends, man; 
 And he wha acts tlie traitor's part, 
 
 It to perdition sends, man. 
 
 3Iy blessings aye attend the chiel, 
 
 Wha pitied Gallia's slaves, man, 
 And staw a branch, spite o' the deil, 
 
 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 tliere, 
 
 Its branches spreading wide, man. 
 
 But vicious folk aye hate to see 
 
 The worivs o' Virtue thrive, man ; 
 The courtly vermin's banned the tree, 
 
 And grat to sec it tlirivc, man ; 
 King Loui' tliought to cut it down, 
 
 When it was unco sma', man ; 
 For this the watchman cracked his crown, 
 
 Cut aft' his head and a', man. 
 
 A wicked crew syne, on a time, 
 
 Did tak a solemn aitii, man. 
 It ne'er should flourish to its prime, 
 
 I wat they jjledged 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 been at hanie, man.
 
 THE TREE OF LIBERTY. 89 
 
 For Freedom, standing by the tree, 
 
 Her sons did loudly ca', man ; 
 She sang a sang o' liberty, 
 
 Which pleased them ane and a', man. 
 By her inspired, the new-born race 
 
 Soon drew the avenging steel, man ; 
 The hirelings ran — her foes gied chiise, 
 
 And banged the despot wee), nutr.. 
 
 Let Britain boast her hardy oak, 
 
 Her poplar and her pine, man, 
 Auld Britain ance could crack iier joke, 
 
 And o'er her neighbours shine, man. 
 But seek tlie forest round and round, 
 
 And soon 'twill be agreed, man, 
 That sic a tree can not be found 
 
 'Twixt London and the Tweed, man. 
 
 Without this tree, alake this life 
 
 Is but a vale o' wo, man ; 
 A scene o' sorrow mixed wi' strife, 
 
 Nae real joys we know, man. 
 We labour soon, we labour late. 
 
 To feed the titled knave, man ; 
 And a' the comfort we 're to get. 
 
 Is that ayont the grave, man. 
 
 Wi' plenty o' sic trees, I trow, 
 
 The warld would live in peace, man ; 
 The sword would help to muk a plough, 
 
 The din o' war wad cease, man. 
 Like brethren in a common cause, 
 
 We'd on each other smile, man j 
 And equal rights and equal laws 
 
 Wad gladden every isle, man. 
 
 Wae worth the loon wha wadna cat 
 
 Sic halosome dainty cheer, man ; 
 I'd gie my shooa frae atV my feet. 
 
 To taste sic fruit, I swear, man. 
 Sync let us pr.ay, auld England may 
 
 Sure pliint tiiis far-famed tree, man ; 
 And blithe we'll sing, and hail the day 
 
 That gave us liberty, man. ' 
 
 ' Originally printed in the Pcoi.Ie'.s I'Milion of niirns tlR40), from a mnnitscript 
 in the poBsession of ilr Jaincs Duncan, Moscsflcld, Glasgow.
 
 t)0 LIFE AND WORKS OF BUENS. 
 
 MR THOMSON TO BURNS. 
 
 Edinburgh, iOth August ITW. 
 My dear Sir — I owe you an apology for having so long delayed 
 to acknowledge the favour of your last. I fear it will be as you say, 
 I shall have no more songs from Pleyel till France and we are 
 friends ; but, nevertheless, I am very desirous to be prepared with 
 the poetry; and as the season approaches in which your Muse of 
 Coila visits you, I trust I shall, as formerly, be frequently gratified 
 with the result of your amorous and tender interviews ! 
 
 It will be found in the few ensuing pages that, as usual, Burns 
 got into active inspiration during the autumn. He appears to 
 have now recovered from the low spirits which beset him in the 
 early part of the year. 
 
 BURNS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 30th August 1794. 
 The last evening, as I was straying out, and thinking of O'e?- the 
 Hills and far away, I spun the following stanza for it; but whether 
 my spinning will deserve to be laid up in store, like the precious 
 thread of the silkworm, or brushed to the devil, like the vile manu- 
 facture of the spider, I leave, my dear sir, to your usual candid 
 criticism. I was pleased with several lines in it at first, but I own 
 that now it appears rather a flimsy business. 
 
 This is just a hasty sketch, until I see whether it be worth a 
 ■critique. We have many sailor-songs, but as far as I at present 
 recollect, they are mostly the effusions of the jovial sailor, not the 
 wailings of his lovelorn mistress. I must here make one sweet 
 exception — Sweet Annie frae the Sea-beach came. Now for the song: — 
 
 ON THE SEAS AND FAR AWAY. 
 
 Tune— O'er the Hills, &e. 
 
 How can my poor heart be glad. 
 When absent from my sailor lad ? 
 How can I the thought forego, 
 He's on the seas to meet the foe? 
 Let me wander, let me rove, 
 Still my heart is with my love : 
 Nightly dreams, and thoughts by day. 
 Are with him that's far away. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 On the seas and far awav. 
 On stormy seas and far away ; 
 Nightly dreams, and thoughts by day. 
 Are aye with him that's far away.
 
 SONG — ON THE SEAS AND FAR AWAY, 91 
 
 When in summer's noon I faint, 
 As weary flocks around me pant, 
 Haply in the scorching sun 
 My sailor 's thundering at his gua : 
 Bullets, spare my only joy ! 
 Bullets, spare my darling boy ! 
 Fate, do with me what you may. 
 Spare but him that's far away! 
 
 At the starless midnight hour, 
 
 "When winter rules with boundless power; 
 
 As the storms the forest tear. 
 
 And thunders rend the howling air. 
 
 Listening to the doubling roar. 
 
 Surging on the rocky shore. 
 
 All I can — I weep and pray. 
 
 For his weal that 's fai- av.ay. 
 
 Peace, thy olive wand extend, 
 
 And bid wild war his ravage end, 
 
 Man with brother man to meet. 
 
 And as a brother kindly greet; 
 
 Then may Heaven with prosperous gales, 
 
 Fill my sailor's welcome sails, 
 
 To my arms their charge convey, 
 
 My dear lad that's far away. 
 
 I give you leave to abuse this song, but do it iu the spirit of 
 Christian meekness. 
 
 MR THOMSON TO BURNS. 
 
 EDiNDunoH, \6th Sept. 1794. 
 
 My dear Sir — You have anticipated my opinion of On the Seas 
 and far away; I do not tliink it one of your very happy produc- 
 tions, though it certainly contains stanzas that are worthy of all 
 acceptation. 
 
 The second is the least to my liking, particularly, ' Bullets, spare 
 my only joy!' Confound the bullets! It might, perhaps, be objected 
 to the third verse, * At the starless midniglit hour,' that it has too 
 much grandeur of imagery, and that greater simplicity of thought 
 would have better suited the character of a sailor's sweetheart. 
 Tlie tunc, it must bo remembered, is of the brisk, checrfid kind. 
 Upon the whole, therefore, in my himiblo opinion, tlic song would bo 
 better adapted to the tune, if it consisted only of the first and last 
 verses, with the choruses.
 
 92 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 BURNS TO MR TUOMSON. 
 
 Sept. 179*. 
 
 I SHALL withdraw my On the Sea.-i and f(ir mcay altogether: it is 
 unequal, and iinwortliy the work. Makini^r 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 to try him. 
 
 For that reason, I send you the offspring of my brain, abortions 
 and all ; and, as such, pray look over them, and forgive them, and 
 burn tlieni.i I am flattered at your adopting Ca' the Yowes to the 
 Knowes, as it was owing to me that ever it saw the light. About 
 seven years ago, I was well acquainted with a worthy little fellow 
 of a clergyman, a Mr Ciimie, who sang it charmingly ; and, at my 
 request, Mr Clai-ke 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 toolc 
 to-day, I tried my hand on a few pastoral lines, following up tlie 
 idea of the chorus, which I would preserve. Here it is, with all its 
 crudities and imperfections on its head. 
 
 Ca' the yowes to the knowes, 
 Ca' them where the heather grows, 
 Ca' them where the burnie rows, 
 My bonnie dearie ! 
 
 Hark I the mavis' evening-sang 
 Sounding Cluden's woods amang; 
 Then a faulding let us gang, 
 My bonnie dearie. 
 
 We'll gae down by Cluden side, 
 Through the hazels spreading wide, 
 O'er tlie waves that sweetly glide 
 To the moon sae clearly. 
 
 Yonder Cluden's silent towers, 
 Where at moonshine midnight hours. 
 O'er the dewy bending flowers, 
 Fairies dance sae clieery. 
 
 ' This Virgilian order of tlie poet sliould, I thiiilv, be disobeyed witli respect to 
 the song in question, the second stanzji excepted. — A'o/c by Mr Thomson. 
 
 Doctors differ. The objection to the Bccoud stanza does uot strike the editor. — 
 
 ClIlIUE.
 
 SONG — SHE SAYS SHE L0E3 ME BEST OF A'. 93 
 
 Ghaist nor bogle shalt thou fear; 
 Thou'rt to love and heaven sae clear, 
 Noclit of ill may come thee near, 
 My bonnie dearie. 
 
 Fair and lovely as tliou art, 
 Thou hast stown my very heart ; 
 I can die — but canna ])art, 
 My bonuie dearie. 
 
 "While waters wimple to the sea; 
 While day blinks in the lift sac hie; 
 Till clay-caiild death shall blin' my ec, 
 Ye shall be my dearie. 
 
 I shall give you my opinion of your other newly-adopted songs, 
 my first scribbling fit. 
 
 BURXS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 Sept. 1704. 
 
 Do you know a blackguard Irish song called OnagJi's Waterfall? 
 Our friend Cunningham sings it delightfully. The air is charming, 
 and I have often regretted the want of decent verses to it. It is too 
 much, at least for my humble rustic JIuse, to expect that every eftbrt 
 of hers shall have merit ; still, I think that it is better to have 
 mediocre verses to a favourite air, than none at all. On this principle 
 I have all along proceeded in the S'fots Musical Mnnciun ; andius tiiat 
 publication is at its last volume, I intend the following song, to the air 
 above mentioned, for that work. 
 
 If it does not suit you as an editor, you may be pleased to havo 
 verses to it that you can sing in the company of ladies, 
 
 SHE SAYS SUE LOES ME BEST OE a'. 
 Tf.vE— Ona.'/A'.« Lock. 
 
 Sae flaxen were her ringlets, 
 
 Her eyebrows of a darker hue, 
 Bowitchingly o'cr-acching 
 
 Twa laughing eon o' bonnie blue. 
 Her smiling, sac wiling, 
 
 Wad make a wretch forget his wo : 
 What pleasure, what treasure, 
 
 Unto these rosy lips to grow : 
 Such was my Chloris' bonnie face. 
 
 When first her bonnie face I saw; 
 And aye my (Miloris' dearest charm, 
 
 She says she Iocs mu best of a'.
 
 94 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Like harmony her motion ; 
 
 Her pretty ankle is a spy 
 Betraying fair proportion, 
 
 Wad make a saint forget the sky. 
 Sae warming, sae charming, 
 
 Her faultless form and graceful air ; 
 Ilk feature — auld nature 
 
 Declared that she could do nae mair. 
 Hers are the willing chains o' love. 
 
 By conquering beauty's sovereign law ; 
 And aye my Chloi'is' dearest charm, 
 
 She says she loes me best of a'. 
 
 Let others love the city, 
 ' And gaudy show at sunny noon ; 
 
 Gie me the lonely valley, 
 , The dewy eve, and rising moon 
 
 Fair beaming, and streaming. 
 
 Her silver light the boughs amang; 
 While falling, recalling. 
 
 The amorous thrush concludes his sang : 
 There, dearest Cliloris, wilt thou rove 
 
 By wimpling burn and leafy shaw, 
 And hear my vows o' truth and love, 
 
 And say thou loes me best of a'. 
 
 Not to compare small things with great, my taste in music is like 
 the mighty Frederick of Prussia's taste in painting : we are told that 
 he frequently admired what the connoisseurs decried, and always 
 without any hypocrisy confessed his admiration. I am sensible that 
 my taste in music must be inelegant and vulgar, because people of 
 undisputed and cultivated taste can find no merit in my favourite 
 tunes. Still, because I am cheaply pleased, is that any reason why 
 I should deny myself that pleasure? Many of our strathspeys, 
 ancient and modern, give me most exquisite enjoyment, where you 
 and other judges would probably be shewing disgust. For instance, 
 I am just now making verses for Eotliemurclde's Rant, an air which 
 puts me in raptures ; and, in fact, imless I be pleased with the tune, 
 I never can make verses to it. Here I have Clarke on my side, who 
 is a judge that I will pit against any of you. liofhemurdde, he says, 
 ' is an air both original and beautiful ;' and on his recommendation 
 I have taken the first part of the tune for a chorus, and the fourth or 
 last part for the song. I am but two stanzas deep in the work, and 
 possibly you may think, and justly, that the poetry is as little worth 
 your attention as the music. 
 
 [Ttee staiizas will be found afterwards in the complete sonp."] 
 
 I have begun anew, Let me in this ae Night. Do you think that we 
 ought to retain the old chorus ? I think we must retain both the old
 
 EPIGRAM ON MISS JESSIE STAIG'S RECOYERY. 95 
 
 chorus and the first stanza of the old song. I do not altogether like 
 the third line of the first stanza, but cannot alter it to please myself. 
 I am just three stanzas deep in it. AVould you liavc the denouement 
 to be successful or otherwise ? — should she ' let him in' or not? 
 
 Did you not once propose The Sow's Tail to Geordie as an air for 
 your work ? I am quite delighted with it ; but I acknowledge, tliat 
 is no mark of its "real excellence. I once set about verses for it, 
 ■which I meant to be in the alternate way of a lover and his mistress 
 chanting together. I have not the pleasure of knowing Mrs Thom- 
 son's Christian name, and yours, I am afraid, is rather burlesque for 
 sentiment, else I had meant to have made you [two] the hero and 
 heroine of the little piece. 
 
 How do you like the following epigram, which I wrote the other 
 day on a lovely young girl's recovery from a fever ? Dr Maxwell 
 was the physician who seemingly saved her from the grave; and to 
 him I address the following : — 
 
 ON MISS JESSIE STAIQ'S RECOVERY. 
 
 Maxwell, if merit here you crave, 
 
 That merit I deny : 
 You save fair Jessy from the grave !- 
 
 An angel could not die 1 
 
 God grant you patience with this stupid epistle ! 
 
 MR THOMSON TO BURNS. 
 
 I PERCEIVE the sprightly Muse is now attendant upon her favourite 
 poet, whose wood-notes wild are become as enchanting as ever. She 
 says she loes me best of a' is one of the pleasantest table-songs I have 
 Been, and henceforth shall be mine when the song is going round. 
 I'll give Cunningham a copy; he can more powerfully proclaim its 
 merit. I am far from undervaluing your taste for the strathspey 
 music; on the contrary, I tliink it liiglily animating and agrccalde, 
 and that some of the strathspeys, wiien graced with such verses as 
 yours, will make very pleasing songs, in tlie same way that rough 
 Christians are tempered and softened by lovely woman, without 
 whom, you know, they had been brutes. 
 
 I am clear for having the Suw'.i Tail, particularly as your proposed 
 verses to it arc so extremely promising. Geordie, as you observe, 
 is a name only fit for burlestiue composition. Mrs Tlioinson's name 
 (Katharine) is not at all poetical. Jictain .Icanic, therefore, and 
 make the otlicr Jamie, or a;iy otlicr that sounds agreeably. 
 
 Your 6'a' the J-Jwes is a precious little morccau. Indeed, I am 
 perfectly astonished and charmed with the endless variety of your
 
 96 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 fancy. Here let nio ask you, whether you never seriously turned 
 your thoughts upon dramatic writing? That is a field worthy of 
 your genius, in which it might shine forth in all its splendour. One 
 or two successful pieces upon the London stage would make your 
 fortune. Tlie rage at present is for musical dramas : few or none 
 of those which have appeared since the Duenna possess much poetical 
 merit ; there is little in the conduct of the fable, or in the dialogue, 
 to interest the audience: they ai-e chiefly veliicles for music and 
 pageantry. I think you might produce a comic opera in three acts, 
 which would live by the poetry, at the same time that it would be 
 proper to take every assistance from her tuneful sister. Part of the 
 songs, of course, would be to our favourite Scottish airs ; the rest 
 might be left to the London composer — Storace for Drury Lane, or 
 Shield for Covent Garden, both of them very able and popular 
 musicians. I believe that interest and manoeuvrinof are often neces- 
 sary to have a drama brought on ; so it may be witii the namby- 
 pamby tribe of flowery scribblers : but M'ere you to address Mr 
 Sheridan himself by letter, and send him a dramatic piece, I am 
 persuaded he avouUI, for the honour of genius, give it a fair and 
 candid trial. Excuse me for obtruding these hints upon your 
 consideration. 
 
 "With reference to the suggestion here made by Mr Thomson, 
 Dr Currie says that our bard had previously received the same 
 advice, and had certainly gone so far as to cast about for a 
 subject. 
 
 MR THOMSON TO BURN'S. 
 
 Edixbuhgh, Wh Oct. 1794. 
 
 The last eight days have been devoted to the re-cxamination of 
 the Scottish collections. I have read, and sung, and fiddled, and 
 considered, till I am half blind, and wholly stupid. The few airs I 
 have added are enclosed. 
 
 Peter Pindar has at length sent me all the songs I expected from 
 him, whicli are, in general, elegant and beautiful. Have you heard 
 of a London collection of Scottish airs and songs, just published by 
 Mr Kitson, an Englishman? I shall send you a copy. His intro- 
 ductory essay on the subject is curious, and evinces gre.at reading 
 and research, but does not decide the question as to the origin 
 of our melodies ; though he shews clearly tliat Mr Tytler, in his 
 ingenious dissertation, has adduced no sort of proof of the hypothesis 
 he wished to establish, and that his classification of the airs according 
 to the eras when they were composed, is mere fancy and conjecture. 
 On John Pinkerton, Esq., he has no mercy, but consigns him to 
 damnation. He snarls at my publication, on the score of I'indar 
 being engaged to write songs for it; imcandidly and unjustly leaving
 
 DESCRIBES CHLORIS AS HIS POETICAL GODDESS. 97 
 
 it to be inferred, that the songs of Scottish writers had been sent 
 a packing to make room for Peter's ! Of you lie speaks witli some 
 respect, but gives you a passing hit or two for daring to dress up a 
 little some old foolish songs for the Jlii-seitm. His sets of the 
 Scottish airs are taken, he says, from the oldest collections and best 
 authorities : many of them, however, have such a strange aspect, 
 and are so unlike the sets mIucIi are sung by every person of taste, 
 old or young, in town or country, that we can scarcely recognise the 
 features of our favourites. By going to the oldest collections of our 
 music, it does not follow that we find the melodies in their original 
 state. These melodies had been preserved, we know not how long, 
 by oral communication, before being collected and prijited ; and 
 as different persons sing the same air very dift'erently, according to 
 their accurate or confused recollection of it, so, even supposing the 
 first collectors to possess the industry, taste, and discernment to 
 choose the best they could hear — whicli is far from certain— still it 
 must evidently be a chance whether the collections exhibit any 
 of the melodies in the state they were first composed. In selecting 
 the melodies for my own collection, 1 have been as much guided by 
 the living as by the dead. Where these differed, I preferred the 
 sets that appeared to me the most simple and beautiful, and the 
 most generally approved: and without meaning any comjilinient to 
 my own capability of clioosing, or speaking of the pains I have 
 taken, I flatter myself that my sets will be found e(iually free from 
 vulvar errors on the one hand, and affected <rraccs on the other. 
 
 BURNS TO MR TIIOMSOX. 
 
 I9th October 1704. 
 
 JIy niJ.vn Frif.nd — 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 1 wish you would call on him, and take his opinion in general : 
 you know his taste is a standard. He will return here a^ain in a 
 week or two, so please do not miss asking for him. One thing 1 
 hope he will do, which would give me hitjii satisfaction — persuade 
 you to adopt my favourite, Crair/ii'/>iini )]'<)'>(!, 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 (ciitre 
 nous), is in a manner to me what Kterne'.s Kliza was to him — a 
 mistress, or friend, or what you will, in the guileless sim|ilicity of 
 Platonic love. (Now, don't jiut any of your sipiiiUing consti'uctions 
 on this, or have any clishmachivcr about it among our acciuaintances.) 
 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 insjiire a man with life, and love, and joy 
 — could fire him with cnthusiusm, or melt him with pathos, equal tu 
 
 VOL. IV. U
 
 £8 LIFE AND WOKKS OF BURNS. 
 
 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 contrairel I have a glorious recipe; the very one that for 
 his own use was invented by the divinity of healing and poetry, 
 Avhen 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! 
 
 To descend to the business with which I began : if you like my 
 idea of When she cam ben she bobbit, the following stanzas of mine, 
 altered a little from what they Avere formerly, when set to another 
 air, may perhaps do instead of worse stanzas : — 
 
 SAW YE MY PHELY? 
 
 Tune — WJien she cam hen she hohhit. 
 
 Oh, saw ye my dear, my Phely ? 
 Oh, saw ye my dear, my Phely ? 
 She's down i' the grove, she's wi' a new love, 
 She winna come hame to her Willy. 
 
 What says she, my dearest, my Phely ? 
 What says she, my dearest, my Phely ? 
 She lets thee to wit, that she has thee forgot. 
 And for ever disowns thee, her AVilly. 
 
 Oh, had I ne'er seen thee, my Phely ! 
 Oh, had I ne'er seen thee, my Phely ! 
 As light as the air, and fause as thou's fair, 
 Thou's broken the heart o' thy Willy. 
 
 Now for a few miscellaneous remarks. The Posie (in the Museum) 
 is my composition ; the air was taken down from Mrs Burns's voice.i 
 It is well known in the west country, but the old words are trash. 
 By the by, 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. Donochi- 
 llead is not mine ; I would give ten pounds it were. It appeared 
 first in the Edinburgh Herald, and came to the editor of that paper 
 
 1 This, and the other poems of which he speaks, had appeared in Johmon'n 
 Museum, and Mr T. had inquired whether they were our bard's.— Currie.
 
 KEilARKS OX SCOTTISH SOXGS. 99 
 
 with tlic Newcastle post-mark on it.i Whistle o'er the Lave o't is 
 mine : the music said to be by a Jolm Bruce, a celebrated violin- 
 player in Dumfries, about the beginning of this century. This I 
 know — Bruce, who was an honest man, thougli a red-wud Highland- 
 man, constantly claimed it ; and ])y the old musical people here, is 
 believed to be the author of it. 
 
 Andrew and his cutti/ Gun. — The song to which this is set 
 in the Museum is mine, and was composed on. Miss Eupheniia 
 3Iurray, of Lintrose, commonly and deservedly called The Flower 
 of Strathmore. 
 
 How long and dreary is the Night 1—1 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 my room, and have arranged it anew, as you will find on 
 tlie other page. 
 
 ' The reader will be cui-ious to see this poem, so highly praiicd by Barns. Hei-e 
 it is :— 
 
 ' Keen blaws the wind o'er Donocht-Hcad,' 
 
 The snaw drives snelly through the dale, 
 The gaberUinzie tirls ray sncck, 
 
 And^ shivering, tells his waefu' tale. 
 '• ('auld is the night, oh, let me in. 
 
 And dinna let yonr minstrel fa'. 
 And dinna let his winding-sheet 
 
 iJe naething but a wTeath o' snaw. 
 
 " Full ninety winters hac I seen. 
 
 And piped where gor-cocks whirring flew, 
 And mony a day I've danced, 1 ween. 
 
 To lilts which from my drone I blew." 
 Jly Eppie waked, and soon she cried : 
 
 " Get up, guidman, and let him in ; 
 For weel ye ken the winter night 
 
 Was short when he began his din." 
 
 My Eppie's voice, oh, wow it's sweet. 
 
 Even though she bans and scaulds a wee; 
 ]Uit when it's tuned to sorrow's tale, 
 
 Oh, liaith, it's doubly dear to me! 
 '• Come in, auld carl, I'll steer my fire, 
 
 I'll make it bleeze a bonnie flame; 
 "Vour bluid is thin, ye've tint the gate, 
 
 Yd shouldna stray sae far frac hame." 
 
 " Nae hame have I," the minstrel said ; 
 
 " Sad party-strife o'erturne<l my ha'; 
 And, weei>ing at the eve of life, 
 
 I wander through a wreath o' snaw." ' 
 
 This affecting poem is apparently incomplete. The author need not l)e ashamed 
 to own himself. It is worthy of Burns, or of Macneill.— CiRRiE. [It was written 
 by a gentleman of Newcastle, named Pickering.] 
 
 1 A mountain In tbo north.
 
 100 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 HOW LONG AND DREARY IS THE NIGHT ! 
 Tune— Cnj(M Kail in Aberdeen. 
 
 How long and dreary is the night 
 
 AVlien I am frae my dearie! 
 I restless lie frae e'en to morn, 
 
 Though I were ne'er sae weary. 
 
 CHORIS. 
 
 For oh, her lanely nights are lang! 
 
 And oh, her dreams are eerie! 
 And oh, her widowed heart is sair, 
 
 That 's ahsent frae her dearie ! 
 
 "When I think on the liglitsome davs 
 
 I spent wi' tliee, my dearie, 
 And now what seas between us roar, 
 
 How can I be but eerie? 
 
 How slow ye move, ye heavy houi-s ! 
 
 The joyless day, how dreary I 
 It was na sae ye glinted by. 
 
 When I was wi' my dearie ! 
 
 Tell mo how you like this. I differ from your idea of tlic expres- 
 sion of the tune. Tiiere is, to me, a great deal of tenderness in it. 
 You cannot, in my opinion, dispense witli a bass to your addenda 
 fiirs. A lady of my acquaintance, a noted performer, plays A^ae 
 Luck about the Housp, and sings it at the same time so charmingly, 
 that I shall never hear to see any of her songs sent into tiio 
 world, as naked as Mr What-d'ye-call-um has done in his London 
 collection.! 
 
 These English songs gravel me to death. I have not that command 
 of the language that I have of my native tongue. In fact, I tliiiik 
 my ideas are more barren in English than in Scotcli. I have been 
 at Duncan dray, to dress it in English, but all I can do is deplorably 
 stupid. For instance :— 
 
 LiiT NOT WOMAN E'eR COMPLAIN. 
 Tine— i>(n)c«n Gray. 
 
 Lot not woman e'er complain 
 Of inconstancy in love ; 
 
 Let not woman e'er complain 
 Fickle man is apt to rove : 
 
 J Mr Kitson.
 
 SONG ON C1IL0RI3. 101 
 
 Look abroad tlirougli Nature's range, 
 Nature's inii^lity law is change ; 
 Ladies, would it not be strange, 
 Man should then a monster prove i 
 
 Mark the winds, aiid mark the skies ; 
 
 Ocean's ebb, and ocean's flow : 
 Sun and moon but set to rise, 
 
 Round and round the seasons go. 
 
 Why, then, ask of silly man 
 To oppose great Nature's plan ? 
 We'll be constant wjiile we can— 
 You can be no more, you know. 
 
 Since the above, I have been out in the country taking a dinner 
 with a friend, where I met with the lady whom I mentioned in the 
 second page in this odds-and-ends of a letter.' As usual, I got into 
 song; and returning home, I composed the following : — 
 
 THE lover's morning SALUTE TO lltS MISTRESS. 
 Tine— Z^CiV lak the ll'arx. 
 
 Sleep'st thou, or wak'st thon, fairest creature ? 
 
 Kosy Morn now lifts his eye. 
 Numbering ilka bud which nature 
 
 Waters wi' tiio tears o' joy : 
 
 Now through the leafy woods, 
 
 And by the recking floods. 
 Wild nature's tenants freely, gladly sti'ay; 
 
 The lintwiiitc in his bower 
 
 Chants o'er tiie breatiiing flower; 
 
 The lav'rock to the sky 
 
 Ascends wi' sangs o' joy, 
 While the sun and tiiou arise to bless the day. 
 
 rhonbns gilding the brow o' morning, 
 
 JJanisiius ilk darksome shade, 
 Nature gladd'iiing anil adorning; 
 
 Such to me my lovely maid. 
 
 When absent frac my fair, 
 
 The murky shades o' care 
 
 ' An account of this lady is given a few p.nges onw-ird.
 
 102 LIFE AND WOKKS OF BUKNS. 
 
 With starless gloom o'ercast my sullen sky ; 
 
 But Avhen in beauty's light, ' 
 
 She meets my ravished sight, 
 
 When through my very heart 
 
 Her beaming glories dart — 
 'Tis then I wake to life, to light, and joy ! i 
 
 If you honour my verses by setting the air to them, I will vamp 
 up the old song, and make it English enough to be understood. 
 
 I enclose you a musical curiosity, an East Indian air, which you 
 would swear was a Scottish one. I know the authenticity of it, 
 as the gentleman who brought it over is a particular ac(|uaintance 
 of mine. Do preserve me the copy I send you, as it is the only 
 one I have. Clarke has set a bass to it, and I intend putting it into 
 the Musical Museum. Here follow the verses I intend for it : — 
 
 THE AULD MAN. 
 
 But lately seen in gladsome green, 
 
 The woods rejoiced the day ; 
 Through gentle showers the laughing flowers 
 
 In double i)ride were gay : 
 But now our joys are fled 
 
 On Avinter blasts awa ! 
 Yet maiden Blay, in rich array, 
 
 Again shall bring them a'. 
 
 But my white pow, nae kindly thowe head 
 
 Shall melt the snaws of age ; 
 My trunk of eild, but buss or beild, senility without 
 
 Sinks in Time's wintry rage. 
 Oh, age has weary days. 
 
 And nights o' sleepless pain ! 
 Thou golden time o' youthful prime, 
 
 Why com'st thou not again ? 
 
 1 Variation :— 
 
 Now to tlie streaming fountain, 
 
 Or up tlie heathy mountain, 
 Tlie hart, hind, and roe, freely, wildly- wanton stray ; 
 
 In twining hazel bowers 
 
 His lay the linnet pours ; 
 
 The lav'rock to the sky 
 
 Ascends wi' sangs o' joy, 
 While the sun and thou arise to bless the day. 
 
 When frae my Chloris parted, 
 
 Sad, cheerless, broken-hearted. 
 The night's gloomy shades, cloudy, dark, o'ercast my sky : 
 
 ]5ut when she charms my sight. 
 
 In pride of beauty's light ; 
 
 When through my very heart 
 
 Her beaming glories dart — 
 'Tis then, 'tis then I wake to life and joy !— Ccrrie.
 
 ACCOUNT OF CIILORIS. 103 
 
 I would be obliged to you, if you would procure me a sight of 
 litson'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 tirpd you of my correspondence ? 
 
 The story of the Chloris of Burns is not much less romantic 
 than that of Clariiida. At the time when the poet came to Ellis- 
 land, ]Mr William Lorimer, a substantial farmer, planted himself 
 at Kemmis-hall, on the opposite side of the Nitli, about two miles 
 nearer Dumfries. Mr Lorimer had realised some wealth in conse- 
 quence of an extremely favourable lease, and he now, in addition to 
 farming, carried on extensive mercantile transactions in Dumfries 
 and at Kemmis-liaU. It was in consequence of his dealing in teas 
 and spirits that he fell under the attention of the poet, who then 
 protected the revenue interests in ten parishes. Burns became 
 intimate with the Lorimers. They scarcely ever had company at 
 their house, without invitmg him : they often sent him delicacies 
 ■from their farm; and whenever he passed their way on his pro- 
 fessional toui's, Mrs Lorimer was delighted to mmister to his 
 comforts with a basin of tea, or whatever else he might please to 
 have. A daughter of the family recollects seeing many letters 
 of his addressed to her father: one contained only the words, 
 ' Coming, sir;' a quaint answer, probably, to some friendly note of 
 invitation. No fiscal visitor was ever so liked as he; but then, he 
 was the most good-natured of such visitors — of which one little 
 circumstance, recollected by the person above mentioned, may be 
 sufficient proof. Having arrived one evening, and without Mrs 
 Lorimer's knowledge, put up his horse in the stable, he came 
 in by the back entrance, and so into the kitclieu, where the 
 lady was busy in the preparation of a considerable quantity of 
 candles for home consumption — caudles being then an excisable 
 article. lie looked not — he stopped not — but only remarkmg : 
 'Faith, ma'am, you're thrang to-night,' passed hastily on to the 
 parlour. 
 
 Mr Lorimer's eldest daughter Jean was at this time a very 
 young lady, but possessed of uncommon personal charms. Her 
 form was symmetry itself, and, notwithstanding hair of flaxen 
 lightness, the beauty of her face was universally admired. A 
 Mr Gillespie, a brother-officer of Burns, settled at Dumfries, 
 was already enslaved by Miss Lorimer ; and to his suit the 
 poet lent all his inlluence. But it was in vain. Miss Lori- 
 mer became the wife of another, under somewhat extraordinary 
 circumstances. A young gentleman named Wlielixlalc, con- 
 nected with the county of Cumberland, and who had already
 
 104 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 signalised himself by profuse habits, settled at Barnhill, near 
 Moffat, as a farmer. He was acquainted with a respectable 
 family named Johnston at Drumcrieff, near Craigieburn, where 
 Miss Lorimer visited. He thus became acquainted with the 
 young beauty. He paid his addresses to her, and it is sup- 
 posed that she was not adverse to his suit. One night, in 
 March 1793, when the poor girl was still some months less 
 than eighteen years of age, and of course possessed of little 
 prudence or knowledge of the world, he took her aside, and 
 informed her that he could no longer live except as her husband ; 
 he therefore entreated her to elope with him that very night 
 to Gretna Green, in order that they might be married, and 
 threatened to do himself some extreme mischief if she should 
 refuse. A hard -wrung consent to this most imprudent step 
 fixed her fate to sorrow for life. The pair had not been united 
 for many months, when Mr AVhelpdale was obliged by his 
 debts to remove hastily from Barnhill, leaving his young wife 
 no resource but that of returning to her parents at Kemmis- 
 hall. She saw her husband no more for twenty-three years ! 
 
 Though Burns had now removed to Dumfries, his intimacy 
 with the Kemmis-hall family was kept up — and, let it be remarked, 
 he was not intimate with them merely as an individual, but as the 
 head of a family, for his wife was as much tlie friend and associate 
 of the Lorimers as himself, though perhaps less frequently at their 
 house. When Jean returned thither in her worse than widowed 
 state, she was still under nineteen, and in the full blaze of her 
 uncommon beauty. It was now that she fell more particularly 
 under the notice of the Ayrshire poet. She became his poetical 
 divinity under the appellation of Chloris — a ridiculous appellative 
 of the pastoral poets of a past age, but which, somehow, does not 
 appear ridiculous in the verse of Burns. He is found in Sep- 
 tember 1794 — at which time she was exactly nineteen — beginning 
 to celebrate her in the series of songs of which two or three 
 have already been introduced. With the feelings of the poetical 
 admirer, there appear to have been mingled the compassionate 
 tenderness due to the hapless fate of his young heroine. Such a 
 feeling he expressed in his best style in an inscription on a book 
 presented to her. 
 
 TO CHLORIS. 
 
 'Tis Friendship's pledge, my young, fair friend, 
 
 Nor thou the gift refuse, 
 Nor with unwiUing ear attend 
 
 The moralising Muse.
 
 LATTER HISTORY OF CIILORIS. 105 
 
 Since thou, in all tliy youth and charms, 
 
 Must bid the world adieu, 
 (A world 'gainst peace in constant arms) 
 
 To join the friendly lew : 
 
 Since thy gay morn of life o'ercast, 
 
 Chill came the tempest's lower ; 
 (And ne'er misfortune's eastern blast 
 
 Did nip a fairer flower :) 
 
 Since life's gay scenes must charm no more; 
 
 Still much is left behind ; 
 Still nobler wealth hast thou in store — 
 
 The comforts of the mind ! 
 
 Thine is the sclf-approviiin; glow. 
 
 On conscious honour's part ; 
 And, dearest gift of Heaven below. 
 
 Thine friendship's truest heart. 
 
 The joys refined of sense and taste, 
 
 With every Muse to rove : 
 And doubly were the poet blest, 
 
 These joys could he improve. 
 
 We shall see that during the Avhole of this autumn and winter, 
 Burns was in the full glow of poetical worship towards Mrs Whelp- 
 dale, till he had celebrated her charms in no fewer than eleven 
 songs, some of wliich are amongst the happiest of his compositions. 
 The case was literally as he himself states it. Fascinated by the 
 beauty of this young creature, he erected her as the goddess of 
 his inspiration, at the same time that respect for her intelligence 
 and pity for her misfortunes were sufficient, supposing the absence 
 of other restraints, to debar all unholier thouglits. 
 
 The subsequent liistory of the lady is pitiful. Some years after 
 this outpouring of poesy in her jM-aise, her father was unfortunate 
 in business, and ceased to be the wealthy man he once was. Tlie 
 tuneful tongue which had sung her praise was laid in silence in 
 Dumfries church-yard. Slie continued to derive no income from 
 her husljand, and scarcely even to know in what part of the world 
 he lived. She was now, therefore, compelled to accept of a situation 
 as plain governess in a gentleman's family; and in such situations 
 she pas.sed some years of her life. In 1810, returning from a 
 visit to her brother in Sunderland, slie inquired at Brampton 
 for her husband, and learned that she liad only missed seeing 
 him by a few hours, as he had tliat day been in the village. 
 lie was now squandering some fourth or fifth fortune, which
 
 lOG LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 had been left to him by a relation. Not long after, learning that 
 he was imprisoned for debt at Carlisle, she went to see him. 
 Having announced to him her wish for an interview, she went 
 to the place where he was confined, and was desired to walk 
 in. His lodging was pointed out to her on the opposite side of 
 a quadrangle, round which there was a covered walk, as in the 
 ambulatories of the ancient religious houses. As she walked 
 along one side of this court, she passed a man whose back was 
 towards her — a bulky-looking person, slightly paralytic, and who 
 shuffled in walking, as from lameness. As she approached the 
 door, she heard this man pronounce her name. ' Jean ! ' he said, 
 and then immediately added, as under a more formal feeling, 
 ' Mrs AVhelpdale!' It was her husband — the gay youth of 1793 
 being now transformed into a broken-down middle-aged man, 
 whom she had passed without even suspecting who he was. The 
 wife had to ask the figure if he was her husband, and the figure 
 answered that he was. To such a scene may a romantic marriage 
 lead ! There was kindness, nevertheless, between the long-sepa- 
 rated pan-. Jean spent a month in Carlisle, calling upon her 
 husband every day, and then returned to Scotland. Some months 
 afterwards, when he had been liberated, she paid him another visit ; 
 but his utter inability to make a prudent use of any money 
 intrusted to him, rendered it quite impossible that they should ever 
 renew their conjugal life. After this, she never saw him again. 
 
 It is understood that this poor, unprotected woman at length 
 was led into an error which lost her the respect of society. She 
 spent some time in a kind of vagrant life, verging on mendicancy, 
 and never rising above the condition of a domestic servant. She 
 never ceased to be elegant in her form and comely of face ; nor 
 did she ever cease to recollect that she had been the subject of 
 some dozen compositions by one of the greatest modern masters 
 of the lyre. About the year 1825, a benevolent gentleman, to 
 whom she had made her penury known, bestirred himself in her 
 behalf, and represented her case in the public prints, with the 
 hope of drawing forth a little money for her relief. His wife, 
 having sent her some newspapers containing the paragraphs which 
 he had Avritten, received the following note, in which we cannot help 
 thinking there is something not unworthy of a poetical heroine : — 
 
 'Bums's Chloris is infinitely obliged to Mrs ■ for her kind 
 
 attention in, sending the newspapers, and feels pleased and flattered 
 by having so much said and done in her behalf. 
 
 Ruth was kindly and generously treated by Boaz ; perhaps Bums's 
 Chloris may enjoy a similar fate in the fields of men of talent and 
 worth. 
 
 March 2, 1825.'
 
 LETTER TO MR PETER HILL. 107 
 
 The lady here addi*essed saw Mrs Whelpdale several times, 
 and was pleased with her conversation, which shewed con- 
 siderable native acuteness of understanding, and a play of wit such 
 as might have been supposed to charm a high intellect in one of 
 the opposite sex. Afterwards, our heroine obtained a situation 
 as housekeeper with a gentleman residing in Newington, and there 
 she lived for some time in the enjoyment, she said, of greater 
 comfort than she had known since she first left her father's 
 house. But a pulmonary affection of a severe nature gradually 
 undermined her health, and she was ultimately obliged to retire 
 to a humble lodging in Middleton's Entry, Potterrow, near the 
 place where Bums had first met with Clarinda. Here she lingered 
 for some time in great suffering, being chiefly supported by her 
 late master; and here, in September 1831, she breathed her last. 
 Her remains were interred in Newington burying-ground. Her 
 husband, who latterly lived at Langholm, in Dumfriesshu'e, on a 
 small pension, survived her three or four years. 
 
 Poor Chloris is a sad memento of the evils which spring to 
 woman from one rash step in what is, for that sex, the most 
 important movement in life. Life was to her clouded in its 
 mom : every grace that Heaven gives to make woman a charm and 
 a solace to man, was possessed in vain ; all through this false 
 step, taken, though it was, at a time when she could scarcely be 
 considered as responsible for her own actions. 
 
 In an inedited passage of the last letter, our passion-swayed 
 poet alludes to Clarinda, as 'a ci-devant goddess of mine!' It 
 was right, even in these poetico-Platonic affairs, to be off with the 
 old love before he was on with the new. Yet it was only four 
 months before, only in June, that she was ' my ever-dearest 
 Clarinda ! ' And a letter of friendship was then too cold to be 
 attempted. Oh woman -kind, think of that when you are 
 addressed otherwise than in the language of sober common-sense ! 
 So lately as June, ' my ever-dearest,' and now only ' a ci-devant 
 goddess ! ' 
 
 We turn to lighter matters. 
 
 TO MR PETER IIILL, EDINBURGH. 
 
 [Di-MFRIES, rnd of Odubtr 1794 ?] 
 My dear HiLi — By a carrier of yesterday, Henry Osbom by 
 name, I sent you a kippered salmon,' which I trust you will duly 
 receive, and wliicli I also trust will give you many a toothful of 
 
 1 A salmon rut up and dried in the smoke of the chiiimey— .i favourite break- 
 fast relish in Scotland.
 
 108 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 satisfaction. If you have the confidence to say, that there is anytliinp; 
 of the kind in all your great city superior to this in true kipper 
 relish and flavour, I will be revenged by — not sending you another 
 next season. In return, the first party of friends that dine with you 
 — provided that your fellow-travellers and my trusty and well- 
 beloved veterans in intimacy, Messrs Kamsay and Cameron,^ be of 
 the party — about that time in the afternoon when a relisli or devil 
 becomes grateful, give them two or three slices of the kipper, and 
 drink a bumper to your friends in Dumfries. Moreover, by last 
 Saturday's fly, I sent you a hare, which I hope came, and carriage- 
 free, safe to your hospitable mansion and social table. So much 
 for business. 
 
 How do you like the following pastoral, which I wrote the other 
 day, for a tune that I daresay you well know I 
 
 [Follows the song, Co.' the Yowcs to the Kiwivef.^ 
 
 And how do you like the following ?— 
 
 ON SEEING MRS KEMBI.E IN YAUICO. 
 
 Kemble, thou cur'st my unbelief 
 
 Of Moses and his rod ; 
 At Yarico's sweet notes of grief 
 
 The rock with tears had flowed.^ 
 
 Or this ?— 
 
 ON W R , ESQ. 
 
 So vile was poor Wat, such a miscreant slave. 
 That the worms even damned him when laid in liis grave ; 
 'In his skull there is famine!' a starved reptile cries; 
 'And his heart it is poison !' another replies. 
 
 My best good-wishes to Mrs Hill, and believe me to be, ever 
 yours, E. Burns.'' 
 
 ' Mr Ramsay was printer of that venerable journal, the I':dinhurgh Eveninii 
 Courant, which still partly belongs to his family. Mr Cameron was a paper manu- 
 facturer. These two gentlemen seem to have recently been at Dumfries, along 
 with Mr Hill, on which occasion there would of course be a merry-meeting with 
 Burns. 
 
 2 ' On Friday last, our theatre received a great acquisition in the favourite opera 
 of Inhle and Yarico, by the lirst appearance of Jlrs Kemble, in the amiable and 
 interesting character of Yarico. Her excellent performance of that character has 
 been the subject of high panegyric. We can only join our tribute to her estab- 
 lished reputation, by observing that her delineations were striking, natural, and 
 affecting, and commanded tlie attention and applause of an elegant audience. The 
 farce -viSiS Animal Magnetism, &c.' — Dumfries Journal, Oct. 21, 1794. The actress hi 
 question was the wife of Mr Stephen Kemble, a senior brother in a family which 
 has given at least three distinguished ornaments to the British stage. Jlr S. 
 Kemble composed a ver.v pleasing song on the occasion of the death of Burns. 
 
 3 This letter appeared in the Knickerbucker (New York Slagazine) for September 
 1S4!). On another copy of the epigram on Mrs Kemble, it appears that the per- 
 formance of Inkle and Yarico which Burns witnessed, took place on the 24th of 
 October 1794.
 
 ALLAN'S PICTURE OF MAGGIE LAUDER. 109 
 
 MR THOMSON TO BURNS. 
 
 EDRfBiTEGH, Z/th OctobeT 1794. 
 
 I AM sensible, my dear friend, that a genuine poet can no 
 more exist without his mistress than his meat. I wish I knew 
 the adorable she, whose bright eyes and witching smiles have so 
 (iften enraptured tlie Scottish bard, that I might drink her sweet 
 liealth wlien tlie toast is going lound. Crair/ielnini Wood must 
 certainly be adopted into my family, since slie is the object of the 
 song; but, in the name of decency, I must beg a new cliorus-verse 
 from you. O to be lying beyond thee, dearie, is perhaps a consum- 
 mation to be wished, but will not do for singing in the company of 
 ladies. The songs in your last will do you lasting credit, and suit 
 the respective airs cliavmingly. I am j)erfect]y of your opinion with 
 respect to the additional airs. The idea of sending them into tiio 
 world naked as they were born, was ungenerous. They must all be 
 clothed, and made decent by our friend Clarke. 
 
 I find I am anticipated by the friendly Cunningham in sending you 
 Ritsou's Scottish collection. Permit me, therefore, to present you 
 with his English collection, which you will receive by the coach. I 
 do not find his liistorical essay on Scottish song interesting. Your 
 anecdotes and miscellaneous remarks will, T am sure, be much more 
 so. Allan has just sketched a charming design from Maggie Lauder. 
 She is dancing with such spirit as to electrify the piper, who seems 
 almost dancing too, Avhile he is ])laying with the most exquisite glee. 
 I am much inclined to get a small co})y, and to have it engraved iu 
 the style of Ilitson's prints. 
 
 P.H. — Tray, what do your anecdotes say concerning Maggie 
 Lauder!' — was she a real ijcrsonage, and of wliat rank? You would 
 surely upeer/w her, if you ca'd at Amter toicn. 
 
 BURNS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 Novembn' 1794- 
 Many thanks to you, my dear sir, for yoiir j)refient; it is a book 
 of the utmost importance to me. I have yesterday begun my 
 anecdotes, &;c. for your work. I intend drawing them uj) iu 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, scrajjs of old songs, .^c. 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 Lodgivg 
 ix on tin: rold (IriMunl. On my visit the otiier day to my fair Chloris 
 — that is the ])oetic name of the lovely goddess of my insi)irati()ii — • 
 she suggested an idea, which I, on my return from the visit, wrought 
 into the following song : —
 
 110 LIFE AKD WORKS OP BURNS. 
 
 MY CHLORIS, MARK HOW GREEN THE GROVES. 
 TusE — My Lodging is on ihe cold Grotmd. 
 
 My Chloris, mark how green the groves, 
 
 The primrose banks how fair ; 
 The balmy gales awake the fiowers, 
 
 And wave thy flaxen hair. 
 
 The lav'i'ock shuns the palace gay, 
 
 And o'er the cottage sings : 
 For nature smiles as sweet, I ween, 
 
 To shepherds as to kings. 
 
 Let minstrels sweep the skilfu' string 
 
 In lordly lighted ha' : 
 The shepherd stops his simple reed. 
 
 Blithe, in the birken shaw. 
 
 The princely revel may survey 
 
 Our rustic dance wi' scorn ; 
 But are their hearts as light as ours 
 
 Beneath the milk-white thorn ? 
 
 The shepherd, in the flowery glen, 
 
 In shepherd's phrase will woo : 
 The courtier tells a finer tale. 
 
 But is his heart as true ? 
 
 These wild-wood flowers I've pu'd, to deck 
 
 That spotless breast o' thine : 
 The courtier's gems may witness love — 
 
 But 'tis na love like mine. 
 
 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 chere amie.^ I assure you, I was never more in earnest in my 
 life, than in the account of that aft'air 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
 
 ' CIIAR^nNG CHLOE.' Ill 
 
 sentiment that pervades my soul ; and whatever pleasures I might 
 wish for, or whatever might be tlie 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 ! . . . . 
 
 Despairing of my own powers to give you variety enough in 
 Englisli songs, I have been turning over old collections, to pick out 
 songs, of which the measure is somethh)g similar to what I want ; 
 and, with a little alteration, so as to suit the rhythm of the air 
 exactly, to give you them for your work. Where the songs have 
 hitherto been but little noticed, nor have ever been set to music, I 
 think the shift a fair one. A song which, under the same first verse, 
 you will find in Eamsay's Tea-tahle Miscellanij, I have cut down for 
 an English dress to your Daintj Davie, as follows: — 
 
 IT WAS THE CHARMIKG MONTH OF MAY. 
 
 TvttE—Dainli/ Davie. 
 
 It was the charming month of May, 
 When all the flowers were fresh and gay, 
 One morning, by the break of day. 
 
 The youthful, charming Chloe ; 
 From peaceful slumber she arose. 
 Girt on her mantle and her hose. 
 And o'er the flowery mead she goes, 
 
 The youthful, charming Chloe. 
 
 Lovely was she by the dawn, 
 
 Youthful Chloe, charming Chloe, 
 
 Tripping o'er tlie pearly lawn. 
 The youthful, charming Chloe. 
 
 The feathered people, you might sec 
 Perched all around on every tree, 
 In notes of sweetest melody 
 
 They liail the charming Ciiloe ; 
 Till, painting gay the eastern skies. 
 The glorious sun began to rise, 
 Out-rivalled by the radiant eyes 
 
 Of youthful, charming Chloe. 
 
 You may think meanly of this, but take a look at the bombast 
 original, and you will be surprised tliat I have nuide so mucli of it. 
 1 have finished my song to llotUcinurchii's /.'<//(«, and you have Clarko 
 to consult as to the set of the air for singing.
 
 112 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Tune — Rothcmurchu s Rant. 
 
 Lassie wi' the lint-white locks, 
 Bonnie lassie, artless lassie, 
 
 AYilt thou wi' me tent the flocks, 
 AVilt thou be my dearie ? 
 
 Now Nature deeds the flowery lea, 
 And a' is young and sweet like thee : 
 Oh, wilt thou share its joys wi' me, 
 And say thou 'It be my dearie 0? 
 
 And when the welcome simmer-shower 
 Has cheered ilk drooping little flower, 
 We'll to the breathing woodbine bower 
 At sultry noon, ray dearie 0. 
 
 "When Cynthia lights, wi' silver ray. 
 The weary shearer's hameward way, 
 Through yellow waving fluids we'll stray, 
 And talk o' love, my dearie 0. 
 
 And when the howling wintry blast 
 
 Disturbs my lassie's midnight rest, 
 Enclasped to my faithful breast, 
 I'll comfort thee, my dearie 0. 
 
 This piece has at least the merit of being a regular pastoral : the 
 vernal morn, the summer noon, the autumnal evening, and the 
 winter night, are regularly rounded. If you like it, well; if not, I 
 will insert it in the Museum. 
 
 I am out of temper that you shoidd set so sweet, so tender an aii-, 
 as Deil tak the Wars, to the foolisli old verses. You talk of the silli- 
 ness of Saiv ye my Father?^— By Heavens ! the odds is gold to brass! 
 Besides, the old song, though now pretty well modernised into the 
 Hcottish language, is origiiuilly, and in the early editions, a bungling 
 low imitation of tlie Scottish manner, by that genius Tom D'Urfey, 
 so has no pretensions to be a Scottish production. Tlicre 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 nisht eaeli drooping plant restoring. 
 
 Tlie air, if I understand the expression of it properly, is the very 
 
 1 Mr Tlioinson must have completely misunderstood the character of this old 
 song. It is a most romantic one, clothed in highly poetical language.
 
 TUXE OF ' YE BANKS AND BRAES.' 1 13 
 
 native language of simplicity, tenderness, and love. I have again 
 gone over my song to the tune as follows. 
 
 [Here Burns transcribes his new version of SUep'sttliov, or Wak'st thou? contain- 
 ing the slight variations wliicli have already been given.] 
 
 Now for my English song to Xanaj 's to the Greenuvocl, kc. 
 
 FAREWELL, THOU STRE.\M THAT WINDING FLOWS. 
 
 Farewell, thou stream that windin<'' flows 
 Around Eliza's dwelling! 
 
 niem'ry ! spare the cruel tliroes 
 AVithin my bosom swelling : 
 
 Condemned to drag a hopeless chain. 
 
 And yet in secret languish, , 
 
 To feel a fire in every vein, 
 Nor dare disclose my anguish. 
 
 Love's veriest wretch, unseen, unknown, 
 
 I fain my griciji would cover : 
 The bursting sigh, th' unweeting groau, 
 
 Betray the hapless lover. 
 
 1 know tliou doom'st me to despair, 
 
 Nor wilt, nor canst i-elieve me ; 
 But, oh ! Eliza, hear one jjrayer, 
 Eor pity's sake forgive me ! 
 
 The music of thy voice I heard, 
 
 Nor wist while it enslaved me ; 
 I saw thine eyes, yet nothing feared. 
 
 Till fears no more had saved me. 
 Th' unwary saihn- tlms agluist, 
 
 Tiie wiieeling torrent viewing, 
 'Mid circling horrors siiilcs at last 
 
 In overwhelming ruin. 
 
 [It will he observed, that this is a new and ini]irnvcd version of the son? sent in 
 April of the preccdins year, hc^inninj^, 7Vn' luxl Thin- I rnnie lifr the Afoar. Th<> 
 change most reniarkahlo is IhL' suhstitiition of ICliza fur .Maria. The aHciiation of 
 Mrs Riddel, and his resentment ai<anist lici-, must liave reinlered tlie latter name no 
 longer tolerable to him. One only can wonder that, witli his new and painfid 
 assoeiations regariling that lady, he eould endure the song itself or propose laying; 
 it before the world.] 
 
 Tiierc is another air, I'/'ic Cdledcni'in Ilmif's Deliijht, to wjiicii I 
 wrote a song that you will find in Johnson, Ye Bnttks laid Uracil o* 
 bonnie Doon; this air, I think, migiit find a jilace among your 
 Imndred, as Lear says of hi.s knights. Do you know the history of 
 the air? It is curious enough. A good many years ago, Mr Janiuii 
 
 VOL. IV. II
 
 114 LIFE AND WOKKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Miller, writer in your good tovv-n, a gentleman -whom possibly yon 
 Icnov/, 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, Sir 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 
 difiScult it is to trace the origin of our airs, I have heard it 
 repeatedly asserted that tliis v.'as 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 lady of fashion, no less 
 than 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 trutli 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, thougli it was the first time I had ever 
 seen them. 
 
 I thank you for admitting Craigiehurn fVood, and I shall take 
 care to furnish you with a new chorus. In fact, the chorus was not 
 my work, but a part of some old verses to the air. If I can catch 
 myself in a more than ordinarily propitious moment, I shall write 
 a new Craigiehurn Yiood altogether. My heart is much in the 
 theme. 
 
 I am ashamed, my dear fellow, to make the request — 'tis dunning 
 your generosity ; but in a moment when I had forgotten whetlier 
 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, 
 •IS 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 figui-e 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 v.dicn I am in a scribbling humour, I 
 know not when to give over. 
 
 Wliat Mr Thomson said in answei*, shews how little it is 
 possible to tell beforehand how any air is to be taken up by, or 
 to succeed with the public. 
 
 ' Mr Miller served fcr many years as clerk in the Teind Office, Edinburgh.
 
 DUET OF ' PHILLY AND WILLY.' 115 
 
 IIR THOMSON TO BURNS. 
 
 loth November 1794. 
 
 My good Sir — Since receiving your last, I have had another 
 interview with 3Ir Clarke, and a long consultation. He thinks the 
 Caledonian Hunt is more bacchanalian than amorous in its nature, 
 and recommends it to you to match the air accordingly. Pray, did it 
 ever occur to you how peculiarly well the Scottish airs are adapted 
 for verses in the form of a dialogue ? The fii'st part of the air is gene- 
 rally low, and suited for a man's voice ; and the second part, in many 
 instances, cannot be sung, at concert pitch, but by a female voice. 
 A ^ong thus performed makes an agreeable variety, but few of ours 
 are written in this form : I wish you would think of it in some of 
 those that remain. The only one of the kind you have sent me is 
 admirable, and will be a universal favourite. 
 
 Your verses for JRothemurchie are so sweetly pastoral, and your 
 serenade to Chloris, for Dcil tal: (he Wars, so passionately tender, 
 that I have sung myself into raptures with them. Your song for 
 My Lodging is on the cold Ground, is lilcewise a diamond of the first- 
 water: I am quite dazzled and delighted by it. Some of your 
 Chlorises, I suppose, have flaxen haii-, from your partiality for this 
 colour — else we differ about it; for I should scarcely conceive a 
 woman to be a beauty, on reading that she had lint-white locks. 
 
 Farevjell, thou Stream that icinding Jloics, I think excellent, but it 
 is much too serious to come after Nancy — at least it would seem an 
 incongruity to provide the same air with merry Scottish and melan- 
 choly English verses ! The more that the two sets of verses resemble 
 each other in their general character, the better. Those you have 
 manufactured for Dainty Davie will answer charmingly. I am 
 happy to find you have begun your anecdotes: 1'ca.i'e not how long 
 they be, for it is impossible that anything from your pen can be 
 tedious. Let me beseech you not to use ceremony in telling me 
 when you wish to present any of your friends with the songs : the 
 next carrier will bring you three copies, and you are as welcome to 
 twenty as to a pinch of snuff. 
 
 BURNS to MR THOMSON. 
 
 \^lh Sonmlcr 1794. 
 
 You see, my dear sir, what a punctual correspondent I am ; though, 
 indeed, you may thank yourself for the tedium of my letters, as you 
 have so flattered me on my horsemanship with my favourite hobby, 
 and have praised the grace of his ambling so much, that I am scarcely 
 ever off his back. For instance, tiiis morning, tliough a keen blow- 
 ing frost, in my walk before breakfast, I finished my duet, wliich 
 you were pleased to praise so much. AVhcther I have uniformly
 
 116 LIFE AND WORKS OF BUKNS. 
 
 succeeded, I will not say; but here it is for you, tliough it is not an 
 hour old. 
 
 r H I L L Y AND W 1 1, 1. Y. 
 
 rv^E—The Sow's Tail. 
 
 HE. 
 
 O PhlUy, happy be that day, 
 AVlien roving tlirongh the gathered 1 
 Mv youthfu' heart was stown awa\ 
 And by thy charms, my Fhilly 
 
 V, 
 
 SHE. 
 
 O "Willy, aye I bless the gi'ove 
 "Where first I owned my maiden love, 
 Wliilst tliou didst pledge the powers above 
 To be my ain dear "Willy. 
 
 HE. 
 
 As songsters of the early year 
 Are ilka day mair sweet to hear, 
 So ilka day to me mair dear 
 And charming is my Philly. 
 
 SHK. 
 
 As on the l)rier the budding rose 
 Still richer breathes and fairer blows, 
 So in my tender bosom grows 
 The love I bear my "VYilly. 
 
 HE. 
 
 The milder sun and bluer sky. 
 That crown my harvest cares wi' joy, 
 AVere ne'er sae welcome to uiy eye 
 As is a sight o' Philly. 
 
 SHE. 
 
 The little swallow's wanton winir. 
 Though wafting o'er the flowery spring, 
 Did ne'er to me sic tidings bring, 
 As meeting o' my "Willy. 
 
 HE. 
 
 The bee that through the sunny hour 
 Sips nectar in the opening flower, 
 Compared wi' my delight is poor, 
 Upon the lips o' Phdly.
 
 VULGARITY IS NOT SIMPLICITY. 117 
 
 SUE. 
 
 Tlie woodbine in the dewy wect, 
 When evening sliadcs in silence meet, 
 Is nocht sac fragrant or sac sweet 
 As is a kiss o' Willy. 
 
 HE. 
 
 Let fortune's wheel at random rin. 
 And fools may tyne, and knaves may win ; 
 My thoughts are a' bound up in ane, 
 And that's my ain dear riiilly. 
 
 SHE. 
 
 What's a' the joys that gowd can gie ? 
 I care na wealtli a single ilie ; 
 The lad I love's the lad for me, 
 And that's my ain dear AVilly. 
 
 Tell me honestly how you like it, and point out whatever you 
 think faulty. 
 
 I am much pleased with your idea of singing our songs in alternate 
 stanzas, and regret that you did not hint it to me sooner. In those 
 that remain, I shall have it in my eye. I remember your objections 
 to the name riully, but it is the common abbreviation of Phillis. 
 Sally, the only other name that suits, has, to my ear, a vulgarity 
 about it, which unfits it for anything except burlesque. The legion 
 of Scottish poettLsters of the day, whom your brotiicr-editor, Mr 
 Eitson, ranks with me as my coevals, have always mistaken vulgarity 
 for simplicity ; whereas, simj)licity is as much doujiH'c from vulgarity 
 on the one hand, jis from afi'ected point and puerile conceit on the 
 other. 
 
 I agree with you as to the air, Craigiebiirn Wood, that a chorus 
 would in some degree spoil the effect, and shall certainly liave none 
 in my projected song to it. It is not, however, a case in point with 
 l'(Alii:iniir<luc ; there, as in l-toifs Wij'a of Aldirfillor/i, n chorus goes, 
 to my taste, well enough. As to the chorus going first, tliat is the 
 case with /'o//'*' IT//;, as well as llotlivmurrliii'. \n fact, in the tii-st 
 ])art of both tunes, the rhythm is so peculiar and irregular, and on 
 that irregularity depends so mucli of their beauty, that we must e'en 
 take them with all their wildiiess, and humour the verse accordingly. 
 Leaving out tlie starting-note in both tunes, has, I think', an eft'ect 
 that no regularity could counterbalance the want of. 
 
 ( () Roy's wife of Aldivnlloch. 
 ^ '-^ ' \ O lassie wi' tlie liiit-whlte locks. 
 
 an<l 
 
 . , ( Roy's wife of Alilivnlloeli. 
 compare « itli, '^ ^^^^^^ ^,^. „,^, |i„t.^.,,i,e i,,,.^,. 
 
 Does not the tamencss of the prefixed syllabic strike you ? In tho
 
 118 LIFE AND WORKS OF BUETS'S. 
 
 last case, -with tlie true furor of genius, you strike at once into the 
 wild originality of the air ; whereas, in tlie first insipid method, it is 
 like the gi'ating screw of the pins before the fiddle is brought into 
 tune. This is my taste; if I am wrong, I beg pardon of the 
 cog7iosceiiti. 
 
 The Caledonian Hunt is so charming, that it would make any 
 subject in a song go down ; but pathos is certainly its native tongue. 
 Scottish bacchanalians we certainly want, though the few we have 
 are excellent. For instance, Todlin Hume is, for wit and humour, 
 an unparalleled composition ; and Andrew and his cutty Gun is the 
 work of a master. By the Avay, are you not quite vexed to think 
 tliat those men of genius, for such they certainly were, who composed 
 our fine Scottish lyrics, should be unknown ? It has given me many 
 a heartache. Apropos to bacchanalian songs in Scottish, I composed 
 one yesterday, for an air I like much — Lumps d Pudding. 
 
 CONTENTED Wl' LITTLE. 
 
 TuKE — Lumps o' Pudding. 
 
 Contented wi' little, and cantie wl' mair, racrry 
 
 "Whene'er I forgather wi' sorrow and care, 
 
 I gie them a skelp as they're creepin' alang, 
 
 Wi' a cog o' guid swats, and an auld Scottish sang. ale 
 
 I whiles claw the elbow o' troublesome thought ; 
 
 But man is a sodgei-, and life is a faught : 
 
 My mirth and good-humour are coin in my pouch. 
 
 And my freedom's my lairdship nao monarch dare touch. 
 
 A towniond o' trouble, should that bo my fa', fete 
 
 A night o' guid-fellowsliip sowthers it a' : 
 When at the blithe end of 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 ; tottor 
 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 ! ' 
 
 If you do not relish this air, I will send it to Johnson. 
 
 Shice 3'estcrday's penmanship, I have framed a couple of English 
 stanzas, by way of an English song to Roifs Wife. You will allow me, 
 that in tliis instance my English corresponds in sentiment with the 
 Scottish.
 
 BESCRIPTIOK OF THE STOCS. AND KOKX. 119 
 
 CANST THOU LEAVE MS THUS, MY KATV ? 
 
 TvyE— Hoy's Wife. 
 
 cnoEus. 
 
 Canst thou leave me thus, my Katy ? 
 Canst thou leave me thus, my Katy ? 
 AVell thou know'st my aching heart, 
 And canst thou leave me thus for pity ? 
 
 Is this thy plighted, fond regard, 
 
 Thus cruelly to part, my Katy ? ' 
 
 Is this thy faithful swalirs ]-c\vard^ 
 
 An aching, broken heart, my Katy ? 
 
 Farewell ! and ne'er such sorrows tear 
 
 That fickle heart of thine, my Katy ! 
 Thou may'st find those will love thee dear — 
 
 But not a love like mine, my Katy. 
 
 "Well ! I think this, to ho done in two or three turns across my 
 room, and v.'ith two or three pinches of Irish Blackguard, is not so 
 far amiss. You see I am determined to have my quantum of 
 applause from somebody. 
 
 Tell my friend Allan — for I am sure that we only want the trifling 
 circumstance of beiug 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 sliecp, such as you see in a 
 mutton ham ; tlie horn, which is a common Higliland cow's horn, 
 cut oft" at the smaller end, until the aperture be large enough to 
 admit the stock to be pushed up through tlie horn until it be held by 
 the thicker end of the thigh-bone ; and lastly, an oaten-reed, exactly 
 cut and notclied like tluit which you see every shepherd-boy Iiave 
 when the corn-stems are green and full-grown. The reed is not made 
 fast in the bono, but is held by the lips, and plays loose in the smaller 
 end of the stock ; while the stock, witli tlic horn hanging on its 
 larger end, is held Iiy the hands in j)l;uing. The stock has si.x or 
 seven ventages on the upper side, and one baclc-vcntage, like the 
 common llute. This of mine Mas made by a nuin from the braes of 
 Athole, and is exactly what the shephci'ds wont to use in iliat 
 country. 
 
 However, cither 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 siglit of mine, as I look 
 •on myself to be a kind of brolhcr-briisli witli him. ' I'ride in poets 
 is nae sin ;' and I will say it, that I look on Mr Allan and Mr liurns 
 to be the only genuine and real painters of Sjottisli costume in the 
 world.
 
 120 LIFE AND WOKKS OF BURNS. 
 
 This song of Contented wi' Little, and Cantie ivP Malr, deserves 
 tlie reader's special attention, for it was intended by the poet as 
 i\. picture of Ms mind. So he deliberately tells Mr Thomson in an 
 inedited passage of a letter subsequently written (May 1795). 
 Thougli comprising the bard's idea of what he was, it may of 
 course have been an imperfect or an exaggerated portraiture, an 
 autobiography not being necessarily the most correct delineation of 
 n life. It ■wall be admitted, however, tliat it is of some consequence 
 in the biography of Burns, to see what was his own idea of him- 
 .self, as tliat idea is itself an important particular of his being and 
 cliaracter. He regarded himself, then, as a soldier in the field of 
 life, to whom it was useless, as it is for actual soldiers on duty, 
 to indulge in melancholy complaints. He sometimes could not 
 lielp yielding a little to dejection ; but the merry song and the 
 llowing bowl were a specific to ' cure all again.' A single night 
 of good-fellowship atoned for a twelvemonth of vexation. His 
 liberty and his good-humour wei'e solid possessions, of which 
 he could not be deprived. His compensation for a dreary reach 
 in the path of existence, was that he forgot it when it was passed. 
 In pococurante lay his great resource. As to the varying results 
 brought to his door by the tide of chance, he felt much as one who 
 was in some degree his poetical prototype had felt : 
 
 ' Fortune that, with malicious joy, 
 
 Docs man, her slave, oppress, 
 Proud of her oftice to destroy, 
 
 Is seldom pleased to bless : 
 Still various and inconstant still. 
 But with an inclination to he ill, 
 
 Promotes, degrades, delights in strife. 
 
 And makes a lottery of life. 
 I can enjoy her when she's kind. 
 But when she dances in the wind. 
 
 And shakes her wings, and will not stay, 
 
 I pufl' the prostitute away. 
 The little or the much she gave is quietly resigned : 
 
 Content with poverty, my soul I arm ; 
 
 And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.' ' 
 
 Sucli was Burns in his own idea — not his cool dayliglit idea, as 
 lie would have spoken of himself to a commissioner of excise, or 
 a patronising member of parliament; but his poetical idea — that 
 wjiicli he would have avowed in those candle-light scenes in the 
 <ilobe Tavern, which were to him a rough portion of the poetry 
 of existence. And it really is Burns in one of his aspects, though 
 only one. 
 
 ' Horace, translated by Dryden.
 
 POETICAL CORRESPONDENCE WITH JIRS RIDDEL. 121 
 
 The other song, Canst thou leave me thus, rny Katjj? which lie 
 produced in two or three turns through his little room, under 
 favour of two or three pinches of Irish Blackguard, is a poetical 
 expression of the more gentle feeling he was now beginning to 
 entertain towards jNIrs Riddel. Bums could not write verses on 
 any woman without imaging her as a mistress, past, present, or 
 potential. He, accordingly, treats the breach of friendship which 
 had occurred between him and the fair hostess of "Woodley Park 
 as a falling away on her part from constancy in the tender 
 passion. This may be felt as a curious whim as between two 
 persons in their respective domestic circumstances, not to speak 
 of that disparity of social rank which it is so difficult wholly to 
 overcome, even in favour of the most divinely inspired genius. 
 But it is at least pleasing, as the manifestation of an improve- 
 ment of temper on Burns's part. It appears, moreover, that he 
 sent the song to ^Irs Riddel, as a sort of olive branch, and 
 that .she did not receive it in an unkindly spirit, though probably 
 without forgetting that the bard had wounded her delicacy. 
 She answered the song in the same strain, and sent her own 
 jjiece to Burns, for it Avas found by Currie amongst his papers 
 after his death. Currie remarks only the odd circumstance, that 
 she, an Englishwoman, answered in Scotch, a song Avritten in 
 English by a Scotchman. We may, at this distance from the 
 events, remark the more important particular of the lady's readi- 
 ness to take up Burns in the poetical relation in which he had 
 depicted himself, and to meet him, after their sad whiter of 
 discontent, in a spring of fresh-blown kindness. 
 
 STAV, MY WILLIE, YET BELIEVE ME. 
 
 Stay, my 'Willie— yet believe me ; 
 
 Stay, my Willie— yet believe me ; 
 
 For, ah ! thou know'st na' every pang 
 
 Wad wring my bosom sboiildst thou leave me. 
 
 Tell me that tliou yet art true, 
 
 And a' my wronfrs shall be forgivrn ; 
 
 And wlicn this heart proves faiise to thoe. 
 Yon sun shall cea.se its eourse in heaven. 
 
 Hut to think I wa.s betrayed, 
 
 That t'al.seliood e'er our loves sliould sunder ! 
 To take the ttow'ret to my bre.vit, 
 
 And find tlic guilcfu' serpent under. 
 
 Could I hope thou "dst ne'er deceive, 
 C'elestlnl pleasures, nii(.'bt I ehooiie 'em, 
 
 Id slight, nor seek in otlier splicresi 
 That licaveii Id find within thy bosom.
 
 122 LIFE AKD WOKKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Stay, my Willie— yet believe me ; 
 
 Stay, my AYillie — yet bolievo me ; 
 
 For, ah ! tbou know'st na' every pang 
 
 Vrad wring my bosom shoi'.ldst thou leave me. 
 
 5IK THOMSON TO BUHNS. 
 
 2Sih Kovemher 1794. 
 I ACKNOWLEDGE, my dear sir, you arc not only the most punctual, 
 but the most delectable correspondent I e%'er met with. To attempt 
 iiattering you never entered into my head ; the truth is, I look back 
 with surprise at my impudence, in so frequently nibbling at lines 
 and couplets of your incomparable lyrics, for which, perhaps, if you 
 had served me right, you would have sent mo to the devil. On the 
 contrary, liowever, you have all along condescended to invite my 
 criticism with so much courtesy, that it ceases to be wonderful if I 
 have sometimes given myself the airs of a reviewer. Your last 
 budget demands unqualified praise : all the songs are charming, but 
 the duct is a chef-d'a'uvre. Lumps o' Pudding shall certainly make 
 one of my family dishes ; you have cooked it so capitally, that it will 
 please all palates. Do give us a few more of this cast when you 
 find yourself in good spirits ; these convivial songs are more wanted 
 than those of the amorous kind, of which we have great choice. 
 Besides, one does not often meet with a singer capable of giving the 
 proper effect to the latter, while the former ai'e easily sung, and 
 acceptable to everybody. I participate in your regret, that the 
 authors of some of our best songs are unknown ; it is provoking to 
 every admirer of genius. 
 
 I mean to have a picture painted from your beautiful ballad, The 
 4Soldier's Return, to be engraved for one of my frontispieces. Tiie 
 most interesting point of time appears to mc, when she first recog- 
 nises her ain dear Willie : ' kShe gazed, she reddened like a rose.' 
 The thi-ee lines immediately following are no doubt more impressive 
 on the reader's feelings ; but were the painter to fix on these, then 
 you'll observe the animation and anxiety of her countenance is 
 gone, and he could only represent her fainting in the soldier's arms. 
 But I submit the matter to you, and beg your opinion. 
 
 Allan desires mc to thank you for your accurate description of 
 the stock and horn, and for the very gi-atifying compliment you pay 
 him, in considering him worthy of standing in a niclic by the side of 
 Burns in the Scottish Pantheon. He has seen the rude instrument 
 you describe, so does not want you to send it; but wishes to know 
 whether you believe it to have ever been generally used as a 
 musical pipe by the Scottish shepherds, and when, and in what part 
 of the country chiefly. I doubt much if it was capable of anything 
 but routing and roaring. A fi-iend of mine says he remembers to 
 have heard one in his younger days, made of wood instead of your 
 bone, and that the sound was abominable. 
 
 Do not, I beseech you, return any books.
 
 DECLINES TO WEITE FOK THE MORNING CHRONICLE, 1 23 
 
 Mr Cromek states that, ' in a conversation with his friend Mr 
 Perry — the proprietor of the Morning Chronicle — Mr IMiller [of 
 Dalswinton, younger] represented to that gentleman the insuf- 
 ficiency of Burns's salary to answer the imperious demands of a 
 numerous family. In their sympathy for his misfortunes, and in 
 their regi-et that his talents were nearly lost to the world of 
 letters, these gentlemen agi-eed on the plan of settling him in 
 London. To accomplish this most desirable object, Mr Perry 
 very spiritedly made the poet a handsome ofter of an annual 
 stipend for tlie exercise of his talents in his newspaper. Burns's 
 reasons for refusing this offer are stated in the present letter.' 
 
 TO PETER MILLER, JUN., ESQ. 
 
 D CMF HIES, Kot'. 1701. 
 
 Dear Sir— Your offer is indeed truly generous, and most sincerely 
 do I tliank you for it ; but in my present situation, I find that I daro 
 not accept it. You well know my political sentiments ; and were I 
 an insular individual, imconnccted with a wife and a family of 
 children, with the most fervid enthusiasm I woidd have volunteered 
 my services : I then could and would have despised all consequences 
 that might have ensued. 
 
 3Iy 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 
 liclpless individuals, wliat 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 rcrry, whose honour, after your 
 character of him, I cannot doubt, if he v.'ill give me an address and 
 channel by wliich 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 jiolitics will bo regarded; 
 but against the days of i)cacc, which Heaven send soon, my little 
 assistance may perhaps fill up an idle column of a newspaper. .1 
 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 tbi-ough the medium 
 of some newspaper; and should these be worth bis while, to these 
 Mr Perry shall be welcome: and all my reward sliall be — his 
 treating me with his pajjcr, which, by the by, to anybody who has 
 the least relish for wit, is a hi;,di treat indeed. With the most 
 grateful esteem, I am ever, dear sir, II. H. 
 
 Burns's conduct on this occasion has given rise to much com- 
 ment. That lie should have declined so important an addition to 
 his hicome — for it seems to be understood that tliis was meant — 
 has caused as much sui-prise as his refusal of remuneration for
 
 124 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 his songs. Yet there is no mistaking his reasons : he dreaded, by 
 accepting this literary income, to risk his prospects in the Excise — 
 for he must have had good grounds for believing that the govern- ^ 
 ment would not long retain in its service a regular contributor to > 
 the Morning Chronicle. What would weigh the more with him, his 
 prospects in the Excise were at this time brightening; his hopes of 
 a speedy appointment to a supervisorship were strong. Again, it 
 must be pressed on the reader's attention, that Burns, though cer- 
 tainly not a rich man, and though he had some little debts hanging 
 over his head, was not quite so sunk in poverty as to have made 
 the refusal of Mr Perry's offer the last degree of hardship. The 
 whole popular idea entertained of the pecuniary circumstances of 
 Burns, and consequently of the manner in which he and his family 
 subsisted in the latter part of his life, requires correction. 
 
 The stated official income of Burns Avas L..50 a year, which 
 usually became L.70, in consequence of extra allowances for 
 certain departments of business. It has been surmised that he 
 had to keep a horse out of this little income; but in reality, Avhen 
 a horse was required during the Dumfries period of his life, he 
 was accustomed to hire one from an inn, and its expense was 
 charged to the service. There seem to have been other sources 
 of official income, of a more precarious nature : on the back of a 
 song in his handwriting, he has noted what follows: 'I owe Mr 
 FindlaterL.G, 8s. 5;kl. My share of last year's fine is L.l'i, 2s. Id. 
 W. M., L.14, 3s. 6d.' If this was anything like the average of 
 some other perquisite, it would make up Burns's official revenues 
 to something above L.80 a year. It may also be remarked, 
 that his son, Mr Robert Burns, believes that the poet occasionally 
 derived a little income from land-surveying — a business for 
 which his Kirkoswald education had laid the foundation of his 
 qualifications. Add to all this the solid perquisites which he 
 derived from seizures of contraband spirits, tea, and other aiticles, 
 which it was then the custom to divide among the officers, and we 
 shall see that Burns could scarcely be considered as enjoying 
 less than L.90 a year. This, indeed, is but a humble income in 
 comparison with the deserts of the bard ; yet it is equally certain, 
 that many worthy families in the middle ranks of life in Scottish 
 country towns were then supported in a decent manner upon no 
 larger means ; and very few men of the poet's original profession, 
 out of East Lothian and Berwickshire, drew larger incomes from 
 their farms. It is therefore not surprising to learn that Bums, 
 though now and then forced to be beholden to a friend for a 
 small temporary loan — we have seen an example of this when a 
 failure of importation closed one of his sources of extraordinary 
 income — did, nevertheless, in general maintain his household in
 
 MENAGE OF CUKNS AT DUMFRIES. 125 
 
 some reasonable degree of comfort. I have consulted the eldest 
 son of the bard on this subject, and find his views of the paternal 
 riunarje, at Dumfries very much the same as those with which many 
 little circumstances have impressed myself. Mr K. B. speaks of 
 the house in the Mill Vennel as being one of a good order, such 
 as were used in those days by the better class of citizens, and the 
 life of his father and mother as being comparatively genteel life. 
 They always had a maid-servant, and sat in their parlour. Tliat 
 room, and the two principal bedrooms, were carpeted, and otlier- 
 wise well furnislied. The poet possessed a mahogany dining-table, 
 •where he often had good company assembled. In the same room 
 stood his folding-down desk, at wliich he had to do a considerable 
 amount of business in the granting of licences, permits, &c. and 
 where the son remembers seeing him writing his letters to Mr 
 Thomson, always a business requiring a good deal of care. Tliere 
 was much rough comfort in the house not to have been found in 
 those of ordinary citizens; for, besides the spoils of smugglers, as 
 above mentioned, the poet received many presents of game and 
 country produce from the rural gentlefolk, besides occasional barrels 
 of oysters from Hill, Cunningham, and other friends in town, so 
 that he possibly was as much envied by some of his neighbours as 
 he has since been pitied by the general body of his countrymen. 
 
 An intimate friend of Mrs Burns during tl\e life of the poet — 
 the Jessy of liis songs, now Mrs James Thomson — has similar recol- 
 lections of the household in the Mill Vennel. She speaks of the 
 large seizures of rum, and the frequent presents, as only leading to 
 a degree of hospitality somewhat excessive. At the same time, as 
 far as circumstances left Burns to his own inclinations, his personal 
 domestic hal^its were generally simple and temperate. As he was 
 often detained by company from the dinner provided for him by 
 liis wife, she sometimes, on a conjecture of his probable absence, 
 would not prepare that meal for him. "When he chanced to come 
 home, and find no dinner ready, he was never in the least troubled 
 or irritated, but would address himself with the greatest cheerful- 
 ness to any sucuedaneum that could be readily set before liim. 
 They generally had abundance of good 1 )uiilop cheese, sent to them 
 by their Ayrshire friends. The poet would sit down to that whole- 
 some fare, with l)reHd and butter, and his book by his side, and seem 
 to any casual visitor as happy as a courtier at the feasts of kings. 
 
 lie was always anxious that his wife should have a neat and 
 genteel appearance. In conse([uence, as she alleged, of tiic duties 
 of nursing, and attending to her infants, she could not heli) being 
 sometimes a little out of order. Burns di.slikod this, and not only 
 remonstrated against it in a gentle way, but did the utmost tliat in 
 him lay to counteract it, by buying for her the best clothes he could
 
 126 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 afford. Any little novelty in female dress was almost sure to meet 
 •with patronage from Burns — all with the aim of keeping up a spirit 
 for neat dressing in his wife. She was, for instance, one of the 
 first persons in Dumfries who appeared in a dress of gingham — a 
 stuff now common, but, at its first introduction, rather costly, and 
 almost exclusively used by persons of superior condition. 
 
 On the whole, it must be admitted that Burns's poverty at this, 
 and perhaps at several other periods of his life, has been over- 
 stated. After settling in Dumfries, he certainly was without 
 spare funds, or anything that could be considered as a provision 
 for his family. But of the necessaries of life he never was in 
 any want, nor, down to the few last months, were even the 
 comforts deficient. 
 
 
 BURKS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 IPost-mark, Dec. 9], 1794. 
 It is, I assure you, the pride of my heart to do anything to for- 
 ward or add to the value of your book ; and as I agree with you, that 
 the Jacobite song in the 2Iuseum to There'll never he Peace till Jamie 
 comes Hame, would not so well consort with Peter Pindar's excellent 
 love-song to that air, I have just framed for you the following : — 
 
 [The song hei-e transcribed was one entitled My Nannie's area, referring to Mrs 
 M'Lehose's absence in the Vv'est Indies. Though perhaps not completed till now, 
 it has been printed in the third volume of the present edition, p. 217.] 
 
 How does this please you ? As to the point of time for the expression,, 
 in your proposed print from my Sodger's Eeturn,\t must certainly bo 
 at — ' She gazed.' The interesting dubiety and suspense taking pos- 
 session of her countenance, and the gushing fondness, with a mixture 
 of roguish playfulness in his, strike me as things of which a master 
 will make a great deal. In great haste, but in great truth, yours. 
 
 TO 5IRS DUXLOP, 
 IN LONDON. 
 
 Dumfries, 20</t December 1794.' 
 I HAVE been prodigiously disappointed in this London journey of 
 yours. In the first place, when your last to me reached Dumfries, 
 I was in the country, and did not return until too late to answer 
 your letter; in the next place, I thought you would certainly take 
 this route ; and now I know not what has become of you, or whether 
 this may reach you at all. God grant that it may find you and yours 
 in prospering health and good spirits ! Do let me hear from you 
 the soonest possible. 
 
 » Misplaced by Dr Ciirrie under December 1795.
 
 LETTER TO MRS DUNLOP. 127 
 
 As I hope to get a frank from my friend Captain Miller, I sliall, 
 every leisure liour, take up the pen, and gossip away -whatever 
 comes first — prose or poetrj-, 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 
 your great metropolis, and where I have the honour to preside over 
 the Scottish vei'se, as no less a personage than Peter Pindar does 
 over the English. 
 
 December 29lh. 
 
 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 wliat with that business being new to mc, 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 mav 
 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 fust o'er my frame. AVitli 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 wliat 
 creed he l)elieves ; but I look on the man v.'ho 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 sure stay in the hour of difdculty, trouble, and distress — and a 
 never-failing anchor of hope when he looks beyond the grave. 
 
 nth jMiunry [179j.] 
 You will have seen our worthy and ingenious friend, tiie doctor 
 [])r Moore], long ere this. I hope he is well, and beg to be re- 
 membered to him. I have just been reading over again, I daresay 
 for the hundred-and-fifticth time, his Viw of Socuti/ <md Mmincrs; 
 and still I read it with delight. His humour is perfectly original — 
 it is neither the humour of Addison, nor Swift, nor Sterne, nor of 
 anybody but Dr iloore. J5y the by, you iiavo deprived me of Zrluco; 
 remember that, when you are disposed to rake up the sins of my 
 neglect from among the ashes of iny laziness. 
 
 lie has paid me a pretty compliment, by quoting mc in his last 
 publication. R. B.
 
 128 LIFE AND WORKS OF BUFvNS. 
 
 Burns had learned to conduct vicarious courtships in his early 
 days, and had not yet lost the art. According to a recital by one 
 who has given much attention to our subject:' ' In the neighbour- 
 hood of Dumfries, on the estate of Rockhall, some fifty years since, 
 lived a woi'tliy farmer, whom Burns was in the habit of occasion- 
 ally visiting. They had spent many a merry evening together, 
 enriched with those sallies of wit and humour which stamped the 
 poet's conversation with even more attraction and fascination 
 than all the marvels of his poetry. The progress of their inter- 
 course was varied by an event which must have afforded Burns 
 no little amusement— the farmer fell in love. The lady was of 
 respectable connexions; and the farmer, though excellent at a 
 song or anecdote, was xuiable for the task of writing a proper 
 declaration of his passion. In this extremity, he called in the 
 assistance of the poet. Burns furnished him with two draughts of a 
 love-letter, and the draughts are certainly curiosities in their way. 
 They are not quite so formal and grandiloquent in tone as the 
 famous epistle which Tom Pipes in Peregrine Pickle procured 
 from the village schoolmaster, which commenced, " Divine empress 
 of my soul," and implored the favourite fair one to " let the genial 
 rays of her benevolence melt the icy emanations of disdain." 
 Burns's letters, howevei", are of the same character. His prose 
 style was always stiff and unnatural, being in this respect the 
 antipodes of his verse, which flowed with such inimitable grace 
 and simplicity. On the present occasion, too, he was writing in 
 a feigned character, without the prompting of tliose genial impulses 
 which made him so thriving a wooer himself. We believe the 
 
 farmer Avas successful in his suit. Miss G listened to the 
 
 passion so ardently proclaimed by proxy, and lived to be the 
 happy wife of the farmer. We have no doubt that the worthy 
 pair and the poet often laughed over this adventure, during the 
 few remaining years and evil days which darkened the close of 
 the poet's life.' 
 
 Madam — What excuse to make for tiie liberty I am going to 
 assume in this letter, I am utterly at a loss. If the most unfeigned 
 respect for your accomplisiied wortli — if the most ardent attacli- 
 mcnt — if sincerity and trutli — if tliese, on my part, will in any 
 degree weigh with you, my apology is tliese, and these alone. Little 
 as I have had the pleasure of your acquaintance, it has been enough 
 to convince me what enviable happiness must be his whom you 
 shall honour with your particular regard, and more than enough to 
 convince me how unworthy I am to offer myself a candidate for 
 that partiality. In this kind of trembling hope, madam, I intend 
 
 1 Mr Robert Cjivruthers— Inverness Courier, September 1340.
 
 VICARIOUS COURTSHIP AND LETTER-WUITING. 129 
 
 very soon doing myself the honour of waiting on you, persuaded 
 
 that, however little Miss G may be disposed to attend to the 
 
 suit of a lover as unworthy of her as I am, she is still too good to 
 despise an honest man, whose only fault is loving her too mucli for 
 his own peace. I have the honour to be, madam, your most devoted 
 humble servant. 
 
 Dear Madam — The passion of love had need to be productive 
 of much delight ; as where it takes thorough possession of the man, 
 it almost unfits liim for anything else. The lover who is certain of 
 an equal return of afl'ection, is surely the happiest of men ; but he 
 who is a prey to the horrors of anxiety and dreaded disappointment, 
 is a being whose situation is by no means enviable. Of this, my 
 present experience gives me sufficient proof. To me, amusement 
 seems impertinent, and business intrusion, while you alone engross 
 every faculty of my mind. May 1 reciuest you to drop me a line, 
 to inform me when I may wait on you I For pity's sake, do ; and 
 let me have it soon. In the meantime, allow me, in all the artlci^s 
 sincerity of truth, to assure you, that I truly am, my dearest madam, 
 your ardent lover, and devoted humble servant.^ 
 
 On an occasion of a totally different kind, liurns held the pen 
 for one who could not do it well for himself. According to Mr 
 Cromek: ' A neighbour of the poet's at Dumfries called on him, 
 and complained that he had been greatly disappointed in the 
 irregular delivery of the paper of the Mornimj Chronicle. Burns 
 asked: " AVhy do not you write to the editors of the paper?" 
 "Good God! sir, can I presume to write to the learned editors 
 of a newspaper?" "Well, if you are afraid of writing to the 
 editors of a newspaper, /am not; and, if you think proper, I'll 
 draw up a sketch of a letter, which you may copy." 
 
 ' Burns tore a leaf from his excise-book, and instantly produced 
 the sketch which I have transcribed, and which is here printed. 
 The poor man thanked him, and took the letter home. However, 
 that caution which the watchfulness of his enemies had tauglit 
 him to exercise, prompted him to the prudence of begging a friend 
 to wait on the person for whom it was written, and rccpiest tiie 
 favour to have it returned. This request was complied with, and 
 the paper never appeared in print.' 
 
 TO THE EDITOn OF THE MOUNIXG CHUONICI.E. 
 
 Sir— You will sec, by your subscribers' list, that I have been about 
 nine months of that number. 
 
 I am sorry to inform you, that in that time seven or eight of your 
 
 ' 'The oriRinals of tlieso curious letters nre in tlie po».sc.ssion of n very suone^^ful 
 collector of curioHitics-tlic wann-hoartud und c.ilorUirmig Mr >\ illiafii himlh, 
 porfuiner, Uumfrics.' 
 
 VOL. IV. 1
 
 130 LIFE AXD WORKS OP BURNS. 
 
 paperis either have never been sent me, or else have never reached 
 me. To be deprived of any one number of the first newspaper in 
 Great Britain for information, ability, and independence, is what I 
 can ill brook and bear ; but to be deprived of that most admirable 
 oration of the Marquis of Lansdowne, when he made the great, 
 though ineffectual attempt (in the language of the poet, I fear too 
 true) ' to save a sinking state '—this was a loss that I neither can 
 nor will forgive you. That paper, sir, never reached me; but I 
 demand it of you. I am a Briton, and must be interested in the 
 cause of liberty ; I am a man, and the rights of human nature 
 cannot be indifferent to me. However, do not let me mislead you 
 — I am not a man in that situation of life which, as your subscriber, 
 can be of any consequence to you, in the eyes of those to whom 
 .SITUATION OF LIFE ALONE is the Criterion of man. I am but a 
 plain tradesman, in this distant, obscure country-town ; but that 
 humble domicile in which I shelter my wife and children, is the 
 Castellu.ai of a Briton; and that scanty, hard-earned income 
 which supports them, is as truly my property, as the most magnifi- 
 cent fortune of the most puissant member of your house of 
 nobles. 
 
 These, sir, are my sentiments, and to them I subscribe my name ; 
 and were I a man of ability and consequence enough to address the 
 PUBLIC, with that name should they appear. I am, &c. 
 
 The date of this letter may be referred with tolerable confidence 
 to the commencement of 1795, as the specimen of parliamen- 
 tary eloquence to which it alludes was probably a remarkable 
 oration against the continuance of the war, which the Marquis 
 of Lansdowne delivered in the debate on the Address, 30th 
 December 1794. 
 
 So existence flows on with Burns in this pleasant southern town. 
 He has daily duties in stamping leather, gauging malt-vats, noting 
 the manufacture of candles, and granting licences for the transport 
 of spirits. These duties he performs with fidelity to the king and 
 not too much rigour to the subject. As he goes about them in 
 the forenoon, in his respectable suit of dark clothes, and with his 
 little boy Robert perhaps holding by his hand and conversing 
 with him on his school-exercises, he is beheld by the general 
 public with respect, as a person in some autliority, the head of 
 a family, and also as a man of literary note ; and people are 
 heard addressing him deferentially as Afr Burns — a form of his 
 name which is still prevalent in Dumfries. At a leisure hour 
 before dinner, he will call at some house where there is a 
 piano — such as Mr NcAvall, the writer's — and there have some 
 young miss to touch over for liim one or two of his favourite 
 Scotch airs, such as the Sutor's Daughter, in order that he may 
 accommodate to it some stanzas tliat have been humming through
 
 DAILY LIFE OF EURNS AT DUMFRIES. 131 
 
 ' his brain for the kst few days. For another half horn*, he will 
 be seen standing at the head of some cross street with two or 
 three young fellows, bankers' clerks, or ' writer-chiels' commenc- 
 ing business, whom he is regaling with sallies of his bright but 
 not always innocent wit — indulging there, indeed, in a strain of 
 conversation so diiferent from what had passed m the respectable 
 elderly writer's mansion, that, though he were not the same man, 
 it could not have been more different. Later in the day, he takes 
 a solitary walk along the Dock Green by the river-side, or to 
 Lincluden, and composes the most part of a new song ; or he 
 spends a couple of hours at his folding-down desk, between the 
 fire and window in his parlour, transcribing in his bold round 
 hand the remarks which occur to him on Mr Thomson's last 
 letter, together with some of his o^vn recently composed songs. 
 As a possible variation upon this routine, he has been seen 
 passing along the old bridge of Devorgilla Balliol, about three 
 o'clock, with his sword-cane m his hand, and his black beard 
 unusually well shaven, being on his way to dine with John Syme 
 at Ryedale, where young Sir Oswald of Auchincruive is to be of 
 the party — or maylie in the opposite direction, to partake of the 
 luxuries of John Bushby, at Tinwald Downs. But we presume 
 a day when no such attraction invades. The evening is passmg 
 quietly at home, and pleasant-natured Jean has made herself neat, 
 and come in at six o'clock to give him his tea — a meal he always 
 takes. At this period, however, there is something remarkably 
 exciting in the proceedings of the French army under Fichegru; 
 or Fox, Adam, or Sheridan, is expected to make an onslaught 
 upon the ministry in the House of Commons. The post comes 
 into Dumfries at eight o'clock at night. There is always a group 
 of gentlemen on the street, eager to hear tlic news. Bums saunters 
 out to the High Street, and waits amongst the rest. The intelli- 
 gence of the evening is very interesting. The Convention has 
 decreed the annexation of the Netherlands — or tlio new treason- 
 bill has passed the House of Lords, with only the feeble protest 
 of Bedford, Derby, and Lauderdale. These things merit some 
 discussion. The trades-lads go off to strong ale in the closes; the 
 gentlemen slide in little groups into tlie King's Anns Hotel or the 
 George. As for Burns, he will just have a single glass and a half- 
 hour's chat beside John Hyslop's fire, and then go (juietly Iiome. 
 So he is quickly absorbed in the little narrow close where tliat 
 vintner maintains his state. There, however, one or two friends 
 have already established themselves, all with i)reci8ely the same 
 virtuous intent. They heartily greet the bard. Meg or John 
 bustles about to give liim his accustomed place, which no one ever 
 disputes. And, somehow, the debate on the news of the evening
 
 132 LIFE AND WOKKS OF BURNS. 
 
 leads on to other cliat of an intei-esting kind. Then Bums becomes 
 brilliant, and his friends give him the applause of their laughter. 
 One jug succeeds another — mirth aboimds — and it is not till Mi\s 
 Hyslop has declared that they are going beyond all bounds, and she 
 positively will not give them another drop of hot water, that our 
 bard at length bethinks him of returning home, where Bonnie Jean 
 has been lost in peaceful slumber for three hours, after vainly 
 wondering ' what can be keeping Robert out so late the nicht.' 
 Burns gets to bed a little excited and worn out, but not in a 
 state to provoke much remark from his amiable partner, in whom 
 nothing can abate the veneration with which she has all along 
 regarded him. And though he beds at a latish hour, most likely 
 he is up next morning between seven and eight, to hear little 
 Robert his day's lesson in Cwsm; or, if the season invites, to take a 
 half-hour's stroll before breakfast along the favourite Dock Green. 
 Thus existence moves on, not unenjoyed, and not without its 
 labours both for the present and future ; and yet it is an unsatis- 
 factory life, as compai'ed with what might have been expected by 
 those who saw Burns in his first flush of fame at Monboddo's 
 suppers or the reunions of Dr Ferguson. He has had his aspira- 
 tions after better things. In 1788, he thought of a poetical 
 autobiography, the PoeVs Progress, and wrote two little bits for 
 it, sketches of Creech and Sniellie. At the end of '89, stimulated 
 by reading English plays and visiting the Dumfries theatre, he 
 had bethought him of a Scottish comic drama of modern manners, 
 but, so far as we know, never wrote a line of it. The idea still 
 kept possession of his head ; but in autumn '90, when Mr Ramsay 
 of Ochtertyre visited him, he had shifted the proposed period, and 
 thought of dramatising a droll legend regarding Robert Bruce. 
 What even so lively a wit could have made of such an incident as 
 Eoh Macquechan^s elshen, wliich ran nine inches up into the 
 fugitive king's heel, we cannot tell. It does not seem to have 
 ever gone beyond an mtention. It is supposed, but on no clear 
 evidence known to us, that the poet composed Brnce's Address 
 as a portion of a more serious drama on the liberator of Scotland, 
 which he then contemplated. We see now that he cast about 
 for the subject of a Scottish opera like the Duemm, and it is not 
 nnlikely that, in the Lover's Morning Address to Ms Mistress, he 
 either composed a portion of such a work, or was trying his hand 
 in such a kind of composition. This, too, the last of his schemes 
 for an extended eftbrt in literature, died in the conception. 
 Occasional songs, or other short pieces, were alone compatible 
 with his present duties and inclinations ; and we may be thankful 
 that, in such circumstances, he exerted himself even in that 
 limited manner.
 
 SONG — ' FOR a' that AND A' THAT.' 133 
 
 BURNS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 January 179.i. 
 
 I TV..KU 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 altogetiier. 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, kc. of these said rhyming folks 
 
 A great critic (Aikin) on songs says, tliat love and wine are the 
 exclusive themes for song- writing. Tlie following is on neither 
 subject, and conse(piently is no song, but will be allowed, I think, 
 to be two or three pretty good prose thoughts inverted into rhyme: — 
 
 Fou a' that axd a' that. 
 
 Is there, for honest poverty, 
 
 That hangs his head, and a' that ! 
 The coward slave we pass him by, 
 
 We dare be poor for a' that ! 
 For a' that, and a' that, 
 
 Our toils obscure, and a' that; 
 The rank is but the guinea's stamp,' 
 
 The man's the jjowd for a' that! 
 
 AVhat thoufrh on hamclv fare we dine, 
 
 Wear hoddin gray, and a' tliat; 
 Oie fools their silks, and knaves their wine, 
 
 A man's a man for a' th.at ! 
 For a' that, and a' that. 
 
 Their tinsel show, and a' that; 
 The honest man, though e'er sae poor, 
 
 Is kinff o' men for a' that ! 
 
 O 
 
 Ye sec yon birkie, ca'd a lord, 
 
 Wha stmts, and stares, and .V that ; 
 Though hundreds worship at his word, 
 
 He's but a coof for a' tliat : fcol 
 
 For a' that, and a' that, 
 
 Ilis ribbon, star, and a' that; 
 The man of indcjiendent mind. 
 
 He looks and laugiis at a' that. 
 
 1 A similar thou(?ht occurs in Wvclicrl.v's niln-Dialn: wlilcli niimg probat.Iy 
 never saw : 'I wciKh the man. not his title; 'tis not tlio kiuKs !.l»ni|i cm muko 
 the mftiul better or heavier. Your lord is a Uttdcn shilling, which jou bend every 
 way, and debases the stamp he bears.'
 
 134 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 A prince can mak a belted knight, 
 
 A marquis, duke, and a' that ; 
 But an honest man's aboon his miglit, 
 
 Guid faith, he maunna fa' • that ! 
 For a' that, and a' that, 
 
 Their dignities, and a' that ; 
 Tlie pith o' sense, and pride o' worth, 
 
 Are higher rank 2 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. 
 
 May hear the gree, and a' that. supremncy 
 
 For a' that, and a' that, 
 
 It's coming yet, for a' that, 
 That man to man, the warld o'er, 
 
 Shall brothers be for a' that ! 
 
 Jan. 15)!7t.— The foregoing has lain by me this fortnight, for want 
 of a spare moment. The supervisor of excise here being ill, I liavo 
 been acting for him, and I assure you I have hardly five minutes to 
 myself to thank you for your elegant present of Pindar. The 
 typography is admirable, and worthy of the truly original bard. 
 
 I do not give you the foregoing song for your book, but merely by 
 way of vine la bagatelle; for the piece is not really poetry. How will 
 the following do for Craigieburn Wood ? 
 
 [For the new version of Craigieburn Wood, hero transcribed by the bard sec 
 Vol. iu. p. 235.] ' 
 
 Farewell ! God bless you ! 
 
 By this time the paroxysm of alarm vMch. commenced in 1792, 
 and under which every man who did not see perfection in the 
 British constitution had been treated as something little better 
 than a mad dog, was in a great measure past. The reaction of 
 the French against Barrere and other heroes of the Committee of 
 Safety, was in full flow, and Britain felt that she had nothing to 
 dread from the analogous class of her own citizens. The unfor- 
 tunate reformers of '92 and '93 began, accordingly, to get up 
 their heads again, not as reformers— for all idea of change for 
 years to come was at an end— but as well-meaning members of 
 society. Conservatism felt that it could afford to be compas- 
 sionate and forgiving; and many of its special votaries were 
 perhaps conscious in their secret thoughts, that certain of their 
 
 ' Fa', as a noun, means lot or share; as a verb, to get or obtain. Burns horo 
 uses the word in a violent sense, q. d. ' He must not attempt to have that as a thuis 
 m \ns power.' 
 
 - Usually printed ' ranks,' but so in manuscript.
 
 FraENDLINESS OF CAPTAIN HAMILTON. 135 
 
 opponents had been grievously misjudged and wronged. Burns, 
 amongst others, appears to have experienced the benetit of this 
 relenting mood. 
 
 Both the house which he had occupied in the Wee Venuel, and 
 that now tenanted by him, belonged to Captain John Hamilton of 
 Allershaw ; a gentleman of the highest respectability and most 
 amiable character, who had treated him from the iirst with great 
 kindness. For a twelvemonth past, there had been no intercourse 
 between the landlord and his distinguished tenant ; but now, on 
 Bums sending a small sum of money towards the liquidation of 
 arrears of rent, Hamilton sent him a friendly note : — 
 
 TO MR BURNS. 
 
 DiMFWEs, mil Jan. I'M. 
 
 Dear Sir — At same time that I acknowledge the receipt of three 
 guineas to account of house-rent, will you permit me to enter a 
 complaint of a different nature ? When you first came here, I 
 courted your acquaintance ; I wished to sec you ; I asked you to 
 call in, and take a family dinner now and then, when it suited your 
 convenience. 
 
 For more than twelve months, you have never entered my door, 
 but seemed rather shy when we met. This kept me from sending 
 any further particular invitation. 
 
 If I have in any sliapc offended, or from inadvertency hurt the 
 delicacy of your feelings, tell me so, and I will endeavour to set it to 
 rights. 
 
 If you are disposed to renew our acquaintance, [I] will be glad to 
 see you to a family dinner at 3 o'clock on Sunday, and, at anyratc, 
 hope you will believe me, dear sir, your sincere friend, 
 
 John Hamilton. 
 
 Burns's answer came next morning : — 
 
 to captain HAMILTON. 
 
 Salurday Moriiinp, {Juntiarp .11.] 
 Sir— I was from home, and had not the opportunity of seeing your 
 more than polite, your most friendly card. It is not possilile, most 
 worthy sir, that you could do anything to offend anybody. l^Iy 
 backwardness proceeds alone from tlie aba.sliing con.sci()usnes.s of my 
 obscure station in the ranks of life. I^Iany an evening have I bighed 
 to call in and spend it at your social fireside; but a shyness ol 
 appearing obtrusive amid the fashionable visitants occasionally there, 
 kept me at a distance. It shall do so no more. On Monday, I must 
 be in the countrv, and most part of the week ; but the first leisure 
 evening I shall .avail myself of your liospiUiblc gooducss. ^^ Uh Iho 
 most ardent sentiments of gratitude and respect, I have tlie honour 
 to be, sir, your highlv-obliged humble servant, Koijt. Buuns.
 
 loG LIFE AND WORKS OF EUKNS. 
 
 It is tolerably clear, that the reason which Burns here assigns for 
 his conduct could not be the sole one. So modest a sense of his 
 position in life was not characteristic of the bard who had just sung, 
 A Man's a Man for a' that. And it might have been asked, how 
 he had come to act on this feeling for the last twelvemonth, when 
 no such sentiment had withheld his visits to Hamilton's mansion 
 before. One can scarcely doubt, that there were other considera- 
 tions pressing upon him — the unpleasant sense of debt towards 
 his landlord, and the consciousness that he was under the ban of 
 a large part of respectable society on account of politics, the 
 Riddel quarrel, and his own many imprudences. He had clearly 
 set forward as the sole and all-sufficient reason one comparatively 
 weak, but that which could alone be gracefully acknowledged. 
 On the other hand, the warmth of Hamilton's letter, so unlike 
 the spirit of the M'CuUoch anecdote of June '94, sliews toler- 
 ably well how Burns was beginning to recover in the good graces 
 of the respectables. 
 
 The movement towards a reconciliation with Maria Riddel, 
 which commenced in November, had not been allowed to stop 
 short. About this time, the lady had sent Bums a book which 
 she probably supposed him likely to enjoy in the perusal. She 
 had also communicated a new poetical expression of her feelings 
 on their late estrangement, in tlie form of a song, which she 
 desired the poet to correct or criticise, for in this strange con- 
 fusion of love and literature, it seems to have been thought not 
 imfitting that Burns should, in the way of his art, help to polish 
 the shaft of tender reproach aimed at his own bosom. 
 
 TO MRS RIDDEL. 
 
 Mr Burnk's compliments to Mrs Riddel— is much obliged to her 
 for her polite attention in sendirifj him the book. Owing to Mr B. 
 at present acting as supervisor of Excise, a department that occupies 
 liis every hour of the day, he has not that time to spare whicli 
 is necessary for any belles-lettres pursuit; but as he will in a week 
 or two again return to his wonted leisure, lie will tlien pay that 
 attention to Mrs R.'s beautifid song. To tkae, loved Nith, which 
 it so well deserves. When Anacharsm's Travels come to hand, 
 which Mrs Riddel mentioned as her gift to the public library, 
 Mr B. will feel honoured by the indulgence of a perusal of them 
 before presontatiou : it is a book he has never yet seen, and 
 the regulations of the library allow too little leisure for deliberate 
 reading.
 
 RECONCILIATION WITH MRS RIDDEL. 
 
 Friday evciiiiur. 
 P. S.—lIr Burns will be much obliged to Mrs Riddel, if she will 
 favour him with a perusal of any of her poetical pieces which he 
 may not have seen. 
 
 The song has fortunately been preserved. 
 
 TO THEEj LOVED XITH. 
 
 To thee, loved Nith, thy gladsome plains, 
 
 Where late with careless thought I ransod, 
 Though prest with care, and sunk in wo, 
 
 To thee I bring a heart unchanged. 
 I love thee, Nith, thy banks and braes. 
 
 Though Memory there my bosom tear. 
 For there he roved, that broke my heart. 
 
 Yet to that heart, ah, still how dear ! 
 
 And now your banks and bonnie braes 
 
 But waken sad remembrance' smart ; 
 The very shades I held most dear, 
 
 Now strike fresh anguish to my heart : 
 Deserted bower ! where are they now — 
 
 Ah ! where the garlands tliat I wove 
 With faithful care, each morn to deck 
 
 The altars of ungrateful love? 
 
 The flowers of spring, how gay they bloomed. 
 
 When last with him I wandered here! 
 The flowers of spring are passed away 
 
 For wintry horrors dark and drear. 
 Yon osiered stream, by whose lone banks 
 
 My songs have lulled him oft to rest, 
 Is now in icy fetters locked — 
 
 Cold as my false love's frozen breast. 
 
 MR THOM.SON TO BURN.". 
 
 Edimurgh, .W/i January I'VX 
 
 My dear Sir— I tliank you heartily for Xaniuf'''s Airrr, aa well 
 as for Crairjieburn, which I think a very comely pair. Your 
 observation on tlic difficulty of orij,'inal writing in a number of 
 cflbrts, in the same style, striU-es me very forcihiy ; and it has, again 
 and again, excited my wonder to find you continually surmounting 
 this difficulty, in the many delightful songs you have sent me. Your 
 vive la udfjal'dk song. For (c" that, shall undoubtedly 1)C included in 
 my list. 
 
 The supervising duties which Bums had taken up, brought him 
 early in February to the village of Ecclefeclian, in Annandale-a
 
 138 LIFE AKD WORKS OF BUENS. 
 
 place which will contmue to be memorable in Scottish biography 
 as the birthplace of several remarkable men, all of them con- 
 nected with the histoiy of our bard. The first was the school- 
 tyi-ant Nicol, of whom we have not heard for some time. The 
 second was Dr Currie of Liverpool, the amiable editor of Bm-ns, 
 and most effective friend of his family. A third, who would be 
 first seeing the light just about this time, was Thomas Carlyle, 
 than whom no man has written about Bums with a fairer appre- 
 hension of his merits, or a truer expression of sympathy for his 
 misfortunes. Burns, little thinking of the destinies of Ecclefechan 
 infants, had come there in the midst of air extraordinary fall of 
 snow, which threatened to keep him a prisoner to his inn for many 
 days. It was such a snow-faU as no living man remembered. 
 Most people throughout Scotland, on wakening in the morning, 
 fomid their houses absorbed in it up to the second tier of windows ; 
 and in some hollows of the Campsie Fells, near Glasgow, it was 
 drifted to the depth of from eighty to a hundred feet. Some roads 
 were impassable for weeks, and even in the streets of Edinburgh, 
 it had not entirely disappeared on the king's birthday, the 4th of 
 June. The immediate consequences to Burns are amusingly 
 described by himself : — 
 
 BURNS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 Ecclefechan, "iih February 179j. 
 
 My uear Thomson — You cannot have any idea of the predicament 
 in wliich I write to you. In the course of my duty as supervisor — 
 in which capacity I liave 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 fjae hack 
 the gait I cam again, but the same obstacle has slnit 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 
 liimsclf, on tliat very account, exceeding good company. In fact, 
 I have been in a dilemma, cither 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 
 
 (2 
 
 I wrote you yesterday from Dumfries. I had not time then to 
 tell you all I wanted to say ; and, Heaven knov/s, at present I have 
 not capacity. 
 
 1 Dr Currie remarks, that the poet must have been tipsy indeed to abuse sweet 
 Ecclefechan at this rate. 
 
 2 Tlie handwriting confirms the poet's confession, for it lacks his usual clearness 
 and regularity.
 
 SONG—' O LASSIE, ART THOU SLEEPING YET?' 139 
 
 Do yoii know an air — I am sure you must know it — We'll gang nae. 
 inair to yon Toicn ? I think, in slowish time, it would make an excel- 
 lent song. I am highly delighted with it ; and if you should think 
 it worthy of youi- attention, I have a fair dame in my eye, to whom 
 I would consecrate it. Try it with this doggrcl — until I give you a 
 better : 
 
 wat ye wha's in yon town, 
 
 Ye see the e'eniu' sun upon ? 
 The dearest maid 's in yon town 
 
 That e'eniu' sun is shinin' ou. 
 
 O sweet to me yon spreading tree, 
 
 "Where Jeanic wanders aft her lane ; 
 The hawthorn flower that shades her bower. 
 Oh, %vhcn shall I behold again ? 
 
 As I am just going to bed, I wish you a good-night. E. B. 
 
 P. ,S'.— As I am likely to be storm-staid here to-morrow, if I am 
 in the humour, you shall have a long letter from me. 
 
 BDBNS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 lPosl-mar}i, February 9], 1793. 
 Here is another trial at your favourite : 
 
 O LASSIE, AIIT THOU SLEEPINC! YliT ? 
 
 Tl'se— £et me in this ae Kight. 
 
 O lassie, art thou sleeping yet? 
 Or art thou wakin', I would wit? 
 For love has bound me liaiid and foot, 
 And I would fain be in, jo. 
 
 cnoRi's. 
 O let me in this ac niglit, 
 
 Thisae, ac, ac night; 
 For pity's sake this ae night, 
 
 O rise and let mc in, jo! 
 
 Thou hcar'st the winter wiml and wcct, 
 Nae star blinks through tlie driving sleet ; 
 Tak pity on my weary feet. 
 
 And shield me frac the rain, jo.
 
 140 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Tlie bitter blast that round me blaws 
 Unheeded howls, unheeded fa's ; 
 Tlie cauldness o' thy heart's the cause 
 Of a' my grief and pain, jo. 
 
 HER ANSWER. 
 
 O tell na me o' wind and rain, 
 Upbraid na me wi' cauld disdain ; 
 Gae back the gait ye cam again — ■ 
 I wiuna let ye in, jo ! 
 
 CHORUS. 
 I tell you now this ae night, 
 
 This ae, ae, ae night ; 
 And ance for a' this ae night, 
 
 I vvinna let you in, jo! 
 
 The snellest blast, at mirkest hours. 
 That round the pathless wanderer pours, 
 Is nocht to wliat poor she endures, 
 Tliat's trusted faitliless man, jo. 
 
 Tiie sweetest flower that decked the mead. 
 Now trodden like tlie vilest weed ; 
 Let simple maid tlie lesson read, 
 The weird may be her ain, jo. 
 
 The bird tliat charmed his summer-day, 
 Is now tiie cruel fowler's prey ; 
 Let witless, trusting woman say 
 How aft her fate 's the same, jo ! 
 
 I do not know whether it will do. 
 
 MR THOMSON TO BURNS. 
 
 ^jth February 1795. 
 
 I HAVE to thank you, my dear sir, for two epistles — one con- 
 taining Let me in this ae Nirjld; and the other from Ecclefechan, 
 pi-oving that, drunk or sober, ^our ' mind is never muddy.' You have 
 displayed great address in tlie above song. Her answer is excellent, 
 and at the same time takes away the indelicacy that otherwise 
 would have attached to his entreaties. I like the song, as it now 
 stands, very much.
 
 THE KIRKCUDCKIGHT ELECTION, 1795. 141 
 
 I had hopes you would be arrested some days at Ecclefechan, and 
 !)e obliged to beguile the tedious forenoons by song-making. It will 
 give me pleasure to receive the verses you intend lor icat ye 
 u-Iiu's in yon Town? 
 
 Amongst other things ^snowed up by the storm of February 
 '95, was a Scotch county election. The death of General Stewart 
 in January had created a vacancy in the representation of tiie 
 Stewartry of Kirkcudbright — a district so closely adjoining to 
 Dumfries, that all its concerns are tliere deeply felt. A writ Jiad 
 been issued and intrusted to Lord Garlics, M.P., son of the Earl of 
 Galloway; but his lordship kept it back for several weeks, for 
 the ostensible reason, that it was impossible for the electors at 
 such a season to meet for the recording of their votes. Mean- 
 while, public feeling was strongly excited, the vacant seat being 
 ciratested between a Tory, under the Galloway influence, and 
 an independent country gentleman of Whig politics. The latter 
 ■was the same JMr Heron of Kerrouiihtree whom Burns had 
 visited in June of the past year, soon after his melancholy ren- 
 contre with David I\I'Culloch. He was a benevolent and most 
 respectable man. Tlie candidate in the Tory interest was Mr 
 Gordon of Balmaghie, himself a man of moderate property and 
 influence, but greatly fortifled by the favour of his imde, Mr 
 Murray of Broughton, one of the wealtliieat proprieturs in the 
 south of Scotland, as well as by the interest of the Earl of 
 Galloway. 
 
 It was certainly most unsuitable for Burns to take any part in 
 this conflict, as, while no public duty was neglected by his silence, 
 his partisanship was ten times more likely to do him harm than 
 good. lie saw, however, some of his favourite aversions, such as 
 the Earl of Galloway and John Bushby of Tiiiwald Downs, on 
 the one side, while on the other stood a really worthy man, who 
 liad shewn him some kindness, and whose jjolitical prepossessions 
 accorded with his own. AVith his characteristic recklessness, lie 
 threw off several ballads, and even caused them to be circulated 
 in print; effusions which must now be deemed of secondary im- 
 portance in the roll of his works, but which yet are well worthy 
 of preservation for the traits of a keen .satiric spirit which mingle 
 with their local and scarcely intelligil)le allusions : 
 
 BALLADS 0.\ Mil HERO.n's ELIXTION, 1795. 
 OAI.I.AD FIRST. 
 
 Whom will you send to London town, 
 
 To rarlianiont and a' tliat ? 
 Or wha in a' tlio country round. 
 
 The best deserves to fa' that ?
 
 142 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 For a' that, and a' that, 
 Through Galloway and a' that ; 
 Where is the laird or belted knight 
 That best deserves to fa' that ? 
 
 Wha sees Kerroughtree's open yett, 
 
 And wha is 't never saw that ? 
 Wha ever wi' Kerroughtree meets, 
 And has a doubt of a' that ? 
 For a' that, and a' that. 
 Here 's Heron yet for a' that ! 
 The independent patriot, 
 The honest man, and a' that. 
 
 Though wit and worth in either sex, 
 
 St Mary's Isle can shaw that ; 
 Wi' dukes and lords let Selkirk mix, 
 And weel does Selkirk fa' that. 
 For a' that, and a' that. 
 Here *s Heron yet for a' that ! 
 The independent commoner 
 Shall be the man for a' that. 
 
 But why should we to nobles jouk ? bend 
 
 And is 't against the law that ? 
 For why, a lord may be a gouk, fool 
 
 AVi' ribbon, star, and a' that. 
 For a' that, and a' that. 
 Here's Heron yet for a' that! 
 A lord may be a lousy loun, 
 Wi' ribbon, star, and a' that.i 
 
 A beardless boy comes o'er the hills, 
 
 Wi' uncle's purse and a' that. 
 But we'll liae ane frac 'mang oursels, 
 A man we ken, and a' that. 
 For a' that, and a' that, 
 Here 's Heron yet for a' that ! 
 For we're not to be bought and sold, 
 Like naigs, and nowt, and a' that. cattle 
 
 Then let us drink the Stewartry, 
 
 Kerroughtree's laird, and a' that. 
 Our representative to be. 
 
 For weel he's worthy a' that. 
 
 1 The vituperation in tfiis stanza refers, not to the Selkirk family, for which 
 Burns had a respect, as shewn in the preceding verse, but to the Earl of Galloway.
 
 KIRKCUDBRIGHT ELECTION BALLADS. 143 
 
 For a' that, and a' that, 
 Here's Heron yet for a' that ! 
 A House of Commons such as ho, 
 They would be blest that saw that. 
 
 BALLAD SECOXD. 
 
 Fy, let US a' to Kirkcudbright, 
 
 For there will be bickering there ; 
 For Murray's light horse are to muster. 
 
 And oh, how the heroes will swear ! i 
 
 First, there will be trusty Ken-oughtrce,"2 
 
 Whase honour was ever his law ; 
 If the virtues were packed in a parcel, 
 
 His worth might be sample for a'. 
 
 And strong and rcspectfu's liis backing, 
 The maist o' the lairds wi' hira stand ; 
 
 Nae gipsy-like nominal barons, 
 
 Whase property 's paper, but lands.^ 
 
 For there frae the Niddisdale borders. 
 
 The Maxwells will gather in droves, 
 Teugh Jockie,-* stanch Geordic,'' and Wellwood,'' 
 
 That griens for the fishes and loaves. longs 
 
 And there will be Heron the Major,7 
 Wlia'll ne'er be forgot in the Greys ; 
 
 Our flattery we 'U keep for some other, 
 Hira only 'tis justice to praise. 
 
 And there will be Maiden Kilkerran," 
 And also Barskiniming's gude knight;'' 
 
 And there will bo roaring IJirtwhistle,'*' 
 AVlia luckily roars i' the riglit. 
 
 ' This liallad is oomposcd in imitation of a rouch but most nmiisintr spcrimon 
 of the old hallad litoraturo of Scotland, (Icscriptive of the- company iittcndin;; a 
 country wedding — 
 
 'Fy, let us a' to the weddinjr, 
 
 For there'll bo lilting there,' fee. 
 
 - Mr Heron of Kerroughtree, the Whig oandidato. 
 
 •' Many of the county electors were, previous to t!ie IJcfomi Act of I8.TJ, pos- 
 scssors of fictitious votes only— often called /uiprr volrrs. 
 
 ■• Mr Maxwell of Terrauglity, the venerable gentleman on whose birtliday Burns 
 wrote some verses. See vol. iii., ji. 204. 
 
 •'' George Ma.xwell of Carruchan. 
 
 Mr Wellwood Maxwell. 
 
 7 Major Heron, brother of the Whig candidate. 
 
 " Sir Adam Ferguson of Kilkerran. 
 
 " Sir AVilliam Miller of BarsKimming; afterwards o Judge under tlic designation 
 of Lord Olenlee. 
 
 1" Mr Hirtwhistle of Kirkcudbright.
 
 144 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Next there will be wealtliy young Richard '— 
 Dame Fortune should liing by the neck 
 
 For prodigal thriftless bestowing — 
 His merit had won him respect. 
 
 And there will be rich brother nabobs, 
 Though nabobs, yet men of the first ;^ 
 
 And there will be Collieston's whiskers,^ 
 And Quintin, o' lads not the warst.* 
 
 And there will be Stamp-office Johnnie-'— 
 Take care how ye purchase a dram; 
 
 And there will be gay Cassencarrie,'J 
 And there will be gleg Colonel Tam." 
 
 And there will be folk frae St Mary's, 
 
 A house of great merit and note ;>> 
 The deil ane but honours them highly, 
 
 The deil's few will gie them a vote. 
 
 And there'll be Murray commander,!' 
 
 And Gordon the battle to win;"' 
 Like brothers they'll stand by each other, 
 
 Sae knit in alliance and sin. 
 
 And there will be black-lippit Johnnie,'! 
 
 The tongue o' the trump to them a' ; 
 An he gets na hell for his haddin, 
 
 The deil gets nae justice ava. 
 
 And there'll be Kempleton's birkie,'- 
 
 A chiel no sae black at the bane; 
 For as for his fine nabob fortune. 
 
 We'll e'en lot that subject alane.'^ 
 
 ' Richard Oswald of Aucliinoi-uive. 
 
 2 Messrs Hannay. 
 
 ■3 Mr Copland of Collieston. 
 
 * Quintin M'Adam of C'raigengillan. 
 
 * Mr John Syme, distributer of stamps, Dumfries. 
 ® of Cassencarrie. 
 
 7 Colonel Goldie of Goldielea. 
 
 « The family of the Earl of Selkirk. 
 
 '•' Mr Murray of Broughton. This gentleman had left his wife, and eloped ■nith 
 a lady of rank. Large fortune had allowed him to do this with comparative 
 impunity, and even without forfeiting the alliance of his wife's relations, one of 
 whom he was supporting in this election. 
 
 '0 Mr Gordon of Balmaghie, the government candidate. 
 
 ' ' Mr John Bushby. 
 
 '2 William Bushby of Kempleton, brother of John. He had been involved in the 
 ruinous affair of Douglas, Heron, & Co.'s Bank, and had subsequently gone to 
 India, where he realised a fortune. 
 
 " Far.— For now what he wan in the Indies, 
 Has scoured up the laddie fu' clean.
 
 KIRKCUDBRIGHT ELECTION BALLADS. 145 
 
 And tliere'll be Wigton's new slierifF,! 
 
 Dame Justice fu' brawly has sped ; 
 She's gotten the heart o' a Biishby, 
 
 But, Lord I what's become o' the head* 
 
 And there'll be Cardoness Esquire,- 
 
 Sae mighty in Cardoness' eyes, 
 A wight that will weather daTnnation, 
 
 For the devil tlic prey will despise. 
 
 And tliere is our king's lord-licutcuant. 
 
 So famed for his grateful return ; 
 The birkie is getting liis questions-, 
 
 To say in St Stephen's the morn. 
 
 And there will be Douglasses douglity, 
 New-christening towns far and near; ' 
 
 Abjuring their democrat doings. 
 By kissing the of a peer. 
 
 And there'll be lads o' the gospel ; 
 
 Muirlicad, wha's as gude as he's truc;^ 
 And there'll be Buittle's apostle, 
 
 AVha's mair o' the black than the blue.' 
 
 And there'll be Keinnure sae generous,'' 
 
 Whase honour is proof to the storm ; 
 To save them frae stark reprobation, 
 
 He lent them his name to the firm. 
 
 And there'll be Logan M'Dowall,7 
 
 Sculduddery and he will be there ; 
 And also the wiUl Scot o' Galloway, 
 
 Sodgering gunpowder Blair." 
 
 But we winna mention Tledcastlo," 
 
 The body, e'en let him escapi-! 
 He'd venture the gallows for siller. 
 
 An' 'twere na' the cost o' tlio rape. 
 
 ' Ml- Busliliy Maitliinil, son of .lolin, and nowl.v ai.pointpd slicnfr of Wi^ton- 
 aliii-p. The samo idea occurs in Tlu KpiilU of Etojnii to hlariti. 
 
 - David Maxwell of Cardoness. ,. ,1 
 
 ■■ The Messrs Douiflas, brothers, of Carlinwork {n(V-chnskn(d by l.icm ( a.-itlc. 
 Douglas) and Orchardton. 
 
 * Rev. Mr Muirhcad, minister of I'rr. 
 
 «• Rev. GeorRC Maxwell, minister of Uuittlc. 
 
 * Mr (iordon of Kennnire. . . _ , „ , ~ ._ 
 7 Captain M'Dowall of Logan, the hero of I'c- flan*» and Draft Itoivit Poon, 
 " Mr Bluir of Dunskey. 
 
 » Walter Sloan Lawric of Redcastle. 
 
 VOL. IV. J
 
 146 LIFE AND WORKS OP BURNS. 
 
 Then liey the chaste interest o' Broughton, 
 And hey for the blessings 'twill bring ! 
 
 It may send Balmaghie to the Commons, 
 In Sodom 'twould make him a king. 
 
 And hey for the sanctified Murray, 
 Our land who wi' chapels has stored ; 
 
 He foundered his horse among harlots. 
 But gied the auld naig to the Lord. 
 
 Though Bums had, we may -well believe, anything but a view 
 to his own interest in writing these diatribes, it appears that there 
 resulted from them some little glimpse of a hope of promotion. 
 Mr Heron, hearing of them, and having perused one, wrote to 
 Mr Syme, with some references to the poet, as if it were not 
 impossible that he might be able to advance his interests. 
 
 TO MR HERON OF HERON. 
 
 Sir— I enclose you some copies of a couple of political ballads, 
 one of which, I believe, you have never seen. Would to Heaven I 
 could make you master of as many votes in the Stewartry— but — 
 
 Who does the utmost that he can, 
 Does well, acts nobly— angels could no more. 
 
 In order to bring my humble efforts to bear with more effect on 
 the foe, I have privately printed a good many copies of both ballads, 
 and have sent them among friends all about the country. 
 
 To pillory on Parnassus the rank reprobation of character, the 
 utter dereliction of all principle, in a profligate junto, which has 
 not only outraged virtue, but violated common decency, spurning 
 even hypocrisy as paltry iniquity below their daring— to unmask 
 their flagitiousness to the broadest day— to deliver such over to 
 their merited fate— is surely not merely innocent, but laudable ; is 
 not only propriety, but virtue. You have already, as your auxiliary, 
 the sober detestation of mankind on the heads of your opponents ; 
 and I swear by the lyre of Thalia, to muster on your side all the 
 votaries of honest laughter, and fair, candid ridicule. 
 
 I am extremely obliged to you for your kind mention of my 
 interests in a letter which Mr Syme shewed me. At present, my 
 situation in life must be in a great measure stationary, at least for 
 two or three years. The statement is this — I am on the supervisors' 
 list, and as we come on there by precedency, in two or three years I 
 shall be at the head of that list, and be appointed of course. Then, 
 a FRIEND might be of service to me in getting me into a place of the 
 kingdom which I would like. A supervisor's income varies from 
 about a hundred and twenty to two hundred a year ; but the business 
 is an incessant drudgery, and would be nearly a complete bar to 
 Gvery species of literary pursuit. The moment I am appointed
 
 JOHN eushby's lamentation. 147 
 
 supervisor, in the common routine, I may be nominated on the 
 collector's list; and this is always a business purely of political 
 patronage. A collectorship varies much, from better than two 
 hundred a year to near a thousand. They also come forward by 
 precedency on the list; and have, besides a handsome income, a life 
 of complete leisure. A life of literary leisure, with a decent com- 
 petency, is the summit of my wishes. It would be the prudish 
 affectation of silly pride in me to say that I do not need, or would 
 not be indebted to, a political friend ; at the same time, sir, I by no 
 means lay my aiFaii-s before you thus, to hook my dependent situa- 
 tion on your benevolence. If, in my progress of life, an openinj^ 
 should occur where the good offices of a gentleman of your public 
 character and political consequence might bring me forward, I shall 
 petition your goodness with the same frankness as I now do myself 
 the honom- to subscribe myself, IL B. 
 
 After the election, which was decided in Mr Heron's favour, 
 Bums could not resist the temptation to raise a paean of triumpli 
 .over the discomfited earl and his factotum Bushby : 
 
 JOHN bxjshby's lamentation. 
 
 Tune — The Babes in the Wood. 
 
 'Twas in the seventeen hunder year 
 
 0' grace and ninety-five. 
 That year I was the wae'est man 
 
 O' ony man alive. 
 
 In March the three-and-twentieth morn, 
 
 The sun raise clear and bright; 
 But oh I was a waefu' man 
 
 Ere to-fa' o' the night. 
 
 Yerl Galloway lang did rule this land, 
 
 Wi' equal right and fame, 
 And thereto was his kinsman joined 
 
 The Murray's noble namc.i 
 
 Yerl Galloway lang did rule the laud, 
 
 Made me the judge o' strife ; 
 But now Yerl Galloway's sceptre's broke, 
 
 And eke ray hangman's knifo.^ 
 
 1 p^ar.— Fast knit in clinsto anC, Imty bands, 
 
 Wi' UrouKlitoMS iioblo name. 
 - Fil/".— tarl Gallowa.v's man o' mtn was I, 
 • Anil chief o' lirougliton '» host ; 
 So twa blinil l>cKKar» <>n a slrinR 
 
 The faithfu' t.yke will trust. 
 Rut now Karl Galloway '» sci'ptro'i* broke, 
 
 And Jtroughton's wl' the nloln, 
 And I my ancient craft may try, 
 Sii»' honesty is g.inc.
 
 148 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 'Twas by the banks o' bonnie Dee, 
 
 Beside Kirkcudbright's towers, 
 The Stewart and the Murray tlicre 
 
 Did muster a' their powers. 
 
 The Muri-av, on t'le auld grav vaud, 
 
 Wi' iviiifjcd Sjnus did ride,l 
 That auld gray yaud, yea,'- Nidsdalc radc, 
 
 He staw upon Nidside. stole 
 
 An' there had na been the yerl himsel', 
 
 there had boon nae play ; 
 But Garlies was to London gane, 
 
 And sae the kye might stray. 
 
 And there was Balmaghie, I wccn, 
 
 In front rank he wad shine ; 
 But Balmaghie had better been 
 
 Drinking Madeira wine. 
 
 Frae the''* Glenkens came to our aid, 
 
 A chief o' dougiity deed ; 
 In case that worth should wanted be, 
 
 0' Kenmure we had need. 
 
 And by our banners marched JIuirhead, 
 
 And Buittle was na slack ; 
 Whase haly priesthood nane can stain. 
 
 For wha can dye the black ? 
 
 And there sae grave Squire Cardoness, 
 
 Looked on till a' was done; 
 Sae, in tlie tower o' Cardoness, 
 
 A howlet sits at noon. 
 
 And there led I tlie Bushby clan, 
 
 My gamesome billie Will ; 
 And my son Maitland, wise as brave, 
 
 My footsteps followed still. 
 
 The Doufrlas and the Heron's name 
 
 "We set nought to tlieir score ; 
 The Douglas and the Heron's name 
 
 Had felt our weight'* before. 
 
 ' An obscure allusion to the lady with wliom Murray had eloped— a nicmbcr of 
 the house of Johnston, whoso well-lviiown crest Is a winged spur. 
 « Var.—A. 3 Far.— And fra. * Trtr.— Might.
 
 DR MUIRIIEAD's LAMPOON ON BURNS. 149 
 
 But Douglasses o' weiglit had we, 
 
 The pair o' lusty luirds, 
 For building cot-houses sac famed, 
 
 And christening kail-yards. 
 
 And there Piedcastle drew his sword, 
 
 That ne'er was stained wi' gore, 
 Save on a wanderer lame and blind. 
 
 To drive him frae his door. 
 
 And last came creeping C 1- 
 
 Was mair in fear than wrath ; 
 Ae knave was constant in his mind. 
 
 To keep that knave frae scaitli. * ' * 
 
 The country gentlemen submitted to these diatribes of liunis 
 ■with probably no great difficulty, his social position making liim 
 no proper object for ostensible resentment. There was, however, 
 a clergyman amongst the victims, a vigorous-minded, somewhat 
 eccentric personage, his name and description being, the Ifev. 
 .lames INIuirliead, minister of Urr. Landed property and a pedigree 
 singled this gentleman out from the class to which he belonged, 
 lie took a pride in considering himself as the chief of the Muir- 
 heads, and his neighbours had of course heard a good deal of his 
 family heraldry. Burns introduced him in the second of these 
 ballads by the single line — 
 
 ' Muirhead, wha's as gnde as he's true.' 
 
 lie also figures in the third liallad, under a still more pointoil 
 allusion. Muirliead, who had lived with the Edinburgh wits, iJr 
 Gilbert Stuart and Dr John Brown, was himself a scribbler of 
 epigrams and lampoons, and little disposed to receive Burns's 
 venomed darts Avith Christian meekness. lie caused a small 
 brochure to be printed in Kdinbiirgh, commencing tluis: 
 
 ' The ancient poets, all agree, 
 Sang sweeter far than moilorn wo. 
 In this, hcsiilcs, their racy rhymes 
 AVcre told in far, far fewer lines,' &c. 
 
 Then he quoted — 
 
 .MAUTIALIS LinKU XI^ F.I". G(J. 
 IN V.K F.KIIVM. 
 
 'Kt delator es, ct raliiinniatnr; 
 Kt fraiidator es, et nctrotiator : 
 Kt fellator es, et lanista : nilror 
 Quarc non liaheai, Varerra, numnioi.'
 
 150 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Followed a translation, or rather paraphrase : 
 
 ' Vacerras, shabby son of w , 
 
 Why do thy patrons Ueep thee poor ? 
 Bribe-worthy service thou canst boast, 
 At once their bulwark and their post ; 
 Thou art a sycophant, a traitor, 
 A liar, a calumniator, 
 
 Who conscience (hadst thou that) would sell, 
 Nay, lave the common sewer of hell. 
 For whisky : Eke, most precious imp. 
 Thou art a rhymster, ganger, pimp ; 
 Whence comes it, then, Vacerras, that 
 Thou still art poor as a church-rat ? ' 
 
 This is a curiosity, not merely as a specimen of clerical bitter- 
 ness, but as almost the only known contemporary satu-e on Burns 
 which obtained the honours of print. It will be found that our 
 bard made a rejoinder.^ 
 
 In the early part of 1795, two companies of volunteers were 
 raised by Dumfries, as its quota towards the stationary troops 
 which were found necessary at that crisis, when the regular army 
 was chiefly engaged in maintaining external warfare against 
 France.^ Many a liberal who had incurred the wrath or suspicion 
 of the government and its friends, was glad to enrol himself in 
 these corps, in order to prove that he bore a sound heart towards 
 his country. Syme, Dr Maxwell, and others of the Dumfries Whigs, 
 took this step, and Bm-ns also joined the corps, though, according 
 
 1 ' It consists with my knowledge, that no publication in answer to the scurrilities 
 of Burns ever did him so much harm in public opinion, or made Burns himself 
 feel so sore, as Dr Muirhead's translation of Martial's epigram. When I remon- 
 strated with the doctor against his printing and circulating that translation, I 
 asked him how ho proved that Vacerras was a ganger as well as Burns. He 
 answered : " Martial calls him fellator, which means a sucker, or a man who 
 drinks from the cask."'— From a MS., b)j the late Alexander Yoimg, Esq., W.S., 
 Edinhiirgh. 
 
 '[Died, May 16, 1808] at Spottes Hall, Dunscore, the Rev. Dr James Muirhead, 
 minister of IJrr, in the sixty-eighth year of his age, and thirty-eighth of his ministry.' 
 — Magazine Ohituary. 
 
 2 ' War Office, 2Iarch 24 (1795).— Dumfriesshire Corps of Volunteers. A. S. De 
 Teyster, Esq., to be Major Commandant; John Hamilton and John Finnan, Esq., 
 Captains; David Newall and Wellwood Maxwell, gent., First Lieutenants; Francis 
 Shortt and Thomas "W'hite, gent., Second Lieutenants.' — Gazette. 
 
 On the king's birthday, a set of colours, prepared by Mrs De Peystcr, wife 
 of the commandant, was presented in a ceremonious manner to the Dumfries 
 Volunteers, in the square where the Duke of Queensberry's monument stands. 
 The Rev. Mr Burnside, one of the clergymen of the town, said e prayer on the 
 occasion, and complimented the corps on its good discipline, which he said had 
 been mainly owing to De Peyster's assiduity in drilling. 'At four o'clock, the 
 whole Volunteers, and a number of other gentlemen, were entertained at dinner in 
 the King's Arms by the magistrates ; and at five the company ac^ourned to the 
 court-house, where the king's health was drunk, and other loyal and constitutional 
 toasts suited to the occasion. The whole day was spent in the utmost harmony,' &c. 
 — Dumfries Journal, June 9, 1795.
 
 SONG—' THE DUMFRIES VOLUNTEERS.' 151 
 
 to Allan Cunningham, not without opposition from some of the 
 haughty Toi'ies, who demurred about his political opinions. ' I 
 remember well,' says Cunningham, ' the appearance of that 
 respectable corps; 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 our Horse-guards ; and I remember the poet also — his very 
 swarthy face, his ploughman stoop, his large dark eyes, and his 
 indifferent dexterity m the handling of his arms.' The poet made 
 a further and more public demonstration of his sentiments about 
 Gallic propagandism, by penning his well-known song — 
 
 THE DUMFRIES VOLUNTEERS. 
 TwE—Push about Vie Joninu 
 
 Does haughty Gaul invasion threat ? 
 
 Then let the loons beware, sir ; 
 There's wooden walls upon our seas, 
 
 And volunteers on shore, sir. 
 The Nith shall run to Corsincon,^ 
 
 And CrifFcl - sink in Solway, 
 Ere we permit a foreign foe 
 
 On Britisli groimd to rally ! 
 Fall de rail, &c. 
 
 Oh, let us not like snarling tykes dogs 
 
 In wrangling be divided ; 
 Till, slap, come in an unco loon, 
 
 And wi' a rung decide it. bludgeon 
 
 Be Britain still to Britain true, 
 
 Among oursels united; 
 For never but by British hands 
 
 Maun British wraiigs be righted. 
 Fall de rail, &c. 
 
 The kettle o' the Kirk and State, 
 
 Perhaps a clout may fail in't; 
 But deil a foreign tinkler loon 
 
 Shall ever ca' a nail in't. 
 Our fathers' bluid the kettle bought. 
 
 And wha wad dare to spoil it; 
 By Heaven, the sacrilegious dog 
 
 Shall fuel be to boil it. 
 Fall de rail, &c. 
 
 1 A hi(?h hill at the soiiro.- of tl.o Nitli.--H. 
 
 3 A weU-knowu niounUiii near the mouth of the Mth.
 
 152 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 The -wretch that wad a tyrant own, 
 
 And the wretch his true-born brother, 
 \Vh' 'ould set the mob aboon the throjie. 
 
 May they be damned together ! 
 Wlio will not sing ' God save tlie King,' 
 
 Shall hang as high's the steeple ; 
 But while we sing ' God save the King,' 
 
 We'll ne'er forget the People. 
 
 This ballad appears in the Dumfries Journal of 5th May, 
 •whence it was quickly transferred into other newspapers. So 
 decided a declaration in behalf of order, joined with so guarded, 
 yet so felicitous an assertion of popular principles, ought to have 
 secured some share of govei*nraent favour for Burns. In tlie 
 same spirit, and in much the same phraseology, was an epigram 
 which he is said to have given forth at a festive meeting to 
 celebrate Rodney's victory of the 12th of April. 
 
 TOAST FOR THE I'llll OF APRIL. 
 
 Instead of a song, boys, I'll give you a toast^ 
 
 Here's the memory of those on the twelfth that we lost ! — 
 
 That we lost, did I say ? nay, by Heaven, that we found ; 
 
 Eor tlieir fame it shall last while the world goes round. 
 
 The next in succession, I'll give you — the King! 
 
 Whoe'er would betray him, on high may he swing; 
 
 And here's the grand fabric, our free Constitution, 
 
 As built on the base of the great Revolution; 
 
 And longer with politics not to be crammed. 
 
 Be Anarchy cursed, and be Tyranny damned ; 
 
 And who would to Liberty e'er prove disloyal. 
 
 May his son be a hangman, and he his first trial ! 
 
 Cunningham says of the invasion-song, that ' it hit the taste, 
 and suited the feelings of the humbler classes, who added to it 
 tlie Poo7' and Honest Sodger, the Song of Death, and Scots loha 
 hae vjr Wallace hied. Hills eclioed with it; it was heard in every 
 street, and did more to right the mind of the rustic part of the 
 population, than all the speeches of Pitt and Dundas, or the 
 chosen Fivc-and-Forty.' Assuming this to have been the case, it 
 might well seem strange that the Scottish minister who has been 
 named, in his abundant benevolence towards Scotland, never 
 extended the slightest patronage towards one from whom Scotland 
 derived more lionour than from any other of her living sons. 
 
 We do not find, indeed, that from the first to last of Burns's 
 career, any movement was made in high quarters to distinguisli 
 him by state patronage. We have no trace of his ever having
 
 LETTER TO MU OSWALD OF AUCniNCRUIVE. ] 53 
 
 attracted the slightest attention from the royal family. No 
 minister smiled upon him. Scarcely a single' Tory noble or 
 gentleman granted him fm-ther grace than a subscription for his 
 poems. All his active patrons among the gi-eat were of the 
 Whig party, men destitute of the power of advancing him beyond 
 the humble function to which the favour of one of them had 
 condemned him. His receiving no ray of state favour is the more 
 remarkable, since it appears that Mr Addington entertained a 
 most earnest feeling of interest m the poetry of the Scottish 
 ploughman, and that his strains had touched even the temperate 
 bosom of Mr Pitt. Mr Lockhart had learned, apparently on good 
 authority, that the latter statesman spoke thus of the productions 
 of P)urns, at the table of Lord Liverpool, not long after the death 
 of the hapless bard: ' I can tliink of no verse since Shakspeare's 
 that has so much the appearance of coming sweetly from nature.' ^ 
 Allan Cunningham had learned that ]Mr Addington reminded Pitt 
 of the deservings of the poet in his lifetime; but Pitt 'pushed tlic 
 bottle to Lord Melville, and did nothing.'- Mr Lockhart adds 
 very justly: 'Had Burns put forth some newspaper .«quibs upon 
 Lepaux and Carnot, or a smart pamphlet " On the State of the 
 Countiy," he might have been more attended to in liis lifetime. 
 It is common to say: " What is everybody's business is nobody's 
 business;" but one may be pardoned for thinking that, in such 
 cases as this, that which the general voice of the country does 
 admit to be everybody's business, comes, in fact, to be the business 
 of those whom the nation intrusts with national concerns.' 
 
 The fact is, tliat no man allying himself to tlic Wliigs could in 
 those days be tolerated by the ministry. l>urns, tliough practi- 
 cally demonstrating his attachment to tlie general fabric of tlio 
 constitution, made no secret at the same time of his wisliing to 
 see it in other hands than those in wliicli it now rested. Tlii.s 
 was enough. We see the earnestness of his sentiments, even in 
 the volunteering crisis, in a letter which has come down to us 
 without any address, but wliich seems to liave enveloped the 
 election ballads to some Whig gentleman— probably iMr Oswald 
 of Auchincruive, a young Ayrsiiirc siiuirc of great wealth, now 
 living near Dumfries, and whom lie liad lately met :' 
 
 TO [RlfHAUn A. (iSWAI.n, ESQ.] 
 
 Di'MKitiKJs 83rf April 1793. 
 SlU— You see the danger of patronising tlio rlivniing tril.o: yon 
 flatter the poet's vanity- a most potent ingredient in the composition 
 
 ' /.oc-kfinrl's I.ifr of lUirnf. p. 2^7- ' Cniiiiuiihitm-t l.ijf of fliino, p. Sfii. 
 
 ^ The letter lias lately been found among tlie pajiern of the Auililnorui\e family.
 
 154 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 of a son of rhyme — by a little notice; and he, in return, persecutes 
 your good-nature with his acquaintance. In these days of volun- 
 teering, I have come forward with my services, as poet-laureate to 
 a highly respectable political party, of which you are a distinguished 
 member. The enclosed are, I hope, only a beginning to the songs 
 of triumph which you will earn in that contest. — I have the honour 
 to be, sir, your obliged and devoted humble servant, 
 
 E. Burns. 
 
 About the same time, he wrote a song upon the beautiful 
 young wife of Mr Oswald, and sent it to Mr Syme, enclosed in 
 the following letter : — 
 
 TO JOHN SYME, ESQ. 
 
 You know that, among other liigh dignities, you have the honour 
 to be my supreme court of critical judicature, from which there is 
 no appeal. I enclose you a song which I composed since I saw you, 
 and I am going to give you the history of it. Do you know that 
 among much that I admire in the characters and manners of those 
 great folks whom I have now the honour to call my acquaintances, 
 the Oswald family, there is nothing charms me more than Mr 
 Oswald's unconcealable attachment to that incomparable woman? 
 Did you ever, my dear Syme, meet with a man who owed more to 
 ^he Divine Giver of all good things than Mr O.? A fine fortune ; a 
 pleasing exterior; self-evident amiable dispositions, and an ingenu- 
 ous, upright mind, and that informed, too, much beyond the usual 
 nin of young fellows of his rank and fortune : and to all this, such a 
 woman ! — but of her I shall say nothing at all, in despair of saying 
 anything adequate. In my song, I have endeavoured to do justice to 
 what would be his feelings, on seeing, in the scene I have drawn, 
 the habitation of his Lucy. As I am a good deal pleased with my 
 performance, I in my first fervour thought of sending it to Mrs 
 Oswald, but on second thoughts, perhaps what I offer as the honest 
 incense of genuine respect, might, from the well-known character of 
 poverty and poetry, be construed into some modification or other of 
 that servility which my soul abhors. Do let me know some con- 
 venient moment, ere the worthy family leave the town, that I, icitli 
 'propriety, may wait on them. In the circle of the fashionable herd, 
 those who come either to shew their own consequence, or to borrow 
 consequence from the visit^-^in such a mob I will not appear : mine 
 is a different errand. — Yours, Kobt. Burns. 
 
 The song enclosed was that which follows. It is curious that, 
 when lately commenced, he had assigned the name Jeanie to the 
 heroine, apparently having a totally different person in his eye. 
 We have seen that it was no imusual thing with him to shift the 
 devotion of verse from one person to another, or to make one 
 poem seiTe as a compliment to more than one individual.
 
 SONG IX HONOUR OF ]SrRS OSWALD. 155 
 
 on, WAT YE WHA'S IN YON TOWN? 
 Tune— JTe'W gang nae mair to yon Totcii. 
 
 Oh, -wat ye wha's in yon town, 
 
 Ye see the e'enin' sun upon? 
 The fairest dame 's in yon town, 
 
 That e'enin' sun is shining on, 
 
 Now haply down yon gay gi-een shaw, 
 She wanders by yon spreading tree ; 
 
 How blest ye flowers that round her blaw, 
 Ye catch the glances o' her ee ! 
 
 Ho^^ blest ye birds that round her sing, 
 And welcome in the blooming year ! 
 
 And doubly welcome be the spring, 
 The season to my Lucy dear. 
 
 The sun blinks blithe on yon town, 
 And on yon bonnie braes of Ayr ; 
 
 But my dehght in yon town. 
 And dearest bliss,i is Lucy fan-. 
 
 Without my love, not a' the charms 
 O' Paradise could yield me joy ; 
 
 But gie me Lucy in my arms. 
 
 And welcome Lapland's dreary sky ! 
 
 My cave wad be a lover's bower, 
 Thouo-h raging winter rent the air ; 
 
 And she a lovely little flower, 
 
 That I wad tent and shelter there. 
 
 Oh, sweet is she in yon town, 
 
 Yon sinkin' sun's ganc down upon ; 
 
 A fairer than's in yon town 
 
 His setting beam ne'er shone upon. 
 
 If angry fate is sworn my foe, 
 
 And suffering I am doomed to bear ; 
 
 I careless quit aught else below, 
 
 But spare me-spare mc, Lucy dear . 
 
 For while life's dearest blood is warm, 
 Ac thought frae her shall ne'er depart. 
 
 And she-as fairest is her form! 
 She has the truest, kindest heart! 
 
 1 In original manuscript, 'Joy.*
 
 1 5G LIFE AND WOKKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Lucy Johnston, daughter of Wynne Johnston, Esq., of Hilton, 
 was married 23d April 1793, to Richard Alexander Oswald, Esq., 
 of Auchincruive, in the county of Ayr. A portrait of the lady 
 adorns the work entitled The Land of Burns, where a brief notice 
 of her is wound up as follows: ' Alas for beauty, fortune, affection, 
 and hopes I This lovely and accomplished woman had not blessed 
 Mr Oswald above a year beyond this period, Avhen she fell hito 
 pulmonary consumption. A removal to a warmer climate was 
 tried, in the hope of restoring health, but she died at Lisbon, in 
 January 1798, at an age little exceeding thirty.' 
 
 It appears from tliis letter, that Burns was in the habit of 
 submitting his verses to the judgment of his friend Syme, and 
 abiding by the decision. It may be added, that he had likewise 
 a critical friend in Collector Mitchell, Avho, having been educated 
 for the church, possessed a mind not ill qualitied to judge of 
 literary compositions. At his death, a whole sheaf of iirst copies 
 of poems and songs by Burns was found in the collector's repo- 
 sitories, on which it was understood that he had been asked to 
 give his opinion. The bundle was lost by the family, and has 
 never since been heard of. 
 
 I had an opportunity, in 182G, of conversing with Mr Syme 
 regarding Burns. He was a very good specimen of the Scotch 
 gentleman of the latter part of the eighteenth century — a good 
 deal of the bon-vivant, yet intelligent, well-bred, and full of 
 anecdote. He referred with pride and pleasure to the meetings 
 he had had with Bui-ns in the same room in which I now found 
 him living (in a villa called Eyedale, on the Galloway side of the 
 river.) He expatiated on the electric flashes of the poet's eloquence 
 at table, and on the burning satiric shafts which he was accustomed 
 to launch at those whom he disliked, or who betrayed any affecta- 
 tion or meanness in tlieir conversation. I particularly remember 
 the old gentleman glowing over the discomfiture of a too con- 
 siderate Amphytryon, who, when entertaining himself, Burns, 
 and some otliers, lingered with screw in hand over a fresh bottle 
 of claret, which he evidently wislied to be forbidden to draw — 
 till Burns transfixed him by a comparison of his present position 
 with that of Abraham lingering over the filial sacrifice. Another 
 souvenir of the poet's wit referred to a person who bored a com- 
 pany for a considerable time with references to the many great 
 people he had lately been visiting — 
 
 No more of your titled acquaintances boast, 
 And in what lordly circles you've been: 
 
 An insect is still but an insect at most, 
 Though it crawl on the head of a queen.
 
 INTIMACY WITH JOHN SYMK. 157 
 
 Mr Syinc, ia 182D, tlius wrote regarding the personal appear- 
 ance of Burns at the time of their intimacy: ' The poet's expression 
 varied perpetually, according to tlie idea tliat predominated in his 
 mind; and it was beautiful to remark how well the play of his 
 lips indicated the sentiment he was about to utter. His eyes and 
 lips, the first remarkable for fire, and the second for tlexibility, 
 formed at all times an index to his mind, and, as sunshine or 
 sliade predominated, you might have told, a priori, whether the 
 company was to be favoured with a scintilhition of wit. or a 
 sentiment of benevolence, or a burst of fier}- indignation .... I 
 cordially concur with what Sir Walter Scott says of the poet's 
 eyes. In his animated moments, and particularly when liis anger 
 was roused by instances of tergiversation, meanness, or tyranny, 
 they were actually like coals of living fire.^ 
 
 There is evidence from tlie bard himself, that he botli looked 
 up to ]\>r Syme as a judge of literature, and loved him as a 
 companion. Sending him a dozen of porter from the Jerusalem 
 Tavern of Dumfries, Burns accompanied the gift with a compli- 
 mentary note — 
 
 Oil, had the malt thy strcnfjth of mind, 
 
 Or hops tlic flavour of thy wit, 
 'Twere drink for first of human kind, 
 
 A srift that even for Svmo were fit. 
 
 At Syme's own liouse, being pressed to stay and drink mora, 
 Burns hesitated; then taking up a tumbler, he scribbled on it — 
 
 Tliero's Death in the cup, sac beware — 
 Nay, mair, tlicro is danger in touching; 
 
 But wha can avoid the fell snare? 
 
 The nuin and his wine's sao bewitching. 
 
 So late as the ITtli December 1795, when Burns was in declining 
 healtli, lieing invited by Syme to dine, with a promise of tlie l)cst 
 company and the best cookery, he accompanieil liis apology with 
 a similar compliment — 
 
 No more of your guests, ho they titled or not, 
 
 And cookery tlio first in tlit; nation; 
 Who is proof to tliy jiursonal convcr.so and wit. 
 
 Is proof to all other temptation. 
 
 Syme possessed vivid talents, which Dr Curric regarded with 
 such respect, tiiat he i)resscd liim to undertake the editing of tliJ 
 poet's life and writings. That ho was also a man of probity and
 
 158 LIFE AND WORKS OP BURNS. 
 
 lionoui*, a long respectable life fully testifies. Yet it is also true, 
 that Mr Syme, like many other men of lively temperament, could 
 not boast of a historical accuracy of naiTation. He most un- 
 doubtedly was carried away by his imagination in his statement 
 regarding the composition of 15ruce's Address to his troops. So 
 also he appears to have been in a story, of which several versions 
 have been given to the public. It relates to a conversation on 
 some particulars of Burns's personal conduct, which took place in 
 one of their social evenings at Ryedale. 'I might have spoken 
 daggers,' says Mr Syme, ' but I did not mean them : Burns shook 
 to the inmost fibre of his frame, and drew his sword-cane, when I 
 exclaimed: "What! wilt thou thus, and in mine own house?" 
 The poor feUow was so stung with remorse, that he dashed himself 
 down on the floor.' This anecdote having been unluckily com- 
 municated to the public in an article in the Quarterly Review by 
 Sir Walter Scott, an undue importance has come to be attached 
 to it. When the matter was rigidly investigated, nothing more 
 could be substantiated than that Syme and Burns had one evening 
 become foolishly serious in the midst of their merry-making — that 
 some allusions by the one to the sins or irregularities of the other, 
 led to a piece of mock-heroic very suitable to the occasion, Bums 
 touching the head of his sword-cane, as implying that his honour 
 might be avenged for any indignity, and Syme making a corre- 
 sponding tragic start, with the words : * Wliat! in mine own house?' 
 It was very natural for Mr Syme to retain but an obscure recollec- 
 tion of the incident ; but he cannot be acquitted of culpable 
 incautiousness in allowing it to come before the world with a shade 
 of seriousness attached to what never was more than a piece of 
 rodomontade. 
 
 BURNS TO MR THOMSON.^ 
 
 [After transcribing the song, Oh, toat ye u-Jia's in yon Town? the 
 poet goes on : — ] 
 
 Your objection to the last two stanzas of my song, Let me in this 
 ae Night, does not strike me as just. You will take notice, that my 
 heroine is replying quite at her ease, and when she talks of faithless 
 man,' she gives not the least reason to believe that she speaks from 
 her own experience, but merely from observation of what she has 
 seen around her. But of all boring matters in this boring world, 
 criticising my own works is the greatest bore. 
 
 ' In original, there is no date or post-mark. Currie gives as a date May 1"95.
 
 SOXG — ' ON CHLORIS BEING ILL.' 159 
 
 ADDRESS TO THE WOODLARK. 
 
 Tune— IF/j€re 'H bonnic Ann lie? or, Loch-ErrocJi Side. 
 
 O stay, sweet warbling woodlark, stay ! 
 Jlor quit for me the trembling spray ; 
 A hapless lover courts thy lay, 
 Thy soothing, fond complaining. 
 
 Again, again that tender part, 
 That I may catch thy melting art ; 
 For surely that wad touch her heart, 
 Wha kills me wi' disdaininsr. 
 
 Say, was thy little mate unkind. 
 And heard thee as the careless wind ? 
 Oh ! nocht but love and soitow joined, 
 Sic notes o' wo could wauken. 
 
 Thou tells o' never-ending care ; 
 O' speechless grief, and dark despair: 
 For pity's sake, sweet bird, nae mair, 
 Or my poor heart is broken ! 
 
 Let me know, your very first leisure, how you like this song.^ 
 
 ON CHLORIS BEING ILL. 
 Trms—Aye tcdkin 0. 
 
 Long, long the night. 
 
 Heavy comes the morrow, 
 
 While my soul's delight 
 Is on her bed of sorrow. 
 
 Can I cease to care ? 
 
 Can I cease to languish ? 
 While my darling fair 
 
 Is on the couch of anguish ? 
 
 Every hope is fled. 
 
 Every fear is terror ; 
 Slumber even I dread ; 
 
 Every dream is horror. 
 
 1 This sentence appears in Curric's edition, but not in the original manuscript.
 
 160 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Hoar me, Powers divine! 
 
 Oil, in pity hear me! 
 Take aiij^ht else of mine, 
 
 But my Ciiloris spare me ! 
 
 How do you like tlie foregoino; ? The Irish air, Humours of Glen, 
 is a f^reat favourite of mine, and as, except the silly stuff in the 
 Poor Soldier, there are not any decent verses for it, 1 have written 
 for it as follows :— 
 
 THEIR GROVES o' SWEET MYItT!.E. 
 Tl'xe — Humours of Glen. 
 
 Their groves o' sweet myrtle let foreign lands reckon, 
 AVliere bright-beaming summers exalt the perfume ; 
 
 Far dearer to me yon lone glen o' green breckan, forn 
 
 Wi' the burn stealing under the lang yellow broom. 
 
 Far dearer to me are yon humble broom bowers, 
 
 Where the blue-bell and gowan lurk lowly unseen: 
 For there, lightly tripping amang the wild-flowers, 
 A listening the linnet, aft wanders my Jean. 
 
 Thougli ricli is tlie breeze in their gay sunny valleys. 
 
 And cauld Caledonia's blast on tlie wave ; 
 Tlieir sweet-scented woodlands that skirt the proud palace. 
 
 What are tliey ? — the haunt of the tyrant and slave! 
 
 Tlie slave's spicy forests, and gold-bubbling fountains. 
 
 The brave Caledonian views wi' disdain ; 
 He wanders as free as the winds of liis mountains, 
 
 Save love's willing fetters — the chains o' his Jean ! 
 
 Yours, R. B. 
 
 P.S. — Stop! turn over. 
 
 'twas NA llETl BONNIE BLUE EE WAS MY RUIN. 
 
 'Tv •an,— Laddie, He nearme. 
 
 'Twas na lier bonnie blue ee was my ruin ; 
 Fair though she be, that was ne'er my undoing : 
 'Twas the dear smile when naebody did mind us, 
 'Twas the bewitching, sweet, stown glance o' kindness. 
 
 Sair do I fear that to hope is denied me, 
 
 Sair do I fear that despair maun abide nie ; 
 
 But though fell fortune should fate us to sever. 
 
 Queen shall she be in my bosom for ever ! ^
 
 PRESENT OP A PICTURE FEOM MR THOMSON. 161 
 
 Mary, I'm thine wi' a passion sincerest. 
 And thou liast plighted me love o' the dearest! 
 And thou'rt the angel that never can altei-, 
 Sooner the sun in his motion would falter. 
 
 Let me hear from you. 
 
 MR THOMSOX TO BURN'S. 
 
 You must not think, my good sir, that I have any intention to 
 enhance the value of my gift, when I say, in justice to tiie ingenious 
 and worthy artist, that tiic design and execution of the Cutter's 
 Saturday Night is, in my opinion, one of tlie hap])icst productions of 
 Allan's pencil. I shall be grievously disappointed if you are not 
 (juitc pleased with it. 
 
 The figure intended for your portrait, I think strikingly like you, 
 as far as I can remember your pliiz. This sliould make the ])iece 
 interesting to your family every way. Tell me whether Mi-s Burns 
 finds you out among tiie figures. 
 
 I cannot express the feeling of admiration with whicli I have read 
 your pathetic Address to the Woodlurk, your elegant panegyric on 
 (-aledonia, and your affecting verses on CIdoris's illness. Every 
 re])eated perusal of these gives new delight. The other song to 
 Laddie, lie near me, thougli not equal to these, is very pleasing. 
 
 BURNS TO MR THOMSOX. 
 
 [Post-marh, J/iiy 9,] 1795. 
 
 HOW CRUEL ARE TIIE r.\KEXTs! 
 AI.TEUKI) FROM AN OLD ENGLISH SONG. 
 
 'Vv^v.—Juhn Anderson »n.v Jo. 
 
 IIow cruel are the parents, 
 
 Who riches only prize ; 
 And to tlie wealthy booby, 
 
 J'oor woman saeiifice ! 
 Meanwhile, tlie hajiless daughter 
 
 lias but a choice of stiife ; — 
 To shun a tyrant fatiicr's hate, 
 
 Jiecome a wrctclied wife. 
 
 The ravening hawk pursuing, 
 
 Tiie trembling dove tlius Hies, 
 To shini impelling ruin 
 
 Awhile her jiinions tries : 
 Till of csiai)e despairing, 
 No shelter or retreat, 
 * She trusts the ruthless falconer, 
 
 And drops beneath his feet. 
 VOL. IV. K
 
 162 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 31ARK YONDER POMP OF COSTLY FASHION. 
 Tune— DciZ tak the Wars. 
 
 Mark yonder pomp of costly fashion, 
 
 Round the wealthy, titled bride : 
 But when compared with real passion, 
 
 Poor is all that princely pride. 
 
 What are the showy treasures ? 
 
 What are the noisy pleasures ? 
 The gay gaudy glare of vanity and art : 
 
 The polished jewel's blaze 
 
 May draw the wondering gaze, 
 
 And courtly grandeur bright 
 
 The fancy may delight, 
 But never, never can come near the heart. 
 
 But did you see my dearest Chloris, 
 
 In simplicity's array ; 
 Lovely as yonder sweet opening flower is, 
 
 Shrinking from the gaze of day. 
 
 Oh then, the heart alarming. 
 
 And all resistless charming, 
 In Love's delightful fetters she chains the willing soul I 
 
 Ambition woidd disown 
 
 The world's imperial crown, 
 
 Even Avarice would deny 
 
 His worshipped deity, 
 And feel through every vein Love's raptures roll. 
 
 Well! this is not amiss. You see how I answer your orders — 
 your tailor could not be more punctual. I am just now in a high fit 
 for 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 intoxi- 
 cating 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 tlirow away on 
 such a prosaic dog as you are. 
 
 BURNS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 Mai/ 1795. 
 Ten thousand thanks for your elegant present — though I am 
 ashamed of the value of it being bestowed on a man who has not, by 
 any means, merited such an instance of kindness. I have shewn it 
 to two or three judges of the first abilities here, and they all agree 
 with me in classing it as a first-rate production. My phiz is sae
 
 Allan's picture— cotter's Saturday night. 163 
 
 kcnspeckle, that the very joiner's apprentice, whom Mrs Burns 
 employed to break up the parcel (I was out of town that day), knew 
 it at once. My most grateful compliments to Allan, who h;us 
 honoured my rustic Muse so much with his masterly pencil. One 
 strange coincidence is, that the little one who is making the felonious 
 attempt on the cat's tail, is the most striking likeness of an ill-deedie, 
 d — n'd, wee, rumble-gairie urchin of mine, whom, from that propen- 
 sity to witty wickedness, and raanfu' mischief, which, even at twa 
 days' auld, I foresaw would form the striking features of his disposi- 
 tion, I named Willie Nicol, after a certain friend of mine, who is one 
 of the masters of a grammar-school in a city which shall be name- 
 less. Several people think that Allan's likeness of me is more 
 striking than Nasmyth's, for which I sat to him half-a-dozcn times. 
 However, there is an artist of considerable merit just now in this 
 town, who has liit the most remarkable likeness of what I am at this 
 moment, that I think ever was taken of anybody. It is a small 
 miniature, and as it will be in your town getting itself be-crystallised, 
 &c. I have some thoughts of suggesting to you to prefix a vignette 
 taken from it to my song. Contented ici' Little and Cunti/ irP Mair, in 
 order the portrait of my face and the picture of my mind may go 
 down the stream of time together. 
 
 Give the enclosed epigram to my much- valued friend Cunningham, 
 and tell him, that on Wednesday I go to visit a friend of his, to 
 whom his friendly partiality in speaking of me in a maimer intro- 
 duced me — I mean a well-known miUtary and literary cliaracter, 
 Colonel Dirom. 
 
 You do not tell me how you liked my two last songs. Are they 
 condemned ? 
 
 MR THOMSON TO BURNS. 
 
 LlZ/t Ifai/ 1795. 
 
 It gives mc great pleasure to find that you ai'c all so well satisfied 
 with Mr Allan's production. The chance resemblance of your little 
 fellow, whose promising disposition appeared so very early, and 
 suggested whom he should be named after, is curious enough. I am 
 acquainted with that person, who is a prodigy of Icanung and goniuH, 
 and a pleasant fellow, tliough no saint. 
 
 You really make me blush, when you tell me you have not merited 
 the drawing from me. I do not thuik I can ever repay you, or 
 sufficiently esteem and respect you, for the liberal and kind manner 
 in which you h.ave entered into tlie sjiirit of my undertaking, wliicli 
 could not have been perfected witlioutyou. So I beg you would not 
 make a fool of me again by sjjeakiiig of obligjition. 
 
 I like your two last songs very mjich, and am happy to find you 
 arc in such a liigh fit of poetising. Long may it la.'-t ! Chirko han 
 made a fine pathetic air to Mallet's superlative l)alla(l of William and 
 Marrjaret, and is to give it to mc, to be enrolled among tho elect.
 
 184 LIFE AND WOKKS OF BURNS. 
 
 These letters refer to a very interesting picture of the Cotter's 
 ■Saturday Nighty wliich had been executed by the first Scottisii 
 . artist of his day for such subjects — tlie ingenious David Allan. Mr 
 Thomson, it is to be observed, had from the beginning thouglit 
 Burns entitled to pecuniary remuneration for his songs, and, 
 though not rich himself, and his work was far from being a pro- 
 mising adventure, he had pressed one small pecuniary gift upon 
 the poet. Burns, on the other hand, as we have seen, was 
 decidedly repugnant to such gifts, and tlu-eatened, in the event of 
 a second, to discontinue his assistance. In these circumstances, Mr 
 Thomson's sense of obligation sought relief in small presents to the 
 poet. On one occasion, he ventured on a shawl for Mrs Burns, of a 
 -kind then novel and fashionable. He now sends an original picture 
 by an artist of reputation, and with a subject the selection of which 
 •must have been felt as a compliment by the bard. He had also 
 been, as Ave have seen, liberal in the bestowal of copies of his first 
 half volume, wliich was all that was published in Burns's lifetime. 
 
 In the letter of Burns to Mr Thomson, in which the poet 
 describes the arrival of the picture, there is a passage which Dr 
 Currie omitted : ' As to what you hint of my coming to Edin- 
 burgh, I know of no such arrangement.' One cannot well resist 
 the inclination to believe, that this relates to a plan of the bene- 
 volent Laird of Fintry for the benefit of Burns. Professor "Walker 
 speaks of such a scheme as belonging to an earlier period of the 
 poet's official career. ' Mr Graham,' he says, ' taking advantage of 
 the reasonable measure of official reputation which Burns possessed. 
 had, with no less judgment than kindness, projected a plan for his 
 benefit. Could this plan have been executed, it would in all pro- 
 bability have been equally effectual in providing him with the means 
 of comfortable subsistence, with a stimulus to mental exertion, and 
 Avith those moral restraints Avhich his character appears to have 
 required. The plan Avas to appoint him to a respectable office at 
 Leith, Avith an easy duty, and Avith emoluments rising nearly to 
 L.200 per annum. There he Avould naturally have formed a 
 stricter intimacy Avitli his literary patrons in Edinburgh. His 
 ambition to rencAV their applause, Avould have urged him to employ 
 his leisure in poetical compositions ; and his desire to retain their 
 favourable notice, Avould have been the most efficient correction 
 of those irregular habits, and tliat neglect of character, into Avhich 
 
 he Avas betrayed by his passions But all these friendly designs 
 
 of his patron Avere frustrated by the imprudence of the poet.' It 
 seems not unlikely that, noAv the blast of 1792 Avas fairly over- 
 bloAvn, and Burns's official qualifications had stood the test of three 
 more years, Mr Graham liad rencAved his Avell-meant plan, and 
 entertamed some hopes of carrying it into effect.
 
 SOXG — ' LAST MAY A BRAW WOOER.' 1C5 
 
 BURNS TO MR TnOMSON.l 
 ENGLISH SONG. 
 FORLORX, MY LOVE, NO COMFORT NEAR. 
 
 Tr.NE — Let mc in this ae Kitfkt. 
 
 Forlorn, my love, no comfort near. 
 
 Far, far from thee, I wander here ; 
 
 Far, far from thee, the fate severe 
 
 At which I most repine, love. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 Oil, wert thou, love, but near mc ; 
 But near, near, near me: 
 How Ivindly thou wouldst cheer me. 
 And mini'lc siirhs witli mine, love. 
 
 Around mc scowls a wintry slcy. 
 That blasts each bud of liope and joy; 
 And shelter, shade, nor home have I, 
 Save in those arms of thine, love. 
 
 Cold, altered friendship's cruel part, 
 To poison fortune's rutldess dart- 
 Let me not break thy faithful heart. 
 And say that fate is mine, love. 
 
 But dreary though the moments fleet, 
 Oh, let me think we yet shall meet ! 
 That only ray of solace sweet 
 Can on thy Chloris sliine, love. 
 
 How do you like the foregoing? I luivc written it within this 
 hour : so mJch for the speed of my Pegasus ; hut what say you to 
 his bottom ? 
 
 BURNS TO Mil THOMSON'. 
 
 iroilmark, July 3,] ITOj- 
 
 SCOTTISH nAI.I.Ati. 
 
 LAST MAY A U II A W WOOKU. 
 
 Tlmc— T/ic Lothian Umif. 
 
 Last May a braw wooer cam down the l.ing glen, 
 
 And sair wi' his love lie did deave me ; 
 I said there was naething I liated hko incn- 
 
 The deuce gac wi'm to believe mo, behcvo mc; 
 
 The deuce gae wi'm to believe mc. 
 
 . This letter l,as no .late or post-mark. In CurrlcH scrio., it i. pliic.d crronc 
 ously alter that which licrc follows it.
 
 366 LIFE AND WOKKS OF BUENS. 
 
 He spak o' the darts o' my bonnie black cen, 
 
 And vowed 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 well-stocked mailen — himsel for the laird — ■ farm 
 
 And marriage afF-hand, were his proffers : 
 
 I never loot on that I kenned it, or cared, 
 
 But thought I might hae waur offers, waur offers ; 
 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 ! 
 
 He up the Gateslack to my black cousin Bess, 
 
 Guess ye how, the jad ! I could bear her, could beai' her; : 
 Guess ye how, the jad ! I could bear her. 
 
 But a' the niest week as I fretted wi' care, 
 
 I gaed to the tryste o' Dalgarnock, 
 And wha but my fine fickle lover was there ! 
 
 I glowred as I'd seen a warlock, a warlock; 
 
 I glowred as I'd seen a warlock. 
 
 But owre my left shouther I gae him a blink. 
 
 Lest neibors might say I was saucy ; 
 My wooer he capered as he'd been in drink. 
 
 And vowed I was his dear lassie, dear lassie ; 
 
 And vowed I was his dear lassie. 
 
 I speered for my cousin fu' couthy and sweet, 
 
 Gin she had recovered her hearin'. 
 And how my auld shoon fitted her shachl't feet,i distorted 
 
 But, Heavens ! how he fell a swearin', a sweaxin'; 
 
 But, Heavens ! how he fell a swearin'. 
 
 He begged, for guidsake, I Avad be his M'ife, 
 
 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 ; 
 
 I think I maun wed him to-morrow. 
 
 FRAGMENT. 
 
 TxjNE— The Caledonian Hunt's Delight, 
 
 Why, why tell thy lover, 
 
 Bliss he never must enjoy ? 
 Why, why imdecoive him. 
 
 And give all his hopes the lie I 
 
 1 When a lover passes over from one mistress to another, the latter is said to 
 take up the old shoes of her predecessor.
 
 GATESLACK AND DALGARNOCK. 167 
 
 O why, while fancy, raptured, slumbers, 
 
 Chloris, Cliloris all the theme, 
 Why, why wouldst thou cruel. 
 
 Wake thy lover from his dream ? 
 
 Such is the peculiarity of the rhythm of this air, that I find it 
 impossible to make another stanza to suit it. 
 
 I am at present quite occupied with the charming sensations of 
 the toothache, so have not a word to spare. 
 
 MR THOMSON TO BURNS. 
 
 3d June 1795. 
 My dear Sir — Your English verses to Let me in this ae Night, arc 
 tender and beautiful; and your ballad to the Lothian Lassie is a 
 master-piece for its humour and iiaivctc. The fragment for the 
 Caledonian Hunt is quite suited to the original measure of the air, 
 and, as it plagues you so, the fragment must content it. I would 
 rather, as I said before, have had bacchanalian words, hud it so 
 pleased the poet; but, nevertheless, for what we have received, 
 Lord, make us thankful ! 
 
 [In this letter, Mr Tliomson objected to the introduction of 
 the word Gateslack, and also that of Dalgarnock, in the song of 
 the Braio Wooer.'] 
 
 BURNS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 ll'usl-mark, August 3,] 1/95. 
 
 In Whistle, and Pll come to ye, my Lad, the iteration of that lino 
 is tiresome to my ear. Here goes what I think i.s an improvement • 
 
 O whistle, and I '11 come to ye, my lad ; 
 O whistle, and I '11 come to ye, my lad ; 
 Though father and mother and a' should gac mad, 
 Thy Jeanie will venture wi' ye, my lad. 
 
 In fact, a fair dame, at whose shrine I, the Priest of tlic Nine, ofl'cr 
 up the incense of Parnassus — a dame whom the Graces have attired 
 in witchcraft, and whom the Loves have armed witli lij;htniiig— a 
 fair one, herself the heroine of tlie song, insi.sta on tlie amendment, 
 and dispute her commands if you dare ! 
 
 Gateslack, the word you object to, is the name of a particular 
 place, a kind of passage up among the Lowtlicr Hills, on the confincH 
 of tills county. Dalgarnock i.s also the name of a romantic spot 
 near the Nitli, where are still a ruined church and a burial-ground. 
 However, let the first run, 'lie up the lang loan,' &c.
 
 168 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 O THIS IS yO 51 Y AIX LASSIE. 
 Tune — This is no my ain House. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 this is no my ain lassie, 
 Fair though tlic lassie be; 
 
 O weel ken I my ain lassie, 
 Kind love is in her ee.^ 
 
 I see a form, I see a face. 
 Ye weel may wi' the fairest place : 
 It wants, to me, the witcliinj,' j^'racc. 
 The kind love that's in her ee. 
 
 She's bonnie, blooming, straight, and tall, 
 And lanrr has had niv heart in thrall; 
 And aye it charms my very saul. 
 The kind love that's in her ee. 
 
 A thief sae pawkie is my Jean, sly 
 
 To steal a blink, by a' unseen ; 
 
 quick 
 
 But gleg :is light arc lovers' een, 
 When kind love is in the ee. 
 
 It may escape tlic courtly sparks, 
 It may escape the learned clerks ; 
 But weel the watching lover marks 
 The kind love that's in her ee. 
 
 Do you know that you have roused the torpidity of Clarke at last ? 
 He has requested me to write three or four songs for him, which he 
 is to set to music himself. The enclosed sheet contains two songs 
 for him, which please to present to my valued friend Cunningham. 
 
 I enclose the sheet open, both for your inspection, and tliat you 
 raay copy the song, Bonnie teas yon rosy Brier. I do not know 
 whether I am right, but that song pleases me ; and as it is e.\.tremely 
 probable that Clarke's newly-roused celestial spark will be soon 
 .smothered in the fogs of indolence, if you like tlie song, it may go 
 as Scottish verses to the air of / i'.w/i my Love icus in a Mire; and 
 poor Erskine's English lines may follow. 
 
 I enclose you a For cC that, and a' that, which was never in print : 
 it is a much superior song to mine. I have been told that it was 
 composed by a lady. 
 
 ' The reader will learn with surprise, that the poet originally wrote t'.ils 
 chorus— 
 
 O this is no my ain Body, 
 
 Kind though the Body be, &c.
 
 SONG ADDRESSED TO MR CUNNINGHAM. 169 
 
 TO MR CUNNINGHAM. 
 SCOTTISH SONO. 
 
 Now spring has clad the grove in green, 
 
 And strewed tlie lea wi' flowers : 
 The furrowed, waving corn is seen 
 
 Rejoice in fostering showers ; 
 Wliile ilka thing in nature join 
 
 Their sorrows to forego, 
 O wliy thus all alone are mine 
 
 The weary steps of wo ! 
 
 Tlie trout within von wininlinir burn 
 
 Glides swift — a silver dart ; 
 And safe beneath tlie shady thorn 
 
 Defies the angler's art. 
 My life was ance that careless stream, 
 
 That wanton trout was I ; 
 But love, wi' unrelenting beam. 
 
 Has scorched my fountains dry. 
 
 The little floweret's peaceful lot, 
 
 In yonder clitt^' that grows, 
 Which, save the linnet's fliglit, I wot, 
 
 Nae ruder visit knows, 
 Was mine ; till love has o'er me past, 
 
 And blighted a' my bloom, 
 And now beneath the witherinjr blast 
 
 My youth and joy consume. 
 
 The wakened laverock warbling springs, 
 
 And climbs tlie early sky, 
 Winnowing blithe her dewy wings 
 
 In morning's rosy eye. 
 As little recked I sorrow's power, 
 
 I'^ntil tlie flowery snai-e 
 O' witching love, in luckless hour, 
 
 Made me the tlirall o' care. 
 
 O had my fate been Oroenland snows, 
 
 Or Afric's burning /one, 
 Wi' man and nature leagued my foes, 
 
 So Peggy ne'er I'd known! 
 The wretch wli:ise doom is, 'Ijopc nac mair,' 
 
 Wliat tongue his woes can tell! 
 Within whiise bosom, save despair, 
 
 Nae kinder spirits dwell.
 
 170 LIFE AND "WORKS OF EUKNS. 
 
 O BONNIE "WAS YON ROSY BUIER. 
 
 bonnie was yoii rosy brier. 
 
 That blooms sae far frae haunt o' man ; 
 
 And bonnio she, and ah! how dear! 
 It shaded frae the e'enin' sun. 
 
 Yon rosebuds in the morning dew. 
 
 How 2)uro 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. 
 
 The pathless wild and wimpling burn, 
 
 Wi' Chloris in my arms, be mine ; 
 And I the world, nor wish, nor scorn, 
 
 Its joys and griefs alike resign. 
 
 Written on the blank leaf of a copy of the last edition of my 
 poems, presented to the lady whom, in so many fictitious reveries of 
 passion, but with the most ardent sentiments of real friendship, I 
 have so often sung imder the name of Chloris : — 
 
 ' To Chloris.' [See antea, p. 104.] 
 
 Une bagatelle de Vamitic. Coil A. 
 
 MR THOMSON TO BURNS. 
 
 Edinburgh, Zd Atigust 1/95. 
 
 My dear Sir — This will be delivered to you by a Dr Brianton, 
 who has read your works, and pants for the honour of your acquaint- 
 ance. I do not know the gentleman ; but his friend, who applied to 
 me for this introduction, being an excellent young man, I have no 
 doubt he is worthy of all acceptation. 
 
 My eyes have just been gladdened, and my mind feasted, with 
 your last packet — full of pleasant things indeed. What an imagina- 
 tion is yours! — it is superfluous to tell you, that I am delighted with 
 all the three songs, as well as with your elegant and tender verses 
 to Chloris. 
 
 I am sorry you should be induced to alter ' whistle, and I 'II 
 come to ye, my lad,' to the prosaic line, ' Thy Jeanie will venture wi' 
 ye, my lad.' I must be permitted to say, that I do not think the 
 latter either reads or sings so well as the former. I wish, therefore, 
 you would in my name petition the charming Jeanie, whoever she be, 
 to let the line remain unaltered.
 
 BURNS AND THE DUKE OF QUEENSBERRY. 171 
 
 I should be happy to see Mr Clarke produce a few airs to he 
 joined to your verses. Everybody regrets his writing so very little, 
 as everybody acknowledges his ability to write well. Pray, was the 
 resolution formed coolly before dinner, or was it a naidiii'^ht vow, 
 made over a bowl of punch with the bard ? 
 
 I shall not fail to give Mr Cunningham what you have sent him. 
 
 P.S.-~T\ic lady's i'V a' that,and a' that, is sensible enough, but no 
 more to be compared to yours, than I to Hercules. 
 
 To the summer of this year, Dr Currie assigns an 
 
 INSCRIPTION 
 
 FOR AN ALTAU TO I^•DEPENDE^•CE, AT KERROUGIITREE, THE SE.IT OF MR IIEKOX. 
 
 Thou of an independent mind, 
 
 With soul resolved, with soul resigned ; 
 
 Prepared Power's proudest frown to brave, 
 
 Who wilt not be, nor have a slave ; 
 
 A'^irtue alone who dost revere, 
 
 Thy own reproach alone dost fear, 
 
 Approach this shrine, and worship here. 
 
 Allusion has several times been made to the Duke of Queens- 
 berry, as a personage held in hatred by the poet. His Grace's 
 character requires little illustration here. As Earl of March, his 
 career on the tui-f had gained him notoriety. Succeeding in 177H 
 to the highest title of his family, he had not with years and 
 honours acquired any additional share of public respect. To this 
 heartless grandee, who resided almost constantly in London, was 
 committed the chief territorial influence in Dumfriesshire, with 
 all its political consequence. Country gentlemen bowed to the 
 yoke ; but the exciseman of Dumfries— delighted at all times to 
 
 « Bare the mean heart that lurks beneath a star'— 
 
 omitted no opportunity of doing justice upon the sybarite. Tht^ 
 two following stanzas were probably a part of tlie election ballad 
 of 1790, Init omitted from the copy sent by tlic author to Mr 
 Graham : — 
 
 How shall I sing Drunilanrig'.s Grace- 
 Discarded renuiant of a race 
 
 Once great in martial story? 
 His forbear.s' virtues all contrasted — •ncntori 
 
 The very name of I)ougla.s blasted — 
 ilia that inverted glory.
 
 172 LIFE AND WORKS OF BUENS, 
 
 Hate, envy, oft tlie Douglas bore ; 
 But he has superadded more, 
 
 And sunk tliem in contempt : 
 Follies and crimes have stained the name, 
 But, Qweensberry, thine the virgin claim. 
 
 From aught that's good exempt. 
 
 In 1795, the duke stripped his domains of Drumlanrig, in 
 Dumfriesshire, and Neidpatli, in Pecl)lessliire, of all the wood fit 
 for being cut, in order to furnish a dowry for the Countess of 
 Yarmouth, whom he supposed to be his daughter, and to whom, by 
 a singular piece of good-fortune on her part, Mr George Selwyn, 
 the celebrated wit, also left a fortune, under the same (probably 
 equally mistaken) impression. It fell to the lot of "Wordswortli 
 to avenge on the ' degenerate Douglas ' his leaving old Neidpath 
 so * beggared and outraged.' The vindication of nature in the 
 case of Drumlanrig became a pleasing duty to Bui-ns. In one of 
 his rides, he inscribed the following verses on the back of a 
 window-shutter in an inn or toll-house near the scene of the 
 devastations : — 
 
 [VKRSES ON THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WOODS NEAR DRUMLANRIG.] 
 
 As on the banks o' wandering Nith, 
 
 Ae smiling simmer-morn I strayed, 
 And traced its bonnie howes and haughs, 
 
 Where lintics sang and lambkins played, 
 I sat me down upon a craig, 
 
 And drank my fill o' fancy's dream, 
 When, from the eddying det^p below, 
 
 Uprose the genius of the stream. 
 
 Dark, like the frowning rock, his brow, 
 
 And troubled, like liis wintry wave, 
 And deep, as sughs the boding wind 
 
 Amang his eaves, the sigh he gave — 
 ' And came ye hero, my son,' he cried, 
 
 ' To wander in my birken shade ? 
 To muse some favourite Scottish theme, 
 
 Or sing some favourite Scottish maid. 
 
 ' There was a time, it's nae lan<? svne. 
 
 Ye might liae seen me in my pride, 
 When a' my banks sae bravely saw 
 
 Their woody pictures in my tide; 
 Wlicn hanging beech and spreading elm 
 
 Shaded my stream sae clear and cool ; 
 And stately oaks their twisted arms 
 
 Threw broad and dark across the pool ;
 
 EENCONTRE WITH MR PATTISON. 173 
 
 'When glinting, through the trees, appeared 
 
 The wee white cot aboon the mill, 
 And peaccfu' rose its iugle reek. 
 
 That slowly curled up the hill. 
 But now tlie cot is bare and cauld, 
 
 Its branchy siielter's lost and ganc, 
 And scarce a stinted birk is left 
 
 To shiver in the blast its lane.' 
 
 ' Alas ! ' said I, ' what ruefu' chance 
 
 Has twined ye o' your stately ti-ecs? 
 Has laid your rocky bosom bare ? 
 
 Has stripped the deeding o' your braes ? 
 Was it the bitter eastern blast. 
 
 That scatters blight in early spriu"? 
 Or was't the wil'tire scorched their boughs. 
 
 Or canker-v/orm wi' secret stin^r 
 
 'Nae eastlin blast,' the sjjrite replied ; 
 
 ' It blew na here sae herce and fell, 
 And on my dry and halesomc banks 
 
 Nae canker-worms get leave to dwell : 
 Man ! cruel man ! ' the genius sighed — 
 
 As through the cliffs he sank liim down — 
 ' The worm that gnawed my bonnie trees, 
 
 That reptile wears a ducal crown.' 
 
 Burns had a pleasant rencontre tliis autumn with an old 
 acquaintance, Mr Pattison of Kelvin Grove, brother of a gentle- 
 man who had been serviceable with regard to the first Edin- 
 burgh edition of the poems. Mr Pattison passed tiirough 
 Dumfries in the course of a visit to his brother, a clergyman, 
 residing in that county; he was accompanied by lii.s son, who 
 was then a boy, and a groom, all tiiree travelling on horse- 
 back. The son, Mr John I'attison, now residing at Candjroe, 
 Lanarkshire, has a perfect recollection of the circumstjuices. 
 On riding up to the inn. a gentleman was seen standing on 
 the stairs, whom Mr I'attison at once hailed as Hums. To (piotis 
 from his son's recital: — 'He who had remained motionles.s 
 till now, rushed down the steps, and caught my fatlicr by the 
 hand, saying: " Mr Pattison, I am delighted to see you liere ; how 
 do you do?" I need not say this was our immortal bard. My 
 father continued: " IJurns, I Jioi)e you will dine with me at four 
 o'clock ? " " Too happy, sir," replied the poet. " Then, may I lieg 
 of you to go with my compliments to your friend, Dr Maxwell, 
 and say, I will be glad if he will do us llie pleasure of joining 
 us?" At the hour named, my father .'<at down at the head of tlio 
 table, Dr Maxwell at the foot, and the granunar-school boy
 
 174 LIFE AND WOEKS OP BURNS. 
 
 opposite Bums. Upwards of half a centiuy has passed away ; 
 but the recollection of that day is as fresh and green in my 
 memory, as if the events recorded had occurred yesterday. It 
 was, in fact, a new era in my existence. I had never before sat 
 after dinner ; but now I was chained to my chair till late at night, 
 or rather early in the morning. Both Dr Maxwell and my father 
 were highly-gifted, eloquent men. The poet was in his best vein. 
 I can never forget the animation and glorious intelligence of his 
 countenance, the rich, deep tones of his musical voice, and those 
 matchless eyes, which absolutely appeared to flash fire, and stream 
 forth rays of living light. It was not conversation I heard ; it 
 was an outburst of noble sentiment, brilliant wit, and a flood of 
 sympathy and good-wiU to fellow-men. Bums repeated many 
 verses that had never seen the light, chiefly political ; no impure 
 ' or obscene idea was uttered, or I believe thought of : it was alto- 
 gether an intellectual feast. A lofty, pure, and transcendant 
 genius alone could have made so deep and lasting an impres- 
 sion on a mere boy, who had read nothing, and who does not 
 remember to have heard Burns named till that day.' ^ 
 
 We have already had some glimpses of the personal habits of 
 Bums in Dumfries. It was a life of official duty, certified to have 
 been well performed, and not without respectable literary efibrt, 
 as the many songs composed for Thomson and Johnson fully 
 testify. It was also a life maintaining a certain external decorum, 
 and to some kind-hearted people, who did not look narrowly 
 or judge rigidly, it appeared as a life really respectable. There 
 was, for example, a young teacher at the grammar-school, himself 
 a poet and an enthusiast in literature— a pure-minded man, who 
 took amiable views of most people he met, and of all who blacked 
 paper in particular. James Gray, seeing Burns only as the careful 
 tender of his children's education, hearing him speak only m 
 the hours of soberness, never regarded him as otherwise than his 
 best friends would have wished to regard him. Even Mrs Burns, 
 who ought to have kno\vn her husband well, appeared to have no 
 fault to find with him. She was eager to aver that she had never 
 known him return home in such a state as to prevent his seeing 
 that the house was properly locked up, or to require any assist- 
 ance in taking off" his clothes. Mr Findlater, the supervisor, 
 though not more than a little free in his own habits, as gentlemen 
 then used to be, spoke favourably of those of Burns. It was, 
 nevertheless, a life involving far more dissipation than was gene- 
 rally considered as allowable even in those days of laxity. There 
 
 * The extract is given, with some authorised alterations of phrase, from a letter 
 published anonymously by Mr John Pattison in the Glasgow CUizcn, January 1848.
 
 • PERSONAL KEPUTE OF P.UKNS. 175 
 
 ivas only a variance of remark or report upon the subject, 
 according as individuals were qualified or inclined to judge, la 
 certain circles, a candid stranger might have heard of the over- 
 frequent indulgences of our poet in gay company— of his being 
 dangerously attractive to young men— of his occasionally descend- 
 ing into society utterly unworthy of him, and which no man can 
 approach without contammation. It would have been found that 
 some young women, who enjoyed the acquaintance of the amiable 
 wife of the poet, were only able to visit her in a manner by 
 stealth, their fathers deemmg it unadvisable that they should see 
 much of Burns. It was little, after this, that some should inveigli 
 against his arrogance in conversation, or point out that a worthy 
 member of society, who disliked his habits or opinions, was as sure 
 of his satu'e as if he had been, from any cause, reaUy obnoxious 
 to public odium. Again, while Bums was spoken of coldly in 
 some families of the middle class, cultivators of the sober respec- 
 tabilities proper to their grade, he might have been found a 
 favourite m higher circles, which he visited only under such an 
 awe as to keep his wilder nature in check. It is a most pcr- 
 j)lexing subject among his various biographers, but only because 
 of the very various and incohei'ent conduct of the bard himself — 
 the quiet ' Mr Burns ' in some eyes, the wild bacchanal at times 
 in others — the generous sentimentalist at some moments, and not 
 long after, the very high-priest of the sensual and the ridiculous. 
 We have seen this variableness of character even in wliat appear 
 the most pamful crises of his life. He wi'ote a lively epistle in 
 Scotch verse the day after To Mary in Heaven was wrung from his 
 anguished heart ; and ere many days had elapsed from tlic Immi- 
 liating censure of the Excise-board, he carried on a merry dinner- 
 party till eleven o'clock next day. Men now sympathise witli the 
 imworthiness of his fate, and certainly it was far below Iiis 
 deserts; but it is highly questionable if Bums took, except 
 transiently, the same views of it himself. No — 
 
 ' A towmond o' trouble, sliould that be my fa', 
 A night o' guid-fcllowshii> sowthcrs it a'; 
 When at tlio blithe cud of our joiinioy at last, 
 Wha the deil over thinks o' tho road ho lias past!* 
 
 This is Bums's own view of his life, and it is in some measure 
 true to his ordinary feelings and practice." 
 
 In the autumn of 1795, Burns suflcred much in mind from tho 
 protracted illness of his infant daughter, who at length died nt 
 such a distance as to prevent him from paying her the last duties.- 
 
 ' See Appendix, No. 13. - Tlils infant died and waa burled at IMaucliline.
 
 176 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 According to Dr Currie, the poet's health had for upwards of a 
 year before his death — that is, from early summer of 1795 — begun 
 to give way. This would appear to be quite true, for a gentleman 
 informs mc that, calling for Burns in spring 1795, he found him 
 ailing. He rubbed his shoulders slightly, and said : ' I am 
 beginning to feel as if I were soon to be an old man.' But, 
 indeed, we have his own testimony in a letter to JNIrs Dunlop, of 
 25th June 1794, that he was even then threatened with a punish- 
 ment for the follies of liis youth, in the form of a Hying gout, 
 though he hoped that his medical friends were mistaken in their 
 surmises. The fact is, that Burns had lived too fast to be what 
 most men are at seven-and-thirty. According to Dr Currie, who 
 had access to the best information on the subject, the poet was 
 confined with ' an accidental complaint,' from October 1795 till 
 the , January following. The fact of tlic ailment and its date may 
 be admitted ; but it would appear tliat the continenient was at 
 least not constant, or such as to interfere witli the performance of 
 duty. Professor Walker passed two days Avith him in November, 
 and observed no unfavourable change in his looks, his spirits, or 
 his appetite. 
 
 ' Circumstances,' says tlic professor, ' having at that time hid 
 me to Scotland, after an absence of eight years, during which my 
 intercourse with Burns had been almost suspended, I felt myself 
 strongly prompted to visit liim. For this purpose, I went to 
 Dumfries, and called upon liim early in the forenoon. I found 
 him in a small house of one storey.^ He was sitting on a window- 
 seat reading, with the doors open, and the family arrangements 
 going on in his presence, and altogether without that appearance 
 of snugness which a student requires. After conversing Avith him 
 tor some time, he proposed a walk, and promised to conduct me 
 through so.me of his favourite haunts. We accordingly quitted 
 the town, and wandered a considerable way up the beautiful banks 
 of the Nith. Here he gave m.e an account of his latest produc- 
 tions, and repeated some satirical ballads wliich he had composed, 
 to favour one of the candidates at the last borough election.- . . . 
 He repeated also his fragment of an Ode to Liberty, with marked 
 and peculiar energy, and shewed a disposition, which, however, 
 was easily repressed, to throw out peculiar remarks, of the same 
 nature with those for which he had been reprehended. On 
 finishing our walk, he passed some time with me at the inn, and 
 I left him early in tlie evening, to make another visit at some 
 distance from Dumfries. 
 
 > The house is one of two floors. 
 
 ^ The ballads on the Kirkcudbright election ; vide svpra.
 
 VISIT OF MK JOSIAII WALKER, 177 
 
 'On the second morning after/ continues the professor, T 
 returned Avith a friend, who was acquainted with the poet, and we 
 found him ready to pass a part of the day witli us at the inn. On 
 this occasion, I did not think him quite so interesting as lie liad 
 appeared at his outset. His conversation was too elaborate, and 
 his expression weakened by a frequent endeavour to give it arti- 
 ficial strength. He had ^een accustomed to speak fur applause 
 in the circles which he frequented, aud seemed to think it neces- 
 sary, in making the most common remark, to depart a little from 
 the ordinary simplicity of language, and to couch it in something of 
 epigrammatic point. In his praise and censure, he was so decisive 
 as to render a dissent from his judgment dilhcult to be reconciled 
 with the laws of good-breeding. His wit was nut more licentious 
 than is unhappily too venial in higher circles, though I thought 
 liim rather unnecessarily free in the avowal of his excesses. Such 
 were the clouds by which the pleasures of the evening were 
 partially obscured, but frequent coruscations of genius were 
 A'isible betv/een them. When it began to grow late, he shewed no 
 disposition to retire, but called for fresh supplies of liquor, with a 
 freedom which might be excusable, as we were in an inn, and no 
 condition had been distinctly made, though it might easily have 
 been inferred, had the inference been welcome, that he was to 
 consider himself as our guest ; nor was it till lie saw us worn out 
 
 that he departed, about three in the morning Upon the 
 
 whole, I found this last interview not cpiitc so gratifying as 1 had 
 expected; although I had discovered in his conduct no errors 
 which I had not seen in men who stand high in the favour of 
 society, or sufficient to account for the mysterious iiisimiatiuns 
 which I had heard against his character. He on this occasion drank 
 freely without being intoxicated, a circumstance from whirli 1 
 concluded, not only that his constitution was still iml)rukcn, iiut 
 that he Avas not addicted to solitary cordials ; for if he had tasted 
 licpior in the morning, he must have easily yielded to the excess 
 of the evening.' 
 
 It is proper to state the remark which a friend of Professor 
 Walker has made to us respecting tliese anecdotes of J'.urns— 
 namely, that the learned gentleman was iincunscioiis of the 
 fastidiousness which eiglit years of refined life in Kngliind liacl 
 created in his own mind, ami thus unintentionally ju.li;vd of 
 IJunis's manners more severely than was strictly just. The <h 
 haul en has style in which the professor treats Jlurns is also 
 obvious to remark. Tlie poet, in his own time, was loo nj.t to bo 
 regarded in this manner by well-wishers, as well as cncmii's or tlm 
 merely indifferent. And one cannot resi.st the feeling that, if 
 Burns had not been looked upon in his life aud for some years 
 
 VOL. IV. L
 
 178 LIFE AND WOKKS OF BURNS. 
 
 after his death as only a poor man who had attracted some atten- 
 tion by clever verses, more tendei'ness would have been shewn 
 towards frailties which we every day see overlooked in men that 
 have attained or been born to an elevated place in the merel}'' 
 social scale. 
 
 At this time the young actress, Miss Fontenelle, for whom 
 the poet had written an address three years before, was again 
 performing in the Dumfries theatre, and he was once more per- 
 suaded to pen some lines for her service. They are introduced 
 by himself in a letter of dolorous tone to Mrs Dunlop. 
 
 TO MRS DUNLOP. 
 
 IMh December 1795. 
 
 My bear Friend — As I am in a complete Decemberish humomv 
 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 in 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 man- 
 hood, 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 death-bed, taking an everlasting leave 
 of his children, has indeed wo 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 niair, 
 
 Ye '11 crov/die a' my meal away. 
 
 2ith December. 
 
 We have had a brilliant theatre here tliis season ; only, as all other 
 business does, it experiences a stagnation of trade from the epidemical
 
 inss fontexelle's address, 179 
 
 complaint of the country — icant of cash. I mentioned our theatre 
 merely to lug in an occasional Address, which I wrote for the hcnetit- 
 uight of one of the actresses, and which is as follows : — 
 
 ADDRESS, 
 SrOKEN BY JIISS FONTEXELLE ON HER BESEFIT-SIGHT.' 
 
 Still anxious to secure your partial favour, 
 
 And not less anxious, sure, this night, than ever, 
 
 A Prologue, Epilogue, or some such matter, 
 
 'Tvvould vamp my hill, said I, if nothing better ; 
 
 So sought a Poet, roosted near tiie skies. 
 
 Told him I came to feast my curious eyes ; 
 
 Said, nothing like his works was ever printed ; 
 
 And last, my Prologue-business slily hinted. 
 
 ' Ma'am, let me tell you,' quoth my man of rhymes, 
 
 ' I know your bent — these are no laugliing times : 
 
 Can you — but. Miss, I own I liave my fears — 
 
 Dissolve in pause and sentimental tears. 
 
 With laden sighs, and solemn-rounded sentence ; 
 
 Eouse from his sluggish slumbers fell Ilepcntancc ; 
 
 Paint Vengeance as he takes his horrid stand, 
 
 Waving on high the desolating brand. 
 
 Calling the storms to bear him o'er a guiltv land ? ' 
 
 I could no more — askance the creature eyeing, 
 
 D'ye think, said I, this face was made for crying ? 
 
 I'll laugh, that's poz— nay, more, tlic world sliall know it; 
 
 And so, your servant ! gloomy Master Poet ! 
 
 Firm as my creed. Sirs, 'tis my tixed behef, 
 
 That Misery's another word for Giief ; 
 
 I also think — so may I be a bride I 
 
 That so much laughter, so mucli life enjoyed. 
 
 Thou man of crazy care and ceaseless sigh, 
 Still under bleak Jlisfortune's bhisting eye ; 
 Doomed to that sorest task of man alive— 
 To make three guineas do the work of five : 
 Laugh in Jlisfortune's face— the behiam witcli .' 
 Say, you'll be merry, though you can't be rich. 
 Thou other man of care, tlie wretch in love, 
 Who long with jiltisli arts and airs bast strove ; 
 Who, as the boughs all temjitingly project, 
 Mcasur'st in desperate thonglit a rope- thy neck— 
 Or, where tlie beetbng clitf o'erliangs tlic deep, 
 Peerest to meditate the licaling leap : 
 
 1 December 4, 1793.
 
 180 LIFE AND -WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Wouldst thou lie cured, thou silly, moping elf! 
 Laugh at her follies — laugh e'en at thyself : 
 Learn to despise those frowns now so terrific, 
 And love a kinder — that's your grand specific. 
 
 To sum up all, be merry, I advise ; 
 
 And as we're merry, may we still be wise. 
 
 mh, Chrislmas morning. 
 
 This, my much-loved friend, is a morning of Mishes ; accept mine 
 • — so Heaven hear mo as they arc sincere ! — that blessings may 
 attend your steps, and afifliction 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 gray hairs, and blunt the arrow that 
 brings them rest ! ' 
 
 Now that I talk of authors, how do you like Cowper? Is not the 
 Tosh a glorious poem! The religion of the I'at^h, 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 Zcluco, 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. 
 
 I have lately collected, for a friend's perusal, all my letters ; I 
 mean those which I first sketched, in a rough draught, and after- 
 wards wrote out fair. On looking over some old musty papers, 
 which from time to time I had ])arcelled by, as trash tliat were 
 scarce worth preserving, and which yet, at the same time, I did not 
 care to destroy, I discovered many of these rude sketches, and have 
 written, and am writing them out, in a bound M.S. for my friend's 
 library. As I wrote always to you the rhapsody of the moment, I 
 cannot find a single scroll to you, except one, about the commence- 
 ment of our acquaintance. If there were any possible conveyance, 
 I would send you a perusal of my book. R. B. 
 
 It was probably at the end of the year that the poet addressed 
 a short imceremonious rhymed epistle to worthy Collector 
 Mitchell, alluding to a want of ready money, which he desired 
 his friend to remedy by the temporary advance of a guinea, and 
 also speaking of his illness as leaving him with resolutions of 
 more careful conduct in future. 
 
 TO COLLECTOR MITCHELL. 
 
 Friend of the Poet, tried and leal, 
 "VVha, wanting thee, might beg or steal; 
 Alake, alake, the meikle deil 
 
 Wi' a' his witches 
 Are at it, skelpin' jig and i-eel. 
 
 In my poor pouches !
 
 THE SEDITION-BILL, 1795. 181 
 
 I modestly fii' fain wad liint it, 
 
 Tliat one-pound-ono, I sairly want it ; 
 
 If wi' the liizzie down ye sent it, servant-girl 
 
 It would be kind ; 
 And while my heart wi' life-blood dunted, throbbed 
 
 I'd bcar't in mind. 
 
 So may the auld year fjang out moaning 
 To see the new come laden, irroanin'r, 
 Wi' double plenty o'er the loanin 
 
 To thee and thine : 
 Domestic peace and comforts crowning 
 
 The lialc design. 
 
 POSTSCniPT. 
 
 Ye've heard this while how I've been licket, 
 
 And by fell death was nearly nicket ; 
 
 Grim loon ! he got me by the fecket, waistcoat 
 
 And sair me sheuk ; 
 But by guid luck I lap a wicket, 
 
 And turned a neuk. 
 
 But by that health, I've got a share o't. 
 And by that life, I'm promised mair o't, 
 ^Jly hale and weel I '11 tak a care o 't, 
 
 A tentier way ; 
 Then farewell folly, hide and hair o't, 
 
 For ance and aye I 
 
 The present was a season of national distress, in consequence 
 of a failure of the late harvest. Discontents, meetings, and 
 inobljings alarmed the ministry, and towards tlie close of tlie 
 year, it was conceived that some additional restrictions upon 
 the expression of public sentiment were necessary; hence the 
 celebrated sedition-bill of that period. The broken remains of 
 the Whig party were greatly exasperated by the measure, and 
 amongst the various expressions of adverse sentiment in Scotland, 
 none attracted more attention than a pul)lic meeting wliicii took 
 place at the Circus — now Adelplii Tlieatrc~in Edinburgh, where 
 the Honourable Henry Erskine, Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, 
 presided. Tlie Tory majority of tlie Scottisli bar. seeing their 
 ciiief thus engaged, as tiiey said, in ' agitating tiie giddy and 
 ignorant multitude, and cherisliing sucli humours and dispositions 
 as directly tend to overturn the laws,' resolved, nt the approaching 
 annual election to the deanship, to oppose Mr Erskine's reappoint- 
 ment. It was a most painful step for them to take, Erskine being 
 a favourite with all parties and classes of men; but tliey frit that 
 private feelings must yiehl to the sense of public duty. Through- 
 out the whole of December, a war raged upon the subject in the
 
 182 LIFE AND TTORKS OF BURXS. 
 
 newspapers, aiicl the ' Parliament Honse' had never known a more 
 agitating crisis. At length, on the 12th of January 1796, the 
 election took place, when Mr Dundas, the Lord Advocate, was 
 preferred to honest Hamy by a majority of 123 against 38 
 votes. The degraded dean was himself deeply mortiiied by the 
 event. In the vexation of the moment, he went that night to his 
 door, and hewed off from it with a coal-axe the brass-plate which 
 expressed his forfeited dignity.^ The liberals throughout the 
 country read the news with a bitterness beyond all common 
 measure. It seemed to them as if every virtue under heaven was 
 now to be as nothing, wantmg the accompaniment of what they 
 called subservient political professions. It was not likely that 
 Burns would hear of the degi-adation of his friend and ancient 
 patron with tranquil feelings, or i-eraain quite silent on the occa- 
 sion. He privately circulated the following effusion referring to 
 the contest : — 
 
 TUE DEAN OF FACULTY, 
 A BALLAD. 
 
 Dire was the hate at old Harlaw, 
 
 That Scot to Scot did carry; 
 And dire the discord Lanfjside saw, 
 
 For beauteous hapless Mary : 
 But Scot with Scot ne'er met so hot, 
 
 Or were more in fury seen, Sir, 
 Than 'twixt Hal and Bob for the famous job — 
 Who should be Faculty's Dean, Sii-. 
 
 This Hal for genius, wit, and lore, 
 
 Among the first Avas numbered ; 
 But pious Bob, 'mid learning's store. 
 
 Commandment tenth remembered. 
 Yet simple Bob the victory got, 
 
 And won his heart's desire ; 
 Which shews that Heaven can boil the pot, 
 
 Though the devil in the lire. 
 
 Squire Hal besides had in tliis case 
 
 Pretensions rather brassy, 
 For talents to deserve a place 
 
 Are qualifications saucy ; 
 So their worships of the Faculty, 
 
 Quite sick of merit's rudeness, 
 Chose one who sliould owe it all, d'ye see. 
 
 To their gratis grace and goodness. 
 
 1 This fact h statorl on the authority of the late Mr James Bertram, brewer, 
 Edinburgh, who was Mr Erskine's clerk at the time.
 
 FATAL ILLNESS OP THE POET. 183 
 
 As once on Pisgali purged was tlie siMit 
 
 Of a son of Circumcision, 
 So may be, on this Pisgah heiglit, 
 
 Bob's purblind, mental vision : 
 Nay, Bobby's mouth may be opened yet. 
 
 Till for eloquence you hail him, 
 And swear he has the Angel met 
 
 That met the ;:iss of Balaam. 
 
 In your heretic sins may you live and die, 
 
 Ye heretic Eight-and-Tliirty, 
 But accept, ye sublime majority, 
 
 My congi-atulations hearty. 
 With your Honours and a certain King 
 
 In your servants this is striking, 
 The more incapacity they bring. 
 
 The more they're to your liking. 
 
 It is not impossible — our bard being not quite an angel — that 
 he might recall to mind on this occasion tliat ' Bob ' had taken no 
 sort of notice of a certain elegy which had been written in 1787 
 on the death of his father the Lord President. 
 
 It is perhaps just worthy of being remarked in addition, that 
 this was one occasion when the two greatest of Scotland's modern 
 great men might be said to meet in the struggle of public life — 
 for, while Burns stood thus by Hany Erskme, the name of Walter 
 Scott is found in the ranks of those who opposed and voted 
 against him. It would have been pleasant to add, that young 
 Francis Jeffrey had made an appearanca on the occasion ; but it 
 appears that, wliile strongly inclined to vote with the minority, he 
 was induced by a regard for the wishes of his father to remain 
 neutral.^ 
 
 Early in the month of January, when liis 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. In these circum- 
 stances, and in the peculiar condition to which a severe medicine 
 had reduced his constitution, a fatal chill penetrated to 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 wouiuled feelings 
 or a broken heart, truly lay the determining cause of the sadly 
 shortened days of our great national poet. Dr Carrie states, that 
 
 I Cockbum's Lffe of Lord Jtffity.
 
 184 LIFE AXD WORKS OF BUltNS. 
 
 tlie new illness confined him for about a week ; and this was 
 probably true, although some expressions of the bard himself 
 would indicate a longer period of extreme illness. 
 
 TO MRS RIDDEL. 
 
 DvMFKiEs, 20ih Januarii 1796. 
 
 I CANNOT express my gratitude to you for allowing me a longer 
 perusal of Anacharsis. In fact, I never met with a book that 
 bewitched me so much ; and I, as a member of the library, must 
 warmly feel the obligation you have laid us under. Indeed, to me 
 tlic obligation is stronger thiin to any other individual of onr society; 
 us Anacharsis is an indispensable desideratum to a son of the Muses. 
 
 The health you wished me in your morning's card is, I think, 
 flown from me for ever. I have not Iieen able to leave my bed to- 
 day till about an hour ago. These wickedly unlucky advertisements 
 I lent (I did wrong) to a friend, and I am ill able to go in quest of 
 liiui. 
 
 Tiie jMuses have not quite forsaken me. Tiie following detached 
 stanzas I intend to interweave in some disastrous tale of a 
 shepherd. E. B. 
 
 On the 28th, Burns was sufficiently well to attend the Mason 
 Lodge, and recommend for entry as an apprentice Mr James 
 Georgeson, a Liverpool merchant. Next day, he sent Mr Peter 
 Hill his annual Zv);>/)er, or dried salmon, with a brief but apparently 
 cheerful letter, imposing on his friend the condition, ' that you do 
 not, like a fool, as you were last year, put yourself to five times the 
 value in expense of a return ; ' sending, moreover, compliments to 
 various friends, and promising a longer letter in ten days, but in 
 the meantime saying not a word of illness.^ It would have been 
 puzzling to find him, two days later, writing in the following 
 doleful terms to Mrs Dunlop, if we had not already had ample 
 opportunities of knowing how light and transient were all the 
 feelings of Burns, three days of suffering being as liable to appear 
 to him as a long season of avo, as a few hours of merriment were 
 to make him forget that any misfortune lay at his door : — 
 
 to MRS DUNLOP. 
 
 Duinfrks, 31.rf January 179o. 
 
 These many months you have been two packets in my debt — 
 Avhat 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 
 
 ' Vohimo of Bviriis's letters to Mr Peter Kill, in possession of Wilson, Esq., 
 
 Dalniarnock.
 
 TO COLONEL DE PEVSTER. 185 
 
 afford, at this time, to be deprived of any of the small remnant- 
 of my pleasures. I have lately drunk deep of the eu)) of affliction. 
 The autumn robbed me of my only da\i^hter and darlinif 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 siiock, when I became myself the victim of a most severe 
 rheumatic fever, and long the die spun doubtful ; nntil, after many 
 weeks of a sick-bed, it seems to have turned up life, and 1 am 
 beginning to crawl across my room, and once indeed have been 
 before my own door in the street. 
 
 AVheu pleasure fascinates the mental sight. 
 
 Affliction purities the visual ray, 
 Religion hails the drear, the untried night, 
 
 And shuts, for ever shuts ! life's doubtful day. 
 
 R. B. 
 
 About this time, he met one clay in the street !Mrs Ilaugh, who 
 had been his neighbour when he resided in the Wee Vennel. 
 'riiey had some serious conversation about his healtli, and she 
 afterwards remembered one remarkable expression which he used : 
 ' I find,' said he, ' that a man may live like a fool, but he will 
 scarcely die like one.' 
 
 His commander had sent to make some kind inquiries about 
 his health, and he replied in rhyme : 
 
 TO COLONEL DK PEYSTER. 
 
 My honoured colonel, deep I feel 
 Your interest in tiie ])oet'8 weal : 
 Ah ! now sma' heart hae I to speel climb 
 
 The steej) Parnassus, 
 Surrounded thus by bolus i>ill, 
 
 And potion glasses. 
 
 O what .a canty warld were it, 
 
 AVould pain and care and sickness spare it; 
 
 And fortune favour worth and merit, 
 
 As they deserve ! 
 And aye a rowtli roast beef and claret; plenty 
 
 Syne, wha wad starve I 
 
 Dame Life, though fiction out may trick lier. 
 
 And ill paste gems and frijipcry deck her; 
 
 Oh ! Hickering, feeble, and unsicker uncurtain 
 
 I've four.d her still 
 Aye wavering like the willow-wicker, 
 
 'Twecn good and ill.
 
 186 
 
 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Then that curst carmagnole, auld Satan, 
 Watches like baudrons by a rattan, 
 Our sinfu' saul to get a claut on 
 
 Wi' felon ire ; 
 Syne, whip ! his tail ye'U ne'er cast saut on- 
 
 He's aiFlike fire. 
 
 Ah Nick ! ah Niclc ! it is na fair, 
 First shewing us the tempting ware, 
 Bright wines and bonnie lasses rare. 
 
 To put us daft ; 
 Syne weave, unseen, thy spider snare 
 
 0' hell's damned waft. 
 
 Poor man, the flee, aft bizzes by, 
 
 And aft, as chance he comes thee nigh, 
 
 Thy auld damned elbow yeuks wi' joy, 
 
 And hellish pleasure ; 
 Already in thy fancy's eye, 
 
 Tliy sicker treasure ! 
 
 Soon, Iieels-o'er-gowdie ! in he gangs, 
 And like a sheep-head on a tangs, 
 Thy girning laugh enjoys his pangs 
 
 And murderinff wrestle. 
 As, dangling in the wind, he hangs 
 
 A gibbet's tassel. 
 
 But lest you think I am uncivil, 
 
 To plague you with this draunting drivel. 
 
 Abjuring a' intentions evil, 
 
 I quat my pen : 
 The Lord preserve us frae the devil I 
 
 Amen ! Amen ! i 
 
 the cat 
 clutch 
 
 itches 
 
 certain 
 heels-overhead 
 
 1 Colonel Arentz Schulyer de Peyster died at Dumfries in November 1822, at 
 the age, it was believed, of ninety-six or ninety-seven years. He had held the 
 royal commission for about eighty years. In early life, he commanded at 
 Detroit, Michilimackinac, and other parts of Upper Canada, during the seven 
 years' war, when he distinguished himself by detaching the Indians from the 
 service of the French. To pursue an obituary notice in the Dumfries Courier: ' The 
 ileceased also served in various other parts of North America under his uncle, 
 Colonel Schulyer ; and after being promoted to the rank of colonel, and com- 
 manding for many years the 8th Regiment, he retired to Dumfries, the native town 
 of Mrs De Peyster, the faithful follower of his fortunes in every situation— in camp 
 and in quarters— amidst savage tribes and jiolished communities— in the most 
 distant stations of Upper Canada, as well as in walled and garrisoned cities. Indeed, 
 we may here state, without the slightest qualification, that there never was a more 
 venerable and tenderly-attached pair. For more than fifty years, they shared the 
 same bed, without having been separated in any one instance ; and altogether, the 
 gallant old colonel's bearing to his faithful and long-cherished spouse, resembled 
 more what we ween of the age of chivalry, than the altered, and, as we suspect, 
 not improved manners of the present times. 
 
 ' At the stormy period of the French Revolution, the zeal and talents of our
 
 INCREASING ILLNESS OF BURNS. 187 
 
 Dr Currie, who must have been generally well informed respect- 
 ing Burns's illness, says : ' His appetite now began to fail ; his 
 hand shook, and his voice faltered on any exertion or emotion. 
 His pulse became weaker and more rapid, and pain in the larger 
 joints, and in the hands and feet, deprived him of the enjoyment 
 of refreshing sleep. Too much dejected in his spirits, and too 
 well aware of his real situation to entertain hopes of recovery, he 
 was ever musing on the approaching desolation of liis family, and 
 his spirits sank into a imiform gloom.' 
 
 SIR TIIOJISOX TO BURNS. 
 
 5lh Feb. 1796. 
 O Robby Burns, are yo sleeping yet ? 
 Or are ye waukuig, I v.ould v.it ? 
 
 The pause you have made, my dear sir, is awful ! Am I never to 
 hear from you again I I know and I lament how much you have 
 been afflicted of late; but I trust that rcturniuq; licalth and spirits 
 will now enable you to resume the pen, and delight us with your 
 musings. I have still about a dozen Scotch and Irish airs that I 
 wish 'married to immortal verse.' We have several true-born 
 Irishmen on the Scottish list; but they arc now naturalised, and 
 reckoned our own good subjects. Indeed, we have none bettor. I 
 believe I before told you, that I have been much urged by some friends 
 to publisli a collection of all our favourite airs and songs in octavo, 
 embellished with a number of etchings b}' our ingenious friend Allan : 
 what is your opinion of this ? 
 
 townsman were a^ain called Into exercise, in the embodj-ing and traininj^ of 
 the 1st Regiment of Dumfries Volunteers. On this occasion, his milit.-iry ardour 
 completely revived ; and so successfully did he labour in his vocation, that in the 
 course of a very few months, his associates in arms displayed nearly all the steadi- 
 ness and precision of a regiment of the line. Of this corps, the author of Tam 
 o' Shanter was an original member; and we have even heard it whispered, that the 
 private and field-ofiiccr (the latter of whom had a great fondness for litcr.aturo, and 
 a ready talent at versification) enfjaged, unknown to each other, in a poetical 
 controversy, which was conducted with considerable spirit through the respectable 
 medium of the Dumfries Journal. Many members of the regiment still survive; 
 and to mark their regard for the memory of the deceased, the oflircrs resumed tho 
 habiliments so long laid aside, while a party of tlie privates carried his body to tho 
 grave, supported by tho staff of tho Dumfriesshire militia. 
 
 'In hi.s person, Colonel De I'cystcr wa.s tall, soldier-like, and commanding; in his 
 manners, ea.sy, affable, and open ; in his aflcctions, warm, generous, ami sincere ; in 
 his principles, and particularly his political principles, firm oven to inllexibility. 
 No man, we believe, ever possessed more of the ])rinciplc of vitality. Old iige, 
 vhieh had silvered his hair, and furrowed his chcelt.s, appeared to make no impres- 
 sion on his inner man ; and those who knew him best <leclare that, uji to tho 
 period of his last illness, his mind ai>peared as active, and his intcllcct.s ns vieorou.s 
 as they were fifty years ago. When tho weather permitted, ho still took his accus- 
 tomed exercise, and walked round the billiard - table, or bestrode his gigantic 
 charger, apparently with as little ilifiieulty as a man of midille ago. When so 
 mounted, we have often fancied we beheld in him the last connecting link botwLxt 
 the old and now schools of military men."
 
 188 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 BURNS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 Februari/ 179fi- 
 Many thanks, my dear sir, for your handsome, elegant present to 
 Mrs Burns, and for my remaining vohmie of P. Pindar. Peter is a 
 delightful fellow, and a first favourite of minc.i I am much pleased 
 with your idea of publishing a collection of our songs in octavo with 
 etchings. I am extremely willing to lend every assistance in my 
 power. The Irish airs I shall cheerfully undertake the task of 
 finding verses for. 
 
 I have already, you know, equipt three with words, and the other 
 day I strung up a kind of rhapsody to another Hibernian melody 
 which I admire much. 
 
 Tv^iE—BaUnamona ora. 
 
 Awa wi' 3'our witchcraft o' beauty's alarms, 
 The slender bit beauty you grasp in your arms : 
 O gie me the lass that has acres o' charms, 
 trie me the lass wi' the wecl-stockit farms. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 Then hey for a lass wi' a tocher, then hey for a lass wi' a 
 
 tocher ; 
 
 Then hey for a lass wi' a tocher — the nice yellow guineas 
 
 for me. 
 
 Your beauty's a flower, in the morning that blows, 
 And withers the faster, the faster it grows : 
 But the rapturous charm o' the bonnie green knowos, 
 Ilk spring they're new deckit wi' bonnie white yowcs. 
 
 And e'en when this beauty your bosom has blesf, 
 The brightest o' beauty may cloy, when possest ; 
 But the sweet yellow darlings wi' Geordie imprest, 
 The langcr ye hae them, the mair they 're carest. 
 
 If this will do, you have now four of my Irish engagement. In 
 my by-past songs I dislike one thing; the name Chloris — I meant it 
 as the fictitious name of a certain lady : but, on second thouglits, 
 it is a high incongruity to have a Greek appellation to a Scottish 
 pastoral ballad. Of this, and some things else, in my next : I have 
 more amendments to propose. AV^hat you once mentioned of 'flaxen 
 locks' is just : they cannot enter into an elegant description of beauty. 
 Of this also again— God bless you ! "^ 
 
 ' In the oriijlnal letter, the poet here advorts to some business matters, and 
 allows some angry feelings regarding the Riddels to escape him. 
 
 •^ Our poet never explained what name he would have substituted for Chloris. — 
 Mr TiioMSOM.
 
 CRAVES RETURN OF SOME LENT MONEY. 189 
 
 MU THOMSON TO BURNS. 
 
 Tour Heij for a lass vV a Tocher is a most excellent song, and 
 with you the subject is soaielhiii^ new indeed. It is the first time 
 I have seen you debasing the god of soft desire into an amateur 
 of acres and guineas. 
 
 I am happy to find you approve of my proposed octavo edition. 
 Allan has designed and etched about twenty plates, and I am to have 
 my choice of them for that work. Independently of the llogartliian 
 Inmiour with which they abound, they exhibit the character and 
 costume of the .Scottish peasantry with inimitable felicity. In this 
 respect, he himself says, they will far exceed the a(piatinta plates 
 he did for the Gentle Shepherd, because in the etching he sees 
 clearly what he is doing, but not so with the acpiatinta, which he 
 could not manage to his mind. 
 
 The Dutch boors of Ostade are scarcely more characteristic and 
 natural than the Scottish figures in those etchings. 
 
 Some years before, Burns had taken a kindly zealous interest 
 in behalf of Mr James Clarke, a schoolmaster at Moffat, whom he 
 believed to be a worthy man, suffering under an unrighteous per- 
 secution. ^ He had lent Clarke some money, apparently not an 
 inconsiderable sum — an interesting addition to the instances in 
 which we have seen him in the unexpected relation of a creditor 
 and accommodator. The delit had probably lain for years un- 
 noticed by Burns, although money was never abundant with him, 
 and a few debts of liis own hung over his head. Now, when his 
 salary Avas reduced, when the staple food of the country was so 
 dear as to keep the humbler classes almost in a state of insurrec- 
 tion, and medical expenses were added to his ordinary outlay, 
 r.urns was obliged to address his old friend, Avith a retjuest ior 
 repayment either in whole or ui part. I\lr Clarke, who was now 
 prospering as a teacher at Forfar, answered on the 18tli February, 
 and his letter reveals l)y reflection the condition of the poor bard's 
 afiliirs, as well as the kind feelings with which he had inspired 
 the writer. 
 
 My ukar Frtkni)— Your letter makes me very unhaj.py, tho 
 more so, as I had heard very flattering accounLs of your situation 
 some months ago. A note [2n,s.] is enclosed ; and if such partial 
 payments will be acceptable, this shall sonn be followed l>y more. 
 Mv appointment here has more tlian answered my expectations ; 
 1)ii"t furnishing a large liouse, kc. li.as kci)t me still very jioor : and 
 the persecution I suffered from that rascal, Lord II , broiiglit iiio 
 
 » See vol. iii., pp. IW, 218.
 
 190 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 into • expenses which, with all my economy, I have not yet rubbed 
 oiF. Be so kind as write me. Your disinterested friendship has 
 made an impi-ession which time cannot efface. Believe me, my 
 dear Burns, yours in sincerity, James Clarke.^ 
 
 Miss Grace Aiken, a very young lady, the daughter of Burns's 
 early patron, Mr Robert Aiken of Ayr, had occasion during spring 
 to pass tlu'ough Dumfries, on her way to pay a visit in Liverpool. 
 In walking along the street towards the residence of her friend, 
 Mrs Copland, she passed a tall, slovenly-looking man, of sickly 
 aspect, who presently uttered an exclamation which caused her to 
 turn about to see who it was. It was Burns ; but so changed from 
 his former self, that she could liardly have recognised him, except 
 for the sound of his voice m addressing her. On her asking him 
 playfully, if he had been going to pass her without notice, he 
 spoke as if he had felt that it was proper for him, now-a-days, to 
 leave his old friends to be the first to hold forth the hand of 
 friendship. At her pressing request, he accompanied her to the 
 house of Mrs Copland; he even yielded, but not till after much 
 entreaty, to go home and put himself in order, that he might 
 return at four to dinner. He spent the evenmg cheerfully 
 in their temperate society, and retu-ed about midnight. The 
 circumstance is worthy of notice, because neither Mrs Copland 
 nor any of her friends — all members of the best society in Dum- 
 fries — had any objection to entertaining or meeting Burns. The 
 hostess had not seen him for a considerable time, but from no 
 cause affecting the reputation of the poet — only, she understood 
 that he had of late shewn a preference for Avhat might positively 
 as well as comparatively be called low society — a circumstance 
 she greatly lamented. All this shews that Bnrns's social discredit 
 in his latter days must have been the 'result of no universal 
 feeling among his fellow-citizens. The fact seems to be, that 
 while many condemned and forsook him— the provincial clergy 
 to a man — on the other hand, many, sensible that his faults 
 were rather allied to imprudence and indecorum than to turpi- 
 tude, regarded him with forbearance, if not with undiminished 
 esteem and affection. 
 
 The state of Burns's health on the 14th of April, was such as 
 to allow him to be present at a meeting of the Mason Lodge that 
 evening. On this occasion. Captain Adam Gordon, brother of 
 his friend Mr Gordon of Kenmure, was admitted apprentice. It 
 is not unlikely that, both on this occasion and on the 28th of 
 
 1 The original of this letter is in possession of Robert Cole, Esq., Upper 
 Norton Place, London.
 
 REDUCTION OF SALARY. 191 
 
 Januaiy, Burns made an effort, if not a sacrifice, for the honour 
 of persons whom he regarded as friends.^ 
 
 ' It was hoped by some of his friends,' says Dr Currie, ' that if 
 he could live through the months of spring, the succeeding season 
 might restore him. But they were disappointed.' The month of 
 May came in with more than its poetical beauty and geniality ; ^ 
 but it only could charm the poet's feeling, it could infuse no new 
 vigour into his languid frame. The summer wind blew unrefresh- 
 ing for him. Being now entirely laid aside from duty, Burns 
 understood that, as usual in such cases, his salary would be 
 reduced; and this, we may well believe, was no small addition to 
 the distresses he suffered. Dr Currie informs us, that the Board, 
 to their honour, continued his full emoluments ; but it appears 
 that this resolution was not taken, or at least not intimated, wlxile 
 the poor poet was capable of being comforted by the intelligence. 
 It is certain that the duty, necessary, we presume, for keeping 
 up the reduced pay, was all the time performed out of kind- 
 ness for Burns by a young expectant of Excise named Stobie; to 
 whom, therefore, in reahty, the gi'atitude of those who love the 
 memory of the bard must be considered as chiefly due. Dr 
 Currie also states, that ' Mr Graham of Fintrj', hearing of tlie 
 poet's illness, though unacquainted with its dangerous nature, 
 made an offer of his assistance towards procuring him the means 
 of preserving his healtli.' The letter containing this offer was 
 
 1 The fdllowing memoranda from the record of the Lodge may be perused with 
 some interest. They refer to all the raeetiuijs which took place during tlie period 
 of liums's connection with the Lodge. 
 
 27</t Dec. 1791.— Burns present. 
 
 Wt Feb. 1792.— Burns present. On this occasion, Philip Bitcher, Esq., of 3dregt. 
 of Dragoons, now quartered in Dumfries, is entered apprentice. 
 
 \ilh Mai/. 1792.— Burns present. Chas. Pyo, Captains Waller, Watson, and 
 Parslow, of 3(1 regt. of Dragoons, all admitted as apprentices. 
 
 .31.v< Mai/ 1792. — Bums present. 
 
 5//j June 1792.— Burns present. Ed. Andrews of the Dragoons, and John Symo, 
 Esq. of Bamcailzie, admitted brethren, without fees. 
 
 22(1 Aov. 1792. — Burns present. 
 
 .■311/A Nov. 1792. — Burns present, and elected senior warden. 
 
 anin Nov. 1793.— The senior warden [Burns] present. Kam. Ciark, Junr., admittea 
 a member. 
 
 27Wt Dec. 1793.— Bums not present. [He was at this time indisposed.] 
 
 mil May 1794.-'B«rn8 not mentioned. D. M'Culloch admitted a member. 
 
 29<A Nov. 1791. — Burns i)resent. 
 
 ?,Wh Nor. 1793. — Bums not mentioned. 
 
 mth Dec. 179r).— Burns not mentioned. 
 
 2Hth Jan. 1701!.- Burns i)resent. Appeared IMr .Tames Gcorgeson, nicrclil. in 
 Liverpool, who being reeoinniendcd by Brother BuruH. wiiH admitted apprentice. 
 Ills fees applied tow.ards defraying the expenses of the night. 
 
 Uth Ai>iil IT.'W.— Burns present, ('apt. Adam Gordon admitted apprentice. 
 
 16(A Aj)r'U 1790.— Burns not mentioned. 
 
 2 ' It is the finest weather in the world. The whole rounf ry is rovercd wilh green 
 and blossoms; and the sun shines perpetuiilly through a light ea«l whid, whIoU 
 would have brought you here from Boston since It began to blow.'— i/f^Trry, to hi* 
 brutlicr, 20th May 17911. Cuckhurni Life 0/ Lord Jeffrq/.
 
 192 LIFE AND WORKS OF EURNS. 
 
 dated on the 15th July, so that the poet coukl not have received 
 it more than a couple of days before consciousness left him.^ 
 
 BURXS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 April 1793. 
 
 Alas! my dear Thomson, I fear it will bo 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 conntcd time by the reper- 
 cussions of pain! Ilhcumatism, 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 
 
 Eergusson- 
 
 ' 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 tlie 
 Globe Tavern here, which for these many years has been my liowff,- 
 and where our friend Clarke and I have had many a merry squeeze. 
 I mention tliis, because she will be a very proper hand to bring that 
 seal you talk of. I am highly delighted with Mr Allan's etchings. 
 Wookl an' married an'' a\ is admirable ! The grouping is beyond all 
 praise. The expression of the figures, conformable to the story iu 
 the ballad, is absolutely faultless perfection. I next admire Turnini- 
 spike. What I like least is Jenny said to JocJci/. Besides the female 
 being in her aj)pearance quite a virago, if you take lier stooping into 
 the account, she is at least two inclies taller than her lover. Poor 
 Cleghorn ! I sincerely sympathise with him. Happy I am 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! Farewell! 
 
 R. B. 
 
 1 'Another charge of cruelty has been brought forward against tlie Board— that of 
 refusing his full salary din-inghis illness, which a little explanation will set to rights. 
 A few years previous to this period, an addition of L.15 per annum had been made 
 to the salaries, accompanied with the condition of being stopped to officers not 
 doing duty. This still existed in Burnss time, and he was no worse treated than 
 others in similar circumstances of indisposition. It is here incumbent on me to 
 mention, that Commissioner Graham, regretting, I have no doubt, his inability to 
 comply with the poets wishes as to the full salary, sent him a private donation 
 of L.5, which, I believe, nearly or totally compensated the loss.'— Findi,.wer, in 
 Glasijow Courier, March 1834. 
 
 - A place of resort nmch frequented by any person is, in Scotland, called his 
 JtoirfT. 
 
 The windows of that common room in the Globe Tavern, which might be more 
 particularly called Burns's IJoirff, still bear some scribblings in his handwriting. 
 
 i
 
 SONGS ON JESSY LE^VAUS. 193 
 
 Mli THOMSON TO BURNS. 
 
 ith May 1796. 
 
 I NEED not tell you, my pood sir, wliat concern the receipt of your 
 last gave me, and how much I sympathise in your sufferings. But 
 do not, I beseech you, give yourself up to despondency, or speak the 
 language of despair. The vigour of your constitution, I trust, ■will 
 Boon set you on your feet again ; and then, it is to he hoped, you ■will 
 see tho -wisdom and the necessity of taking due care of a life so 
 valuable to your family, to your friends, and to the world. 
 
 Trusting that your next will bring agreeable accounts of your 
 convalescence and returning good sj)irits, I remain, with sincere 
 regard, yours. 
 
 P.S. — Sirs Hyslop, I doubt not, delivered the gold seal to you in 
 good condition. 
 
 BURNS TO MR THOMSON. 
 
 [About Mix;/ 17, 179''] 
 My dear Sir — I once mentioned to you an air which I have long 
 admired — //rre's a health to them that's aiva, hinnij, hut I forget if 
 you took any notice of it. I have just been trying to suit it with 
 verses, and I beg leave to recommend the air to your attention once 
 more. I have only begun it. 
 
 JESSY. 
 
 Here's a health to ane I loe dear! 
 
 Here's a health to ane I loe dear! 
 
 Thou art sweet as the smile when fond lovers meet, 
 
 And soft as their parting tear — Jessy! 
 
 Although thou maun never be mine, 
 
 Altiiough even hojjc is denied : 
 'Tis sweeter for thee despairing, 
 
 Tlian aught in the world beside— Jessy ! 
 
 I mourn through the gay, gaudy day, 
 As, liopeles.s, I muse on thy charms; 
 
 But welcome the dream o' sweet slumber, 
 For tlien I am lock't in tiiy arms— Jessy ! 
 
 I guess by the dear angel smile, 
 I guess by the lovc-rolIing ce ; 
 But why urge the tender confession, 
 
 'Gainst fortune's fell cruel decree— Jessy ! 
 VOL. IV. M
 
 194 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 This will be delivered by a Mr Lewars, a young fellow of uncom- ! 
 mon merit; indeed by far the cleverest fellow I have met with in this 
 part of the world. His only fault is D-m-cratic heresy. As he will 
 be a day or two in town, 3'ou will have leisure, if you choose, to 
 write me by him ; and if you have a spare half hour to spend with 
 him, I shall place your kindness to my account. I have no copies 
 of the songs I have sent you, and I have taken a fancy to review 
 them all, and possibly may mend some of them : so, when you have 
 complete leisure, I will thank you for either the originals or copies. 
 I had rather be the author of five well-written songs than of ten 
 otherwise. My verses to Cauld Kail I will suppress ; as also those 
 to Laddie lie near me. They are neither worthy of my name nor 
 of your book. I have great hopes that the genial influence of the 
 approaching summer will set me to rights, but as yet I cannot boast 
 of returning health. I have now reason to believe that my com- 
 plaint is a flying gout— a sad business ! 
 
 Do let me know how Cleghorn is, and remember me to him. 
 
 This should have been delivered to you a month ago, but my 
 friend's trunk miscarried, and was not recovered till he came here 
 again.i I am still very poorly, but should like much to hear from 
 you. 
 
 Jessy, the heroine of the song above cited, was a sister of 
 Lewars, an amiable young woman, who acted the part of a minis- 
 tering angel in his house during the whole of this dismal period 
 of distress. It is curious to find him even in his present 
 melancholy circumstances, imagining himself as the lover of his 
 wife's kind-hearted young friend, as if the position of the 
 mistress were the most exalted in which his fancy could place 
 any woman he admired or towards whom he felt gratitude. 
 
 This is not, however, the only strain of fancied love which 
 Burns addressed to Jessy Lewars. The lady relates that, one 
 morning she had a call from the poet, when he offered, if she 
 would play him any tune of Avhich she was fond, and for which 
 she desired new verses, to gratify her in her wish to the best of 
 his ability. She placed herself at the pianoforte, and played over 
 several times the air of an old song beginning with the words — 
 
 The robin cam to the wren's nest, 
 
 And keekit in, and keekit in : 
 O weel 's me on your auld pow ! 
 
 Wad ye be in, wad ye be in? 
 Ye 'se ne'er get leave to lie without, 
 
 And I within, and I within, 
 As lang's I hae an auld clout, 
 
 To row ye in, to row ye in.^ 
 
 ^ The letter appears to have been despatched by post on the 17th June. Currie 
 unaccountably divides the letter into two. 
 
 ^ This set of the old song is from Juhnson's Museum, v. 4!9.
 
 KIKXCUDBRIGHT ELECTION, 1796. 195 
 
 As soon as his ear got accustomed to the melody, Bums sat 
 do^vn, and in a very few minutes he produced the beautiful song: 
 
 OH, WERT THOU IN THE CAULD BLAST. 
 
 Oh, wert thou in the cauld blast 
 
 On yonder lea, on yonder lea, 
 3Iy plaidie to the angry airt, 
 
 I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter thee : 
 Or did misfortune's hitter storms 
 
 Aromid thee blaw, around thee blaw, 
 Thy bicld should be my bosom, protection 
 
 To share it a', to share it a'. 
 
 Or were I in the wildest waste, 
 
 Sae black and bare, sac 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 ciuccn, wad be my queen. 
 
 The anecdote is a trivial one in itself; but we feel that the 
 circumstances — the deadly illness of the poet, the beneficent 
 worth of Miss Lewars, and the reasons for his grateful desire of 
 obliging her — give, it a value. It is curious, and something more, 
 to connect it with tlie subsequent musical fate of the song, for 
 many years after, when Burns had become a star in memory's 
 galaxy, and Jessy Lewars was spending lier quiet years of widow- 
 hood over her book or her knitting in a little parlour in Maxwell- 
 town, the verses attracted the regard of Felix Mendelssohn, who 
 seems to have divined the peculiar feeling beyond all common 
 love which Burns breathed through them. By that admirable 
 artist, so like our great bard in a too early death, th'ey were 
 married to an air of exquisite pathos, ' such as the meeting soul 
 may pierce.' Bums, Jessy Lewars, Felix Mendelssohn— genius, 
 goodness, and tragic melancholy, all combined in one solenm and 
 profoundly affecting association ! 
 
 Parliament being dissolved in May, there arose a new contest 
 for the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright. i\lr Heron was opposed on 
 this occasion by the Hon. Montgomery Stewart, a younger son of 
 the Earl of Galloway. Burns, reduced in health as he was — con- 
 lined, indeed, to a sick-chamber — could nut remain an uiu'oncerued 
 onlooker. He produced a ballad at once more allegorical and 
 more bitter against ^Ir Heron's opponents than any launched on 
 the former occasion. There is a set of vagrant traftickers in
 
 196 LIFE AND WOKKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Scotland, somewhat superior to pedlers, and called Troggers. 
 They deal in clothes and miscellaneous articles, and their wares 
 are recognised under the general name of Troggin. Burns con- 
 ceived a trogger, with the characters of the Galloway party for a 
 stock. 
 
 AN EXCELLENT NEW SONG. 
 Tune— />;()/ Broom Besoms. 
 
 "Wlia will buy my troggin. 
 
 Fine election ware; 
 Broken trade o' Broughtoii, 
 
 A' in high repair. 
 
 Buv braw tro'j'jin, 
 
 *" DO ' 
 
 Frae the banks o' Dee ; 
 AVha wants troggin 
 Let him come to me. 
 
 There's a noble carl's 
 
 Fame and high renown,^ 
 For an aiild sang — 
 
 It's thought the gudes were stown. 
 Buy braw troggin, kc. 
 
 Here 's tlie wortli o' Brougliton,- 
 
 In a needle's eo; 
 Here's a reputation 
 
 Tint by Balniaghie.^ 
 
 Buy braw troggin, kc. 
 
 Here 's its stuff and lining, 
 
 Cardoncss's head ;■* 
 Fine for a sodger, 
 
 A' tlie wale o' lead. choice 
 
 Buy braw troggin, he. 
 
 Here 's a little wadset, mortgage 
 
 Buittle's scrap o' truth,-'' 
 Fawned in a gin-sliop, 
 
 Quenching holy drouth. 
 Buy braw troggin, &c. 
 
 Here's an honest conscience 
 
 Might a prince adorn ; 
 Frae the downs o' Tinwald — 
 
 tSo was never worn.G 
 
 Buy braw troggin, kc. 
 
 ■' The Karl of Oalloway. * Cordon of Cardonoss. 
 
 - Mr Murray of ISrouxhton. ^ llev. George Maxwell, minister of Buittle. 
 
 ^ Gordon of Balmaghio. *■ A bitter allusion to Mr Bushby.
 
 ELECTION BALLAD. J 97 
 
 Here's armorial bearings, 
 
 Frae the manse o' Urr ; 
 Tiie crest, a sour crab-apple, 
 
 Eotten at tlie core.' 
 
 liiiy braw troggin, kc. 
 
 Here is Satan's picture. 
 
 Like a bizzarii gled, j.;,^ 
 
 Pouncing poor Iledcastle,- 
 
 Sprawlin' as a taed. ,^3^ 
 
 Buy braw troggin, &c. 
 
 Here's tlie font wliore Douglas 
 
 Stane and mortar names ; 
 Lately used at C 
 
 Christening M[urray's] crimes. 
 Buy braw troggin, &c. 
 
 Here's the worth and wisdom 
 
 Collieston can boast ;3 
 By a thievish midge pn^t 
 
 They had been nearly lost. 
 Buy braw troggin, &c. 
 
 Here is Murray's fragments 
 
 0' the ten commands ; 
 Gifted by black Jock,* 
 
 To got them aft" his hands. 
 Buy braw troggin, kc. 
 
 Saw ye e'er sic troggin ? 
 If to buy ye 're slack, 
 Iloniie's turnin' chapman — the Devil 
 
 He'll buy a' the jiack. 
 Buv braw trojr'rin 
 
 Frae tlie banks o' Dec; 
 Wha wants ti-oggin 
 Let him come to me. 
 
 It gives a new idea of Burns, that he should have been able to 
 put such a keen edge upon his satiric weajyon, and wield it with 
 such power, within a few weeks of his dcatli. 
 
 Mr Heron was also successful in this contest, an event which 
 did not happen till the poor bard had I)cen laid in the dust. Tlu! 
 election being subjected to tlu- judgment of a connnittcc. Mr Heron 
 was unseated. He died on his Avay down to Scotland. Allan 
 
 ' Ttiis appears to have hcen the retaliation for thn epl({raiii lauiirhr<l liy tho 
 Ecv. Mr MuirlKad aKai'ist IJuriis after tlio election of la.nt year. 
 
 ^ Walter Sloan Lawrie of ICedeastle. •■ Coi)lanJ of Collieeton. * John liiuthby.
 
 198 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Cunningham says: 'It was one of tlie dreams of his day — in 
 which Burns indulged — that, by some miraculous movement, the 
 Tory councillors of the king would be dismissed, and the Whigs, 
 with the Prince of AVales at their head, rule and reign in their 
 stead. That Heron aided in strengthening this " devout imagina- 
 tion" is certain : but then the Laird of Kerroughtree was the 
 victim of the delusion himself.' 
 
 Dr Currie says: ' The sense of his poverty, and of the approach- 
 ing distress of his infant family, pressed heavily on Burns as he 
 lay on the bed of death; yet he alluded to his indigence, at 
 times, with something approaching to his wonted gaiety. " What 
 business," said he to Dr Maxwell, who attended him with the 
 utmost zeal, " has a physician to waste his time on me? I am a 
 poor pigeon not worth plucking. Alas ! I have not feathers 
 enough upon me to carry me to my grave." ' In even a gayer spirit, 
 he would sometimes scribble verses of compliment to sweet young 
 Jessy Lewars, as she tripped about on her missions of gentle 
 charity from hall to kitchen and from kitchen to hall. His 
 surgeon, Mr Brown, one day brought in a long sheet, containing 
 the particulars of a menagerie of wild beasts which he had just 
 been visiting. As Mr Brown was handing the sheet to Miss 
 Lewars, Burns seized it, and wi'ote upon it a couple of verses 
 with red chalk ; after which he handed it to Miss Lewars, 
 saying that it was now fit to be presented to a lady. She still 
 possesses the sheet. 
 
 Talk not to me of savages 
 
 From Afric's burning sun ; 
 No savage e'er could rend my heart, 
 
 As, Jessy, thou hast done. 
 But Jessy's lovely hand in mine, 
 
 A mutual faith to plight. 
 Not even to view the heavenly choir 
 
 Would be so blest a sight. 
 
 On another occasion, while Miss Lewars was waiting upon hira 
 in his sick-chamber, he took up a crystal goblet containing wine 
 and water, and after writing upon it the following verses, in the 
 character of a Toast, presented it to her: — 
 
 Fill me with the rosy wine, 
 Call a toast — a toast divine ; 
 Give the poet's darling tiame, 
 Lovely Jessy be the name ; 
 Then thou mayest freely boast 
 Thou hast given a peerless toast.
 
 EPIGRAMS ON MISS LEWARS. 199 
 
 At this time of trouble, on Miss Lewars complaining of indis- 
 position, he said, to provide for the worst, he would write her 
 epitaph. He accordingly inscribed the following on another 
 goblet, saying: ' That will be a companion to the Toast:' — 
 
 Say, sages, what's the charm on earth 
 
 Can turn Death's dart aside ? 
 It is not purity and worth, 
 
 Else Jessy had not died. 
 
 On Miss Lewars recovering a little, the poet said: ' There is <a 
 poetic reason for it,' and wrote the following: — 
 
 But rarely seen since Nature's birth, 
 
 The natives of the sky ; 
 Yet still one seraph's left on earth, 
 
 For Jessy did not die.^ 
 
 Til en he would also jest about her admirers, and speculate on 
 her matrimonial destiny. ' There's Bob Spalding,' he would say; 
 ' he has not as much brains as a midge could lean its elbow on : 
 he wont do.' And so on with the rest, generally ending with the 
 declaration that, ' being a poet, he was also a prophet — for 
 anciently they were the same thing — and he could therefore fore- 
 tell that James Thomson would be the man' — a prediction which 
 time fulfilled. 
 
 At the approach of the 4th of June, Mrs Walter Riddel, to 
 whom he had become in some measure reconciled, desired him to 
 go to the Birthday Assembly, to shew his loyalty, and at the 
 same time asked him for a copy of a song he liad lately written. 
 He answered as follows : — 
 
 TO MRS RIDDF.L. 
 
 T)fMFRTF.S, itll .Tunf \'i%. 
 
 I AM in such miserable hcaltli, as to bo utterly incapable of shew- 
 ing my loyalty in any way. IJacked as T am with rlicumatisms, I 
 meet every face with a greeting, like tliat of I?;ilak to Balaam : 
 ' f'ome, curse nic, Jacob ; and conic, defy me, Israel ! ' Ro say I : 
 Come, curse me that cast wind ; and come, defy me the north ! 
 Would you have me in such circumstances copy you out a love- 
 song? 
 
 ' This most cxcdlont woman, whoso memory m\ist ho for ever endeared, not 
 only to the descendants of Burns, hut to all his countrymrn, Is stUl living (1852) 111 
 JJumfrie8, the widow of the late Mr Jaiucs Thomson, solicitor.
 
 200 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 I may perhaps see you on Saturday, but I will not be at the ball. 
 AVhy should 1 1 — ' man delights not me, nor woman either ! ' Can 
 you supply me with the song, Let us all be unhaj^py together? — do, if 
 you can, and oblige lepauvre miserable, R. B. 
 
 The progress of the unhappy poet's disease, and the gradual 
 setting of his hopes of life, are best shewn in the letters he wrote 
 at this time. What immediately follows was addressed to his 
 •worthy friend the schoolmaster of Forfar, whom we have seen 
 writing to Bm-ns in February, with a small instalment towards 
 the payment of a debt due to him. It is a letter of some import- 
 ance, from the light which it throws upon the bard's present 
 circumstances. He had requested money from Clarke in February ; 
 a small sum to account had been promptly sent, and he now 
 asked for a further instalment. Such a fact at once shews the 
 straits to wliich he was reduced by his illness and the reduction 
 of his salary, and how little was required to lielp him through the 
 difficulty. 
 
 TO MR JAMES CLARKE, 
 
 SCHOOLMASTER, FORFAR. 
 
 Dumfries, 26?A Jane 1795. 
 
 My DEAR Clarke— Still, still the victim of affliction ! Were you 
 to see the emaciated figure who now holds the pen to you, you 
 ■would not know your old friend. Wiiether I shall ever get about 
 again, is only known to Him, the Great Unknown, whose creature 
 I am. Alas, Clarke ! I begin to fear the worst. As to my indivi- 
 dual self, I am tranquil, and would despise myself if I were not ; 
 but Burns's poor widow, and lialf-a-dozen of his dear little ones — 
 helpless orphans ! — there I am weak as a woman's tear.i Enough 
 of this! 'Tis half of my disease. 
 
 I duly received your last, enclosing the note.- It came extremely 
 in time, and I am much obliged by your punctuality. Again I must 
 request you to do mo the same kindness. Be so very good as, bi/ 
 return of post, to enclose me another note. I trust you can 
 do it without inconvenience, and it will seriously oblige me. If 
 I must go, I shall leave a few friends behind me, whom I shall 
 regret while consciousness remains. I know I shall live in their 
 remembrance. Adieu, dear Clarke. That I shall ever see you 
 again is, I am afraid, highly improbable. E. B. 
 
 ' ' But I am weaker tlian a -n-oman's tear.' — Troilus and Crrssida. 
 - Pound-notes are so much the current money of Scotland, that the term a note 
 is constantly used to signify twenty shillings.
 
 KE.VOVED TO BROW FOR SEA-BATHING. 201 
 
 TO MR JAMES JOHNSOX, EDINBURGH. 
 
 Dumfries, 4th July 179C. 
 
 How are you, my dear friend, and how comes on your fifth vohinio ? 
 You may probably think tliat for some time past'l iiave neglected 
 you and your work; but, alas! the hand of jiain, and sorrow, und 
 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 Jluse of Scotia. 
 
 You are a good, worthy, honest fillow, and have a good right to 
 live in this v.-orld— because you deserve it. Many a merry nicetin"- 
 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 ever- 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. 
 
 Let me hear from you as soon as convenient. Your work is a 
 great one ; and now that it is finished, I see, if we were to begin 
 again, two or three things that might be mended ; yet I will venture 
 to prophesy, that to future ages your publication will be the text- 
 book and standard of Scottish song and music. 
 
 I am ashamed to ask another favour of you, because you have 
 Ijcen so very good already ; but my wife has a very particular fiieiul 
 of hers, a young lady who sings well, to whom she wishes to present 
 the Scots Mutical Jfuseum. If you have a spare copy, will you be so 
 obliging as to send it by the very first y?y, as I am anxious to have it 
 soon ? 1 Yours ever, 1{. B, 
 
 On the day of the date of this letter, Burns was removed to 
 Brow, a sea-bathing hamlet on the Solway, in the liope of improve- 
 ment from bathing, country quarters, and riding. 
 
 TO MR GEORGE THOMSON. 
 
 Hrow, ilh Jiilfi. 
 
 My dear Sir — I received your songs ; but my healtii is so pre- 
 carious, nay, dangerously situated, that as a last effort I am hero 
 at sea-bathing cpuirters. llesides my inveterate rheumatism, my 
 appetite is quite gone, and I am so emaciated a.s to bo scarce 
 able to support myself on my own legs. Alas ! is this a time 
 
 • In this huinlilo and dplicatc inaniipr <liil poor Hiirn<< nsk for n onpy of n »ork of 
 which he was principally tlic founder, and to which he had ci>ntriliiile<l, iiraluiloutli/, 
 not loss than 1.S4 oriiiiiinl, altered, and cuUeeted ttmiit • The editor liiut Keen IBO 
 transcribed by his ovm hand for the Jl/u«i(m.— Ckomkk.
 
 202 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 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. You will 
 see my remarks and alterations on the margin of each song. My 
 address is still Dumfries. Farewell, and God bless you ! 
 
 R. Burns. 
 
 The handwriting of the above Is smaller and less steady than 
 the other letters — like the writing of one who, in the interval, had 
 become an old man. 
 
 Mrs Walter Eiddel, being likewise in poor health, was now living 
 at a place not far from the village, and hearing of Burns's arrival, 
 she invited him to dinner, and sent her carriage to bring him to 
 her house, for he was unable to walk. ' I was struck,' says this 
 lady in a confidential letter to a friend written soon after, ' 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 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. At table, 
 he ate little or nothing, and he complained of having entii'ely lost 
 the tone of his stomach. We had a long and serious conversa- 
 tion 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 in so interesting a situation— in hourly 
 expectation of lying in of 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 upon 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 shewed 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 occasion some noise, and that every scrap of his writing would 
 be revived against him to the injury of his future reputation: that 
 letters and verses written with unguarded and improper freedom, 
 and which he earnestly wished to have buried in oblivion, would
 
 LAST INTERVIEW WITH MRS RIDDEL. 203 
 
 be handed about by idle vanity or malevolence, when no dread of 
 his resentment would restrain them, or prevent the censures of 
 shi-Ul-tongued malice, or the insidious sarcasms of envy, from 
 pouring forth all their venom to blast his fame. 
 
 ' He lamented that he had -svritten many epigrams on persons 
 against whom he entertained no enmity, and whose characters he 
 should be sorry to wound ; and many indifierent poetical pieces, 
 which he feared would now, with all their imperfections on their ' 
 head, be thrust upon the world. On this account, he deeply 
 regi-etted having deferred to put his papers in a state of arrange- 
 ment, as he was now quite iacapable of the exertion.' The lady 
 goes on to mention many other topics of a private nature on which 
 he spoke. ' 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 spii'it of pleasantry he seemed not imwilling 
 to indulge. 
 
 * We parted about sunset on the evening of that day (the 5th 
 of July 1796) : the next day I saw him again, and we parted to 
 meet no more !' 
 
 TO MR CUNNINGHAM. 
 
 Brow, Sca-hathing Quarters, 'lit JvVi ITif!. 
 
 My dear Cunninguam — I received yours here this moment, and 
 am indeed highly flattered witli the approbation of the literary circle 
 you mention — a literary circle inferior to none in the two kinj;;donis. 
 Alas ! my friend, I fear the voice of the bard will soon be licard 
 among you no more. For tliese eight or ten montlis, I have been 
 ailing, sometimes bedfast, and sometimes not; but these last tiireo 
 months I liave been tortured with an excruciating rheumatism, 
 whicli 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 si)irits 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 of!' duty, his 
 salary is reduced to b.;i5 instead of hM. What way, in tlic name of 
 thrift, shall I maintain myself, and kecj) a liorsc in country (juartoi-s, 
 with a wife and five children at home, on L..3.') ? I mention this, 
 because I had intended to beg your utmost interest, and that of all tho 
 friends you can muster, to move our commissioners of Excise to grunt 
 mo the full salary; I daresay you know them all personally. If
 
 204 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 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. 
 
 I have sent you cue of the songs ; the other my memory does not 
 serve me with, and I have no copy here ; hut I shall he at home 
 soon, when I will send it you. Apropos to heing 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 Glencaini, so you can have no objection 
 to the company of nobility. Farewell ! R. B. 
 
 TO MR GILBERT BURNS. 
 
 ISandat/'], lOlh Juli; 1796. 
 
 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 I 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 liead, they will be 
 poor indeed. I have contracted one or two serious debts, partly 
 from my illness these many months, partly from too much thought- 
 lessness 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. 
 
 For several montlis, Mrs Dunlop had maintained an obstinate 
 silence towards Burns, notwithstanding his having frequently 
 addressed her. The cause has not been explained, but may be 
 surmised. The unfortunate poet now wrote to her for the last 
 time. 
 
 to MRS DUNLOP. 
 
 Brow, \2lh Jul// 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 houni tvhence no 
 traveller returns. Your friendship, witli which for many years you 
 honoured me, was a friendship dearest to my soul. Your conversa- 
 tion, 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.
 
 DUNNING LETTER FROM A CREDITOR. 205 
 
 Dr Currie states, that Burns had the pleasure of receiving an 
 explanation of ]\Irs Dunlop's silence, and an assurance of the con- 
 tinuance of her friendship to his widow and children; but though 
 her friendly attentions to the latter are undoubted, it was ]\Irs 
 Burns's constant assertion, that there must have been a mistake 
 as to her husband having received an explanation of Mrs Dunlop's 
 silence in any fonn. 
 
 After a few days, sea-bathing seemed to have in some degree 
 eased the pains of our bard, so that he once more began to 
 entertain hopes of life. At this crisis, a sad stroke fell upon 
 him, in the form of a letter from a Dumfries solicitor, urging 
 payment of a bill, now ascertained to have amoimted to L.7, 4s., 
 due, or overdue, to a draper for his volunteer uniform. It was 
 generally believed of this tradesman by his contemporaries, that 
 he would never have harassed the poor poet for the debt ; indeed, 
 it has been represented, that jNIr Williamson (for such was his 
 name)i had placed this and some other overdue accounts in the 
 solicitor's hands, merely because it seemed the most convenient 
 mode of collecting them; and it is the report of Burns's eldest 
 son, that the letter addressed by Mr Matthew Penn to Burns, 
 did not contain any threatenhig expressions. In Scotland, how- 
 ever, a letter from a writer is generally regarded as a menacing 
 step on the part of a creditor; and so did it appear on the present 
 occasion to Burns, whose mind was too gloouiy and excitable to 
 take calm views on any such matter. Struck with terror lest the 
 worst extremities should be proceeded to, he bethought him of 
 two friends who might be appealed to for the means of averting 
 so dire a calamity. 
 
 TO MR JAMES BURNES, 
 
 WlllTEn, JIOMTliOSK. 
 
 DiMKitlKs, 12Wi Jiihj. 
 
 My pear Cousin— AVlien you oftercd me money assistance, littlo 
 did I think 1 should want it so soon. A rascal of a liaberdii-slicr, to 
 whom I owe a considerable bill, taking it into his liea.l that I am 
 dying, lias commenced a j.roccss a;,':iiiist me, and will infallil)ly i)ut 
 my emaciated body into jail. "Will yo" he so fjood as to ai-coinmodalo 
 me, and that by return of post, with ten pounds; Oh, .lames! did 
 you know the pride of my lieart, you would feci douhly for me ! 
 Alas! I am not used to beg. Tiie worst of it is, my health was 
 coming about finely. You kiiow.aiul my physician assured nu', that 
 
 1 Bums iKKl lK>en a fl.'Mor to Williains..n on i.rovious or-,.a..ioi.«. nml .loo, not 
 nppoar to have l.cn prompt in Lis payn.onts, In March J7|»4. M.ssrs Hrown nn.l 
 AVillian.son, .-lothi.Ts. ai.nown.vd to Horns that th.'V wr- .l.sHoUmK thr.r ropart- 
 nerv, .and colIoHioK' the .l.l.t.s .!...■ to it. Th.v rnHos... an a.-rounl for u halunco 
 of L.7, OS., due by him shice tlie beginning ot tlic procoilnig year.
 
 206 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 melancholy and low spirits are half my disease — guess, then, my 
 horrors since this business began. If I had it settled, I would be, 
 I tliink, quite well in a manner. How shall I use the language 
 to you — oh, do not disappoint mc ! but strong necessity's curst 
 command. 
 
 I have been thinking over and over my brother's affairs, and I 
 fear I must cut him up ; but on this I will correspond at another 
 time, particularly as I shall [require] your advice. 
 
 Forgive me for once more mentioning by return of post — save me 
 from the horrors of a jail ! 
 
 BIy compliments to my friend Jamcs,^ and to all the rest. I do 
 not know what I have written. Tlie subject is so horrible, I dare 
 not look it over again. Farewell ! R. B. 
 
 BURNS TO MR TK03IS0N. 
 
 Brow, on the Solwrnj Fr'dli, l2Ui July 1796. 
 
 After all my boasted independence, curst necessity compels mo 
 to implore you for five pounds. A cruel scoundrel of a haber- 
 dasher, 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 Botheviurchie 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 ! 
 
 To think of Burns composing love -verses in these circum- 
 stances ! It was to happy days spent on the banks of the Devon 
 during the short blaze of his fame, and to Charlotte Hamilton 
 and her youthful loveliness, that his mind reverted at this gloomy 
 time. 
 
 FAIREST MAID ON DEVON BANKS. 
 T USE — liothenncrch ie. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 Fairest maid on Devon banks, 
 
 Crystal Devon, winding Devon, 
 Wilt thou lay that frcv/n aside. 
 
 And smile as thou wert wont to do ? 
 
 ^ The son of Mr Burnes, now a youth of sixteen. This respectable man, the 
 father of Sir Alexander Burnes, died in spring 1H32.
 
 MONEY SENT BY ME THOMSON. 207 
 
 Full well thou loiow'st I love thee dear, 
 Couldst thou to malice lend an ear? 
 Oh, did not love exclaim : ' Forbear, 
 Xor use a faithful lover so ! ' 
 
 Then come, thou fairest of the fair, 
 Those wonted smiles, oh, let me share! 
 And by tliy beauteous self I swear, 
 
 Xo love but tliine my heart shall know. 
 
 Mr Burnes, who was not a rich man, but possessed, like his 
 illustrious relative, of a liberal heart, immediately sent the sum 
 asked. ]Mr Thomson, who was in circumstances not greatly 
 superior to those of Burns himself, but who also possessed a 
 libei-al nature, had been ruminating on the illness of the poet, and 
 asking himself if, at such a time, a fresh present of five pounds 
 was not likely to be taken more kindly than that which he had 
 sent three years before. Between two such enthusiasts, in then- 
 respective domestic circumstances, such a donation did not truly 
 bear the ah of meanness which some -svi-iters have since attributed 
 to it. At all events, it was what Mr Thomson had it in his power 
 to give, and he sent it with all his usual cordiality. 
 
 5IR THOMSON TO BURNS. 
 
 Uth July 1:9c. 
 
 My dear Sir — Ever since I received your melancholy letters by 
 Sirs Hyslop, I have been ruminating in what manner I could endea- 
 vour to alleviate your sufferings. Again and again I thought of a 
 pecuniary offer, but the recollection of one of your letters on tliis 
 suljject, and the fear of offending your independent spirit, checked 
 my resolution. I thank you heartily, therefore, for tlie frankness 
 of your letter of the l-2th, and with great j)leasure enclose a draft 
 for the very sum I proposed sending. AVould I were Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer but for one day, for your sake ! 
 
 Pray, my good sir, is it not possible for you to muster a volume of 
 poetry? If too much trouble to you, in the present state of your 
 healtii, some literary friend mif^ht be found liere, wlio would select 
 and arrange from your manuscripts, and take upon him tlie task of 
 editor. In the meantime, it could be advertised to be pulilished by 
 subscription. Do not shun tliis mode of obtaining the value of your 
 labour: remember, I'opc published the Iliad by subscription. Think 
 of tliis, my dear Burns, and do not reckon mo intrusive with my 
 advice. You are too well convinced of tlie respect and frieiidsliip 
 I bear you, to impute anything I say to an unworthy motive. Yours 
 faitlifully. 
 
 The verses to Rotlicmurchie will answer finely. I am liupjiy to 
 sec you can still tune your lyre.
 
 208 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 A kind-hearted friend, Mr Gracie, banker in Dumfries, sent to 
 inquire after the poet's health, and to offer his carriage to bring 
 him back to his home. 
 
 TO JAMES GRACIE, ESQ. 
 
 Brow, Wednesday morning [\3lh JuJy.'] 
 
 My dear Sir — It would [be] doing high injustice to this place 
 not to acknowledge that my rheumatisms have derived great benefits 
 from it already; but, alas! my loss of appetite still continues. I 
 shall not need your kind offer this iveel; and I return to town the 
 beginning of next week, it not being a tide- week. I am detaining 
 a man in a burning hurry. So, God bless you ! K. B. 
 
 The delicate condition of Mrs Burns liad of course prevented 
 her from accompanying her husband to Brow. He addressed her 
 thus, apparently on the 14th: 
 
 , TO MRS BURNS. 
 
 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 thinlc has strengtliencd me ; 
 but my appetite is still exti'emely bad. No flesh nor fish can I 
 swallow ; porridge and millv ai-e the only thing I can taste. I am 
 very happy to hear, by Miss Jess Lewars, tliat you are all well. My 
 very best and kindest compliments to lier, and to all the children. 
 I will see you on Sunday. Your affectionate husbaud, 11. B. 
 
 Mr M'Diarmid of Dumfries communicated to Mr Lockhart an 
 anecdote of Burns referable to this time. ' Eousseau, we all know, 
 when dying, wished to be carried into the open air, that he might 
 obtain a parting look of tlie glorious orb of day. 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 — now Mrs 
 Henry Duncan i — was afraid the light might be too mucli for him, 
 and rose with the view of letting 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 Avill not shine 
 long for me!"' 
 
 1 Mrs Duncan was the wife of the late highly estimable Dr Duncan, minister of 
 Ruthwell, the originator of savinijs-banks, and the first describer of reptilian 
 footsteps on the surfaces of ancient strata.
 
 DEATH OF THE POET. 209 
 
 Before leaving Urow, Burns experienced a new attack of fever. 
 According to Allan Cunningliam, who was living in Dumfries at 
 the time, the poet 'returned on the 18th. in a small spring -cart. 
 The ascent to liis house was steep, and the cart stopped at the 
 foot of the Mill-hole-brae : when he alighted, he shook much, and 
 stood with difficulty; he seemed unable to stand upright. He 
 stooped as if in pain, and walked tottering towards his own door: 
 his looks were hollow and ghastly, and those who saw him then 
 €xpected never to see him in life again.' Dr Currie. who probably 
 liad exact information regarding the case from iMaxwell. says: 
 'At this time a tremor pervaded his frame; his tongue was 
 parched, and his mind sank into delirium when not roused by 
 conversation.' 
 
 On returning to his home, he wrote what is supposed to be 
 the last letter or composition of any kind penned by him. It 
 was addressed to his father-in-law, and related to an expected 
 domestic event Avhich helped in no small degree to deepen the 
 tragic character of the hour. 
 
 TO MR JAMES ARMOTR, MAVCHMNE. 
 
 DfMFniKS, Wh July 1795. 
 
 Mv DEAR Sir — Do, for Heaven's sake, send Mrs Armour horo 
 immediately. My Avife is liourly expecting to be put to bed. Good 
 God ! what a situation for her to l)c in, poor girl,' without a friend ! 
 I returned from sca-batliiiig <[iiarters to-d;iy, and my medical friends 
 would almost pursuade me that I am better; but I think and feel 
 tliat my strength is so gone, that the disorder will j)rove fatal to nic. 
 Your son-in-law, K. li. 
 
 The life of Burns was now to be measured by liours rather than 
 days. To secure the quietness demanded at such a time, his four 
 little boys Avert; sent to the house of Mr Lewars. .lessy hovered 
 ]jy his couch with her usual assiduity. Findlater came occasion- 
 ally to soothe the last moments of his friend. Karly in the m.orn- 
 ing of the 2lst, liurns had sunk into delirium, ami it becanm 
 evident that nature was well-nigh exiiausted. Tlit^ children were 
 then sent for to see their parent for the last time in life. They 
 .stood round the bed, whih; calndy and gradually he .sank into his 
 last repose. The eldest son retained a distinct n'collecfion of the 
 scene, and has reported the sad fact, that the last words of tlio 
 bard were a muttired execration against the legal agent by whose 
 letter, wittingly or unwittingly, tlie parting days of Hums iiaJ 
 been imbittered. 
 
 1 Mrs Burns v.as not yet thirty years of ago. 
 VOL. IV. N
 
 210 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Tliough mitcli of the conduct and conversation of Burns was 
 matter of disapprobation with a portion of society in his own 
 district, his death caused a general feeling of regret throughout 
 Dumfries and its neighbourhood. By high and low, his geniu& 
 had been admired. Many knew well the generous character of 
 the man. All deplored the premature extinction of a spirit 
 which, but a few years before, had shone out upon society with sa 
 bright a promise. They also sympathised with the young widow 
 and her helpless children, now left without any provision for the 
 future. In the general public, although the death of Burns was 
 communicated through an authoritative channel in a manner 
 disrespectful to his memory,^ the same sentiments of regret and 
 sympathy prevailed. The nation seemed to feel at its heart a 
 pang of self-accusation for not having better appreciated and 
 done more to foster a genius so extraordinary. It felt, and felt 
 ti'uly, that many a year might pass ere anotlier equal to him 
 should arise. 
 
 The funeral of Burns is well described by Dr Currie. ' The 
 Gentlemen Volunteers of Dumfries determined to bury their 
 illustrious associate with military honours, and every preparation 
 was made to render this last service solemn and impressive. The 
 Fencible Infantry of Angusshire, and the regiment of cavalry of 
 the Cinque Ports, at that time quartered in Dumfries,- offered 
 their assistance on this occasion ; the principal inhabitants of the 
 town and neighbourhood determined to walk in the funeral pro- 
 cession; and a vast concourse of persons assembled, some of them 
 from a considerable distance, to witness the obsequies of the 
 
 J The newspaper notice here adverted to must have been the production of some- 
 injudicious friend. ' On the 21st inst., died at Dumfries, after a lingering illness, 
 the celebrated Robert Uurxs. His poetical compositions, distinguished equally by 
 the force of native humour, by the warmth and the tenderness of passion, and by 
 the glowing touches of a descriptive pencil— will remain a lasting monument of the 
 vigour and versatility of a mind guided only by the Lights of Nature and the 
 Inspirations of Genius. The public, to whose amusement he has so largely contri- 
 buted, will hear with regret, that his extraordinary endowments were accompanied 
 with frailties which rendered them useless to himself and his family. The last 
 moments of his short life were spent in sickness and indigence ; and his widow, 
 with five infant children, and in hourly expectation of a sixth, is now left without 
 any resource but what she may hope from the regard due to the memory of her 
 husband. 
 
 ' The public are respectfully informed, that contributions for the wife and family 
 of the late Robert Burns, who are left in circumstances of extreme distress, will be 
 received at the houses of Sir William Forbes & Co., of Messrs Mansfield, Ramsay, 
 & Co., and at tlie shops of the Edinburgh booksellers. 
 
 ' As it is proposed to publish, some time hence, a posthumous volume of the 
 poetical remains of Robert Burns, for the benefit of the author's family, his friends 
 and acquaintances are requested to transmit such i^oems and Utters as happen to 
 be in their possession to Alexander Cunningham, writer, George's Street, Edin- 
 burgh; or to John SjTne, Esq., of Eycdale, Dumfries.'— J?d/«. Advertiser, July SB. 
 
 - The Cinque Ports Cavalry had arrived in Dumfries only a few days before the 
 death of Burns. Among the junior ofiiccrs was the Hon. Mr Jenliinson, afterwards 
 Earl of Liverpool and prime minister of England.
 
 FUNERAL OF THE POET. 211 
 
 Scottish bard. On the evening of the 25th of July, the remains 
 of Bums were removed from his house to the Town Hall, and 
 the funeral took place on the succeeding day.i A party of the 
 Volimteers, selected to perform the military duty in the church- 
 yard, stationed themselves in the front of the procession, with 
 their arms reversed ; the main body of the corps surrounded and 
 supported the coffin, on which were placed the hat and sword of 
 their friend and fellow-soldier; the numerous body of attendants 
 ranged themselves in the rear; while the Fencible regiments of 
 infantry and cavalry lined the streets from the Town Hall to the 
 burial-ground in the southern church-yard, a distance of more 
 than half a mile. The whole procession moved forward to that 
 sublime and affecting strain of music, the Dead March in Saul; 
 and three volleys fired over his grave marked the return of Bums 
 to his parent earth ! The spectacle was in a higli degree grand 
 and solemn, and accorded with the general sentiments of sympathy 
 and sorrow which the occasion had called forth.' 
 
 Dr Currie adds: 'It was an affecting circumstance, that on the 
 morning of the day of her husband's funeral, Mrs Burns was 
 undergoing the pains of labour, and that, during the solemn service 
 we have just been describing, the posthumous son of our poet Avas 
 born.' This child was named Maxwell, in honour of Dr Maxwell, 
 the physician who had attended Biu-ns on his death-bed. He 
 died in infancy. 
 
 As Dr Currie's description of Bums was composed under 
 advantages which no subsequent writer can enjoy, and is an 
 elegant piece of writing, I am induced to transfer it to these 
 pages. 
 
 ' Burns was nearly five feet ten inches in height, and of a fomi 
 that indicated agility as well as strength. His well-raised forehead, 
 shaded with black curling hair, indicated extensive capacity. His 
 eyes were large, dark, full of ardour and intelligence. His face was 
 well formed; and his countenance uncommonly interesting and 
 expressive. His mode of dressing, wliich was often slovenly, and 
 a certain fulness and bend in his shoulders, characteristic of his 
 original profession, disguised in some degree the natural synnnctry 
 and elegance of his form. The external apjiearance of Burns was 
 most strikingly indicative of the cliaracter of his mind. On a first 
 view, his physiognomy had a certain air of coarseness, mingled, 
 however, with an expression of deep penetration, and of calm 
 thoughtfubiess, approaching to melancholy. Tiicrc appeared in his 
 
 > The Edinhitrrih Advcrliscr of Friday Iho SUtli coiitnins n i-aranraph, ilatcl 
 * Dumfries, 2()th .lul.v,' which says that 'tho reniniius of Itums wero intcrrt'd on 
 Mondai/, witli iniliUiry honours and every suiUil)le respect.' Monday was the !Ulh, 
 and this undoubtedly was tlic duy of the funeral.
 
 212 LIFE AND WORKS OF BUKNS. 
 
 first mannei- and address, perfect ease and self-possession, bvit a 
 stern and almost supercilious elevation, not, indeed, incompatible 
 •with openness and affability, which, however, bespoke a mind 
 conscious of superior talents. Strangers that supposed themselves 
 approaching an Ayrshire peasant wlio could make rhymes, and to 
 whom their notice was an honour, found themselves speedily 
 overawed by tlie presence of a man who bore himself with dignity, 
 and who possessed a singular power of correcting forwardness and 
 of repelling intrusion. i But though jealous of the respect due to 
 himself. Burns never enforced it where he saw it v/as willingly 
 paid; and though inaccessible to the approaches of pride, he was 
 open to every advance of kindness and of benevolence. His dark 
 and haughty countenance easily relaxed into a look of good-will, 
 of pity, or of tenderness; and as the various emotions succeeded 
 each otlier in his mind, assumed with equal ease tlie expression 
 of the broadest humour, of the most extravagant mii-th, of the 
 deepest melancholy, or of the most sublime emotion. The tones 
 of his voice happily corresponded witli tlie ex])ression of his 
 features, and with the feelings of his mind. When to these 
 endowments are added a rapid and distinct apprehension, a most 
 powerful imderstanding, and a happy command of language — of 
 strength as Avell as brilliancy of expression — we shall be able to 
 account for the extraordinary attractions of his conversation — 
 for the sorcery which, in his social parties, he seemed to exert on 
 all around him. In the company of women, this sorcery was 
 more especially apparent. Their presence charmed the fiend of 
 melanclioly in his bosom, and awoke his liappiest feelings; it 
 excited the powers of his fancy, as avcII as the tenderness of his 
 heart; and by restraining the vehemence and the exuberance of 
 his language, at times gave to his manners the impression of 
 taste, and even of elegance, which in the company of men they 
 seldom possessed. This influence was doubtless reciprocal. A 
 Scottish lady accustomed to the best society, declared with 
 characteristic naivete, that no man's conversation ever carried her 
 
 ' 'During his residence in Glasgow, a characteristic instance occurred of the way 
 in whjcli he would repress petulance and presumption. A young man of some 
 literary pretensions, who had newly commenced husiness as a bookseller, had been 
 in the practice of writing notices of ISurnss poems in a style so flippant, and withal 
 so patronising, as to excite feelings in tlie poet towards him very different from 
 what he counted upon. Reckoning, however, upon a very grateful reception from 
 Burns, he was particularly an,\ious for an early introduction to his company ; and, 
 as his friends knew, had been at some pains to prepare himself for making a 
 dazzling impression upon the Ayrshire ploughman, as it was then the fashion, 
 amongst a certain kind of literary folks, to call the poet. At the moment the 
 introduction took place. Burns was engaged in one of his happiest and most play- 
 ful veins with my friend and another intimate or two; but upon tlie gentleman's 
 presentation, who advanced in a manner sufficiently affable, the " ploughman " 
 assumed an air of such dignified coldness, as froze him into complete silence during 
 the time he remained in his company.'— C'w?Tfs;)Oiutoi« (if the Scotsman, 1820.
 
 MRS riddel's sketch OF BURKS. 213 
 
 80 completely off her feet, as tliat of Bunis;^ and an English lady, 
 familiarly acquainted witli several of the most distinguished 
 characters of the present times, assured the editor, that in the 
 happiest of his social hours, there -was a charm about Burns whicli 
 she had never seen e(;[ualled.- This charm arose not more from 
 the power than the versatility of his genius. Xo languor could 
 be felt in the society of a man who passed at pleasure from 
 grave to gay, from the ludicrous to the pathetic, from the simple 
 to the sublime; who wielded all his fi^culties with equal strength 
 and ease, and never failed to impress the oftspring of his fancy 
 Avith the stamp of his understanding. 
 
 ' This, indeed, is to represent Burns in his happiest phasis. In 
 large and mixed parties, he was often silent and dark, sometimes 
 fierce and overbearing; he was jealous of the proud man's scorn, 
 jealous to an extreme of the insolence of wealth, and prone to 
 avenge, even on its innocent possessor, the partiality of fortune. 
 By nature, kind, brave, sincere, and in a singular degree com- 
 passionate, he was on the other hand proud, irascible, and vin- 
 dictive. His virtues and liis failings had their origin in the 
 extraordinary sensibility of his mind, and equally partook of tlie 
 cliills and glows of sentiment. His friendships were liable to 
 interruption from jealou.sy or disgust, and his enmities died away 
 under tlie influence of pity or self-accusation. His understanding 
 was equal to the other powers of his mind, and his deliberate 
 opinions were singularly candid and just; but, like otlicr men of 
 great and irreguhir genius, the opinions which he delivered in 
 conversation were often the oflspring of temporary feelings, 
 and widely different from the calm decisions of his judgment. 
 Tliis was not merely true respecting the characters of others, 
 but in regard to some of the most important points of human 
 speculation.' 
 
 Ijittle more than a fortnight after the deatli of Burns, Mrs 
 Walter lliddol presented anonymously in the Diuiifrles Journal 
 a view of his personal (qualities, designed to counteract the effects 
 of the misrepresentation and calumny which had already begun to 
 circulate regarding him. The notice is even more creditable to 
 the heart than to the intellect of tiu: lady, for, before writing it. 
 she had to forgive all those unhappy lampoons wiiidi, under 
 temporary irritation. Burns had launched against her and licr 
 husljand. "We must consich'r the wluilo conduct of tliis la.ly 
 respecting Burns as a solid testimony in liis favour. He liad 
 sinned against her, as against much tliat was more sacred tlian 
 
 > It has been stated that this lady was Jane, DuchcM of Gordon. 
 » Mrs Walter Kiddel is licrc meant.
 
 "214 LIFE AND WORKS OP BURNS. 
 
 she ; but she, nevertheless, acknowledged his many merits and 
 excellences, and fomid in him no oifences which a pm-e mind 
 might not regard with leniency. The late Mr Alexander Smellie, 
 son of the rough old naturalist already introduced to the reader, 
 had visited Mrs Riddel a few months before Burns's death, when 
 he found her talking of him in terms of opprobrium, only perhaps 
 too well justified by his conduct towards herself. He revisited 
 her immediately after the death of the poet, and found that all 
 offence had been lost in admiration and regr'et. Attended by her 
 young friend, the enthusiastic lady went that night at a late hour 
 to St Michael's Cliurch-yard, and planted laurels over the poet's 
 new-made grave. 
 
 Mrs Riddel opens with an assertion which must have been 
 startling to the public of that day, who had not yet leai-ned to 
 contemplate Burns as anything beyond a prodigy of versifying 
 power. She says : ' The fact is, that poetry (I appeal to all who 
 have had the advantage of being personally acquainted with him) 
 was actually not his forte. Many others, perhaps, may have 
 ascended to prouder heights in the region of Parnassus, but none 
 certainly ever outshone Burns in the charms, the sorcery, I would 
 almost call it, of fascinating conversation, the spontaneous 
 eloquence of social argument, or the unstudied poignancy of 
 brilliant repartee ; nor was any man, I believe, ever gifted with a 
 larger portion of the vivida vis animi. His personal endowments 
 were perfectly correspondent to the qualifications of his mind — ■ 
 his form was manly — his action, energy itself — devoid in a great 
 measure perhaps of those graces, of that polish, acquired only in 
 the refinement of societies where in early life he could have no 
 opportunities of mixing; but where, such was the irresistible 
 power of atti'action that encircled him, though his appearance and 
 manners were always peciiliar, he never failed to delight and to 
 excel. His figure seemed to bear testimony to his earlier desti- 
 nation and employments. It seemed rather moulded by nature 
 for the rough exercises of agriculture, than the gentler cultivation 
 of the belles-lettres. His features were stamped with the hardy 
 character of independence, and the firmness of conscious, though 
 not arrogant, pre-eminence ; the animated expressions of coun- 
 tenance were almost peculiar to himself; the rapid lightnings of 
 his eye were always the harbingers of some flash of genius, 
 whether they darted the fiery glances of insulted and indignant 
 superiority, or beamed with the impassioned sentiment of fervent 
 and impetuous affections. His voice alone could improve upon the 
 magic of his eye : sonorous, replete with the finest modulations, 
 it alternately captivated the ear with the melody of poetic 
 numbers, the perspicuity of nervous reasoning, or the ardent
 
 MRS riddel's sketch OF BURNS. 215 
 
 sallies of enthusiastic patriotism. The keenness of eatu'e was, I 
 am almost at a loss whether to say his forte or his foible; for 
 thougli nature had endowed him "with a portion of the most 
 pointed excellence in that dangerous talent, he suffered it too 
 often to be the vehicle of personal, and sometimes unfounded, 
 animosities. It was not always that sportiveness of humour, that 
 " unwary pleasantry," which Sterne lias depicted with touches so 
 conciliatory, but the darts of ridicule were frequently directed as 
 the caprice of the instant suggested, or as the altercations of 
 parties and of persons happened to kindle the restlessness of his 
 spirit into interest or aversion. This, however, was not invari- 
 ably the case ; his wit (which is no unusual matter indeed) had 
 always the start of his judgment, and would lead him to the 
 indulgence of raillery uniformly acute, but often unaccompanied 
 with the least desire to wound. The suppression of an arch and 
 full-pointed hon-mot, from a dread of offending its object, the sage 
 of Zurich very properly classes as a virtue onhj to he sought for in 
 Ihe calendar of saints ; if so, Burns must not be too severely dealt 
 with for being rather deficient in it. He paid for his mischievous 
 wit as dearly as any one could do. " 'Twas no extravagant 
 arithmetic," to say of him, as was said of Yorick, that " for every 
 ten jokes he got a hundred enemies ;" but much allowance will be 
 made by a candid mind for the splenetic warmth of a spirit whom 
 ^' distress had spited with the world," and which, unbounded in 
 its intellectual sallies and pursuits, continually experienced the 
 curbs imposed by the waywardness of his fortune. The vivacity 
 of his wishes and temper was indeed checked by almost habitual 
 disappointments, which sat heavy on a heart that acknowledged 
 the ruling passion of independence, without having ever been 
 placed beyond the grasp of penury. His soul was never languid 
 or inactive, and his genius was extinguished only with the last 
 spark of retreating life. His passions rendered him, according as 
 they disclosed themselves in affection or antipathy, an object of 
 enthusiastic attachment, or of decided enmity ; for he possessed 
 none of that negative insipidity of character, whose love iniglit bo 
 regarded with indifference, or whose resentment could be con- 
 sidered with contempt. In tiiis, it sliould seem, tl\c temper of his 
 associates took the tincture from his own ; for he acknowledged 
 in the universe but two classes of objects— those of adoration the 
 most fervent, or of aversion the most uncontrullablc ; and it has 
 been frequently a reproach to him, tiiat, unsusceptible of indif- 
 ference, often hating where he ought only to have despised, he 
 alternately opened his heart and poured fortli the treasures of his 
 understanding to such as were incapable of appreciating the 
 homage, and elevated to tlie privileges of an adversary some who
 
 216 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 were unqualified in all respects for the honour of a contest so 
 distinguished. 
 
 ' It is said that the celebrated Dr Johnson professed to " love a 
 good hater" — a temperament that would have singularly adapted 
 him to cherish a prepossession in favour of our bard, who perhaps 
 fell but little short even of the surly doctor in this qualification, 
 as long as the disposition to ill-will continued ; but the warmth of 
 his passions was fortunately corrected by their versatility. He 
 was seldom, indeed never, implacable in his resentments, and 
 sometimes, it has been alleged, not inviolably faithful in his 
 engagements of friendship. Much, indeed, has been said about 
 his inconstancy and caprice ; but I am inclined to believe, that 
 they originated less in a levity of sentiment, than from an extreme 
 impetuosity of feeling, which rendered him prompt to take 
 umbrage ; and his sensations of pique, whore he fancied he had 
 discovered the traces of neglect, scorn, or unkindness, took their 
 measure of asperity from the overflowings of the opposite senti- 
 ment which preceded them, and which seldom failed to regain its 
 ascendancy in his bosom on the return of calmer reflection. He 
 was candid and manly in the avowal of his errors, and his avoical 
 "was a reparation. His native jierte never forsaking him for a 
 moment, the value of a frank acknowledgment was enhanced ten- 
 fold towards a generous mind, from its never being attended with 
 servility. His mind, organised only for the stronger and more 
 acute operations of the passions, was impracticable to the efforts 
 of superciliousness that would have depressed it into humility, and 
 equally superior to the encroachments of venal suggestions that 
 might have led him into the mazes of hypocrisy 
 
 * That Burns had received no classical education, and was 
 acquainted with the Greek and Roman authors only through the 
 medium of translations, is a fact of Avhich all who were in the 
 habit of conversing Avith him might readily be convinced. I have, 
 indeed, seldom observed him to be at a loss in conversation, unless 
 where the dead languages and their writers have been the subjects 
 of discussion. When 1 have pressed him to tell me why he never 
 applied himself to acquire the Latin, in particular, a language 
 Avhich his happy memory would have so soon enabled him to be 
 master of, he used only to reply with a smile, that he had already 
 learnt all the Latin he desired to know, and that was omnia vincit 
 amor — a sentence, that from his writings and most favourite 
 pursuits, it should undoul)tedly seem that he was most thoroughly 
 versed in; but I really believe his classic erudition extended 
 little if any further.' 
 
 Mrs Riddel acknowledged the imputed irregularities of Burns, 
 but pled that ' the eccentric intuitions of genius too often yield
 
 CHARACTER OF BURNS. 217 
 
 the soul to the -wild effervescence of desires, always unbounded, 
 and sometimes equally dangerous to the repose of otliers as 
 
 dangerous to its own I trust,' she says in conclusion, ' that 
 
 honest fame will be permanently affixed to Burns's cb.aracter, wliicli 
 I think it will be found he lias merited by the candid and impartial 
 among his countrymen. And wliere a recollection of the impru- 
 dences that sullied his brighter qualitieations interposes, let tlic 
 imperfection of all human excellence be remembered at the same 
 time, leaving those inconsistencies, which alternately exalted liis 
 nature into the serapli and sank it again into the man, to the 
 tribunal which aloiie can investigate the labyrinths of the human 
 heart — 
 
 " Where they alike in trembling hope repose — 
 The bosom of his father and his God." ' i 
 
 Mrs Riddel's prediction has certainly been verified, for an honest 
 fame, and sometliing more, does now attach to the memory of 
 liobert Burns. It is many years since any open attempt lias been 
 made to vilify the peasant bard on any account whatever, and 
 it is abundantly clear, that no such attempt will ever again be 
 made by any man who wishes to stand well with the Scottish 
 public ; for whatever sectarian views may sway, or whatever 
 prudish feelings intrude, no man amongst us can endure tliat 
 the sliadow of the fame of Burns, personal or literary, should 
 ever be made less. The danger is now, indeed, not that Burns 
 may be nnder-estimated or cahunniated, but tliat tlie affection in 
 •wliicli liis memory is held, may interfere with even the most 
 friendly attempts to set fortli the liglits and shadows of his 
 character witli historic fidelity. 
 
 On a narrow and critical examination of tlie life and conduct of 
 our great poet, and tlms getting quit of tlie almost mytliic gloss 
 which already invests it, we do not find cither that garreteer- 
 like poverty which is usually associated with liis name, or that 
 tendency to excessive or wild irregularity which has been imputed 
 to him. liurns was cut short by an accidental disease in the midst 
 of a life, humble indeed compared with his deserts, but one attended 
 ■with no essential privations, not to any serious extent distressing 
 to his spirit, and not unhopcfid. A very short time before liis 
 death, he is found looking chefrfidly forward to promotion in the 
 branch of public service to which he had attached himself; and 
 it may be added, if he had lived a few years longer, and attained 
 the expected promotion, his situation would have been one far 
 from despicable. In his ollicial conduct, Burns, it fully ajipears, 
 
 ' Mrs Walter Riddel gave material assistance lo Pr Currlc In his task sj 
 biographer and editor of Hums.
 
 218 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 displayed diligence and accuracy. He behaved himself much more 
 like a man of the world than is generally supposed. The charges 
 against him on the score of intemperance have been proved to be 
 greatly exaggerated. He was only the occasional boon-companion, 
 never the dram-drinker or the sot ; and his aberrations in this 
 line were those of the age, not his own. There remains, indeed, 
 one serious frailty at the charge of Burns. It has been spoken 
 of here with candour, lest, in the event of its being slurred over, 
 an exaggerated idea of it should be entertained. It certamly was 
 much to be deplored ; and yet we must see that it was connected 
 and inwrought with the peculiar poetical power which he pos- 
 sessed, a power of which, apparently, we should not have had 
 the benefits on cheaper terms. ^ We may pronounce, there- 
 fore, against the sin, and deplore the humiliation into which it 
 brought so noble a genius ; but we must at the same time remem- 
 ber, that the light which led astray was in him truly *a light 
 from heaven.' If Burns had lived ten years longer, we should 
 have seen him surmounting the turbid wave of passion, and atoning 
 for many of his errors. Let us give him the benefit of this ideal 
 amendment. 
 
 There, after all, was a defect in Burns which no number of years 
 would have ever enabled him to remedy, and this was his want 
 ■of a vigorous will. Thomas Carlyle, after writing most gene- 
 rously of Burns, has been carried so far in his ardent admiration 
 as to say, that no other man was so well entitled to be at the 
 head of the public afiiiirs of his day, as if his being so pecviliarly 
 a man of talent fitted him above all rivalry for that eminent 
 situation. There could not be a greater mistake, for how could 
 
 1 ' by his own hand — in words the import of which cannot be mistaken — 
 
 it has been recorded that the order of his life but faintly corresponded with the 
 clearness of his views. It is probable that he could have proved a still greater 
 poet if, by strength of reason, he could have controlled the propensities which his 
 sensibiUties engendered ; but he would have been a poet of a different class : and, 
 certain it is, had that desirable restraint been early established, many peculiar 
 beauties which enrich his verse would never have existed, and many accessory 
 influences which contribute greatly to their effect woiUd have been wanting. For 
 instance, the momentous truth of the passage, " One point must still be greatly dark," 
 &c., could not have possibly been conveyed with such pathetic force by any poet 
 that ever lived, speaking in his own voice ; unless it were felt that, hke Burns, he 
 •was a man who preached from the text of his ovm errors ; and whose wisdom, 
 beautiful as a flower that might have risen from seed sown from above, was in fact 
 a scion from the root of personal suffering. Whom did the poet intend should be 
 thought of occupying that grave over which, after modestly setting forth the 
 moral discernment and warm affections of its "poor inhabitant below," it is 
 supposed to be inscribed that — 
 
 " Thoughtless follies laid him low, 
 
 And stained his name." 
 
 Who but himself^iimself anticipating the too probable termination of his own 
 course ? Here is a sincere and solemn avowal— a public declaration from his own 
 vnll — a confession at once devout, poetical, and human — a history in the shape of a 
 prophecy ! ' — Wordsworth.
 
 BURNS AS A POET. 219 
 
 a man, who was unable to exercise a control upon his own 
 passions in the simplest thmgs, have ever been able to exercise the 
 control upon himself and others which is necessary in the great 
 statesman ? The general abilities of Durns were no doubt extra- 
 ordinary ; but it is perfectly clear, that the poetical temperament 
 ruled in his nature. He was impressionable, irritable, capricious. 
 Whatever he did tliat was brilliant, he did under impulse. He 
 only reflected when it was too late. Mmds like his have their own 
 mission ; but it is not to sway great democracies. It is to touch 
 the souls of men with their hue sensibilities, and give an imperish- 
 able voice to the subtlest emotions of their bosoms. In studying 
 such minds, we are not to expect calm and regulated movement, 
 as of some machine perfect in all its parts, and which has certain 
 definite purposes to serve. It is not of ^hat active character at 
 all. We are rather to look for some passive thing like the ^-Eolian 
 hai'p, which has a hundred moods in an hour. Such, truly, is the 
 Poet ; and it must ever be a fearful problem, how such a being is 
 to stand towards the rest of society, how he is to get his living, 
 and how he is to observe one -half of the sober maxims of 
 conventional life. 
 
 As a poet. Burns is not of course to be ranked with any of the 
 higher denominations. He competes not with the Homers or the 
 Miltons ; scarcely even with the Drydens or Popes. But he stands 
 in a very noble rank by himself, as one who treated with unap- 
 proached felicity all the sensuous familiar things which lay around 
 him in the world. It may be said, that he is happy in the treating 
 of these things in a great measure by reason of his singular 
 command of language. Whatever idea was within him, there was 
 a channel of expression for it, by which it came out in full and 
 true lineaments, and without a single sacrifice to rant, or trick, or 
 the exigencies of verse. The possession of this language-power, 
 Horatian as it was, would have never of itself made a gi-cat poet ; 
 but it, and the fruitful muid together, conferred an advantage wliicli 
 there was no resisting. Wlien we seek to ascertain what it is in 
 the thoughts and feelings of Burns wliich pleases us so much, wo 
 find that it mainly is their unaffected simplicity and naivete. ^ He 
 was the true man before he was the true i)oet. To be so entirely 
 free of a tedious literalncss, he is tlic most faitliful of painters. Tiie 
 emotions of a liberal genial nature flow from liini, and wc; all feel 
 that it is a voice which admirably represents Iiis kind. There is 
 never any pause for an expletive ornament. Art is completely con- 
 cealed in his case, simply because he wrote the ideas as they natu- 
 rally rose and came, and not with any secondary view to effect. Thus 
 he is the least egotistic of poets, for even whore he worsliips some 
 female divinity of his own, he docs it in the words which all would
 
 220 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 feel to be suitable in the like circumstances. It is alike in humour 
 and in tlie serious or sentimental. Never does Burns fail to be 
 true, simple, and direct, and rarely, accordingly, do his verses fail 
 to paint themselves upon the imagination of the reader. I must, 
 after all, hesitate about the place which ought to be assigned to 
 him among the British poets. Since his own day, he has advanced 
 immensely in consideration ; and perhaps he is only now as 
 Shakspeare was in the time of Dryden and Howe. What the 
 British opinion may ultimately decide about one who drew so 
 ftiithfully and sang so sweetly, it might be rash to vaticinate.
 
 POSTHUMOUS HISTORY OF BURNS. 
 
 Burns died, not exactly in pressing indigence or privation, but 
 without possessing any such amount of property as could place his 
 widow and children above more than immediate want. It is not, 
 everything considered, so wonderful that he left liis iiimily in tliese 
 circumstances, as that he died free of debt except to a compara- 
 tively trifling amount.' This is indeed a fact highly remarkable, 
 and one which reflects a peculiar lustre upon the name of Burns. 
 The money realised by his pocm^ appears to have been expended 
 by the time he left Ellisland: he obtained no more that we are 
 aware of from that source, excepting the small sum thrust upon 
 liim by jNIr Thomson. He had lived four and a half years in 
 Dumfries, with an ascertained income which ' was for some time 
 as low as L.50, and never rose above L.70 a year,'- with a 
 
 ' It has hecn repeateulj' stated in so many words, that Ruriis died free of debt. 
 This, even by his own confession (letter to liis brother, .July Id, I7i">'. is not strictly 
 true. Besides the amount of the iint'ortiin:ite account wliich had been presented 
 at so unsuiting a time, he had small accounts due to other tradesmen. The poet 
 would also appear to have never quite succeeded in sijuarin;; accounts with his 
 landlord. Captain Hamilton. The interest of his countrymen about every authentiir 
 particular respecting IJurns, seems to ^ive these small matters a title to be noticed. 
 I deem it prol)ablc, after .ill, that the t0t.1l amoimt of our poet's debts did not 
 much exceed thirty pounds. The foUowinff letter from Cilliert liurns to .^I^ 
 Wallace, writer in Dumfries, throws soma light on the subject, while still further 
 confirming the fact, that Mr Jamca Clarke, the schoolmaster, was a debtor of 
 Burns : 
 
 Mossoii-.i., Ill Jan. 1797- 
 
 JIti AVat.i.ace— Sir, I intended to have been in Dumfries about this lime, to have 
 paid otr my brother's debts; but I (hid nnicli ilifrirulty in sparini? as mui'li money. 
 I think of offcrinjf Captain Hamilton and 'Mr Williamson the hilf of Ibeirnce". 
 and beKRiiiK a little time to pay the other half. If .Mr Cliirk pay up liis bill, I 
 hope to be able to pay off the .smaller ace" 1 be« you will write mc your 
 opinion immediately on this .subject. Will you have the i;oodncis It) mention tliU 
 to them, which will .save mc some imcasiness when I come to Dumfries, which I 
 think will be in two or three weeks, unless I have occ.i.*it)n to delay it till Dumfries 
 lair'; I bCK that you will smooth the w.iy to me in Ibis business as much ns you 
 cm. I <lo feel much hurt at it; but, as I .supjiose the del.iy can bo no Rreal Incon- 
 venience to the iientleincn, I hope they will be hidulgent to me. I am, sir, your 
 most obedt bumble ser'. U11.DKRT UlK^s. 
 
 2 Currie.
 
 222 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 family of seven or eight individuals to support, and this at a time 
 when the necessaries of life were considerably dearer than they 
 usually are now ; and yet he had exercised so much prudence and 
 self-denial, that only a few pounds stood at his debit when he 
 died. On the other side of the account, we find the L.180 
 which he had advanced from the profits of his poems to his 
 brother, books to the value of about L.90, and his household 
 furniture. The draft for L.IO sent by Mr Burnes, and that 
 for L.5 sent by Mr Thomson, lay unrealised in the widow's 
 possession, and formed the subject of a legal writ issued by 
 the Commissary of Dumfries on the ensuing 6th of October, 
 confirming to her, ' executrix qua relict to the umquhile Robert 
 Burns,' the use of the sums which they represented. 
 
 Wliile Burns lay dead in his house, his friend Mr Lewars 
 addressed a letter to Mr Burnes of Montrose, informing him of 
 the melancholy event, and apologising for the delay of an answer to 
 his late kind communication, on the ground that, at the time it was 
 received, ' Mr Burns was totally unable either to vnrite or dictate 
 a letter.' It is pleasing to mention, as a trait honourable to the 
 family to which the poet belonged, that Mr Burnes immediately 
 sent a letter of the kindest conflolence to the widow, offering to 
 do anything in his power to alleviate her affliction. This, be it 
 remembered, was not a rich man, and he had a family of his own 
 to provide for; yet, apparently as a simple matter of course, he 
 offered to relieve the widow of the charge of her eldest son, and to 
 educate him with his own children : he also enclosed an additional 
 sum of L.5, to relieve her immediate necessities. Adverting, more- 
 over, to what the poet had told him of his brother Gilbert's debt, 
 he counselled, as the payment would be hard upon that respect- 
 able man, that she should, as far as circumstances permitted, ' use 
 lenity in settling with him.' Mrs Burns replied in suitable terms 
 of gratitude to Mr Burnes, but declined, in the meantime, to part 
 with any of her children : she heartily concurred in the feeling 
 which dictated his allusion to Gilbert. It may here be added, that 
 this excellent man, who had long struggled under great difficulties 
 at Mossgiel, made up his mind at his brother's death to sell off 
 all he possessed, in order to obtain the means of dischai'ging 
 the debt he owed to the destitute Dumfries family. It is most 
 pleasing to record, that Mrs Robert Burns, setting aside all regard 
 to her own necessities, resolutely forbade the proposed step being 
 taken. The debt was not paid till twenty- four years after, and it 
 seems to have then been paid without interest; but during the 
 whole time of its currency, Gilbert had maintained his mother, 
 a burden with which the poet in life would have been partly 
 chargeable, and he had also taken charge of the poet's eldest son
 
 DR CUREIE CALLED TO ACT AS EDITOR. 223 
 
 for several years. Poverty, it must be admitted, has its imme- 
 diate evils; but when it gives occasion, as in the instances now 
 under our attention, to generous self-sacrifice amongst those con- 
 nected by the ties of blood, it appears, in contrast with the sordid 
 emotions too often excited by world's wealth, a blessing, and this 
 not merely to those who Avell sustain its pressure, but to all who 
 have hearts to be touched and spirits to be chastened by the noble 
 examples it sets before them. 
 
 Immediately after the death of Burns, his friend Syme began 
 to exert himself with the greatest zeal and assiduity in rousing 
 pixblic feeling in behalf of the widow and cliildren. With him 
 was associated in his task Dr William Maxwell, the medical 
 attendant of the poet — a man of somewhat singular character 
 and attainments. The popular report regarding him was, that, 
 having been at the medical schools of Paris in the heat of the 
 Kevolution, he had contracted democratic sentiments; had acted 
 as one of the national guard round the scaffold of Louis 
 XVI., and dipped his handkerchief in the royal blood. Recently 
 returned to his own country, he had commenced practice in 
 Dumfries, but was as yet only laying the foundations of that 
 high professional character which he subsequently perfected. He 
 had attended Burns in his last illness, and participated strongly 
 in the interest occasioned by his premature death. He accord- 
 ingly entered at once, and with the greatest cordiality, into tlie 
 project for tlie l^enefit of the poet's family. To Syme and him 
 was immediately added Mr Alexander Cunningham, the bard's 
 principal Edinburgh friend, and one not less eager to do whatever 
 was in his power in a cause so dear to charity. From some one 
 of these three men had, in all probabihty, proceeded the newspaper 
 announcement which has been quoted. It contains a jiassage 
 which could never have been allowed to be publislicd, if Burns 
 had left a grown-up instead of an infant family; but it also 
 presents a gratifying proof of tlie activity of tlie men in tiio 
 benevolent object which they sought to advance. 
 
 Syme had an old college friend in practice as a physician at 
 Liverpool, a man of excellent literary talents, whom an atlinity of 
 tastes had brought into intimacy witli Mr AMlliani llosroe, of tliat 
 town. The person meant was Dr James Curric, who lias since 
 been so well known as the biograplier and editor of Burns, but 
 who at this time enjoyed only a dubious fame, as tiie supjioscd 
 author of Jasper Wilson's Letter to Mr rUt, a pampldet in wliicli 
 the war had been- deprecated witli a power of reasoning far 
 from pleasing to tlie administration. Curric, wiio was the son 
 of a Scotch clergyman, and a native of Dumfriessliirc, had read 
 Burns's poems on their first appearance with the keenest relish
 
 224 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 of their beauties; and he had received, from a casual interview 
 with the poet at Dumfries in 1792, the impression that he was 
 a man of marvellous general talents as well as a cliarming Doric 
 poet. On now hearing of the death of Burns, lie expressed to 
 Syme a strong interest in the intended subscription, and also in 
 the preparation of the life and posthumous works of the poet. 
 Before a month had elapsed from the poet's death, we iind that he 
 had collected forty or lifty guineas for the family. He was at 
 the same time writing about the proposed publication, in such 
 terms as amounted to an offer of his own literary assistance to any 
 extent that might be desired. For some time, there seems to have 
 been an uncertainty as to the selection of an editor and biographer 
 for Burns. Professor Stewart was the first person thought of. 
 Another was Mrs Walter Riddel. Dr Currie thought so well of 
 fSyme's talents, as to press the undertaking upon him. But it 
 was finally settled, in September, and very fortunately so, that 
 this duty should devolve upon Dr Currie. 
 
 Meanwhile, the subscription went on, but not flourishingly. In 
 Dumfriesshire, somewhat more than L.lOO had been contri- 
 buted within the first three months. In Liverpool, Dr Currie 
 gathered seventy guineas. Let it not be too surprising that the 
 conti'ibution from Edhiburgh had not, by the end of the year, gone 
 much beyond the latter sum, thougli Burns had there had many 
 admirers and not a few friends. Every one who has had aught 
 to do with the collection of subscriptions for charitable objects, 
 must know how little will come spontaneously from even those 
 circles where the purpose of the collection is presumed to be most 
 cordially contemplated, and how many who might be expected 
 to give liberally give nothing. Accidental importunities hare 
 and there determine the result. It does not appear that any 
 efforts were made in Scotland beyond the publication of advertise- 
 ments in the newspapers. In London, there was greater success, 
 and the entire sum realised was L.700.^ For the support of 
 the widow and her five boys, this was evidently inadequate; 
 but it was hoped that the posthumous publication would realise 
 such an addition, as might make a tolerable provision in a style 
 not inferior to that in v.-hich the family had previously lived. 
 
 In the collection of Bnrns's letters and fugitive poems, ]Mr Syme 
 was laudably diligent during the latter part of 179G, and consider- 
 able success attended his efforts. The letters to Mrs Dunlop were 
 recovered, on the condition of hers to Burns being returned to 
 herself. Those to Clarinda remained with herself, as unsuitable 
 for the public, excepting a few passages, which she promised to 
 
 ' See Appendix, No. 14.
 
 MR GEORGE THOMSON. 225 
 
 transcribe and send, provided that her own were returned. ^ I\Ir 
 liobert Aiken had gathered together many of the bard's communi- 
 cations ; but the bundle was stolen by an unfaithful clerk, and, it 
 is feared, destroyed, to prevent detection. The mass collected by 
 Syme was transmitted to Dr Currie in February 1797, and excited 
 great surprise from its utter want of arrangement. ' I received.' 
 says Currie, ' the complete sweepings of his drawers and of his 
 desk — as it appeared to me — even to the copy-book on which his 
 little boy had been practising his writing.' It may partly account 
 for the confusion, that Syme spoke a month earlier to Mrs 
 M'Lehose of being worn out with duty, and having to write 
 occasionally twenty letters a day. Currie relates, that he read 
 these papers ' with sympathy, Avith sorrow, with pity, and with 
 admiration; and at times, with strong though transient disgust.' 
 
 Dr Currie, after having the heart-secrets of Burns exposed to 
 him, spoke on the subject as might be expected of a sensible, kind- 
 natured man. He said: 'The errors and faults, as well as the 
 excellences, of Burns's life and character, afford scope for painful 
 and melancholy observation. This part of the subject nuist be 
 touched with great tenderness; but it must be touched. If his 
 friends do not touch it, his enemies will. To speak my mind to 
 you freely, it appears to me that his misfortunes arose chietiy 
 from his errors. This it is unnecessary, and indeed improper, to 
 say; but his biographer must keep it in mind, to prevent him 
 from running into those bitter invectives against Scotland, (S:c. 
 which the extraordinary attractions and melancholy fate of tiie 
 poet naturally provoke. Six Liverpool poets have sung the 
 requiem of our admked bard; and every one of them has indulged 
 in the most pointed, and in some degree unjust, invectives against 
 the country and the society in which he lived.' 
 
 An important part of the unpublished writings of Jiurns con- 
 sisted in the songs, upwards of sixty in number, which he had 
 written for the work of i\lr George Thomson. Of these, only six 
 had as yet been published, for one ^wj-i or half-volume of Mr 
 
 1 I have l)ccn favoured with an extract from a letter of .Mrs .AI'Lchose to -Mr 
 Sjmc, written iit this time: 
 
 ' Wliat can liave impressed svich an idea upon you, a» thot I ever conceived tho 
 most distant intention to destroy these precious nienioriuls of an aci|uaintani-e. the 
 recollection of which would influence nie were I to live till fourscore. He nisured. 
 1 never will suffer one of them to perish. This I Rive you my solemn word of 
 honour upon; nnv, more, on condition that you sen.l me my letters, I will select 
 sucli passa^res from our dear lianls letters as will do honour to hin memory, and 
 caimot hurt my own fame even with the most riRid.' 
 
 In another letter of the .'Ith .luniiary 17!)/, to the same Rentleman, "he «>y": " 
 rejoices me to hear so lartrc a sum is to come from other pluces-mid [l]J"in you 
 in reprobatiuK Caledonia's capital for her slml.l.y donatK.ii. Ilut 1 u-re are lew 
 Bouls atiuwlun who understood or could enter into the relish of such n <hurncter 
 as U.S. There was an electricity about him, which could only touch or pervade a 
 /<w, cast in nature's finest mould.' 
 
 VOL. IV. O
 
 226 LIFE AND WOKKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Thomson's work had alone appeared. Burns had conferred on 
 Mr Thomson the copyright of these songs, as securing that 
 gentleman against their being used in any rival publication. Of 
 course, when a posthumous collection of the poet's writings was 
 designed for the benefit of his destitute family, Mr Thomson at 
 once gave up the songs. As he could not be said to have paid a 
 pecuniary equivalent for them, this conduct was no more than 
 iust ; but Mr Thomson did all besides which was to be expected 
 from a man superior to sordid considerations. In order that the 
 songs might come out fresh in the posthumous collection, and thus 
 serve the family as far as possible, he interrupted, or at least 
 retarded, the progress of his own work for some considerable 
 time. He at fii'st demurred to the surrender of the valuable 
 series of letters which Burns had addressed to him regarding 
 Scottish songs; but this point was speedily yielded to the earnest 
 request of the trustees of the poet's family. He was also induced 
 to permit his own letters to appear in connection with those of 
 Burns, thus perfecting a section of the projected work which 
 Currie justly considered as the most valuable. After remarking 
 to his publishers, that ' the letters of Mr Thomson are themselves 
 very good,' the learned biographer says : ' His conduct in giving 
 up this treasure to the family is deserving of every praise.' i 
 Such was the sense of it entertained by both the widow and 
 brother of the bard, and such afterwards proved to be the feeling 
 of the children of Burns. By the whole family, Mr Thomson has 
 ever been regarded as one who had acted in a most honourable . 
 manner towards them.^ 
 
 1 Correspondence of Dr Currie with Messrs Cadcll & Davies, manuscript in 
 possession of Joseph Mayer, Esq. Liverpool. 
 
 " Mr Thomsons elegant work extended to five volumes, of which an ootava 
 edition was subsequently published, and after a long interval, he added a sixth 
 volvune in 1841, the work having thus occupied m its preparation and pubU- 
 cation not much less than half a century. The editor was a man of smgularly 
 amiable character and cheerful manners. A hitherto inedited letter of Mr Gilbert 
 Burns, addressed to him on receiving the present of a volume of his collection of 
 songs, proves that the statement in the text is not exaggerated. 
 
 TO MR GEORGE THOMSON, TRUSTEES* OFFICE, EDINBCRGn. 
 
 DiNMNG, nth March 1800. 
 Sir— I received your very acceptable present of yovir songs, which calls for my 
 warmest thanks. If ever I come to Edinburgh, I will certainly avail myself of yoiu- 
 invitation, to call on a person whose handsome conduct to my brother's family has 
 secxu-ed my esteem, and confirmed to me the opinion, th.at musical taste and talents 
 have a close connection with the harmony of the moral feelings. I am unwilling 
 indeed to beheve that the motions of every one"s heart are dark as Erebus to 
 whom Dame Nature has denied a good ear and musical capacity, as her ladyship 
 has been pleased to endow myself but scantily in these particulars ; but ' happy the 
 swain who possesses it, happy his cot, and happy the .sharer of it.' To the sharer 
 of yours, 1 beg you will present my most cordial congratulations. My sister-in-law 
 begs me to present her best thanlis to you for her copy, and to assure you that.
 
 DK currie's memoir. 227 
 
 Another section of Burns's -writings consisted in the songs he 
 had contributed to Jolmsoii's Scots Mitsiccd Museum. The number 
 sent in his handwriting has been stated at 180; but many of 
 these were old songs, gathered by liiin from oral tradition; many 
 had only received from him a few improving touches ; and only 
 forty-seven were finally decided upon by Dr Currie as wholly and 
 undoubtedly the production of Burns. The poet himself, though 
 the voluminousness of Johnson's collection seems to have disposed 
 him to regard it as ' the text-book and standard of Scottish song 
 and music,' felt ashamed of much that he had contributed to it. 
 ' Here, once for all,' said he in a letter to Mr Thomson, ' let me 
 apologise for the many silly compositions of mine in this work. 
 Many beautiful airs wanted words, and in the luuTy of other 
 avocations, if I could struig a parcel of rhymes together, anything 
 near tolerable, I was fain to let them pass.' On the other hand, 
 a considerable number of his contributions to Johnson were 
 equal to the best of his compositions, and liad already attained 
 popularity. 
 
 The memoir of Dr Currie by his son contains an ample account 
 of the difficulties experienced by that gentleman in arranging the 
 papers and composmg the life of Burns. The only material 
 assistance he seems to have obtained, was from ^Tr Symc and 
 Gilbert Bums during a fortnight which they spent with liim at 
 Liverpool in the autumn of 1797. ' It was determined that the 
 work should be published by subscription; and Dr Currie, in 
 addition to that part for which he was more particularly respon- 
 sible, undertook to make the necessary arrangements with the 
 booksellers and printer, and to superintend tlic publication. A 
 negotiation was soon afterwards concluded by him with the 
 London publishers (Messrs Cadell & Davies), wlio behaved 
 with a liberality very honourable to tlicir character— at once 
 
 however little she may have expressed it, she has a proper sense of the khid atfcn- 
 tion you liave so kindly shewn her.— 1 ain, dear sir, with the IiiKlicst cstpcni, your 
 most obedient, humble servant, Gu.iikut IUuns. 
 
 Mr Thomson retired from the principal clerkship of the Trastecs' Olllce in 
 l!i3(», after haviui? liUcd it for fifty-eight years. He dic.l in February 111.01, agud 'M. 
 
 On the 3d of March 11)47, a silver vase, purchasc.l by one lumdr.d Kentlenien of 
 Kdinburgh, was presented to Mr Thomson, ns a mark of their respect and e.steom. 
 On that occasion, Lord Cockburn spoke of Miio protracted lilc which had been 
 devoted, in one course of uncbaniiinsf Kcntlenw, to publl.' and private dulv. In 
 his official capacity, 'in cvcrythinn that related to Ihe advancement of the usefiil 
 and the elegant arts, he was an instrucfir and a giude; and il there \yfts a single 
 young man who b.'.d the promise of merit united with a humble di.«|.«sltlon, it was 
 to Mr Thomson lie looked for coun.sel, and it was his house that was always ready 
 to receive him.' As to the imputations in connection with the history of llurns 
 his lordship said, that he had long ago studied the matt.T with a.s much candour b.s 
 any man could apply to anv subject in which he was not personally intere>tr<l; an.) 
 his 'clear conviction wa.s, not only that all these in.pulations were Krmmd l.-s, but 
 th.it, if placed now in the same situation in which be was then, nothing dllUreiit 
 or better could be done.'
 
 228 LIFE AND WORKS OF BUKNS. 
 
 agreeing to take upon themselves the risk of the promised or 
 expected subscriptions to the intended vohunes, and also to 
 relieve the widow and family from all anxiety or further trouble 
 attending tlieir publication. To those persons who were not 
 eye-witnesses, it would be difficult to convey an idea how much 
 Dr Currie's labours were increased by the necessity of attention 
 to all these details. Indeed, he found himself embarked in an 
 undertaking which consumed much valuable time, tliat would 
 have been otherwise employed on subjects connected with his 
 profession.'^ He was sustained through all these troubles and 
 exertions by his benevolent feelings. ' I trust,' he says to Cadell 
 and Davies (February 1798), ' that by our co-operation we shall 
 lift this family from the ground, and give the five infant sons a 
 cliance in the world which their poor father never had.' 
 
 In a subsequent letter to the same individuals, Dr Currie says : 
 ' In tracing the life of this singular genius, it is most curious and 
 interesting to observe the incidents which gave rise to the 
 effusions of his muse. E^ery one of his poems, printed and 
 unprinted, has a history attending it, which, while it illustrates the 
 character of the poet, illustrates also the manners and character 
 of the class of men to which he belonged. In giving his 
 biography, therefore, it would be very desirable to have the 
 liberty of introducing such of his poems as relate to the incidents 
 recorded, in tlieir proper places, as well as to introduce occa- 
 sionally his letters to his friends and his own private observations 
 from his imperfect diaries. In this Avay, his journey through the 
 classical ground in the south of Scotland, as well as his tour 
 tlirough the Highlands, including his visits to the Dukes of Athole 
 and Gordon, may be made out clearly and very amusingly.' The 
 biographer here sketches out the plan which has been for the first 
 time fully followed out in the work now before the reader. The 
 degree in wlucli Dr Currie acted upon it was much more limited. 
 
 Tlie Wo7-lcs of Robert Burns, vnth an Account of his Life, and a 
 Criticism on his Writings, by James Currie, M.D, appeared in May 
 1800, in four volumes 8vo. The publication was received with 
 the greatest approbation by the public. It was admitted that the 
 biogi-aphy was executed witli surprising delicacy towards the 
 memory of the poet and the feelings of his surviving friends, as 
 well as the interests of truth and virtue. Tlie letters of Burns 
 occupying two of the volumes, formed a feature of novelty which 
 was highly appreciated. These compositions deepened the sense 
 of liis literary pov/ers Avhich had been previously entertained, 
 particularly in England, where there was no drawback, as in the 
 
 ' Memoirs of Dr Currie, by his son William W. Currie. 2 vols. 1831.
 
 DR currie's memoir. 22I> 
 
 poetry, to their being fully understood. It wa;; .admitted by I)r 
 Aiken, then considered at the head of criticism in England, tliat 
 English literature scarcely contained any compositions of the same 
 nature equal to them. The success of the publication was great. 
 Four editions, of 2000 copies each, were disposed of in the tirst 
 four years. It is not unworthy of remark, that the first edition 
 wds printed in a very elegant style at Liverpool, by John M'Creerv, 
 a north-of-Ireland man of Scottish extraction, who had entered 
 upon his task with a feeling superior to the usual principles 
 of trade. He is described as a man of talent and extraordinarv 
 ardour of character, a lover of literature, and a worsliipper of 
 genius. He had exerted himself to render the volumes a beauti- 
 ful specimen of the typographic art, and in this object he succeeded, 
 so as to secure general admiration.' The profits of the work 
 are stated by Mr Wallace Currie as having been L.1200; but I 
 lind in Dr Currie's own papers reference made to the sum of 
 L.1400, as that realised for the Avidow and her famiiv bv the 
 publication. 
 
 Mrs Burns continued to live in the same small house in which 
 her husband died, an object of general respect on account of her 
 modest and amiable character, and the interest associated with the 
 memory of the poet. The proceeds of the fund raised for her, 
 sufficed to enable her to bring up her sons in a creditable manner. 
 Dr Currie paid her a visit in June 1804, when ' everything about 
 her,' he says, ' bespoke decent competence, and even comfort. 
 Si\e shewed me the study and small library of her husband nearly 
 as he left them. By everything I hear, she conducts herself 
 irreproachably.' 
 
 He adds : • From ^Irs Burns's house, I went to the church-yard, 
 at no great distance, to visit the grave of the poet. As it is still 
 uninscribed, we could not liave found it, had not a jierson we met 
 with in the church-yard pointed it out. He told us he knew Burns 
 well, and that he (Burns) himself chose the spot in which he is 
 buried. His grave is on the north-east corner of the church-yard, 
 which it fills up, and at tlie side of the grave of his two sons, 
 Wallace and Maxwell, the first of whom, a lad of great promise, 
 died last year of a consumption, the last immediately after liis 
 father.' 
 
 Robert, tlie eldest son, who.se early intelligence seems to have 
 excited general admiration, attended for two .sessions at the univer- 
 sity of Edinburgh, and one in the university of Glasgow. A 
 situation being procured for him in the Stamp Oflice, London, he 
 
 ' Ten copies were printed on tliicl;er and finer paper than the rcst-of whirh 
 four were for tiie hrotlier ami three sisters of Hiirni, one to S.vine, one to George 
 Thomson, one to .Murdoch (the pocfs preceptor), and one to Mr Ko.ncoc.
 
 230 LIFE AND WOEKS OF BUnNS. 
 
 removed thither in 1804, and devoted himself to a routine of 
 drudgeries which seems to have effectually repressed tlie literary 
 tendencies of his mind. Only a few songs and miscellaneous 
 pieces of poetry, some of which, however, possessed considerable 
 merit, have proceeded front his pen. For twenty-nine years, he 
 pursued this humble career, endeavouring to improve his slender 
 income by privately teaching the classics and mathematics, and 
 during this long time he was never able to revisit Scotland, or 
 have a meeting with his mother. In 1833, having obtained a 
 superannuation allowance, he retired to Dumfries, where he still 
 lives (1852). 
 
 James and William, the two other surviving sons of the poet, 
 obtained commissions in the East India Company's service 
 through the kindness of the Marchioness of Hastings. They 
 passed through a most honourable career of service, attaining 
 respectively the ranks of major and lieutenant-colonel. In their 
 wanderings in a foreign land, they ever found their name and 
 parentage a passport to the friendship of all whom they encoun- 
 tered or with whom they were associated. Among their most 
 cherished desires, was that of adding to the comforts of their 
 mother. Mr Maule of Panmure (afterwards Lord Panmure) had, 
 in 1817, settled a pension upon Mrs Bums of L.50 a year, and 
 this she had enjoyed about a year and a half, when her son 
 James, having obtained a place in the commissariat, was able to 
 relieve her from the necessity of being beholden to a stranger's 
 generosity. Mrs Burns, through the liberality of her children, 
 spent her latter years in comparative affluence, yet ' never 
 changed, nor wished to change her place.' In March 1834, at 
 the age of. sixty-eight, she closed her respectable life in the 
 same room in which her husband had breathed his last thirty- 
 eight years before. ^ 
 
 ^ The household effects of Mrs Burns were sold by public auction on the 10th 
 and nth of April, and brought uncommonly high sums, from the anxiety of the 
 public to possess relics of this interesting hovisehold. According to the Dum- 
 fries Courier, ' the auctioneer commenced with small articles, and when he came to 
 a broken copper coffee-pot, there were so many bidders, that the price paid 
 exceeded twenty-fold the intrinsic value. A tea-kettle of the same metal suc- 
 ceeded, and reached L.2 sterling. Of the linens, a tablecloth, marked 1792, which, 
 speaking commercially, may be worth half-a-crown or five shillings, was knocked 
 down at L.5, 7s. Many other articles commanded handsome prices, and the older 
 and plainer the furniture, the better it sold. The rusty iron top of a shower-bath, 
 which Mrs Dunlop of Dunlop sent to the poet when afflicted with rheumatism, was 
 bought by a Carlisle gentleman for L.l, 8s. ; and a low wooden kitchen-chair, on 
 which the late Mrs Burns sat when nursing her children, was run up to L.3, 7s. The 
 crystal and china were much coveted, and brought, in most cases, splendid prices. 
 Kven an old fender reached a figure which would go far to buy half a dozen new 
 ones, and everything towards the close attracted notice, down to greybeards, bottles, 
 and a half-worn pair of bellows. The poet's eight-day clock, made by a MauchUne 
 arti.st, attracted great attention, from the circumstance that it had frequently been 
 wound up by bis ov.Ti hand. In a few seconds it was bid up to L.15 or guineas,
 
 GILBERT BURNS'S EDITION. 231 
 
 Mr Gilbert Burns, the early companion, and at all times the 
 steadfast friend of the poet, continued to struggle with the 
 miserable soil of Mossgiel till about the year 1797, -when he 
 removed to the farm of Dinning, on the estate of Mr Monteath of 
 Closebura, in Nithsdale. He, some years after, united himself 
 to a Miss Breckonridge, by whom he had six sons and five 
 daughters. He was a man of sterling sense and sagacity, pious 
 without asceticism or bigotry, and entertaming liberal and enlight- 
 ened views, without being the least of an enthusiast. His letter 
 to Dr Currie, dated from Dinning, October 24, 1800, shews no 
 mean powers of composition, and embodies nearly all the philan- 
 thi'opic views of human improvement which have been so broadly 
 realised in our own day. We are scarcely moi'e affected by the 
 consideration of the penury under which some of his brother's 
 noblest compositions were penned, than by the reflection, that this 
 beautiful letter was the effusion of a man who, with his family, 
 daily wrought long and laboriously under all those circumstances 
 of parsimony which characterise Scottish rural life. Some years 
 after, Mr Gilbert Bums was appointed by Lady Blantp-e to be 
 land-steward or factor upon her estate of Lethington, in East- 
 Lothian, to which place he accordingly removed. His conduct in 
 this capacity, during nearly twenty-five years, was marked by 
 such fidelity and prudence as to give the most perfect satisfaction 
 to his titled employer. 
 
 When the fourteen years' copyright of Dr Currie's edition of 
 the poet's works expu-ed, and other publishers began, as usual, to 
 reprint it, Messrs Cadell & Davies were anxious to maintain a 
 preference for their own impressions in the market, and bethought 
 them that this might be secured by their inducing Mr Gilbert 
 Burns to add such notes and make such changes as he thought 
 desirable. Gilbert was the more ready to yield to their wish, 
 that he had now been convinced by two of his brother's surviving 
 intimates, Messrs (Jray and Findlater, that Dr Currie had done 
 injustice to the poet's memory. A negotiation was entered upon, 
 which excited some attention in unexpected quarters. Mr Words- 
 worth issued a pamphlet, in the form of a letter to Mr Gray, 
 discussing the whole (juestion as to the extent of revelation 
 required from the biographer of an author, with regard to the 
 character of his subject, and especially any imputed failings. He 
 avowed a sense of indignation at Dr Currie for revealing so much 
 
 ami was finally ili?i)oscri of for T...1.">. The purchaser had a hnrd hattle to flglit; 
 but his .spirit was good, and his purse obviously not a lipjht one, and the story 
 ran that ho had infitructod Mr Richardson to secure a preference at any sum 
 tinder L.GO.'
 
 232 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 of the infirmities of Burns, and professed his desire to see tliis 
 evil corrected. Gilbert Burns, while he felt annoyed at Words- 
 worth's interference, resolved to act on the same view of the 
 subject. This brought forth an indignant inquiry from Mr 
 Eoscoe, regarding the faults imputed to his friend Dr Currie, 
 whose work, he said, had been, at its publication, approved of by 
 none more loudly than by Gilbert Burns. Gilbert explained that, 
 at the time when Dr Currie's book came out, he supposed that the 
 biographer had spoken of his brother's errors from good information. 
 He himself, having for the last few years of the poet's life lived 
 fifty miles off, had not opportunities of knowing how the case 
 really stood : he therefore approved of Dr Currie's memoir at the 
 time; but afterwards, from what he had learned from Mr Findlater, 
 he became convinced that the statements had been exaggerated. 
 The reader of the present work has an opportunity of judging 
 (see Appendix, No. 13) to what extent Gilbert acted discreetly in 
 disturbing the matter which Currie has treated so gently. 
 
 The edition which Gilbert Burns consequently prepared, and 
 which appeared in 1820, must be regarded as a fiiilure, as far as the 
 views of the publishers were concerned. Messrs Cadell & Davies 
 from the first desired a mass of fresh information, to illustrate 
 both the course of the poet's life and his poems. When Gilbert 
 Burns, in reply to their inquiry, asked L.500 for his trouble, they 
 were confii-med in their expectation of such a new edition as would 
 maintain a superiority over all others; and with some difficulty 
 they brought themselves to agree to the demand. Their disap- 
 pointment must have been great, when they found that their 
 editor furnished only a very few meagre notes, did not admit any 
 pieces excluded by Currie, and distinguislied his edition chiefly 
 by giving two letters on the poet's character from Gray and 
 Findlater, together with a dissertation from his own pen on the 
 effect of the Scottish national religion upon the Scottish national 
 character! In reality, as only one edition was printed, the money 
 paid to Gilbert was L.250, another moiety of the stipulated 
 sum being contingent upon a reprint. If left to himself, he 
 would have probably asked comparatively a trifle, if anything at 
 all, for what he chiefly regarded as a labour of love and duty; it 
 was Mr Gray, who, loving booksellers as little as he loved authors 
 much, prompted this simple and worthy man to make a charge 
 so much beyond all ordinary scales of literary remuneration. 
 Gilbert seems to have been greatly relieved when Cadell and 
 Davies 'regarding the handsomeness of the amount as a mark of 
 what it will be in your power to do for us,' at once acceded to a 
 proposition which, the other very naively says, ' I scarce could 
 muster impudence to name.'
 
 BURNS'S MONUMENT AT DUMFRIES. 203 
 
 The receipt of the money enabled Gilbert to discliarge to the 
 ■widow of his brotlicr the debt he had contracted thirty-two years 
 before, when the generous poet advanced him L.180 out of the 
 profits of his poems. After all, it was not appropriated by the 
 poet's widow, but applied to relieve another member of the family 
 from the pressure of poverty. 
 
 The mother of Kobert and Gilbert Burns lived in the household 
 of the latter at Grant's Braes, near Lethington, till 1820, when 
 she died at the age of eighty-eight, and was buried in the church- 
 yard of Bolton. In personal aspect, Eobert Burns resembled his 
 mother ; Gilbert hacl the more aquiline features of his father. 
 The portrait of Robert Burns, painted by a Mr Taylor, and of 
 which an engraving was published l)y Messrs Constable & Com- 
 pany a few years ago, bore a striking resemblance to Gilbert. 
 This excellent man died at Grant's Braes^ November 8, 1827, 
 aged about sixty-seven years. 
 
 After many years had passed without bringing the public to the 
 raising of a monument over the remains of Burns, his widow, 
 out of her small means, placed an unpretending stone upon his 
 grave, merely indicating his name and age, and those of his two 
 sons interred in the same spot. At length, J.Ir William Grierson, 
 who had been acquainted with Burns, and had attended his 
 funeral, succeeded in getting a few gentlemen together, by whom a 
 committee was formed for the purpose of collecting subscriptions 
 for that object. 
 
 Money was speedily obtained ; a plan was selected, and the 
 foundations of a mausoleum were laid in St JMichael's Churchyard, 
 at a little distance from the angle wlicre the remains of the poet 
 had been orighially placed. On the 19th of September 1815, the 
 coffin of Burns was raised from its original resting-place, that it 
 might be deposited in the new monument. On the lid being 
 removed, ' there,' says Mr M'Diarmid, ' lay the remains of the 
 great poet, to all appearance entire, retaining various traces of 
 recent vitality, or to speak more correctly, exhibiting the features 
 of one who had recently sunk into tlie sleep of death. The 
 forehead struck every one as beautifully arched, if not so liigh as 
 miglit reasonably have been supposed, while the scalp was rather 
 tliickly covered with hair, and the teeth perfectly linn and white.' 
 Altogether, the scene was so imposing, that the commonest work- 
 men stood uncovered, as tlie late Dr (Jregory did at the exhuma- 
 tion of the remains of King Kubcrt Bruce, and for some moments 
 remained inactive, as if thrilling under the effects of some unde- 
 Unable emotion, while gazing on all tliat remained of one " wlio.'^c 
 
 ' Sec Appendix, No. 15.
 
 234 LIFE AND "WORKS OF BURNS. f 
 
 fame is wide as the world itself." But the scene, however im- 
 posing, was bi'ief; for the instant the workmen inserted a shell 
 beneath the original wooden coffin, the head separated from the 
 trunk, and the whole body, with the exception of the bones, 
 crumbled into dust.' The monument erected on this occasion is 
 an elegant Grecian temple, adorned with a mural sculpture by 
 Turnerelli, descriptive of the idea of Coila finding Burns at the 
 plough, and flinging her inspiring mantle over him.
 
 YERSICLES OF BURIiS. 
 
 Burns was much addicted through life to the enunciation of 
 impromptu verses, in the form of epigrams and epitaphs, gene- 
 rally of a satiric character. Having provided himself in Edinburgh 
 with a diamond suitable for vrritiiig on glass, lie often scribbled 
 these hasty productions on the windows of inns and taverns, 
 thus gratifying the whim of the moment too often at the expense 
 of prudence and self-respect. Dr Currie remarks, that the 
 epigrams of Burns are strikingly inferior to his other writings, 
 and few will be inclined to dissent from the opinion. They often, 
 indeed, are totally without point, s<? that one wonders how they 
 should have ever been committed to wi-iting, much more that so 
 many of them should have been printed by the author. In the 
 present work, all of these A'ci'sicles which are connected with 
 the poet's biography are presented at their proper places : the 
 remainder are here grouped together, Avith such prose annotation 
 as seems necessary to illustrate them and give them signiflcancy. 
 
 EPITAPH POR GAVIN HAMILTOX. 
 
 The poor man weeps — here Gavin .sleeps. 
 Whom canting wretches blamed: 
 
 But witli such as he, where'er he be, 
 May I lie saved or damned ! 
 
 EPlTAril lOU KOBEllT AIKEN, ESQ. 
 
 Know thou, O stranger to the fame 
 Of this much-loved, much-honoured name! 
 (For none that knew him need he told) 
 A warmer heart death ne'er made cold.
 
 236 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS, 
 
 EPITAPH ON A CELEBRATED RULING ELDER. 
 
 Here sonter Hood in death does sleep — 
 
 To hell, if he's gane thither, 
 Satan, gie him thy gear to keep, money 
 
 He'll hand it weol thegither. 
 
 ON WEE JOHNNY.l 
 
 HIC JACET WEE JOHNNY. 
 
 Whoe'er thou art, reader, know 
 That death has murdered Johnny ! 
 
 And here his body lies fu' low — 
 For saul he ne'er had ony. 
 
 It is curious that in a i-are old work, Nugcc Voiales, she The- 
 saurus rklendi et jocandl, &c., bearing date 1663, but no place or 
 publisher's name, there is a Latin epigram turning upon exactly 
 the same jest : 
 
 ' Oh Deus omnipotens, vituli miserere Joannis, 
 Quem mors prasvenieiis non sinit esse bovem : 
 Corpus in Italia est, habet intestina Brabantus, 
 Ast aniinam nemo : Cur '! quia non liabuit.' 
 
 Among Burns's acquaintance at Mauchline was a mason 
 named James Humphry, who, if devoid of the genius of the 
 poet, at least possessed equal flow of language, and a scarcely 
 less remarkable gift for theological controversy. Ikirns and he 
 had had many collisions on the subject of New Light, and it 
 appears that the mason entertained somewhat strong views both 
 as to the bard's lieterodoxy and his morals. Burns, passing along 
 the street of the village one evening, and seeing Humphry 
 lounging at a corner, stopped for a moment, and asked him what 
 news. ' Oh, notliing very particular on earth,' answered the 
 polemic; ' but there's strange news from heloio.'' ' Ah, what's that?' 
 inquired Burns, opening his eyes pretty wide. ' Why, they say 
 tliat the auld dcil lias died lately, and that when the imps met to 
 elect a successor, tbey fell sadly by the ears. Some of them were 
 for taking one of their own number ; but others had heard that 
 there was one Rob Burns upon earth, that was likely to make a 
 much better deil, and it seems they are determined, if they can, to 
 elect him ! ' Tlie poet, though he could not have helped being 
 
 1 Mr John "VViison, the printer of his poems at Kilmarnock.
 
 VERSICLES. 237 
 
 amused with the insinuation, left Humphry with a pettish excla- 
 mation. He afterwards penned a quatrain on Humphry, which, it 
 must be admitted, contains not merely less wit than his antagonist's 
 story of the infernal election, but no wit at all : 
 
 ox A NOISY POLEMIC. 
 
 Below tliir stanes lie Jamie's bancs : 
 
 O Death, it's my opinion, 
 Thou ne'er took such a bleth'rin' bitch 
 
 Into tliy dark dominion ! 
 
 Humphry, nevertheless, lived to be in such poverty, as to be glad 
 to claim being the subject of the satire of Burns, for the sake of 
 the scraps of charity which it obtained for him.^ 
 
 EPITAPH ON A HEX-PECKED COUNTRY SQUIEE. 
 
 As Father Adam first was fooled, 
 A case that's still too common — 
 
 Here lies a man a woman ruled, 
 The devil ruled the woman. 
 
 EPIGRAM ON SAID OCCASION'. 
 
 Death, hadst thou hut spared his life, 
 
 Whom we this day lament! 
 AVe freely wad exchanged the wife, 
 
 And a' been weel content. 
 
 E'en as he is, cauld in his grafF, 
 
 Tlie swap we yet will do"t; exchange 
 
 Tak thou tlie Ciirline's carcass afi', 
 
 Thou'se get the saul to boot. 
 
 1 Poor Huiiipliry latterly found slieltor in one of a set of free oottajjes built at 
 Blaokliill, in Torliolton parisli, by the late Mr Cooper of Smithston, enjoying 
 at the .same time a i)ension of ."is. a week from a fund left by the same bene- 
 volent gentleman. He died in 1H44, at the age of eighty-six. To the last, he took 
 a keen interest in matters pertaining to theologieal an<l ccclesiastieal disputes. 
 The parish minister called for him when he was near his end, and. after a prayer, 
 took leave of him without any expeotation of a«ain seeing him in life. Humphry 
 seemed to have something on his mind— he waved the minister back, and said : 
 'Man, what d'ye think o' the Jurcgy' Such, in the erisis of the Disrujjtion, was 
 the man who Imd battled with Hums on points respecting the Atw Lii/hl sixty years 
 before. 
 
 In his early days, ho was a member of a dissenting congregation at Mauchline, 
 and of course had seats in the moeting-house. He had often otlended by his over- 
 free life, and been warned : at lenu'th, energetic measures were determined on, and 
 he was forbidden to ai>proacb the commmiion-table. Hereupon Humphry sent 
 the bellman through the town, to proclftim ' Seats in the meeting-house to be had 
 ohoap— cheap— cheaj) as dirt— apply to James Humphry ! ' This gives some idea 
 of the man.
 
 238 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 ANOTHER. 
 
 One Queen Artemisia, as old stories tell, 
 When deprived of her husband she lovtid so well, 
 In respect for the love and aftection he shewed her, 
 She reduced him to dust, and she drank off the powder. 
 
 But Queen Netherplace, of a different complexion. 
 When called on to order the funeral direction. 
 Would have ate her dead lord, on a slender pretence, 
 Not to shew her respect, but — to save the expense! 
 
 TAM THE CHAPMAK, 
 
 As Tarn the Chapman on a day 
 
 Wi' Death forgathered by the way, 
 
 Weel pleased, he greets a wiglit sae famous. 
 
 And Death was nae less pleased wi' Thamas, 
 
 Wha cheerfully lays down his pack, 
 
 And there blaws up a heartj^ crack ; 
 
 His social, friendly, honest heart 
 
 Sae tickled Death, they couldna part : 
 
 Sae, after viewing knives and garters, 
 
 Death taks him hame to gie him quarters. 
 
 * 
 
 Tam the Chapman was a person named Kennedy, whom Bums 
 had known in boyhood, and whom he afterwards encoxmtered as 
 an itinerant merchant, when he found him a pleasant companion 
 and estimable man. Tam, in old age, was known to William 
 Cobbett, who printed these lines, either from a manuscript or 
 from recollection. 
 
 VERSES TO JOHN RANKINE. 
 
 Ae day, as Death, that greusome carle, grim 
 
 Was driving to the tither vt'arl' 
 
 A mixtie-maxtie, motley squad, 
 
 And mony a guilt-bcspotted lad ; 
 
 Black gowns of each denomination, 
 
 And thieves of every rank and station, 
 
 From him that wears the star and garter, 
 
 To him that wintles in a halter : 
 
 Ashamed himsel' to sec the wretches, 
 
 He mutters, glowrln' at the bitches : 
 
 'By G — , I'll not be-seen behint them, 
 
 Nor 'mang the sp'ritual core present them.
 
 YERSICLES. 230 
 
 Without, at least, ae honest man, 
 To grace this d — d infernal clan.' 
 By Adamhill a glance he threw, 
 ' L— G— ! ' quoth he, ' I have it now ; 
 There's just the man I want, i' faith !' 
 And quickly stoppit Rankine's breath. 
 
 ox MISS J. SCOTT, OF AYR. 
 
 Oh, had each Scot of ancient times, 
 Been Jeany Scott, as thou art ; 
 The bravest heart on English ground, 
 Had yielded like a coward. 
 
 THE BOOK-WOKMS. 
 
 ' Bums,' says Allan Cunningham, ' on a visit to a nobleman, 
 was shewn into the library, where stood a Shakspeare, splendidly 
 bound, but unread, and much worm-eaten. Long after the poet's 
 death, some one happened to open, accidentally perhaps, the same 
 neglected book, and found this epigram in the handwriting of 
 Burns : ' 
 
 Through and through th' inspired leaves, 
 
 Yo maggots, make your windings ; 
 But oh ! respect his lordship's taste. 
 And spare the golden bindings. 
 
 GRACES BEFORE MEAT. 
 
 Some hae meat and canna eat. 
 
 And some would eat that want it ; 
 
 But wc hae meat and wc can eat, 
 Sae let the Lord be thankit. 
 
 Thou, who kindly dost provide 
 
 For every creature's want! 
 We bless Thee, God of Nature wide, 
 
 For all thy goodness lent : 
 And, if it please Tiicc, heavenly guide. 
 
 May never worse be sent ; 
 But whether granted or denied, 
 
 Lord, bless us with content! Amen!
 
 240 LIFE AND WORKS OP BURNS. 
 
 O Thou, in whom we live and move, 
 
 "Who mad'st tlie sea and shore ; 
 Thy goodness constantly we prove, 
 
 And grateful would adore. 
 And if it please Thee, Power above. 
 
 Still grant us, with such store, 
 The friend we trust, the fair we love, 
 
 And we desire no more. 
 
 EXTEMPORANEOUS GRACE ON A HAGGIS. 
 
 Ye powers wha gie us a' that's gude. 
 
 Still bless auld Caledonia's brood, 
 
 Wi' great John Barleycorn's heart's bluid, 
 
 In stoups or higgles ; 
 And on our board the king o' food, 
 
 A glorious haggis ! 
 
 It has been stated, that being present at a party where a haggis 
 formed part of the entertainment, and being asked to say some- 
 thing appropriate on the occasion, Burns produced this stanza by 
 way of grace ; which being well received, he was induced to 
 expand it into the poem entitled To a Haggis, retaining the verse 
 in an altered form as a peroration. 
 
 1 
 
 When Burns was in Edinburgh, he was introduced by a friend 
 to the studio of a well-known painter, whom he found engaged on 
 a representation of Jacob's dream; after minutely examining the 
 work, he wrote the following verse on the back of a little sketch 
 which is still preserved in the painter's family:— 
 
 Dear , I'll gie ye some advice. 
 
 You'll tak it no uncivil: 
 You shouldua paint at angels mair, 
 
 But try and paint the devil. 
 
 To paint an angel's kittle wark, 
 Wi' auld Nick there's less danger; 
 
 You'll easy draw a weel-kent face, 
 
 But no sae weel a stranger. K. B.
 
 VERSICLES. 241 
 
 ON SI R W. C R U I K S n A N K, 
 
 OF THE men SCHOOL, EDINBURGH. 
 
 Honest Will to heaven is gane, 
 
 And mony shall lament him ; 
 His faults they a' in Latin lay, 
 
 In English nane e'er keut them. 
 
 ox MR W. NICOL. 
 
 Ye maggots, feed on Nicol's brain, 
 For few sic feasts ye've gotten; 
 
 You've got a prize o' AYillie's heart. 
 For deil a bit o't's rotten. 
 
 ON MR w. MicniE, 
 
 SCHOOLMASTER, CLEISH, FIFESUIRE. 
 
 Here lie Willie Michie's banes; 
 
 Ratan, when ye tak him, 
 Gie him the schoolin' o' your weans, 
 
 For clever deils he'll mak 'em! 
 
 ON MISS BURNS. 
 
 Cease, ye prudes, your envious railings, 
 Lovely Burns has charms, confess : 
 
 True it is, she had one failing — 
 Had a woman ever less? 
 
 WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH. 
 
 A canld, cauld day December blew, 
 A cauld, cauld kirk, and in't but few; 
 A caidder minister never spak, 
 It'sc be warmer weather crc I como back. 
 VOL. IV. P
 
 242 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 ON A FRIEND, 
 
 An honest man here lies at rest 
 As e'er God with his image blest ! 
 The friend of man, the friend of truth ; 
 The friend of age, and guide of youth ; 
 
 Few hearts like his, with virtue warmed. 
 Few heads with knowledge so informed : 
 If there's another world, he lives in bliss; 
 If there is none, he made the best of this. 
 
 HOWLET FACE. 
 
 * One of the lords of Justiciary, when holding circuit at Dum- 
 fries, dined one day with Mr Miller at Dalswinton. According 
 to the custom of the times, the after-dinner libations were some- 
 what copious; and, on entering the drawing-room, his lordship's 
 visual organs were so much affected, that he asked Mr MiUei-, 
 pointing to one of his daughters, who were reckoned remarkably 
 handsome women, " Wha's yon howlet-faced thing in the comer?" 
 
 ' Nest day, Burns, who then resided at EUisland, happened to 
 be a guest at Dalswinton, and, in the course of conversation, his 
 lordship's very ungallant and unjust remark was mentioned to 
 him. He immediately took from his pocket an old letter, on the 
 back of which he wrote in pencil the following lines, and handed 
 them to Miss Miller: — 
 
 How daur ye ca' me howlet-faced, 
 
 Ye ugly, glowering spectre ? 
 My face was but the keekin' glass, 
 
 An' there ye saw your picture.' 
 
 Correspondent. 
 
 THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT. 
 
 [Spoken in reply to a gentleman who sneered at the sufferings of Scotland for 
 conscience' sake, and called the Solemn League and Covenant ridiculous and 
 fanatical.] 
 
 The Solemn League and Covenant 
 
 Cost Scotland blood — cost Scotland tears ; 
 
 But it sealed freedom's sacred cause — 
 If thou'rt a slave, indulge thy sneers.
 
 VERSICLES. 243 
 
 ON A CERTAIN PARSON S LOOKS. 
 
 That there is falsehood in his looks 
 
 I must aiid will deny ; 
 They say their master is a knave — 
 
 Aaid sure they do not lie. 
 
 WILLIE STEWART. 
 
 * Sir Walter Scott possesses a tumbler, on which are the follow- 
 ing verses, written by Burns on the arrival of a friend, Mr W. 
 Stewart, factor to a gentleman of Nithsdale. The landlady being 
 very wroth at what she considered the disfigurement of her glass, 
 a gentleman present appeased her by paying down a shilling, and 
 carried off the relic' — Loci-hart. 
 
 You 're welcome, Willie Stewart ; 
 
 You're welcome, "Willie Stewart; 
 There's ne'er a flower that blooms in May, 
 
 That's half sae welcome's thou art. 
 
 Come, bumpers high, express your joy, 
 
 The bowl we maun renew it ; 
 The tappit-hen,i j^ae bring her ben, 
 
 To welcome Willie Stewart. 
 
 May foes be Strang, and friends be slack, 
 
 Ilk action may lie rue it ; 
 May woman on him turn her back, 
 
 That wrangs thee, Willie Stewart ! 
 
 ANDREW TURNER. 
 
 Being called impertmently one evening from a party of friends 
 at the King's Arms, Dumfries, to see a vain coxcomb in the form 
 of an English commercial traveller, who, having a bottle of wine 
 on his table, thought he might patronise the Ayrshire Ploughnan, 
 Bums entered into conversation with the creature, and soon 
 saw what sort of person he had to deal with. About to leave 
 the room. Bums was urged to give a taste of his powers of 
 
 1 'A cant phrase denoting a. tin measure, containing a quart, so called from the 
 knob on the Ud, supposed to resemble a crested hm.'—JiWikson.
 
 244 LIFE AND ■WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 impromptu versifying before lie went, when, having asked the 
 stranger's name and age, he instantly penned and handed to him 
 the stanza which follows — after which lie abruptly departed. 
 
 In seventeen lumdrcd forty-nine, 
 Satan took stuff to make a swine, 
 
 And cuist it in a corner ; 
 But wilily he changed liis plan, 
 And shaped it something like a man, 
 
 And ca'd it Andrew Turner ! 
 
 VERSES TO JOHN M'MURDO, ESQ. 
 
 WITH A TRESENT OP BOOKS. 
 
 Oh, could I give thee India's wealth, I 
 
 As I this trifle send, 
 Because tliy joy in botli would be 
 
 To share them with a friend ! 
 
 But golden sands did never grace 
 
 The Heliconcan stream ; 
 Then take what gold could never buy — 
 
 An honest Bard's esteem. 
 
 [Mr M'JIurdo resided at Drumlanrig, as chamberlain to the Dvke of Queensberry. 
 He and his wife and daugliters are alluded to in the election piece entitled Second 
 Epislle to Mr Graham of Finlrij. They were kind and hospitable friends of Burns, 
 who celebrated several of the young ladies in his songs.] 
 
 ON MR M'MURDO. 
 
 rNSCRIBED OM A TANK OF GLASS IX HIS HOUSE. 
 
 Blest be M'Murdo to his latest day ! 
 No envious cloud o'ercast hi.s evening ray ; 
 No wrinkle furrowed by the hand of care. 
 Nor ever sorrow add one silver hair ! 
 Oh, may no son the father's honour stain. 
 Nor ever daughter give the mother pain ! 
 
 WRITTEN ON A WINDOW OF THE GLOBE TAVERN, DUMFRIES. 
 
 The graybeard, old Wisdom, may boast of his treasures, 
 
 Give me with gay Folly to live ; 
 I grant him his calm-blooded, time-settled pleasures, 
 
 But Folly has raptures to give.
 
 VEKSICLES. 245 
 
 EXCISEMEN UNIVERSAL. 
 
 WRITTEN ON A WINDOW.' 
 
 Ye men of wit and wealth, why all this sneering 
 Gainst poor excisemen ? give the cause a hearing. 
 AVhat arc your landlords' rent-rolls ? teasing ledgers : 
 What premiers — what ? even monarchs' mighty gangers 
 Nay, what are priests, those seeming godly wise men ? 
 "What are they, pray, but spiritual excisemen ? 
 
 ON A GROTTO IN FRIARS' CARSE GROUNDS. 
 
 To Riddel, much-lamented man, 
 
 This ivied cot was dear; 
 Eeader, dost value matchless worth ? 
 
 This ivied cot revere. 
 
 ON A NOTED COXCOMB. 
 
 Light lay the earth on Billy's breast, 
 His chicken heart's so tender j 
 
 But build a castle on his head, 
 His skull will prop it under. 
 
 ON COMMISSARY GOLDIE's BRAINS. 
 
 Lord, to account who dares thee call, 
 Or e'er dispute thy pleasure ? 
 
 Else why within so thick a wall 
 Enclose so poor a treasure ? ^ 
 
 EPITAPH ON MR GABUIKL RICHARDSON, BREWER, DUMFRIES.^ 
 
 Here brewer Gabriel's fire's extinct. 
 
 And empty all his barrels ; 
 He's blest if as he brewed he drink, 
 
 In upright honest morals. 
 
 1 In the Kind's Anns Inn, iJunifrU's, in consequence of overhearing a gentleman 
 speak despitefully of the otIioiTS of Kxcisc. 
 
 - From a blank loaf of n copy of Hunis's works, in possession of Mrs Lindsay, 
 411 Albany Street, Kiliiibiirgh. 
 
 ^ Fatlicr of bir Jobn lUtharilson, the arctic traveller.
 
 246 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 ON JOHN BUSHBY, WRITER, DUMFRIES. 
 
 Here lies John Bushby, honest man ! 
 Cheat him, devil, if you can. 
 
 TO MISS JESSY LEWARS. 
 
 WITH A PRESENT OF BOOKS. 
 
 Thine be the vohimes, Jessy fair, 
 And with them take tlie Poet's prayer- 
 That Fate may in her fairest page, 
 With every kindliest, best presage 
 Of future laliss, enrol thy name : 
 With native worth, and spotless fame, 
 And wakeful caution still aware 
 Of ill — but chief, man's felon snare ; 
 All blameless joys on earth we find, 
 And all the treasures of the mind — 
 These be thy guardian and reward ; 
 So prays thy faithful friend, the Bard. 
 
 THE EARL OF GALLOWAY. 
 
 Burns had an antipathy of old-standing towards the Earl of 
 Galloway. It was against him that he launched invectives 
 when Mr Syrae pointed to Garlies House, across the Bay of 
 Wigton, in the course of their excursion in July 1793. There 
 is a string of epigrams which the irascible bard launched at 
 this respectable nobleman, with of course no other effect than 
 to make moderate-minded men lament his own subordination 
 of judgment to spleen. 
 
 What dost thou in that mansion fair ? — 
 
 Flit, Galloway, and find 
 Some narrow, dirty, dungeon cave, 
 
 The picture of thy mind ! 
 
 No Stewart art thou, Galloway, 
 The Stewarts all were brave ; 
 
 Besides, the Stewarts were but fools, 
 Not one of them a knave.
 
 VERSICLES, 247 
 
 Bright ran thy line, Galloway, 
 
 Through many a far-famed sire ! 
 So ran the far-famed Roman way, 
 
 So ended in a mire. 
 
 On being informed [misinformed ?] that the earl threatened him 
 with liis resentment — 
 
 Spare me thy vengeance, Galloway ; 
 
 In quiet let me live : 
 I ask no kindness at thy hand, 
 
 For thou hast none to give. 
 
 It may be curious to contrast with these ungracious and sub- 
 stantially unjust quatrains, the newspaper character of the earl at 
 his death in 1806. ' His loss wiU be extensively and deeply felt; 
 his numerous friends and connections profited by his advice and 
 assistance; his active frame and mind he never spared; he did 
 nothing by halves. As a husband and father, he was exemplaiy; 
 as a friend, indefatigable; he adored the Supreme Being; he loved 
 his king ; his aflairs prospered. He was admired for his taste 
 in music ; and had great skiU. hi agricultural pursuits.' For once, 
 a friendly obituary notice may be accepted in evidence ; it was 
 at least nearer the truth than Burns's election lampoons and 
 epigrams.
 
 SONGS OF WHICH THE DATE IS NOT KNOWN. 
 
 CALEDONIA. 
 
 Tu.YE — Caledonian Hunt's Delight. 
 
 There was once a day — but old Time then was young — 
 
 That brave Caledonia, the chief of her line, 
 From some of your northern deities sprung 
 
 (Who knows not that brave Caledonia's divine?) 
 From Tweed to the Orcades was her domain, 
 
 To hunt, or to pasture, or do what she would : 
 Her heavenly relations there fixtid her I'cign, 
 
 And pledged her their godheads to warrant it good. 
 
 A lambkin in peace, but a lion in war, 
 
 The pride of her kindred the heroine grew : 
 Her grandsire, old Odin, triumphantly swore, 
 
 ' Whoe'er shall provoke thee, th' encounter shall rue ! ' 
 AVith tillage or pasture at times she would sport. 
 
 To feed her fair flocks by her green rustling corn ; 
 But chiefly the woods were her fav'rite resort. 
 
 Her darling amusement the hounds and the horn. 
 
 Long quiet she reigned; till thitherward steers 
 
 A flight of bold eagles from Adria's strand : 
 Eepeatcd, successive, for many long years. 
 
 They darkened the air, and they plundered the land; 
 Their pounces Avero murder, and terror their cry, 
 
 They'd con(|ucred and ruined a world beside; 
 She took to her hills, and her arrows let fly— 
 
 The daring invaders they fled or they died. 
 
 The fell harpy-raven took wing from the north, 
 
 The scourge of the seas, and the dread of the shore; 
 Tlie wild Scandinavian boar issued forth 
 
 To wanton in carnage, and wallow in gore : 
 O'er countries and kingdoms their fury prevailed, 
 
 No arts could appease them, no arms could repel ; 
 Eut brave Caledonia in vain they assailed, 
 
 As Largs well can witness, and Loncartie tell.
 
 SO^"GS OF WHICH DATE IS XOT KXOWN. 249 
 
 The Cameleon-savage disturbed her repose, 
 
 With tumult, disquiet, rebellion, and strife ; 
 Trovoked beyond bearing, at last she arose, 
 
 And robbed him at once of his hopes and his life : 
 The Anglian lion, the terror of France, 
 
 Oft prowling, ensanguined the Tweed's silver flood: 
 But, taught by the bright Caledonian lance, 
 
 He learned to fear in his own native wood. 
 
 Thus bold, independent, unconquered, and free. 
 
 Her bright course of glory for ever shall run : 
 For brave Caledonia immortal must be ; 
 
 I '11 prove it from Euclid as clear as the sun : 
 Ecctangle-triangle the figure we'll choose, 
 
 The upright is Chance, and old Time is the base; 
 But brave Caledonia's the hypothenuse ; 
 
 Then ergo, she '11 match them, and match them always. 
 
 WIIA IS SHE THAT LOES ME? 
 
 Tine — Mvnifj. 
 
 wha is she that Iocs me. 
 
 And has my heart a keeping ? 
 sweet is she that Iocs me, 
 As dews o' simmer weeping. 
 In tears the rose-buds steeping ! 
 O that's the lassie o' my heart, 
 
 Jly lassie ever dearer ; 
 O that's the queen o' womankind, 
 And ne'er a ane to i)eer her. 
 
 If thou shalt meet a lassie 
 
 In grace and beauty charming, 
 
 Tiiat e'en thy chosen lassie, 
 
 Erewhilc tiiy breast sae warming, 
 Had ne'er sic powers alarming ; 
 O that's the lassie, &c. 
 
 If thou luidst heard her talking, 
 And tliy attentions plighted. 
 
 That ilka body talking, 
 
 J'ut her by thee is sbghtcd. 
 
 And tiiou art all deligiited; 
 
 O that's the lassie, &:c.
 
 '250 LIFE AKD WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 If thou hast met this fair one ; 
 
 When frae her thou hast parted, 
 If every other fair one, 
 But her, thou hast deserted, 
 And thou art broken-hearted ; 
 O that 's the lassie o' my heart, 
 
 My lassie ever dearer ; 
 O that's the queen o' womankind, 
 And ne'er a ane to peer her.
 
 OLD SONGS IMPROYED BY BURNS, 
 
 FROM JOHNSON'S MUSEUM. 
 
 O WHARE DID YOU GET? 
 
 TxTSE—Bo7inie Dundee. 
 
 [The air of Bonnie Dundee appears in the Skene MS., of date circa 1620. The 
 tune seems to have existed at even an earher period, as there is a song to it 
 amongst those which were written by the EngUsh to disparage the Scottish 
 followers by whom James VI. was attended on his arrival in the south. The first 
 of the foUo'n-ing verses is from an old homely ditty, the second only being the 
 composition of Burns.] 
 
 whare did you get that hauver meal bannock? 
 O silly blind body, O dinna ye see ? 
 
 1 gat it frae a brisk young sodger laddie, 
 Between St Johnston and bonnie Dundee. 
 
 O gin I saw the laddie that gae me't ! 
 
 Aft has he doudled me upon his knee ; 
 May Heaven protect my bonnie Scots laddie, 
 
 And send him safe hame to his babie and mc ! 
 
 My blessin's upon thy sweet wee lippie, 
 
 My blessin's upon thy bonnie ec-bree ! 
 Thy smiles are sae like my blithe sodger laddie, 
 
 Thou's aye the dearer and dearer to me ! 
 But I'll big a bower on yon bonnie banks, 
 
 Where Tay rins wimplin' by sae clear ; 
 And I'll deed thee in the tartan sae fine, 
 
 And mak thee a man like thy daddie dear. 
 
 I AM MY mammy's AE BAIRN. 
 
 TusB— J'm more young to Marry yet. 
 
 I am my mammy's ae bairn, 
 
 Wi' unco folk I weary, sir ; 
 And if I gang to your house, 
 
 I'm fley'd 'twill make me eerie, sir. afraid 
 
 I'm owrc young to marry yet; 
 
 I'm owrc young to marry yet ; 
 I'm owre young — 'twad be a sin 
 To tak mo frao my mammy yet.
 
 252 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Hallowmas is come and gane, 
 
 Tlie nights are lang in winter, sir ; 
 And you and I in wedlock's bands, 
 
 In troth, I dare na venture, sir. 
 Fu' loud and shrill the frosty wind 
 
 Blaws through the leafless timmer, sir ; 
 But if ye conic this gate again, 
 
 I '11 aulder be gin simmer, sir. 
 
 UP IN THE MORNING EARLY. 
 
 Tltje — Cold blows the Wind. 
 [Written on the basis of an old song, the chorus of vihich is liere preser^'ed.] 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 Up in the morning's no for me, 
 
 Up in the morning early ; 
 When a' the hills are covered wi' snaw, 
 
 I'm sure it's winter fairly. 
 
 Caiild blaws the wind frae east to west, 
 
 The drift is driving sairly ; 
 Sae loud and shrill I hear the blast, 
 
 I'm sure it's winter fairly. » 
 
 The birds sit chittering in the thorn, 
 
 A' day they fare but sparely ; 
 And lang's the night frae e'en to morn — 
 
 I'm sure it's winter fairly. 
 
 THERE WAS A LASS. 
 Tune — Duncan Davison. 
 
 There was a lass, they ca'd her Meg, 
 
 And she held o'er the moors to spin ; 
 There Avas a lad that followed her, 
 
 They ca'd him Duncan Davison. 
 The moor was dreigh, and Meg was skeigh, tedious timorous 
 
 Her favour Duncan could na win ; 
 For wi' the rock she wad him knock, 
 
 And aye she shook the temper-pin. 
 
 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 :
 
 SONGS IMPROVED. 253 
 
 But Duncan swore a haly aith, 
 
 That ]Meg should be a bride the morn, 
 Then Meg took up her spinnin' graith, 
 
 And flang them a' out o'er the burn. 
 
 AYe'U big a house — a wee, wee liousc. 
 
 And we will live like king and queen, 
 Sae blithe and merry we will be 
 
 When ye set by the wheel at e'en. 
 A man may drink and no be drunk ; 
 
 A man may fight and no be slain ; 
 A man may kiss a boniiie lass, 
 
 And aye be welcome back again. 
 
 LADY OXLIE. 
 
 TcNE— 27te Ruffian's Rant. 
 
 A' the lads o' Thornie-bank, 
 
 When they gae to the shore o' Bucky, 
 They '11 step in and tak a pint 
 Wi' Lady Onlie, honest Lucky ! 
 Lady Onlie, honest Lucky ! 
 
 Brews guid ale at shore o' Bucky ; 
 I wish her sale for her guid ale. 
 The best on a' the shore o' Bucky. 
 
 Her house sae bien, licr curch sac clean, 
 
 I wat she is a dainty chucky ; 
 And cheerlio blinks the ingle-gleed 
 Of Lady Onlie, honest Lucky ! 
 Lady Onlie, honest Lucky ! 
 
 Brews guid ale at sliore o' Bucky ; 
 I wish her sale for her guid ale. 
 The best on a' the shore o' Bucky. 
 
 THE PLOUGHMAN. 
 
 The ploughman he's a bonnie lad. 
 
 His mind is ever true, jo, 
 His garters knit below his knee. 
 His bonnet it is blue, jo. 
 
 Then up wi't a', my ploughman lad. 
 And hey my merry ploughman ; 
 Of a the trades tiiat I do ken, 
 Commend mo to the ploughman.
 
 254 LIFE AND WOKKS OF BURNS. 
 
 I hao been east, I hae been west, 
 
 I hae been at St Johnston ; 
 The bonniest sight that e'er I saw. 
 
 Was tlie ploughman laddie dancin'. 
 Up wi't, &c. 
 
 Snaw-white stockins on his legs, 
 
 And siller buckles glancin' ; 
 A guid blue bonnet on his head, 
 
 And oh, but he was handsome. 
 Up wi't, &c. 
 
 [Of this piece, the two last verses alone are by Burns. For the longer song, 
 including them, reference may be made to the Museum.^ 
 
 MY HOGGIE. 
 
 What will I do gin my hoggie ^ die, 
 
 BIy joy, my pride, my hoggie ? 
 My only beast, I had nae mae. 
 
 And oh, but I was vogie. vain 
 
 The lee-lang night we watched the fauld. 
 
 Me and my faithfu' doggie, 
 We heard nought but the roaring linn, 
 
 Amang the braes sae scroggie.- 
 
 But the howlet cried frae the castle wa', 
 
 The blutter frae the boggie, mire-snipe 
 
 The tod replied upon the hill — fox 
 
 I trembled for my hoggie. 
 
 When day did daw and cocks did crav/, 
 
 The morning it was foggie, 
 An unco tyke lap o'er the dyke, dog 
 
 And maist has killed my hoggie. 
 
 1 > 
 
 simmer's a pleasant time. 
 
 TtWE — Ai/e WauTiin 0. 
 
 Simmer's a pleasant time. 
 
 Flowers of every colour ; 
 The water rins o'er the heugh, 
 
 And I long for my true lover. 
 
 Hoggie, a yoimg sheep after it is smeared, and before it is first shorn.'— 
 
 Slenhcmse. 
 - Full of stunted bushes.
 
 SONGS IMPROVED. 255 
 
 Aye -waukin O, 
 
 Waukin still and wearie : 
 Sleep I can get nana 
 
 For thinking on my dearie. 
 
 I When I sleep I dream, 
 
 When I wauk I'm eerie : timorous 
 
 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 bleer my een -wi' greetin'. 
 
 [This is an old song, upon which Burns appears to have made only a few- 
 alterations.] 
 
 riRST WHEN MAGGY "WAS MY CARE. 
 TvsR— Whistle o'er the Lave o 't, 
 
 First -when Maggy was my care, 
 
 Heaven I thought was in her air ; ^ 
 
 Now we 're married — speir nae mair — inquire 
 
 Whistle o'er the lave o't. 
 Meg was meek, and Meg was mild, 
 Bonnie Bleg was nature's child ; 
 Wiser men than me 's beguiled — 
 
 Whistle o'er the lave o 't. 
 
 How we live, my Meg and me. 
 How we love, and how we 'gree, 
 I care na by how few may sec — 
 
 Whistle o'er the lave o't. 
 "Wnia I wish were maggots' meat, 
 Dished up in her winding-sheet, 
 I could write— but Meg maun see't — 
 
 Whistle o'er the lave o't. 
 
 JAMIE, COME TRY ME. 
 
 Jamie, come try me ; 
 
 Jamie, come try me ; 
 If thou would win my love, 
 
 Jamie, como try me.
 
 256^ LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 If thou should ask my love, 
 Could I deny thee ? 
 
 If thou would win my love, 
 Jamie, come try me. 
 
 If thou should kiss me, love, 
 Wha could espy thee? 
 
 If thou would be my love, 
 Jamie, come try me. 
 
 A W A, AV II I G S, A W A ! 
 TvyE^Aiva, Whijs, aica. 
 
 ClIOKUS. 
 
 Awa, Whigs, awa ! 
 
 Awa, Whigs, awa! 
 Ye'i'e but a pack o' traitor louns, 
 
 Ye '11 do uac good at a'. 
 
 Our thrisslcs flourished fresh and fair. 
 
 And bonnie bloomed our roses ; 
 But AVhigs came like a frost in June, 
 
 And withered a' our jiosies. 
 
 Our ancient crown's fa'n in the dust — 
 
 Doil blin' them wi' the stour o't ; 
 And write their names in his black beuk, 
 
 Wha gae the Whigs the power o't. 
 
 Our sad decay in Cliurch and State 
 
 Surpasses my dcscriving ; 
 The WJiigs came o'er us for a curse. 
 
 And we liae done wi' thriving. 
 
 Grim vengeance laug has ta'en a nap. 
 
 But we may see him waukeii ; 
 Guid help the day Avhen royal heads 
 
 Are hunted like a maukin. hare 
 
 [The second and last stanzas alone are by Burns; tlie rest is from an old 
 Jacobite song.] 
 
 WHARE IIAE YE BEEN? 
 
 1vj>i:—KUHecrankie. 
 
 Whare hao ye been sae bi'aw, lad ? 
 
 Where hae ye been sae brankie, ? pranked 
 Oh, whare hae ye been sae braw, lad? 
 Cam ye by Killiecrankie, 1
 
 SONGS IMPROVED. 257 
 
 An 3'e had been whare I hae been, 
 
 Ye wad na been sae cantie, ; merry 
 
 An ye had seen what I liae seen, 
 On the braes of Killiecrankie, 0. 
 
 I fought at land, I fought at sea ; 
 
 At hanie I fouglit my auntie, O ; 
 But I met tlic devil and Dundee, 
 
 On the braes o' Killiecrankie, 0. 
 The bauld Pitcur fell in a furr, 
 
 And Clavers got a clankie, ; 
 Or I had fed an Athole gled, kite 
 
 On the braes o' Killiecrankie, 0. 
 
 [' The chorus of this song is old; the rest of it was written by Burns.'Stcnhouse.'] 
 
 ca' the ewes to the knowes. 
 
 Ca' the ewes to the knowes, 
 Ca' them where the heather grows, 
 Ca' them wliore the buruie rows, 
 My bonnie dearie. 
 
 As I gaed down the water-side, 
 There I met my shepherd lad, 
 He rowed me sweetly in his plaid. 
 And he ca'd ine his dearie. 
 
 Will ye gang down the water-side, 
 And see the waves sae sweetly glide? 
 Bcncatli the hazel spreading wide, 
 The moon it sliines fu' clearly. 
 
 [Ye sail get gowns and ribbons meet, 
 Cauf leather shoon upon your feet, 
 And in my ai"ms ye'se lie and sleep, 
 And ye sail be my dearie. 
 
 If ye but stand to what ye've said, 
 I'se gang wi' you, my sliejdierd lad, 
 And ye may row me in your plaid. 
 And I sail be your dearie.] 
 
 While waters wimple to the sea. 
 While day blinks in the lift sac liio, 
 Till clay-caiihl death shall blin' my cc, 
 Ye sail bo my dearie. 
 
 [The verses within brackets are old, with only a few touches of improvement by 
 Burns.] 
 
 VOL. IV. Q
 
 268 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 FOR a' that, and a' THAT. 
 
 Though women's minds, like winter winds. 
 
 May shift and turn, and a' that ; 
 The noblest breast adores them maist, 
 A consequence I draw that. 
 For a' that, and a' that, 
 
 And twice as mickle's a' that. 
 The bonnie lass that I loe best. 
 Shall be my ain for a' that, &c. 
 
 YOUNG JOCKEY. 
 
 Tune— rou)?i7 Jockcp. 
 
 Young Jockey was the blithest lad 
 
 In a' our town or here awa : 
 Fu' blithe he whistled at the gaud, 
 
 Fu' lightly danced he in the ha'. 
 He roosed my een, sae bonnie blue, praised 
 
 He roosed my waist, sae genty sma' ; 
 And aye my heart came to my mou', 
 
 When ne'er a body heard or saw. 
 
 My Jockey toils upon the plain. 
 
 Through wind and weet, through frost and snaw : 
 And o'er the lea I leuk fu' fain. 
 
 When Jockey's owsen hameward ca'. 
 And aye the night comes round again, 
 
 When in his arms he takes me a' ; 
 And aye he vows he'll be my ain, 
 
 As lang's he has a breath to draw. 
 
 [' The whole of [this song], excepting three or four lines, is the production of 
 Kuma.'—Stcnhoitsc.'] 
 
 WHA IS THAT AT MY BOWER DOOR? 
 TvvE—Lass, an I come near thee. 
 
 Wha is that at my bower door ? 
 
 O wha is it but Findlay : 
 Then gae your gate, ye 's nae be here ! 
 
 Indeed maun I, quo' Findlay. 
 What mak ye, sae like a thief? 
 
 O come and see, quo' Findlay. 
 Before the morn ye '11 work mischief; 
 
 Indeed will I, quo' Findlay.
 
 SON'GS IMPROVED. 259 
 
 Gif I rise and let you in ; 
 
 Let me in, quo' Fiudlay : 
 Ye '11 keep me waukin' wi' your din; 
 
 Indeed will I, nuo' Findlay. 
 In my bower if ye should stay ; 
 
 Let me stay, cjuo' Findlay : 
 I fear ye '11 bide till break o' day; 
 
 Indeed will I, quo' Findlay. 
 
 Here this night if ye remain ; 
 
 I'll remain, quo' Findlay: 
 I dread ye '11 learn the gate again; 
 
 Indeed will I, (juo' Findlay. 
 "What may pass within this bower ; 
 
 Let it pass, quo' Findlay : 
 Ye luaun conceal till your last hour ; 
 
 Indeed will I, quo' Findlay. 
 
 [' Mr Gilbert Burns told the editor (Cromek) that tliis song was suggested to his 
 brother by the Auld Mali's Addrass to tlie Widoti; printed in Ramsay's Tea-2'able 
 JIUceUany, which the poet first heard sung by Jean Wilson, a silly old widow- 
 woman, then living at Torbolton, remarkable for the simplicity and na'ivcU of her 
 character, and for singmg old Scotch songs with a peculiar energy and earnestness 
 of manner. Having outlived her family, she still retained the form of family 
 worship ; and before she sang a hymn, she would gravely give out the first line of 
 the verse, as if she had a numerous audience, to the great diversion of her listening 
 neighbours.' —Cromek.] 
 
 THE TITIIER MOUK. 
 To a Highland air. 
 
 The tithcr morn, when I forlorn 
 
 Ancath an aik sat moaning, 
 I did na trow, I'd sec my jo, 
 
 Beside me, 'gain the gloaming. 
 IJut he sao trig, lap o'er the rig, 
 
 And dawtingly did cheer me. 
 When I, wliat reck, did least cxpcc', 
 
 To sec my lad so near me. 
 
 His bonnet he, a tliought ajec, 
 
 Cocked sprusli when first he clasped me ; 
 And I, I wat, wi' fainness grat, 
 
 Wliilo in his gri]is he pressed nic. 
 Dcil tak the war ! 1 late and air, 
 
 liae wished, .since Jock departed; 
 Hut now as glad 1 'in wi' my lad. 
 
 As short sync broken-hearted.
 
 260 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Fu' aft at e'en wi' dancing keen, 
 
 When a' were blithe and merry, 
 I cared na by, sae sad was I, 
 
 In absence o' }uy dearie. 
 But, praise be blest, my mind's at rest, 
 
 I'm happy wi' my Johnny : 
 At kirk and fair, I'se aye be there, 
 
 And be as canty 's ony. 
 
 AS I WAS A WANDERING. 
 
 Tune— TJinn Meudial mo Mhealladh. 
 
 As I was a wandering ae midsummer e'enin', 
 
 The pipers and youngsters were making their game ; 
 Amang them I spied my faithless fause lover, 
 Which bled a' the wounds o' my dolour again. 
 
 Weel, since lie has left me, may pleasure gae wi' him ; 
 
 I may be distressed, but I winna complain ; 
 I flatter my fancy I may get anither. 
 
 My heart it shall never be broken for ane. 
 
 I conldna get sleeping till dawin for greetin'. 
 
 The tears trickled down like the hail and the rain : 
 
 Had I na got greetin', my heart wad ha' broken. 
 For oh ! love forsaken "s a tormenting pain. 
 
 Although he has left me for greed o' the siller, 
 
 I dinna envy liim the gains he can win ; 
 I rather wad bear a' the lade o' my sorrow 
 
 Than ever hae acted sae faithless to him. 
 
 [Burns has here merely made some changes upon an old song, and it is ques- 
 tionable if his alterations are improvements.] 
 
 THE WEARY FUND O' TOW. 
 Tune— 27ie Weary Pimd o' Tow. 
 
 The weary pund, the weary pund. 
 The weary pund o' tow ; 
 
 I think my wife will end her life 
 Before she spin her tow. 
 
 I bought my wife a stane o' lint 
 As guid as e'er did grow ; 
 
 And a' that she has made o' that, 
 Is ae poor pund o' tow.
 
 SOXGS IMPROVED. 261 
 
 There sat a bottle in a bole, 
 
 Beyont the ingle lowe, 
 And aye she took the tither souk, 
 
 To drouk the stowrie tow. 
 
 Quoth I, for sliame, ye dirty dame, 
 
 Gae spin your tap o' tow ! 
 She took the rock, and wi' a knock 
 
 She brak it o'er my pow. 
 
 At last her feet — I sang to see't — 
 
 Gaed foremost o'er the knowe ; 
 And or I wad anither jad, 
 
 I'll wallop in a tow. 
 
 GAME IS THE DAY. 
 
 TvsE—Guidtvi/c, count the Lamn. 
 
 Gane is the day, and mirk's the night, 
 But we '11 ne'er stray for fau't o' light, 
 For ale and brandy 's stars and moon. 
 And bluid-rcd wine's the rising sun. 
 Then guidwife, count the lawin, 
 
 The lawin, the lawin ; 
 Tlien guidwife, count the lawin. 
 And bring a coggie mair. 
 
 There's wealth and ease for gentlemen, 
 .\nd simple folk maun light and fen ; 
 But here we're a' in ae accord, 
 For ilka man that's drunk's a lord. 
 
 My coggie is a haly pool, 
 
 Tliat heals the wounds o' care and dool ; 
 
 And pleasure is a wanton trout. 
 
 An yc drink but deep ye '11 find him out. 
 
 JT IS NA, JEAN, THY DONNIE FACE. 
 Ti'NE— 7'/ie Maid's Complaint. 
 
 It is na, Jean, thy bonnic face 
 
 Nor shape that I admire, 
 Althougli thy beauty and thy grace 
 
 Might wcel awake desire.
 
 262 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Something, in ilka part o' tliee, 
 To praise, to love, I find ; 
 
 But dear as is thy fonn to me, 
 Still dearer is thy mind. 
 
 Nae mair ungenerous wish I hae, 
 
 Nor stronger in my breast, 
 Than if I canna mak thee sae, 
 
 At least to see thee blest. 
 Content am I, if Heaven shall give 
 
 But happiness to thee : 
 And as wi' thee I'd wish to live, 
 
 For thee I 'd bear to die. 
 
 MY COLLIER LADDIE. 
 Tvyz—The Collier Laddie. 
 
 Where live ye, my bonnie lass ? 
 
 And tell me what they ea' ye ; 
 My name, she says, is Mistress Jean", 
 
 And I follow the Collier Laddie. 
 
 See you not yon hills and dales, 
 
 The sun shines on sae brawlie ! 
 They a' are mine, and they shall be thine, 
 
 Gin ye '11 leave your Collier Laddie. 
 
 Ye shall gang in gay attire, 
 
 Weel buskit up sae gaudy ; 
 And ane to wait on every hand, 
 
 Gin ye '11 leave your Collier Laddie. 
 
 Though ye had a' the sun shines on. 
 And the earth conceals sae lowly ; 
 
 I wad turn my back on you and it a', 
 And embrace my Collier Laddie. 
 
 I can win my five pennies in a day. 
 
 And spen't at night fu' brawlie ; 
 And make my bed in the Collier's neuk, 
 
 And lie down wi' my Collier Laddie. 
 
 Luve for luve is the bargain for me, 
 
 Though the wee cot-house should haud me ; 
 
 And the world before me to win my bread, 
 And fair fa' my Collier Laddie. 
 
 [Bums, in his Notes, speaks of this song as an old one ■n-ith which he had had 
 nothing to do. As it appears, however, in no other collection, and is found in 
 his handwriting among Johnson's manuscripts, Mr Stenhouse infers that the 
 greater part of it is his own composition.]
 
 SONGS IMPKOVED. 263 
 
 YE JACOBITES BY NAME, 
 
 TvyE—Ye Jacobites hy Name. 
 
 Ye Jacobites by name, give an ear, give an ear; 
 Ye Jacobites by name, give an ear ; 
 Ye Jacobites by name. 
 
 Your fautes I will proclaim, 
 
 Your doctrines I maun blame — 
 You shall hear. 
 
 What is right and what is wrang, by the law, by the law? 
 "What is right and what is wrang by the law ? 
 Wliat is right and what is wrang? 
 A short sword and a lang, 
 A weak arm, and a Strang 
 For to draw. 
 
 What makes heroic strife, famed afor, famed afar? 
 What makes heroic strife famed afar ? 
 What makes heroic strife I 
 To whet th' assassin's knife, 
 Or hunt a parent's life 
 Wi' bluidie war. 
 Then let your schemes alone, in the state, in the state; 
 Then let your schemes alone in the state ; 
 Then let your schemes alone, 
 Adore the rising sun. 
 And leave a man undone 
 To his fate. 
 
 LADY MARY ANN. 
 
 txTX^—Craigton's Groicinrj. 
 ['ModeUed by Burns from an ancient ballad, entitled Craiglon's Gmcing.'- 
 SUnhouse.'i 
 
 Oh, Lady Mary Ann looked o'er the castle wa' ; 
 She saw three bonnie boys playing at the ba' ; ^ 
 The youngest he was the flower amang them a'— 
 My bonnie laddie's young, but he's growin' yet. 
 
 O father ! O father ! an ye think it fit, 
 We'll send him a year to the college yet : 
 We'll sew a green ribbon round about his hat, 
 And that will let them ken he's to marry yet. 
 
 Lady Mary Ann was a flower i' the dew, 
 Sweet was its smell, and bonnie was its hue ; 
 And the langer it blossomed the sweeter it grew : 
 * For the lily in the bud will be bonnier yet.
 
 264 LIFE AND WORKS OP BURNS. 
 
 Young Charlie Cochrane was the sprout of an aik ; 
 Bonnie and bloomin' and straught was its make : 
 The sun took delight to shine for its sake, 
 And it ■will be the brag o' the forest yet. 
 
 The simmer is gane when the leaves they were green, 
 And the days are awa that we hae seen ; 
 But far better days I trust will come again. 
 
 For my bonnie laddie's young, but he's groAvin' yet. 
 
 kenmure's on and awa. 
 
 Tone — Kenmure's on and aiva, Willie. 
 
 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 nc'er was a coward o' Kenmure's blude, 
 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! 
 
 Tliey'U 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 love best — 
 
 The rose that 's like the snaw ! 
 
 [This song is supposed to be one of those which Burns only improved from old 
 versions. William Gordon, sixth Viscount of Kenmure, raised a body of troops 
 for the Pretender in 1715, and had the chief command of the insurgent forces in 
 the south of Scotland. Taken at Preston, he vas tried and condemned to be 
 beheaded, which sentence was executed on the 24th February 1716. His forfeited 
 estate was bought back by his widow, and transmitted to their son. By the son of 
 that son — afterwards Viscount of Kenmure in consequence of the restoration of 
 the title — Burns was on one occasion entertained at his romantic seat of Kenmure 
 Castle, near New Galloway.]
 
 SOXGS IMPROVED. 265 
 
 SUCH A PARCEL OF ROGUES IN A NATION. 
 Tune— ^ Parcel of Rogues in a Nation. 
 
 Fareweel to a' our Scottish fame, 
 
 Fareweel our ancient glory, 
 Fareweel even to the Scottish name, 
 
 Sae famed in martial story. 
 Now Sark rins o'er the Solway sands. 
 
 And Tweed rins to the ocean, 
 To mark where England's province stands — 
 
 Such a parcel of rogues in a nation. 
 
 What force or guile could not subdue 
 
 Througii many warlike ages, 
 Is wrought now by a coward few, 
 
 For hireling traitors' wages. 
 The English steel we could disdain, 
 
 Secure in valour's station ; 
 But English gold has been our bane — 
 
 Such a parcel of rogues in a nation. 
 
 O would, ere I had seen the day 
 
 That treason thus could fell us. 
 My auld gray head had lien in clay, 
 
 Wi' Bruce and loyal Wallace! 
 But pith and power, till my last hour, 
 
 I'll niak this declaration; 
 We're bought and sold for Englisli gold — 
 
 Such a parcel of rogues in a nation. 
 
 THE CARLES OF DYSART. 
 
 TcNE— /7<y, ca' Ihrough. 
 
 [Written upon the basis of an old song.] 
 
 Up wi' the carles o' Dysart, 
 
 And the lads o' Buckhavcn, 
 And the kimniers o' Largo, 
 And the lasses o' Lcven. 
 
 lley, ca' througii, ca' through, 
 
 For wo hac mickle ado ; 
 Hey, ca' tlirougli, ca' tlirough, 
 For wc hae mickic ado. 
 
 Wo hac talcs to tell, 
 
 And we hac sangs to sing ; 
 Wo hae pennies to spend. 
 
 And wc hac pints to bring.
 
 266 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 We'll live a' our days, 
 
 And them that come behin', 
 
 Let them do the like, 
 
 And spend the gear they ■win. 
 
 THE CARLE OF KELLYBUUN BRAES. 
 
 Tune — Kellyburn Braes. 
 [An old set of traditionary verses modified by Burns.] 
 
 There lived a carle on Kellyburn Braes, 
 (Hey, and the rue grows bonnie -wi' thjniie,) 
 
 And he had a wife was the plague o' his days ; 
 And the thyme it is withered, and rue is in prime. 
 
 Ae day as the carle gaed up the lang glen, 
 (Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme,) 
 
 He met wi' the devil ; says, ' How do you fen ?' 
 And the thyme it is withered, and rue is in prime. 
 
 ' I've got a bad wife, sir ; that's a' my complaint ; 
 
 (Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme,) 
 For, saving your presence, to her ye 're a saint: 
 
 And the thyme it is withered, and rue is in prime.' 
 
 'It's neither your stot nor your staig I shall crave, 
 (Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme,) 
 
 But gie me your wife, man, for her I must have, 
 And the thyme it is withered, and rue is in prime.' 
 
 * welcome, most kindly,' the blithe carle said, 
 (Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme,) 
 
 'But if ye can match her, ye 're waur than ye 're ca'd, 
 And the thyme it is Avithered, and rue is in prime.' 
 
 The devil has got the auld wife on his back ; 
 
 (Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme,) 
 And, like a poor pedler, he 's carried his pack ; 
 
 And the thyme it is withered, and rue is in prime. 
 
 He's carried her hame to his ain hallan-door; 
 
 (Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme,) 
 Syne bade her gae in, for a b and a , 
 
 And the thyme it is withered, and nie is in prime. 
 
 Then straight he makes fifty, the pick o' his band, 
 (Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme,) 
 
 Turn out on her guard in the clap of a hand ; 
 
 And the thyme it is withered, and rue is in prime.
 
 SONGS IMPROVED. 267 
 
 The carline gaed through them like ony wud bear, 
 (Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme,) 
 
 Whae'er she gat hands on cam near her nae mair ; 
 And the thyme it is withered, and rue is in prime. 
 
 A reekit wee devil looks over the wa' ; 
 
 (Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme,) 
 ' Oh, help, master, help, or she '11 ruin us a', 
 
 And the thyme it is withered, and rue is in prime.' 
 
 The devil he swore by the edge o' his knife, 
 (Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme,) 
 
 He pitied the man that was tied to a wife ; 
 
 And the thyme it is withered, and rue is in prime. 
 
 The de\al he swore by the kirk and the bell, 
 (Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme,) 
 
 He was not in wedlock, thank Heaven, but in hell ; 
 And the thyme it is withered, and rue is in prime. 
 
 Then Satan has travelled again wi' his pack ; 
 
 (Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme,) 
 And to her auld husband he's carried her back; 
 
 And the thyme it is withered, and rue is in prime. 
 
 * I hae been a devil the feck o' my life ; 
 
 (Hey, and the rue gi'ows bonnie wi' thyme,) 
 But ne'er was in hell till I met wi' a wife ; 
 
 And the thyme it is withered, and rue is in prime.' 
 
 JOCKY FOU AND JENNY FAIN. 
 
 ♦ ♦ ♦ 
 
 Let love sparkle in her ee, 
 Let her loe nae man but me ; 
 That's the tocher gudc 1 prize, 
 There the lover's treasure lies. 
 
 [The above verse was thrown by Bums into a song by Ramsay.] 
 
 THE slave's lament. 
 
 It was in sweet Senegal that my foes did mo entliral, 
 
 For the lands of Virginia, O ; 
 Torn from that lovely shore, and must never sec it more, 
 
 And alas I am weary, weary, !
 
 2G8 LIFE AND WORKS OP BURNS. 
 
 All on that charming coast is no bitter snow or frost, 
 
 Like the lands of Virginia, ; 
 There streams for ever flow, and there flowers for ever blow, 
 
 ^Vnd alas I am weary, weary, O ! 
 
 The burden I must bear, while the cruel scourge I fear, 
 
 In the lands of A'^irginia, ; 
 And I think on friends most dear, with the bitter, bitter tear, 
 
 And alas I am weary, weary, ! 
 
 [' The words and the music of this song were communicated by Burns for the 
 Museum.' — Stenhouse. ' I believe that Burns took the idea of his verses from the 
 Betrayed Maid, a ballad formerly much hawked about in Scotland.' — C. K. Shatye. 
 One might have hesitated to assign this song to Burns ; but certainly his authorship 
 of it is much fortified by its resemblance to another song of his, entitled The Ruined 
 Famier's Lament, which seems to have been formed on the same model ; see vol. 
 U., p. 314.] 
 
 COMING THROUGH THE RYE. 
 
 Tune — Coming through the Rye. 
 
 Coming through the rye, poor body, 
 
 Coming through the rye. 
 She draiglet a' her petticoatie. 
 Coming through the rye. 
 Jenny's a' wat, poor body, 
 
 Jenny's seldom dry; 
 She draiglet a' her petticoatie, 
 Coming through the rye. 
 
 Gin a body meet a body 
 
 Coming through the rye. 
 Gin a body kiss a body. 
 
 Need a body cry ? 
 
 Gin a body meet a body 
 Coming through the glen. 
 
 Gin a body kiss a body, 
 Need the world ken ? 
 
 YOUNG JAMIE, PRIDE OF A' THE PLAIN. 
 
 tvun—The Carlin o' the Glen,. 
 
 Young Jamie, pride of a' the plain, 
 Sae gallant and sae gay a swain ; 
 Through a' our lasses he did rove. 
 And reigned resistless king of love :
 
 SONGS IMPROVED. 
 
 269 
 
 But now v,i' sighs and starting tears, 
 He strays amang the woods and briers ; 
 Or in the glens and rocky caves 
 He sad complaining dowie raves : 
 
 I wha sae late did range and rove, 
 And changed with every moon my love, 
 I little thought the time was near, 
 Eepentance I should buy sae dear. 
 The slighted maids my torment see, 
 And laugh at a' the pangs I dree ; 
 "While she, my cruel, scornfu' fair. 
 Forbids me e'er to see her mair ! 
 
 suffer 
 
 THE LASS OF ECCLEFECHAN. 
 TvyE—Jacky Latin. 
 
 Gat ye me, O gat ye me, 
 
 O gat ye me wi' naething ; 
 Rock and reel, and spinnin' wheel, 
 
 A mickle quarter basin. 
 Bye attour, my gutcher has grandsire 
 
 A heigh house and a laigh ane, 
 A' forbyc my bonnie sel'. 
 
 The toss of Ecclefechan. 
 
 hand your tongue now, Luckie Laing; 
 
 hand your tongue and jauner ; prattle 
 
 1 held the gate till you I met, 
 
 Sync I began to wander : 
 I tint my whistle and my sang, lost 
 
 1 tint my peace and pleasure ; 
 
 But your green graff, now, Luckie Laing, 
 
 "NVad airt me to my treasure. direct 
 
 THE CARDIN' O'T. 
 
 IvTiE— Salt-fish and Dumplinps. 
 
 I coft a stane o' haslock woo', 
 
 To make a coat to .Johnny o't; 
 For Johnny is my only jo ; 
 I loe liim best of ony yet. 
 
 The cardin' o't, the spinnin' o't, 
 
 Tlie warj)in' o't, the winnin' o't; 
 "When ilka ell cost me a groat, 
 The tailor staw the lyuin' o't.
 
 270 LIFE AND WORKS OP BURNS. 
 
 For though his locks be lyart gray, 
 
 And though his brow be beld aboon ; 
 Yet I hae seen him on a day, 
 
 The pride of a' the parishen. 
 
 Among the songs contributed for Johnson's fifth volume, and 
 which appeared in it, was one entitled The Lass that made the Bed 
 to me. Burns had found a rude and licentious old ballad under 
 this title, had put it through his refining alembic, and brought 
 it out a fine rich narrative song, but still too warm in its colouring 
 for modem delicacy. He afterwards still further purified it, as 
 follows : — 
 
 THE LASS THAT MADE THE BED TO ME. 
 Tune— 2%fi Peacock. 
 
 When winter's wind was blawins cauld. 
 
 As to the north I bent my way, 
 The mirksome night did me enfauld, 
 
 I knew na where to lodge till day. 
 
 A charming girl I chanced to meet. 
 
 Just in the middle o' my care. 
 And kindly she did me invite 
 
 Her father's humble cot to share. 
 
 Her hair was like the gowd sae fine, 
 
 Her teeth were like the ivorie, 
 Her cheeks like lilies dipt in wine. 
 
 The lass that made the bed to me. 
 
 Her bosom was the drifted snaw, 
 
 Her limbs like marble fair to see ; 
 A finer form nane ever saw 
 
 Than hers that made the bed to me. 
 
 She made the bed baith lang and braid, 
 Wi' twa white hands she spread it down. 
 
 She bade ' Guid-night,' and smiling said : 
 *I hope ye'U sleep baith saft and soun'.' 
 
 Upon the morrow, when I raise, 
 
 I thanked her for her courtesie ; 
 A blush cam o'er the comely face 
 
 Of her that made the bed for me. 
 
 I clasped her waist and kissed her syne ; 
 
 The tear stude twinkling in her ee ; 
 * O dearest maid, gin ye '11 be mine, 
 
 Ye aye sail mak the bed to me.'
 
 SONGS niPEOVED. 271 
 
 THE HIGHLAND LADDIE. 
 Ti-NE— J/ thou 'It play me fair play. 
 
 The bonniest lad that e'er I saw, 
 
 Bonnie laddie, Highland laddie, 
 AVore a plaid, and was fu' braw, 
 
 Bonnie Highland laddie. 
 On his head a bonnet blue, 
 
 Bonnie laddie. Highland laddie ; 
 His royal heart was firm and true, 
 
 Bonnie Higliland laddie. 
 
 Trumpets sound, and cannons roar, 
 
 Bonnie lassie, Lowland lassie ; 
 And a' the hills wi' echoes roar, 
 
 Bonnie Lowland lassie. 
 Glory, honour, now invite, 
 
 Bonnie lassie, Lowland lassie. 
 For freedom and my king to fight, 
 
 Bonnie Lowland lassie. 
 
 The sun a backward course shall take, 
 
 Bonnie laddie. Highland laddie, 
 Ere aught thy manly courage shake, 
 
 Bonnie Highland laddie. 
 Go ! for yourself procure renown, 
 
 Bonnie laddie, Highland laddie ; 
 And for your lawful king his crown, 
 
 Bonnie Higliland laddie. 
 
 [ ' CompUed by Burns from some Jacobite verses, entitled Tlie Highland Lad and 
 the Laivland Lassie.'— Stenhouse.'i 
 
 SAE FAR AWA. 
 TvyiE— Dalkeith Maiden Bridge. 
 
 O sad and heavy should I part, 
 
 But for her sake sac far .iwa ; 
 Unknowing wliat my way may thwart, 
 
 3Iy native land sae far awa. 
 Thou that of a' things ilakcr art, 
 
 That formed this Fair sac far awa, 
 Gie body strength, and I'll ne'er start 
 
 At this my way sae far awa.
 
 272 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 How true is love to pure desert, 
 
 So love to her sae far awa ; 
 And nought can lieal my bosom's smart, 
 
 Wliile, oh, she is sae far awa. 
 Nane other love, nae other dart, 
 
 I feel, but hers sao far awa; 
 Eut fairer never touched a heart, 
 
 Than hers, the Fair sae far awa. 
 
 I'll aye ca' in by yon town. 
 
 I'll aye ca' in by yon town, 
 
 And by yon garden green again ; 
 
 I'll aye ca' in by yon town. 
 
 And see my bonnie Jean again. 
 
 There's nane sail ken, there's nane sail guess, 
 "What brings me back tlie gate again, 
 
 But she my fairest faithfu' lass, 
 And stowlins we sail meet a<rain. 
 
 She'll wander by the aiken tree, 
 
 When trystin' time draws near again ; 
 
 And when her lovely form I see, 
 O haith, she's doubly dear again. 
 
 BANNOCKS O' BARLEY. 
 TuxE— T/i« Killogie. 
 Bannocks o' bear-meal, 
 
 Bannocks o' barley ; 
 Here's to the Highlandman's 
 
 Bannocks o' barley ! 
 "Wha in a brulzie bron 
 
 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' 
 
 Tlie bannocks o' barley ! 
 Wha in his wac-days 
 
 Were loyal to Charlie ? — 
 Wha but the lads wi' 
 
 The bannocks o' barley ? 
 
 [Formed by Burns on the basis of a Jacobite song.]
 
 SONGS IMPROVED. 273 
 
 IT WAS a' for OVR RTGHTFt;' KIXG. 
 
 TcNK — // was a' for our rl(ihtf>i' King. 
 
 It was a' for our rightfu' king 
 
 We left fair Scotland's strand ; 
 It was a' for our riglitfu' 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, 
 My dear; 
 
 For I maun cross the main. 
 
 He turned him right, and round ahout 
 
 ITpon the Irish shore; 
 And ga'e his bridle-reins a shake, 
 
 Whh adieu for evernioi'e, 
 My d(!ar ; 
 
 With adieu for evermore. 
 
 The sodger from the wars returns. 
 
 The sailor frae the main ; 
 But I hae jiarted frae my love, 
 
 Never to meet again, 
 My dear ; 
 
 Never to meet again. 
 
 When day is gano, and night is come, 
 
 And a' folk bound to sleep ; 
 I tliinlc on him that's far awa', 
 
 The Ice-lang niglit, and weep, 
 My dear ; 
 
 The lee-lang night, and weep. 
 
 [The autliorsliip of this song may bo doubted. Allan Cunninsbam was of opinion, 
 tlittt Durns ' ratlior bcautiilod and amended some ancient strain which lie had 
 discovered, tlian wrote it wholly from his own licart and fancy.' Sec contlrnm- 
 tion of this in Ifolcs lu Johimoii's Museum, by .Mr David Laing.] 
 
 TIIK IIKillT.AM) WIDOWS LAMENT. 
 
 Oil, I am come to the low countrie, 
 
 Och-on, och-on, och-rie! 
 Without a penny in my purse. 
 To Iniy u meal to inc. 
 VOL. IV. R
 
 274 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 It was na sae in the Highland hills, 
 Och-on, och-on, och-rie ! 
 , Nae woman in the country wide 
 
 Sae happy was as me. 
 
 For then I had a score o' kye, 
 
 Och-on, och-on, och-rie ! 
 Feeding on yon hills so high, 
 
 And giving milk to me. 
 
 And there I had threescore o' yowes, 
 
 Och-on, och-on, och-rie .' 
 Skipping on yon bonnie knowes, 
 
 And casting woo' to me. 
 
 I was the happiest of the clan, 
 
 Sair, sair may I repine ; 
 For Donald was the brawest lad, 
 
 And Donald he was mine. 
 
 Till Charlie Stewart cam at last, 
 
 Sae far to set us free ; 
 My Donald's arm was wanted thei. 
 
 For Scotland and for me. 
 
 Their waefu' fate what need I tell ? 
 
 Right to the wrang did yield: 
 My Donald and liis country fell 
 
 Upon Culloden's field. 
 
 Oh, T am come to the low countrie, 
 
 Och-on, och-on, och-rie ! 
 Nae woman in the world wide 
 
 Sae wretched now as me. 
 
 [' This pathetic ballad was wholly composed by Burns for the Museum, unless we 
 except the exclamation: "Och-on, och-on, och-rie!" which appears in the old song 
 composed on the massacre of Glencoe, inserted in the first volume of the Mv^atm.' 
 —Slmhouse.'] 
 
 O STEER HER UP. 
 
 Tune— steer her up, and hand her gaun. 
 [The first four lines of this song are part of an old ditty .3 
 
 O steer her up and haud her gaun — 
 Her mother's at the mill, jo ; 
 
 And gin she winna take a man. 
 E'en let her take her will, jo :
 
 SONGS IMPROVED. 275 
 
 First shore her wi' a kindly kiss, threaten 
 
 And ca' another gill, jo; 
 And gin she take the thing amiss, 
 
 E'en let her flyte her fill, jo. scold 
 
 steer her up, and be na blate, bashful 
 
 And gin she take it ill, jo, 
 Then lea'e the lassie till her fate. 
 
 And time nae langer spill, jo : 
 Ne'er break your heart for ae rebute, 
 
 But think upon it still, jo ; 
 Then gin the lassie winna do't, 
 
 Ye '11 fin' anither will, jo. 
 
 WEE WILLIE GRAY. 
 
 Wee Willie Gray, and his leather wallet, 
 
 Peel a willow-wand, to be him boots and jacket ; 
 
 The rose upon the brier will be him trouse and doublet, 
 
 The rose upon the brier will be him trouse and doublet. 
 
 Wee Willie Gray and his leather wallet, 
 Twice a lilie flower will be liim sark and cravat ; 
 Feathers of a flie wad feather up liis bonnet, 
 Feathers of a flie wad feather up his bonnet. 
 [Written by Burns in imitation, and to the tune, of an old nursery-song.] 
 
 O AVE MY WIFE SHE DANG ME. 
 
 TcNE— IT/ Wife site c/a»fir me. 
 
 O aye my wife she dang me, beat 
 
 And aft my wife did bang mc. 
 If ye gie a woman a' her will, 
 
 Guid faith, she'll soon o'crgang ye. 
 On peace and rest my mind was bent, 
 
 And fool I was I married ; 
 But never honest man's intent 
 
 As cursedly miscarried. 
 
 Some sa'r o' comfort still at last, 
 
 When a' my days arc done, man ; 
 My pains o' hell on earth are past, 
 
 I'm sure o' bliss aboon, nuui. 
 O aye my wife she dang me, 
 
 And aft my wife did bang me, 
 If ye gie a wonuin a' her will, 
 
 Guid faith, she'll soon o'crgang ye.
 
 27ft 
 
 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 O GUID ALE COMES. 
 
 guid ale comes and guid ale goes, 
 Guid ale gars ine sell my hose, 
 Sell my hose and pawn my slioon; 
 Guid ale keeps my lieart aboon. 
 
 1 had sax owsen in a pleu^ h, 
 They drew a' wcel enough, 
 
 I selt them a' just ane by ane ; 
 Guid ale keeps my heart aboon. 
 
 ROBIN SIIURE IN IIAIRST, 
 CHORUS. 
 
 Eobin shure in bairst, 
 
 I shure wi' him ; 
 Fient a heuk had I, 
 
 Yet I stack by him. 
 
 I gaed up to Dunse, . 
 
 To warp a M'ab o' plaincn ; 
 At his daddie's yett, 
 
 Wha met me but Robin? 
 
 AYas na Eobin banid, 
 Though I was a cotter. 
 
 Played me sic a trick, 
 
 And me the eller's doclitcr ? 
 
 Robin promised me 
 
 A' my winter vittle ; 
 Fient haet he had but three 
 
 Goose feathers and a whittle. 
 
 SWEETEST MAY. 
 
 Sweetest May, let love inspire thee ; 
 Take a heart wliicli he desires thee; 
 As thy constant slave regard it; 
 For its faith and truth reward it. 
 
 Proof o' shot to birth or money, 
 
 Not the wealthy but the bonnie ; 
 Not high-l)orn, but noble-minded, 
 In love's silken band can bind it.
 
 SONGS I>rPROA'ED. 277 
 
 THERE WAS A BONNIE LASS. 
 
 There was a bonnie lass, and a bonnie, bonnio lass, 
 
 And she loed her bonnie laddie dear, 
 Till war's loud alarms tore her laddie frac her arms, 
 
 Wi' monie a sigh and a tear. 
 
 Over sea, over shore, where the cannons loudly roar, 
 
 He still was a stranger to fear ; 
 And nought could him quail, or his bosom assail, 
 
 But the bonnie l^ss he locd sac dear. 
 
 CROWDIE. 
 
 that I had ne'er been married, 
 
 I wad never had nae care ; 
 Isow I've gotten wife and bairns, 
 And they cry crowdie cvermair. 
 Ance crowdie, twice crowdie, 
 
 Three times crowdie in a day ; 
 Gin ye crowdie ony mair, 
 
 Yc'll crowdie a' my meal away. 
 
 Wacfu' want and hunger fley me, 
 
 Giowrin' by the haUan en'; 
 Sair I fecht them at the door. 
 
 But aye I 'ni eerie tliey come ben. 
 
 ['The first verse of this sotig is old; the second was written by Burns.' 
 Suuhoiuc.'}
 
 NOTES TO JOHNSON'S SCOTS MUSICAL MUSEUM. 
 
 [In the latter part of his life, Burns procured an interleaved copy of Johnson's 
 Scots Musical Museum, for the purpose of concentrating in that place his remarks 
 on Scottish songs and airs, and all that he knew of their authors. The copy thus 
 annotated he presented to Captain Riddel of Glenriddel, whose niece, Eliza Bayley, 
 of Manchester, latterly possessed it. Blost of the notes are merely indications of an 
 author's name, or of a simple fact respecting the locality or origin of the song. 
 Such of them as possess any general interest are here presented.] 
 
 O OPEN THE DOOR, LORD GREGORY. 
 
 It is somewhat singular, that in Lanark, Renfrew, Ayr, Wigton, 
 Kirkcudbright, and Dumfries sliircs, there is scarcely an old song or 
 tune which, from the title, &c., can be guessed to belong to, or be 
 the production of, these counties. This, I conjecture, is one of these 
 very few ; as the ballad, which is a long one, is called, both by tradi- 
 tion and in printed collections, The Lass of Lochryan, which I take 
 to be Lochryan, in Galloway. 
 
 CLOUT THE C.VLDRON. 
 
 A tradition is mentioned in the Bee, that the second Bishop 
 Chlsholm, of Dumblane, used to say, that if he were going to be 
 hanged, nothing would soothe his mind so much by the Avay as to 
 hear Clout the Caldron played. 
 
 I have met with another tradition, that the old song to this tune 
 
 liae ye ony pots or pans, 
 Or ony broken clianlers ? 
 
 was composed on one of the Kenmure family, in the cavalier times, 
 and alluded to an amour lie had, while under hiding, in the disguise 
 of an itinerant tinker. The air is also known by the name of The 
 Blacksmith OMcl his Apron, which, from the rhythm, seems to have 
 been a line of some old song to the tune.
 
 NOTES TO JOKNSON'S MUSICAL MUSEUIT. 279 
 
 SAW YE MY PEGGY? 
 
 This charming song is much older, and, indeed, superior to 
 Ramsay's verses, The Toast, as he calls them. There is another set 
 of the words, much older still, and which I take to be the original 
 one ; but though it has a very great deal of merit, it is not quite 
 ladies' reading. 
 
 The original words, for they can scarcely be called verses, seem to 
 be as follow — a song familiar from the cradle to every Scottish 
 ear :— 
 
 Saw ye my Maggie, 
 Saw ye my Maggie, 
 Saw ye my Maggie 
 
 T. inkin ' o'er the lea ? 
 
 High kilted was she, 
 High kilted was she, 
 High kilted was she, 
 
 Her coat aboon her knee, &c. 
 
 Though it by no means follows that the silliest verses to an air 
 must, for that reason, be the original song, yet I take this ballad, of 
 which I have quoted part,' to bo old verses. The two songs in 
 Ramsay, one of them evidently his own, are never to be met with in 
 the fireside circle of our peasantry ; whi'c that which I take to be 
 the old song is in every shepherd's mouth. Ramsay, I suppose, had 
 thought the old verses unworthy of a place in his collection. 
 
 THE FLOV/EUS OF EDINBUKGU. 
 
 This song is one of the many efAisions of Scots Jacobitism. The 
 title, Mowers of JUdinbnrr/li, has no manner of connection with the 
 present verses ; so I suspect there has been an older set of words, of 
 which the title is all that remains. 
 
 By the by, it is singular enough that the Scottish Muses were all 
 Jacobites. I have paid more attention to every description of Scots 
 songs than perhaps anybody living has done, and I do not recollect 
 one single stanza, or even the title, of tiie most trifling. Scots air, 
 which has the least panegyrical reference to the families of Nassau 
 or Brunswick, while tiierc are hundreds satirising them. Tins may 
 be thou'dit no panegyric on the Scots poets, but 1 mean it as such. 
 For myself, I would always take it as a compliment to liavc it said 
 that my heart ran before my head- and surely tlio gallant though 
 unfortunate house of Stuart, the kings of our fathers for so many 
 heroic ages, is a theme ....
 
 '280 LIFE AND WOKKS OF BURNS. 
 
 rVE, GAE RUB HER O'eR WI' STRAE. 
 
 It is self-evident, that the first four lines of this song arc part of a 
 song more ancient than lianisay's beautiful verses which are annexed 
 to thern. As music is tlie language of nature ; and poetry, particu- 
 larly songs, are always less or more localised (if I may be allowed 
 the verb) by some of tlie modifications of time and place, this is the 
 reason why so many of our Scots airs have outlived their original, 
 :iud pei'haps many subsequent sets of verses, except a single name, 
 or phrase, or sometimes one or two lines, simply to distinguish tlio 
 tunes by. 
 
 To this day, among people who know nothing of Ramsay's verses, 
 the following is the song, and all the song that ever I heard: — 
 
 Gin ye meet a boiinie lassie, 
 
 Gie her a kiss and let her gae ; 
 But gin ye meet a dirty hizzie, 
 
 Fye, gae rub her o'er wi' strae. 
 
 Fye, gae rub her, rub her, rub her, 
 
 Fye, gae rub her o"er wi' strae : 
 And gin ye meet a dirty hizzie, 
 
 Fye, gae rub her o'er wi' strae. 
 
 THE LAST TIME I CAME O ER THE MLIR. 
 
 [The last time I came o'er the muir, 
 
 I left my love behind me ; 
 Ye gods, what pains do I endure, 
 
 When saft ideas mind me, &c. ] 
 
 T?amsay found the first line of this song, which had been preserved 
 as tlic title of the cliarming air,' and then composed the rest of the 
 verses to suit that lino. This has always a finer effect than compos- 
 ing English words, or woi'ds with an idea foreign to the spirit of the 
 old title. AVhere old titles of songs convey any idea at all, it will 
 generally be found to be quite in the spirit of the air. 
 
 HIGHLAND I.ADDIE. 
 
 As this was a favourite theme with our later Scottish Muses, there 
 are several airs and songs of that name. That which I take to be 
 the oldest, is to be found in the Musical Museum, beginning, ' I hae 
 been at < 'rookie-den.' One reason for my thinking so is, that Oswald 
 lias it in his collection by the name of The A uld Highland Laddie. 
 It is also known by the name of J injlaii Johnnie, which is a well- 
 
 ' [The title of this air in the Skene manuscript, circa 1C20, is Alace that I cam 
 o'er Uu Muir, and le/l my Love behind hi«.]
 
 NOTES TO Johnson's musical museujt. 281 
 
 known song of four or five stanzas, and seems to be an earlier song 
 tlian Jacobite times. As a proof of tbis, it is little known to the 
 peasantry by the name of Highland Lculdie, while everybody knows 
 Jinjlan Johnnie. The song begins— 
 
 Jinglan John, the meikle man, 
 
 He met m' a lass was blithe and bonnie. 
 
 Another Highland Laddie is also in the Museian, vol. v., whicii I 
 take to be Ramsay's original, as he has borrowed the chorus, O ?;;// 
 bonnie Highland Lad, kc. It consists of three stanzas, besides the 
 chorus, and has humour in its composition — it is an excellent, but 
 somewhat licentious song. It begins — 
 
 As I cam o'er Cairney-ilount, 
 
 And down amang the blooming heather. 
 
 This air, and the common Highland Laddie, seem only to be 
 dift'erent sets. 
 
 Another Highland Laddie, also in the Museum, vol. v., is tlic tune 
 of several Jacobite fragments. One of these old songs to it, only 
 exists, as far as I know, in these four Hnes — 
 
 Whare hae ye been a' day, 
 
 Bonnie l.iddie, Highland laddie? 
 Down the back o' Bolls brae. 
 
 Courtin' Maggie, courtin' Maggie. 
 
 Another of this name is Dr Arne's beautiful air, called the new 
 Highlund Laddie, 
 
 FAIREST or THE FAIR. 
 
 It is too barefoced to take Dr Percy's charming song, and, by 
 moans of transposing a few English words into Scots, to otter to pass 
 it for a Scots song. I was not acquainted witli the editor until the 
 first volume was nearly finished, else, bad I known in time, 1 would 
 have prevented such an impudent absurdity. 
 
 THE BLArrUUlE o'T.' 
 
 The following is a set of this song, which was the earliest song I 
 remember to have got by heart. Wlien a ciiild, an old woman sang 
 it to inc, and I picked it up, every word, at first hearing: — 
 
 O Willy, weel I mind, I lent you my hand 
 To sing you a song whioh you did me commnnd ; 
 But my memory's so bad, 1 luid almost forgot 
 That you called it tlic gtnr and llu- blaitlirie o't. 
 
 > [' Shame fall the gear and the blad'ry o't,' Is the turn of an old Scottish son^, 
 spoken when a you>.g handsome girl marries an old man upon the account of hu. 
 wealth. - Kelly's iicoU I'roi\rbs, p. 290.]
 
 282 LIFE AND AVORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 I'll not sing about confusion, delusion, or pride, 
 I '11 sing about a laddie was for a virtuous bride ; 
 For virtue is an ornament tiiat time will never rot, 
 And preferable to gear and tlie blaithrie o't. 
 
 Though my lassie hae nae scarlets or silks to put on. 
 We envy not the greatest that sits upon the throne ; 
 I wad rather hae my lassie, though she cam in her smock, 
 Than a princess wi' the gear and the blaithrie o't. 
 
 Though we hae nae horses or menzie at command, 
 
 "We will toil on our foot, and we'll work wi' our hand ; 
 
 And when wearied without rest, we 'U find it sweet in any spot, 
 
 And we'U value not the gear and the blaithrie o't. 
 
 If we hae ony babies, we'll count them as lent ; 
 
 Hae we less, hae we mair, we will aye be content ; 
 
 For they say they hae mair pleasure that wins but a groat, 
 
 Than the miser wi' his gear and the blaithrie o't. 
 
 I'll not meddle wi' th' afifairs o' the kirk or tlie queen ; 
 They're nae matters for a sang, let them sink let them swim; 
 On your kirk I'U ne'er encroach, but I'll hold it still remote, 
 Sae tak this for the gear and the blaithrie o't. 
 
 MAY EVE, OR KATE OF ABERDEEN. 
 
 Kate of Aherdeen is, I believe, the work of poor Cunningham 
 the player, of whom the following anecdote, though told before, 
 <ieserves a recital: — A fat dignitary of the Church coming past 
 Cunningham one Sunday, as the poor poet was busy plying a fishing- 
 rod in some stream near Durham, his native county, his reverence 
 reprimanded Cunningham very severely for such an occupation on 
 such a day. The poor poet, with that inoffensive gentleness of 
 manners which was his peculiar characteristic, replied, that he 
 lioped God and his reverence would forgive his seeming profanity of 
 that sacred day, ' as he had no dinner to eat but tohat lay at the bottom 
 of that pool!' This, Mr Woods, the player, who knew Cunningham 
 well, and esteemed him much, assured me was true. 
 
 TWEED-SIDE. 
 
 [What beauties doth Flora disclose ! 
 
 How sweet are her smiles upon Tweed '. 
 Yet Mary's, still sweeter than those, 
 
 Both nature and fancy exceed. 
 Nor daisy, nor sweet blushing rose, 
 
 Nor all the gay flowers of the field, 
 Nor Tweed gliding gently througli those, 
 
 Such beauty and pleasure does yield, &c.] 
 
 In Ramsay's Tea-table Miscellany, he tells us that about thii-ty of
 
 NOTES TO JOHNSON'S MUSICAL MUSEUM. 283 
 
 the songs in that publication were the works of some young gentle- 
 men of his acquaintance, which songs are marked with the letters 
 D. C. &c. Old Mr Tytler of Woodhouselee, the worthy and able 
 defender of the beauteous Queen of Scots, told me that the songs 
 marked C. in the Tea-table, were the composition of a Mr Craw- 
 ford, of the house of Achnames, who was afterwards unfortunately 
 drowned coming from France. As Tytlor was most intimately 
 acquainted with Allan Ramsay, I think the anecdote may be depended 
 on. Of consequence, the beautiful song of Tweed-side is Mr Craw- 
 ford's, and, indeed, does great honour to his poetical talents. He 
 was a Robert Crawford ; the Mary he celebrates was a 3Iary Stewart, 
 of the Castle-Milk family, afterwards married to a Mr Jolm Eitchie.i 
 
 I have seen a song, calling itself the original Tweed-side, and said 
 to have been composed by a Lord Yester.^ It consisted of two 
 stanzas, of wliich I still recollect the first — 
 
 ^yhen Maggie and I was acquaint, 
 
 I carried my noddle fu' hie ; 
 Nae lintwhite on a' the green plain, 
 
 Nor gowdspink sae happy as me : 
 _ But I saw her sac fair, and I loed: 
 
 I wooed, but I cam nae great speed ; 
 So now I maun wander abroad. 
 
 And lay my banes far frae the Tweed. 
 
 tiieue's nae luck about the UOUSE. 
 
 Tliis is one of the most beautiful songs in the Scots or any other 
 lan^uajje. The two lines — ■ 
 
 And will I see his face again ? 
 And will I hear him speak ? 
 
 ,is well as tiic two preceding ones, arc unequalled almost by any tiling 
 I ever heard or read ; and the lines — 
 
 The present moment is our ain, 
 The neist we never saw, 
 
 are worthy of the first poet. It is long posterior to Ramsay's days. 
 About tlic year 1771, or '72, it came first on tlio streets as a ballad, 
 and, I suppose, the composition of the song was not much anterior 
 to tliat period. 
 
 1 this subicct in the new edition of Johnton'i Musical 2riisatm. Mr 
 J, autlior' of the beautiful pjustoral sonRS, Tuwdsiil,; and the lliith 
 was a younger son of Patrick Crawford, third son of David f'raw- 
 
 1 See notes on ' 
 Kobert Crawford, 
 
 aboon Traqiiair, was a youngc. 
 
 ford of Drumsoy. He died in 17.12, in the prime of life, unmarru-il. IJurns has 
 made a mistake in stating that he was of the house of Auchnamcs, and also in 
 giving Mary Stewart as his heroine. See below. 
 
 « Second Marquis of Twecddale. He died in 171.1, agcA sixty-eight.
 
 284 LIFE AND AVORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 MARY SCOTT, THE FLOWER OF YARROW. 
 
 Mr Robertson, in his statistical accomit of the parish of Selkirk, 
 says, that Mary Scott, tlie Flower of Yarrow, was descended from 
 tlie Dryliope, and married into the Harden family. Her daughter 
 was married to a predecessor of the present Sir Francis Elliot of 
 Stobs, and of tlie late Lord Heathfield. 
 
 There is a circumstance in their contract of marriage that merits 
 attention, and it strongly marks the predatory spirit of the times. 
 Tlie father-in-law agrees to keep his daughter for some time after 
 the marriage, for which the son-in-law binds himself to give him the 
 profits of the first Michaelmas moon ! i 
 
 THE BONNIE BRUCKET LASSIE. 
 
 [The bonnie bracket lassie, 
 
 She's blue beneath the een; 
 She was the faii-est lassie 
 
 That danced on the green : 
 
 A lad he locd her dearly, 
 
 She did his love return ; 
 But he his vows has broken, 
 
 And left her for to mourn, &c.] 
 
 The two first lines of this song are all of it that is old. The rest 
 of the song, as well as those songs in the Museum marked T, are the 
 works of an obscure, tippling, but extraordinary body of the name 
 of Tytlcr, commonly known by the name of lialloon Tytler, from 
 liis having projected a balloon — a mortal Avho, though he drudges 
 about Edinburgh as a common printer, v.ith leaky shoes, a sky- 
 lighted hat, and knee-buckles as unlike as George-by-the-grace-of- 
 God, and Solomon-the-son-of-David,yet that same unknown drunken 
 mortal is author and compiler of three-fourths of Elliot's pompons 
 Encydopcedia Britannica, which he composed at half a guinea 
 a week ! 
 
 ' The song to which Burns appended this note, was one by Robert Crawford, 
 pelebratini;:, not the Mary Scott of predatory times, who bore the name of the 
 J'lower of Yarrow, but a descendant of hers, who flourished in the early part of the 
 eighteenth century, Miss JIary I^ilias Scott, daughter of Walter Scott, Esq., of 
 Harden, and who was also styled the Flower of i'airuw. This lady was the true 
 ' Mary' of Tweedside.
 
 NOTES TO JOHNSON'S MUSICAL MUSEUM. 285 
 
 C ROM let's lilt. 
 
 [Since all thy vows, false maid, 
 
 Are blown to air, 
 And my poor heart betrayed 
 
 To sad despair, 
 Into some wilderness, 
 My grief I will express. 
 And thy hard-heartedness, 
 
 O cruel fair I ] 
 
 The following interestiiin^ account of this plaintive dirjje was 
 communicated to Mr Iliddel Jiy Alexander Fraser Tytlcr, Esq., of 
 AVoodhouselec :— 
 
 ' In tlie latter end of the sixteenth century, the Chisholms were 
 proprietors of tiie estate of Oronilix — now possessed by tlie 
 Drummonds. The eldest son of that family was very much attached 
 to a daughter of Stirling of Ardocli, commonly known by the name 
 of Fair Helen of Ardoch. 
 
 ' At that time, the opportunities of meeting betwixt the sexes were 
 more rare, consequently more sought after than now ; and the 
 Hcottish ladies, far from priding themselves on extensive literature, 
 were thought sufnciently book-learned if they could make out the 
 Scriptures in their mother-tongue. Writing was entirely out of the 
 line of female education. At that period, the most of our young 
 men of family sought a fortune, or i'ound a grave in France. 
 Cronilix, when lie went abroad to the war, was obliged to leave the 
 management of his correspondence with his mistress to a lay-brother 
 of tlie monastery of Dumblane, in the immediate neighbourhood 
 of Cromlix, and near Ardoch. Tiiis man, unfortunately, w;is 
 deeply sensible of Jlelen's charms. He artfully prepossessed her 
 with stories to the disadvantage of CronTlix, and, by misinterpreting 
 or keeping up the letters and messages intrusted to his care, he 
 entirely irritated both. All connection was broken off betwixt 
 them : Helen was inconsolable, and Cromlix has left behind him, in 
 the ballad called Cromht's Lilt, a proof of the elegance of his genius, 
 as well as the steadiness of his love. 
 
 'When the artful monk thought time had sufficiently softened 
 Helen's sorrow, he i)roposed himself as a lover. Helen was obdurate : 
 but at last, overcome by the persuasions of her brother, witli 
 whom she lived, and who, having a family of thirty-one children, 
 ■was probably very well pleased to get Iter off his hands, she 
 Kiibmitted, rather than consented, to the ceremony ; but there licr 
 compliance ended: and, when forcibly jnit into bed, she started 
 quite frantic from it, screaming out, that after three gentle tap.s on 
 the wainscot, at the bed-head, she heard ("romlix's voice, crying : 
 " Helen, Helen, mind me!" Cromlix soon after coming home, the 
 treachery of the confidant was discovered, her marriage annulled, 
 and Helen became Lady Croinli.x.' 
 
 iV.^.— Marg. Murray, mother to these tliirty-onc children, was
 
 28G LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 daughter to Murray of Strewn, one of the seventeen sons of Tully- 
 bardine, and whose youngest son, commonly called the Tutor of 
 Ardoch, died in the year 1715, aged 111 years. 
 
 lEM'IS GORDON. 
 
 [Oh ! send Lewie Gordon harae, 
 And the lad I maunna name ; 
 Though his back be at the wa', 
 Here's to him that's far awa! 
 
 O hon! my Highlandman, 
 
 O my bonnie Highlandman ! 
 
 Weel would I my true-love ken, 
 
 Amang ten thousand Highlandmen, &c.] 
 
 This air is a proof how one of our Scots tunes comes to he 
 composed out of another. I have one of the earliest copies of the 
 song, and it has prefixed. 
 
 Time of Tarrj Woo. 
 
 Of which tune a different set has insensibly varied into a different 
 air. To a Scots critic, the pathos of tlie line, 
 
 ' Though his back be at the wa",' 
 
 must be very striking. It needs not a Jacobite prejudice to be 
 affected with this song. 
 
 The supposed author of Leivid Gordon was a Mr Geddes, priest, at 
 Shenval, in the Enzie. 
 
 TRANENT-MUIR. 
 
 [The Chevalier, being void of fear, 
 
 Did march up Birsley Brae, man, 
 And through Tranent, ere he did stent, 
 
 As fast as he could gae, man, &c.i] 
 
 Tranent-Muir was composed by a Mr Skirving, a very worthy, 
 respectable farmer near Haddington. I have lieard the anecdote 
 often, that Lieut. Smith, whom he mentions in the ninth stanza, 
 came to Haddington after the publication of the song, and sent a 
 challenge to Skirving to meet him at Haddington, and answer for 
 the unworthy manner in which he had noticed him in his song. 
 ' Gang away back,' said the honest farmer, ' and tell Mr Smith that I 
 hae nae leisure to come to Haddington ; but tell him to come here, 
 and I'll tak a look o' him, and if I think I'm fit to fecht him, I'll 
 fecht him; and if no, I'll do as he did — Pll rin aioal 
 
 1 [The subject of this song is the battle of Preston, fought September 1745, 
 between the government forces under General Cope, and the Highland army imder 
 Prince Charles Stuart.]
 
 NOTES TO JOHNSON'S MUSICAL MUSEUM. 287 
 
 STREPHOX AND LYDIA. 
 
 [All lonely on the sultry beach, 
 
 Expiring Strephon lay, 
 No hand the cordial draught to reach. 
 
 Nor cheer the gloomy way. 
 Ill-fated youth I no parent nigh, 
 
 To catch thy fleeting breath, 
 No bride to fix tliy swimming eye, 
 
 Or smooth the face of death. 
 
 Far distant from the mournful scene. 
 
 Thy parents sit at ease, 
 Thy Lydia rifles all the plain, 
 
 And all the spring to please. 
 Ill-fated youth ! by fault of friend. 
 
 Not force of foe depressed. 
 Thou fall' St, alas ! thyself, thy kind. 
 
 Thy country, unredressed !] 
 
 The followhig account of this song I had from Dr Blacklock : — 
 The Strephon and Lydia mentioned in the song were perhaps tho 
 loveliest couple of their time. The gentleman was commonly known 
 by the name of Beau Gibson. The lady was the ' Gentle Jean ' 
 celebrated somewliere in Hamilton of Bangour's poems. Having 
 frequently met at public places, they had formed a reciprocal attach- 
 ment, which their friends thought dangerous, as their resources 
 were by no means adequate to their tastes and habits of life. To 
 elude the bad consequences of such a connection, Strephon was 
 sent abroad with a commission, and perished in Admiral Vernon's 
 expedition to Carthagena. 
 
 The author of tlie song Avas William AVallace, Esq., of Cairnhill, 
 in Ayrshire. 
 
 DUMBARTON DRUMS. 
 
 [Dumbarton's drums beat bonnie, O, 
 When they mind me o' my dear Johnnie, O. 
 
 How happy am I, 
 
 With my soldier sitting by. 
 When ho kisses and blesses liis Annie, <), &c.] 
 
 This is tlic last of tho West Highland airs ;i and from it over tho 
 whole tract of country to the confines of Tweed-side, there is hardly 
 a tune or song that one can say has taken its origin from any place 
 or transaction in that part of Scotland. The oldest Ayrshire reel is 
 Stetvarton Lasses, which was made by tho father of tho present Sir 
 
 1 [Burns argues, that it is a west country air, from ita reference to Dumbarton : 
 hut the probability is, that the drums alluded to wore Uiow of Dumbarton s 
 rcsimcnt— namely, "the Earl of Dumbarton.]
 
 288 LIFE AND WORKS OP BURNS. 
 
 Walter Montgomery Cunningliam, alias Lord Lysle; since which 
 period there has indeed been local music in that county in great 
 plenty. Johnnie Faa is the only old song which I could ever trace 
 as belonging to the extensive county of Ayr. 
 
 KIRK WAD LET ME BE. 
 
 [[ am a puir silly aultl man, 
 
 And hirpling o'er a tree, 
 Yet fain, fain kiss wad I, 
 
 An the kirk wad let me be, &c.] 
 
 Tradition in the western parts of Scotland tells that this old song, 
 of which there are still three stanzas extant, once saved a Covenant- 
 ing clergyman out of a scrape. It was a little prior to tlie Ilevolution, 
 a period when being a Scots Covenanter was being a felon, that one 
 of tlieir clergy, who was at that very time hunted by tlio merciless 
 soldiery, full in by accident with a party of the militaiy. The 
 soldiers were not exactly acquainted with the person of the reverend 
 gentleman of wliom they were in search; but from suspicious 
 circumstances, tlicy fancied tliat tlicy had got one of that clotli and 
 opprobrious persuasion among them in the person of this stranger. 
 'Mass John,' to extricate himself, assumed a freedom of manners 
 very unlike the gloomy strictness of his sect ; and among other 
 convivial exliibitions, sang — and some traditions say, composed on 
 the spur of the occasion — Kivh tvad let me he, with such effect, that 
 
 the soldiei's swore he was a d honest fellow, and that it was 
 
 impossible /t'j could belong to those liellish conventicles, and so gave 
 liim liis liberty. 
 
 The fii'st stanza of this song, a little altered, is a favourite kind of 
 dramatic interlude acted at country-weddings, in the south-west 
 parts of the kingdom. A young fellow is dressed up like an old 
 beggar ; a peruke, commonly made of carded tow, represents hoary 
 locks; an old bonnet; a ragged j)laid, or siirtout, bound with a 
 straw-rope for a girdle ; a pair of old shoes, with straw-ropes twisted 
 round his ankles, as is done by shepherds in snowy weather: his 
 face they disguise as like wretched old age as they can. In this 
 plight he is brought into the wedding-house, frequently to the 
 astonishment of strangers, who are not in the secret, and begins to 
 sing— 
 
 [Oh, I am a silly auld man, 
 My name it is auld Glenae, ' &c.] 
 
 He is asked to drink, and by and by to dance, which, after some 
 uncouth excuses, he is prevailed on to do, the fiddler plaj'ing the 
 •tune which here is commonly called Auld Glenae: in short, he is all 
 
 ' Glenae, on the small river Ae, in Annandale; the scat and designation of an 
 ancient branch, and the present representative, of the gallant and unfortunate 
 Dalzels of Carnwath. (This is the Author's note.)
 
 NOTES TO JOHNSON'S MUSICAL MUSEUM. 289 
 
 the time so plied with liquor, tluit he is understood to get intoxicated, 
 and, with all the ridiculous gesticulations of an old drunken beggar, 
 he dances and staggers until he falls on the floor ; yet still in all his 
 riot, nay, in his rolling and tumbling on the Hoor, with some other 
 drunken motions of his body, he beats time to the music, till at last 
 lie is supposed to be carried out dead drunk. 
 
 TUNE YOUR FIDDLES. 
 
 [[Tune your fiddles, tune them sweetly, 
 Play the Slarquis' reel discreetly, 
 Here are we a band completely, 
 
 Fitted to be jolly. 
 Come, my boys, be blithe and gaucy. 
 Every youngster choose his lassie, 
 Dance wi' lil'o, and be not saucy, 
 
 Shy nor melancholy, ic.] 
 
 Tliis song was composed by the Eev. John Skinner, Nonjuror 
 Clerjjyman at Linshart, near Peterhead. He is likewise author 
 of TuUochfjorum, Eivie wi' the Crooked Horn, John o' Badenyond, &c. ; 
 and wliat is of still more consequence, he is one of the worthiest of 
 mankind. He is tlie author of an ecclesiastical history of Scotland. 
 The air is by Mr Marshall, butler to the Duke of Gordon, the first 
 composer of strathspeys of the age. I have been told by somebody, 
 who had it of Marshall himself, that he took the idea of his three 
 most celebrated pieces. The Marquis of IIuntle;/'s Reel, his Farewell, 
 and Miss Admiral Gordon's Heel, from the old air, 'The German 
 Lairdie. 
 
 GIL MOUICE. 
 
 This plaintive ballad ought to have been called Child Minirir<^, 
 and not Gil Moricr. In its present dress, it has gained immortal 
 honour from Mr Home's taking from it the groundwork of his 
 fine tragedy of Dumjlas. 15ut I am of opinion, that the jircscnt 
 ballad is a modern composition; pcrhai)s not much above the ago 
 of the middle of the last century ; at least I should be glad to seo 
 or hear of a cojiy of the present word.s prior to lOoO. Tiiat it wa.s 
 taken from an old ballad, called Child Maurice, now lost, I nm 
 inclined to believe; but the present one may be clas.scd with 
 JIardijknutc, Kenndh, iJunran, the Laird vf Woodhoiiselir, Lord 
 Livingston, Binnorie, The Death of Monteith,iuu\ many otiiur modern 
 ])roductions, which Iiavo been swallowed by nuiny readers as 
 ancient fragjucnts of old poems. This beautiful plaintive tune 
 was composed by -Mr jrUibbon, the selector of a collection of 
 Scots tunes. 
 
 In addition to the observations on Gil Morice, I add that of 
 
 VOL. IV.
 
 290 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 the songs wliicli Capt. Eiddel mentions, Kennetli .ind Duncan 
 are juvenile compositions of Mr Mackenzie, ' The Man of Feeling.' 
 Mackenzie's fatlier sliewed them in MS. to Dr Blacklock, as the 
 productions of his son, from which the doctor rightly prognosticated 
 that the young poet would make, in his more advanced years, a 
 respectable figure in the world of letters. 
 This I had from Blacklock. 
 
 TULLOCHGORUM. 
 
 r'Come, gie's a sang,' Montgomery cried, 
 ' And lay your disputes all aside ; 
 "What signifies 't for folks to chide 
 
 For what was done hefore them : 
 Let "Wliig and Tory all agree, 
 
 Whig and Tory, Whig and Tory, 
 Whig and Tory all agree. 
 
 To drop their Whig-mig-morum. 
 Let Whig and Tory all agree 
 To spend the night \\i' mirth and glee, 
 And cheerful sing alang wi' me. 
 
 The reel o' Tullochgoriim,' &c.] 
 
 This first of songs is the masterpiece of my old friend Skinner. 
 He was passing the day at the town of Ciillen, I think it was,^ in 
 a friend's house, whose name was Montgomery. Mrs Montgomery 
 observing, e7i x>assant, that the beautiful reel of Tullochgoriim wanted 
 words, she begged them of Mr Skinner, who gratified her wishes, 
 and the Avishes of every lover of Scottish song, in this most excellent 
 ballad. 
 
 These particulars I had from the author's son, Bishop Skinner, 
 at Aberdeen. 
 
 A SOUTHLAND JENNY. 
 
 [A Southland Jenny that was right bonnie. 
 
 She had for a suitor a Norlan* Johnnie ; 
 
 But he was sicken a bashfu' wooer, 
 
 That he could scarcely speak unto her. 
 
 But blinks o' lier beauty, and hopes o' her siller, 
 
 Forced him at last to tell his mind till'er ; 
 
 ' My dear,' quo' he, ' we '11 nae longer tarry ; 
 
 Gin ye can love me, let's o'er the mmr and marry,' &c.] 
 
 This is a popular Ayrshire song, though the notes were never 
 taken down before. It, as well as many of the ballad tunes in this 
 collection, was written from Mrs Burns's voice. 
 
 ' [In reality, the town of Ellon, in Aberdeenshire.]
 
 NOTES TO JOKXSON'S MUSICAL MUSEUM. 291 
 
 o'er the moor amang the heather. 
 
 [Coming through the craigs o' Kyle, 
 Amang the bonnie blooming heather, 
 There I met a bonnie lassie. 
 Keeping a' her yowes thegither. 
 
 O'er the moor amang the heather, 
 
 O'er the moor amang the heather. 
 
 There I met a bonnie lassie. 
 
 Keeping a' her yowes thegither, &c.] 
 
 This song is the composition of a Jean Glover, a girl who %vas not 
 
 only a , but also a thief j and, in one or other character, has 
 
 visited most of the correction-houses in the West. She was horn, 
 I believe, in Kilmarnock. I took the song down from her smging, 
 as she was strolling through the country with a slcight-of-hand 
 blackguard. 
 
 the tears I SHED MUST EVER FALL. 
 
 This song of genius was composed by a Miss Cranston.^ It wanted 
 four lines to make all the stanzas suit the music, which I added, and 
 are the four first of the last stanza. 
 
 No cold approach, no altered mien. 
 
 Just what would make suspicion start ; 
 No pause the dire extremes between, 
 
 He made me blest— and broke my heart ! 
 
 BOB O' DUMBLANE. 
 
 Ramsay, as usual, has modernised this song. The original, which 
 I learned on the spot, from my old hostess, in the principal inn 
 there, is — 
 
 Lassie, lend me your brew hemp heckle, 
 
 And I'll lend you my thrippliu-kame ; 
 My heckle is broken, it canna be gotten. 
 
 And wc '11 g;ie dance the bob o" Dumblanc, &.C. 
 
 I insert tliis song to introduce the following anecdote, which I 
 have heard well authenticated :— In the evening of tlie day of tho 
 battle of Dumblanc (Shcriffinuir), when the action was over, a Scots 
 officer in Argyle's army observed to his Grace, that ho was afraid 
 the rebels would give out to the worUl that /!n >/ had gotten the 
 victory. ' Weel, weel,' returned his Grace, alluding to the foregoing 
 ballad, 'if they tliiuk it bo na weel bobbit, we'll bob it again.' 
 
 > [Afterwards Mrs Dugald Stewart.]
 
 PROSE ARTICLES UNPLACED. 
 
 ADDKESS OF THE SCOTCH DISTILLERS TO THE PaGHT HONOURABLE 
 
 WILLIAM riTT. 
 
 Sir — While pursy burgesses crowd your gate, sweating under the 
 weight of heavy addresses, permit us, the cpiondani distillers iu tliat 
 part of Great Britain called Scotland, to approach you, not with 
 venal approbation, but witli fraternal condolence; not as what you 
 are just now, or for some time have been, but as what, in all proba- 
 bility, you will shortly bo. We shall have the merit of not desert- 
 ing our friends in the day of tlieir calamity, and you will have the 
 satisfaction of perusing at least one honest address. You are well 
 acquainted with the dissection of human nature ; nor do you need 
 the assistance of a fellow-creature's bosom to inform you, that man 
 is always a selfish, often a perfidious being. This assertion, how- 
 ever tlie hasty conclusions of superficial observation may doubt of 
 it, or the raw inexperience of youth may deny it, those who make 
 the fatal experiment we have done, will feel. You are a statesman, 
 and consequently are not ignorant of the traffic of these corporation 
 compliments. The little great man who drives the borough to 
 market, and the very great man who buys the borough in that 
 market, they two do the whole business; and you well know, they, 
 likewise, have their price. With that sullen disdain which you can 
 so well assume, rise, illustrious sir, and spurn these hireling efforts 
 of venal stupidity. At best, they are the compliments of a 
 man's friends on the morning of his execution : they take a decent 
 farewell ; resign you to your fate ; and hurry away from your 
 ajiproaching hour. 
 
 If fame say true, and omens be not very much mistaken, you are 
 about to make your exit from that world where the sun of gladness 
 gilds the paths of prosperous men : permit iis, great sir, with the 
 sympathy of fellow-feeling, to hail your passage to the realms of ruin. 
 
 Whether the sentiment proceed from the selfishness or cowardice 
 of mankind, is immaterial; but to point out to a cliild of misfortune 
 those who are still more induippy, is to give him some degree of 
 positive enjojonent. In this light, sir, our downfall may be again 
 useful to you : though not exactly in the same way, it is not perliaps 
 the first time it has gratified your feelings. It is true, tlie triinnjih 
 of your evil star is exceedingly despiteful. At an age when others
 
 PROSE ARTICLES UNPLACED. 293 
 
 are the votaries of pleasure, or underlings in business, yon had 
 attained the liighest wisli of a British statesman ; and witli the 
 ordinary date of human life, what a prospect was before you ! Deeply 
 rooted in jw/aZ/aroi/j-, you overshadowed the land. The birds of 
 passage which follow ministerial sunshine through every clime of 
 political faith and manners, flocked to your brandies; and the beasts 
 of the field (the lordly possessors of hills and valleys) crowded under 
 your shade. ' But behold a watcher, a holy one, came down from 
 heaven, and cried aloud, and said thus: Hew down tiie tree, and cut 
 off his brandies; shake off his leaves, and scatter his fruit; let the 
 beasts get away from imdcr it, and the fowls from his branches ! ' 
 A blow from an nuthonght-of <iuarter, one of those terrible accidents 
 ■which peculiarly mark the hand of Omnipotence, overset your 
 career, and laid all your fancied honours in the dust. But turn your 
 eves, sir, to the tragic scenes of our fate. An ancient nation, that 
 for many ages had gallantly maintained the uneipial struggle for 
 independence with her much more powerful neighbour, at last 
 agrees to a union which should ever after make them one people. In 
 consideration of certain circumstances, it was covenanted that the 
 former should enjoy a stipulated alleviation in her share of the 
 public burdens, particularly in that branch of the revenue called the 
 Excise. This just privilege has of late given great umbrage to some 
 interested, powerful individuals of the more potent part of the 
 empire, and tliey have spared no wicked pains, under insidious 
 pretexts, to subvert what they dared not openly to attack, from the 
 dread which they yet entertained of the spirit of their ancient 
 enemies. 
 
 In this conspiracy we fell ; nor did we alone suffer— our country 
 was deeply wounded. A number of (we will say) respectable indi- 
 viduals, largely engaged in trade, Avhere we were not only useful, 
 but absolutely necessary to our country in her dearest interests: we, 
 with all that was near and dear to us, were sacrificed without 
 remorse to the infernal deity of political expediency! We fell to 
 gratify the wishes of dark envy, and the views of unprinciiiled 
 ambition ! Your foes, sir, were avowed ; were too brave to take an 
 nngenerous advantage: you fell in the face of day. On the contrary, 
 our enemies, to complete our overthrow, contrived to make their 
 guilt ajipcar the villainy of a nation. Your downfall only drags with 
 you your private friends and partisans: in our misery are more or 
 lesrs involved the most mimurous and most valuable part of the 
 community— all those who immediately dejiond on the cultivation 
 of the soil, from the laudlonl of a province down to bis lowest hind. ^ 
 
 Allow us, sir, vet further, just to liint at aiiotlier rich vein of 
 comfort in the dreary regions of adversity— the gratulations of an 
 approving conscience. In a certain great a.ssembly, of wliicli you 
 are a distinguished memlior, i>anegyrics on your jjrivate virtues h.-ivo 
 so often wounded your delicacy, that we shall not distress you with 
 anything on the subject. There is, however, one i)art of your 
 public conduct which our feelings will not permit us to pass in
 
 294 LIFE AND WOEKS OF BURNS. 
 
 silence; our gratitude must trespass on your modesty: we mean, 
 worthy sir, your whole behaviour to the Scots distillers. In e^dl 
 hours, when obtrusive recollection presses bitterly on the sense, let 
 that, sir, come like a healing angel, and speak the peace to your 
 soul which the world can neither give nor take away. We have 
 the honour to be, sir, your sympathising fellow-sulFerers and grateful 
 humble servants, John Barleycorn, Frcesss. 
 
 TO MR ALEXANDER FINDLATER, 
 
 SUPERVISOK OP EXCISE, DUMFRIES. 
 
 Sir — Enclosed are the two schemes, I would not have troubled 
 you with the collector's one, but for suspicion lest it be not right. 
 Mr Erskine promised me to make it right, if you will have the 
 goodness to shew him how. As I have no copy of the scheme for 
 myself, and the alterations being very considerable from what it was 
 formerly, I hope that I shall have access to this scheme I send you 
 when I come to face up my nev*'^ books. So much for schemes. And 
 that no scheme to betray a friend, or mislead a stranger; to 
 seduce a young girl, or rob a hen-roost; to subvert liberty, or 
 bribe an exciseman; to disturb the general assembly, or annoy a 
 GOSSIPPING ; to overthrow the credit of orthodoxy, or the authority 
 of OLD songs; to oppose your wishes, or frustrate my hopes — may 
 prosper — is the sincere wish and prayer of K. B.
 
 PIECES DOUBTFULLY ATTRIBUTED TO BURNS. 
 
 THE HERMIT. 
 
 ■WRITTEN OX A MARBLE SIDEBOARD, IX THE HEKMITAGE BELOXGIXG TO THE DVKE OF 
 ATHOLE, IM THE WOOD OF AEEHTELDT. 
 
 Whoe'er thou art, these lines now reading, 
 Think not, though from the world receding, 
 I joy my lonely days to lead in 
 
 Tliis desert drear ; 
 That fell remorse a conscience bleeding 
 
 Hath led me here. 
 
 No thought of guilt my bosom sours ; 
 Free-will'd I fled from courtly bowers ; 
 For well I saw in halls and towers 
 
 That lust and pride, 
 The arch-fiend's dearest, darkest powers, 
 
 In state preside. 
 
 I saw mankind with vice incrusted ; 
 I saw that honour's sword was rusted ; 
 That few for aught but folly lusted; 
 That he was still deceived who trusted 
 
 To love or friend ; 
 And hither came, with men disgusted, 
 
 My life to end. 
 
 In this lone cave, in garments lowly, 
 
 Alike a foe to noisy folly. 
 
 And brow-bent gloomy melancholy, 
 
 I wear away 
 My life, and in my office holy 
 
 Consume the day. 
 
 This rock my shield, when storms arc blowing, 
 The limpid streamlet yonder flowing 
 Supplying drink, tlic earth bestowing 
 
 My simple food ; 
 But few enjoy the calm I know in 
 
 This desert wood.
 
 296 LIFE AKD WORKS OF BUKNS. 
 
 Content and comfort bless me more in 
 
 This grot, than e'er I felt before in 
 
 A palace — and with thoughts still soaring 
 
 To God on higli, 
 Each night and morn with voice imploring, 
 
 This wish I sinrh : 
 
 ' Let me, Lord ! from life retire, 
 Unknown each guilty worldly fire, 
 Eemorse's throb, or loose desire ; 
 
 And when I die. 
 Let me in this belief expire — 
 
 To God I fly.' 
 
 Stranger, if full of youth and riot. 
 And yet no grief has marred thy qniet. 
 Thou haply throw'st a scornful eye at 
 
 The hermit's prayer — 
 But if thou liast good cause to sigh at 
 
 Thy fault or care ; 
 
 If thou hast known false love's vexation. 
 Or hast been exiled from thy nation, 
 Or guilt affrights thy contemplation. 
 
 And makes thee pine. 
 Oh ! how must thou lament thy station, 
 
 And envy mine ! 
 
 THE VOAVELS: 
 
 'Twas where the birch and sounding thong ai-e plied, 
 
 The noisy domicile of pedant pride ; 
 
 Where Ignorance her darkening vapour tlirows. 
 
 And Cruelty directs the thickening blows ; 
 
 Upon a time, Sir Abece the great. 
 
 In all his pedagogic powers elate. 
 
 His awful chair of state resolves to mount, 
 
 And call the trembling vowels to account. 
 
 First entered A, a grave, broad, solemn wight, 
 But, ah! deformed, dishonest to the sight! 
 His twisted head looked backward on his way, 
 And flagrant from the scourge he grunted, ai! 
 
 Reluctant, E stalked in ; with piteous race 
 The justling tears ran down his honest face!
 
 PIECES DOUBTFULLY ATTEIBUTED TO BURNS. 297 
 
 That name, that woU-worn name, and all his own, 
 Palo he surrenders at the tyrant's throne ! 
 Tlie pedant stifles keen the Konian sound 
 Kot all his moii]f;rcl diphthongs can compound ; 
 And next the title foUowintj close behind. 
 He to the nameless, ghastly -wretch assigned. 
 
 Tlie cohwehbed Gothic dome resoimded, Y! 
 In sullen vengeance, I, disdained reply : 
 The pedant swung his felon cudgel round, 
 And knocked the groaning vowel to the ground! 
 
 In rueful apprehension entered 0, 
 
 The wailing minstrel of despairing wo ; 
 
 Til' Inquisitor of Spain the most expert, 
 
 Might there have learnt new mysteries of his art; 
 
 So grim, deformed, with horrors entering, U 
 
 His dearest friend and brother scarcely knew ! 
 
 As trembling U stood staring all aghast, 
 The pedant in iiis left hand clutched him fast, 
 In helpless infants' tears he dipped his right. 
 Baptised him eu, and kicked him from his sight. 
 
 ON PASTORAL POETRY. 
 
 Hail Pocsic ! thou Nymph reserved ! 
 
 In chase o' thee, what crowds hae swerved 
 
 Frae common-sense, or sunk cnnerved 
 
 'JMaug heaps o' clavcrs; babblings 
 
 And och ! ower aft thy joes hae starved, 
 
 ilid a' "thy favours ! 
 
 Say, Lassie, why thy train amang. 
 While loud, the trump's heroic clang, 
 And sock or buskin skelp aUuig 
 
 To death or marriage ; 
 Scarce anc has tried the shepherd-sang 
 
 But wi' miscarriage ? 
 
 In Homer's craft Jock I\IiUon thrives; 
 Eschvlus' pen Will Shakspeare drives ; 
 ■\Vec'Popc, the knurlin, 'till liim rives dwarf 
 
 Iloratian fame ; 
 In thy sweet sang, Barbauld, survives 
 
 E'eu Sappho's flame.
 
 298 LIFE AND WOEKS OF BURNS. 
 
 But thee, Theocritus, wha matches ? 
 They're no herd's ballats, Maro's catches ; 
 Squh'e Pope but busks his skinldia patclies 
 
 O' heathen tatters : 
 I pass by hunders, nameless wretches, ■ 
 
 That ape their betters. 
 
 In this braw age o' wit and !ear. 
 Will uane the Shepherd's whistle mair 
 Blaw sweetly in its native air 
 
 And rural grace ; 
 And wi' the far-famed Grecian share 
 
 A rival place ? 
 
 Yes ! there is aue ,• a Scottish callan — 
 
 There 's aiu ; come forrit, honest Allan ! 
 
 Thou need na jouk behint the liallan, skulk door 
 
 A chiel sae clever ; 
 The teeth o' time may gnaw Tantallan, 
 
 But thou's for ever! 
 
 Thou paints auld nature to the nines, 
 
 In tliy sweet Caledonian lines ; 
 
 Nae gov.'den stream through myrtles twines, 
 
 "Where Philomel, 
 WhUe nightly breezes sweep the vines. 
 
 Her griefs will tell ! 
 
 In gowany glens thy burnie strays, 
 Whei'e bonnie lasses bleach their clacs ; 
 Or trots by hazelly shaws and braes, 
 
 Wi' hawthorns grey. 
 Where blackbirds join the shepherd's lays 
 
 At close o' day. 
 
 Thy rural loves are nature's sel' ; 
 
 Nae bombast spates o' nonsense swell ; floods 
 
 Nae snap conceits, but that sweet spell 
 
 0' witchin' love ; 
 That charm that can the strongest quell, 
 
 The sternest move.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 No. 13.— PiEPUTATlOX OF BuRNS IX HIS LaTTER YeARS. 
 
 ' A bent tree is not to be drawn as a straight one ; or the truth of history 
 vanishes, and its use as a discipline of knowledge and of wLsdom. Hence the 
 representation of my friend's life is unsatisfactory. By the omission of certain 
 portions, it might easily have been made to appear more satisfactory ; but then it 
 would have been a lie : and every lie — O that people woiUd believe it ! — is at best 
 , but a whited sepulchre.' — Hare's Life of Sterling. 
 
 The habits of Burns during his latter years in Dumfries have been 
 the subject of much controversy, and two very decided views of the 
 matter have been tal^cn. Wc hear, on the one hand, of a life of dissi- 
 pation. Dr Currie, whose wish was to speak as mildly as might bo 
 possible without calling forth exposures by the enemies of the poet, 
 uses the expression : ' Perpetually stimulated by alcohol in one or 
 other of its various forms.' And he adds : ' He who suffers the pollu- 
 tion of inebriation, how shall he escape other pollution V Even tlio 
 notice of Burns's death, which appeared in the most respectable of 
 the Edinburgh newspapers, contains this sentence : ' The public, to 
 whoso amusement he has so largely contributed, will learn with 
 regret, that his cxtraordinaiy endowments were accompanied with 
 frailties which rendered them useless to himself and his family.' 
 Heron, who wrote the first memoir of the poet's life, says : ' In 
 Dumfries, liis dissipation became still more habitual [that is, than it 
 
 had been in the country] The morals of the town were not 
 
 a littlo con*upted, and, though a husband and a fatiicr. Burns did not 
 escape suffering by the general contamination, in a manner which I 
 forbear to describe.' On the other hand, strong testimonies in favour 
 of Burns's conduct during this period have been set forth by his 
 superior officer, Mr Alexander Findlater, and by tho Reverend James 
 Gray, who was schoolmaster to the poet's sons. 
 
 Mr Findlater s.ays : 'My connection with Robert Burns commenced 
 immediately after his admission into the E.\cisc, and continued to 
 the hour of his death. In all that time, the superintendence of his 
 behaviour, as an officer of the revenue, wa.s a branch of my especial 
 province, and it may bo supposed I would not bo an inattentive 
 observer of the general conduct of a man and a poet so celebrated 
 by his countrymen. In the former capacity, ho was exemplary in 
 his attention ; and was even jealous of tho least imputation on his
 
 300 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 vigilance it was not till near the end of his days that there was 
 
 any falling off in this respect ; and this was amply accounted for by 
 the pressm-e of disease and acciunulating infirmities. I Avill further 
 avow, that I never saw him— which was very frequently while he 
 lived at Ellisland, and still more so after he removed to IDumfries — • 
 but in hours of business he was quite himself, and capable of discharg- 
 ing the duties of his office : nor was he ever known to drink by him- 
 self, or seen to indulge in the use of liquor in a forenoon That 
 
 when set down in an evening with a few friends whom he liked, he 
 was apt to prolong the social hour beyond tiie bounds which prudence 
 would dictate, is uncpiestionable ; but in his family, I will venture to 
 say, ho was never seen otherwise than attentive and affectionate in a 
 high degree.' 
 
 Jlr Gray's testimony is to much the same purpose. He was inti- 
 mate with Burns in his last years, and saw him frequently. ' It is 
 not to be denied,' says Mr Gray, ' that he sometimes mingled with 
 society unworthy of him. He was of a social and convivial nature. 
 He was courted by all classes of men for the fascinating powci'S of 
 his conversation, but over his social scene uncontrolled passion never 
 
 presided Burns was seldom intoxicated. The drunkard soon 
 
 becomes besotted, and is shunned even by the convivial. Had he 
 been so, he could not long have continued the idol of every party. 
 It came under my own view professionally, that he superintended 
 the education of his children with a detrree of care that I have never 
 seen surpassed by any parent in any rank of life whatever. In the 
 bosom of lus family, he spent many a delightfid hour in directing 
 the studies of his eldest son, a boy of uncommon talents. I have 
 frequently found him explaining to this youth, tlien not more than 
 nine years of age, the English poets from Shakspeare to Gray, or 
 stoi'ing his mind with examples of heroic virtue, as they live in the 
 pages of our most celebrated English historians. I would ask any 
 person of common cajidour, if employments like these are consistent 
 with liabitual drunkenness?'^ 
 
 ' ' 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, lil^c most parents, tliink it sufficient to send 
 them to jjublic 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 as a sacred 
 duty, and never, to the period of his last illness, relaxed in his diligence. With 
 his eldest son, a boy of not more than nine years of age, he had read many of the 
 favourite poets, and some of the best historians in our language : and what is more 
 remarkable, gave him considerable aid in the study of Latin. This boy attended 
 the Grammar School of Uimifries, and soon attracted my notice by the strength of 
 his talent and the ardour of his amliition. Before he had been a year at school, 
 I thought it right to advance liiin a form, and he began to read Caesar, and gave 
 me translations of that author of such beauty as I confess surprised me. On inquiry, 
 I found that his father made him turn over his dictionary, till he was able to ti-ans- 
 late to him the pa,ssage in such a way that he could gather the author's meaning, 
 and that it was to him he owed that polished and forcible English with which I was 
 so greatly struck. I have mentioned this incident merely to shew what minute 
 attention he paid to this important branch of parental duty.' — Letter from the 
 Reverend James (irai/ to Mr Gilbert Burns. See his edition, vol. i. Appendix, No. v.
 
 APPENDIX. 301 
 
 The poet's widow was amongst the most earnest of his defenders. 
 Whatever miglit have been the aberrations of J5urns on some points 
 deeply concerning conjugal peace, liis amiable partner had no charge 
 to make against him. The penitence lie had himself expressed, and 
 the invariable tenderness of his conduct towards herself, had saved 
 liim from all reprobation in that quarter. Sirs Burns always repre- 
 sented the convivial habits of her husband as greatly exaggerated by 
 report. She asserted, that she had never once known him return 
 home at night so greatly affected by liquor but that he was able, as 
 usual, to see that the house was secure, and to take off his own clothes 
 without assistance. 
 
 To the perplexity arising from all this conflicting testimony, the 
 conduct of Mr Gilbert Burns adds not a little. When Dr Ciirrie's 
 memoir came out, the brother of the poet expressed himself as 
 perfectly satisfied with it, and for several years he uttered no remon- 
 strance against the admissions M-hich it had made with respect to 
 Ilobert iJurns's habits. In 1816, ho announced his intention of enter- 
 ing a defence of his brother against the unjust or exaggerated 
 picture which Dr Currie had drawn ; and when this announcement 
 drev/ a somewhat indignant notice from Mr Koscoe, as the friend 
 of the late Dr Currie, Gilbert accounted for the apparent incon- 
 sistency of his conduct by saying that, having seen little of his 
 brother for some years, and consequently knowing little about his 
 liabits at Dumfries, he had been unable to say anything in contradic- 
 tion of what Dr Currie had stated; but now, knowing from the 
 testimony of Mr Findlater and Mr Gray that the poet had been 
 misrepresented, he felt it to be his duty, with all grateful deference 
 to the memory of the biographer, to vindicate his brother's memory. 
 He acted upon this feeling of duty by publishing, in his edition of 
 the poet's works in 1820, the letters of Mr Findlater and Mr Gray, 
 as being all-sufficient to clear the name of Bobert Burns from the 
 stigma which had been fastened upon it by Currie. 
 
 The same defensive tone has been assumed by various subsequent 
 writers, and by none with greater force of language than by Professor 
 Wilson. 1 Indeed, the modern fashion is to write of Burns as if lie 
 liad been a man of compai-atively temperate and pure life, who had 
 been remarkably unfoi-tuuate in his early biographers. 
 
 The subject is a diHicult and a critical one; but 1 believe it may 
 be possible to admit the truth of what is directly advanced by Find- 
 later and Gray, and yet to see that the original rej)reficntations of 
 Eurns's character were not so unfaithful to truth as has l>een assumed. 
 
 It is, I believe, incontestalilc, that Burns was a good and tflicient 
 officer, always fit for duty during the business ))art of the day, never 
 known to drink by himself or to indulge in li(iuor in the forenoon. 
 It is also true that he was aniiatjie in his ])rivate domestic relations. 
 Such are tiie positive averments of Findhiter. Mr (Jray says lie 
 was not a habitual drunkard, which is nearly the same thing tliat 
 Findlater has advanced ; and lie draws a delightful picture of the 
 ' Essay on the Oonius and Character of Bums, Land qf Bunts, 1810.
 
 302 LIFE AXD "WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 poet's habits in his family, inferring that one who took so great a 
 charge of his son's education, and whose mind v/as so clear in the 
 moi-ning, could have no habits which society is entitled to condemn. 
 The facts advanced by 3Ir Gray may be admitted, but the illogical 
 character of his inference is palpable. 
 
 There is not, in reality, anything in Findlater and Gray's state- 
 ments which denies that Burns, in his latter years at Dumfries, did 
 indulge in tavern and other convivialities to a degree which even for 
 that age was excess. On the contrary, these gentlemen make admis- 
 sions pretty much to that effect. Neither do they positively deny, 
 what is hinted at by Currie, that our bard descended even lower 
 in the scale of sensual habits. All that they can fairly be said to 
 do, is to refute the notion, whether arising from Currie's memoir 
 or in any other way, that Burns was a habitual drunkard. 
 
 What, then, was the fact ? From aU that can now be learned 
 on respectable testimony, I believe it to ■ have been this : Eobert 
 Burns never at any period of his life was habitually under the 
 influence of a love of liquor ; he never was, properly speaking, its 
 victim : on this point the statements of Dr Currie are certainly 
 unjust towards the name of Burns. Our bard was nevertheless 
 facile towards social enjoyment, and had himself an immense power 
 of promoting it. Wherever he lived, he naturally fell among the 
 gay and good-natured part of society, and he unavoidably partook 
 of their convivialities, and even, latterly at least, helped to encourage 
 the replenishment of the bowl and the pulling of the fresh bottle — 
 not that he cared much for the liquor, but that, once involved in 
 the flow of merriment, he did not like to interrupt it by leaving 
 the table. Thus, while he was far from being a regular toper, his 
 occasional convivialities occurred, during the latter years of his Hfe, 
 with a degree of frequency, and were carried to a degree of excess, 
 which were much to be deplored. It did not matter much, per- 
 haps, that there was no indulgence before the early dinner hour 
 of that time and place — which was three o'clock — if he very often 
 spent the evenings over the bowl, and not unfrequently prolonged 
 the merry-making past the midnight hour. It may be asked what 
 is meant by very often ; and this it is not easy to answer. But that 
 our bard spent too many evenings in this way for the comfort of his 
 family, for his own health and peace of mind, and for the preserva- 
 tion of his dignity as a man and a poet, I believe to be only too 
 true. Nor was this all, for that co-ordinate debasement to which Dr 
 Currie alludes, was not escaped. Let God judge him, a being formed 
 in frailty, and inspired with wild and misdirected impulses ; not I. 
 But so is the fact. 
 
 Let it be observed, however — though, in following tastes so 
 depraved. Burns necessarily came in contact with persons of both 
 sexes utterly unworthy of his society, and latterly v.'ould associate 
 witli individuals of such a character as would, on a full explanation, 
 astonish the admirers of his genius — yet he never reached nor even 
 approached that point where a respect for external decency is lost.
 
 APPENDIX. 303 
 
 He preserved, as far as he could, the air, and performed the 
 duties, of a vigilant governmeut ofiicer and respectable head 
 of a family. He wrote, spoke, and walked about the daylight 
 streets and ways, as a man knowing the value of chai-acter 
 in the eye of the world. Incautious as he was in many things, 
 he had yet sufficient tact to abstain from allusions to the coarse 
 merry-making, and the worse debauches which sometimes followed, 
 before those who, being comparatively pure themselves, were 
 sure to have no sympathetic relish for such things. And thus it 
 was that Gray — himself a man of irreproachable life and conversa- 
 tion — had no opportunity of knowing Burns in the whole of his 
 character and habits. Neither, perhaps, had Fmdlater, with whom, 
 as a superior officer whose good opinion was of consequence, he 
 must have wished in an especial manner to stand well. To many, 
 the actual tastes of the poet were sufficiently well known; and it 
 was of course impossible in a country town to keep his name entirely 
 out of the mouth of scandal. But society is never very severe witli 
 those who pay it the homage of a regard to appearances, and Burns 
 was quite the man whom it would wish to spare as much as possible. 
 He was a kind of lion in that little town — a great man in one sense,, 
 and a man of many excellent properties. The very humility of his 
 position, as something beneath his deserts, excited a feeling in his 
 behalf. His over-convivial habits, his frequent coarseness of speech, 
 his more tlian suspected aberrations, were therefore regarded by the 
 great bulk of the community with a certain degree of tenderness. 
 And hence, wlulc he on his part seemed to have no idea of being much 
 of a reprobate, the society which surrounded him was not unwilling 
 to take him as far as possible for what he seemed. Another circum- 
 stance tending to keep up a certain reputablcness about Burns, was 
 the extraordinary attractiveness of his conversation. Men, and 
 women too, of the upper and more refined circles, who might know 
 that he fell into not unfrequent excesses, were nevertheless anxious 
 for the pleasure of his society. For this they overlooked and 
 tolerated much which would have made them comparatively cold 
 towards other men. It is therefore true, that he never was without 
 some friends among these upper circles. 
 
 On the whole, then, it appears that there are some grounds for the 
 ill repute which so Linientably invested the name of our great poet 
 for some years after liis death, though the facts of the case liavo 
 been to some extent misstated, and even, it may bo said, exaggerated. 
 An endeavour has here been made to state the truth; aud if it 
 appear to press more severely on the name of our gieat national poet 
 tlian was anticipated, I can only say on my own behalf, that I have 
 taken pains to ascertain it, and to jiut down nothing less or more 
 — humljly hoping that, where there is so much to admire, the 
 admission of tliat which must be reprobated still leaves us a 
 grand figure under the worshipped name of Br;uNs ; but it is at all 
 events certain, that any other than a faithful view of the character of 
 the man — that is, a view comprehending the shades as well as tho
 
 304 
 
 LIFE AND WORKS OF BUKNS. 
 
 brightnesses — would be an imperfect thing, a moral torso, most 
 imsatisfactory to all judicious minds, and not capable, in the lon"-- 
 run, of imposing upon anybody. 
 
 Xo. 14. — Subscriptions for Burns's Family. 
 
 LIST IN EDINBURGH NEWSPAPERS, AUGUST 23, 1796. 
 Subscribed in Dumfriesshire, L.104, 12s. 
 
 Sir James Hall, . L.5 
 Lord Meadowbanlc, 1 
 
 Prof. D. Stewart, . 3 
 Dr Duncan, . 1 
 
 Mr Mundell, . . 1 
 
 James Gibson, Esq., 1 
 
 Mrs Dunlop of Dnnlop, 2 
 Mr Fergusson of Banks, 2 
 Major Duff, . 1 
 
 Wm. Dunbar, W. S., 1 
 Jn. Carmichael, Esq., of 
 
 Skirling, 
 Sir J. Sinclair, Bart., 
 Mr James Innes, 
 Mr Henry Raeburn, 
 Mr A. Cunningham, 
 Mr Geo. Thomson, . 
 Mr Rob. Cleghorn, 
 Mrs Cleghorn, 
 Mr John Allan, . 
 Mr Rob. Wight, 
 Mr John Haig, . 
 Mr Robert Wallcer, . 
 Mr Barclay Fyffe, 
 
 1 
 1 
 2 
 2 
 2 
 2 
 2 
 1 
 2 
 2 
 2 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 5 
 1 
 3 
 1 
 1 
 1 
 2 
 2 
 1 
 1 
 
 1 
 1 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 2 
 2 
 1 
 2 
 2 
 2 
 
 10 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 The Right Hon. the Earl 
 
 of Selkirk, . L.5 
 
 Mr Wm. Robertson, Re- 
 
 gister Oihce, . 1 
 
 Mr W. Inglis, W. S., 1 
 Mr E. Balfour, . 1 
 
 James Gordon, . 
 
 Mr Inglis, . 
 
 A Gentleman, . 1 
 
 A Foreigner, . 
 
 Arch. Constable, . 
 W. Handyside, W. S., 1 
 Mr G. Russel, wr., . 1 
 Mr T. Potts, Kelso, 1 
 
 Mr Alex. Mackenzie, 
 
 •writer, 
 Mrs Spalding, 
 Mr Wm. Creech, 
 Mr Kerr, G. P. O., . 
 Mr Wm. Dallas, . 
 Rev. Dr Greenfield, . 
 The Boys of Mr Cririe's 
 
 Class in the High 
 
 School, . . 1 
 
 [A second list, amounting to L.52, 10s. has not been recovered.] 
 
 Amount of 
 su 
 
 Mr Woods, Theatre- 
 royal, . . L.l 
 
 Mr Kemble, Theatre- 
 royal, . . 2 
 
 Receipt of Benefit at the 
 Theatre, . . 32 
 
 John Fergusson, Esq., 
 Calcutta, . 10 
 
 Robt. Ainslie, Esq., W.S., 2 
 
 Mr George Brown, . 
 
 The Rev. Mr White, 1 
 
 April 4, 1797- 
 former Subscriptions, L.llO, 93. 
 nscunsERs continued. 
 
 Subscription from Mrs 
 
 Paterson's Inn, . L.l 
 Mrs Fletcher, Queen's 
 Street, . . 1 
 
 Mrs Cathcart, Castle 
 
 Street, . . 1 
 
 A. W., . . 
 
 Mr Johnson, engraver, 4 
 Mr Hume of Wedder- 
 
 burn, . . 2 
 
 James Graham, Esq., 1 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 6 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 5 ' 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 10 6 
 
 10 6 
 
 
 10 6 
 
 5 (i 
 
 1 
 1 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 10 6 
 
 5 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 1 
 

 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 305 
 
 LONDON LIST, AT CLOSE OF SUBSCRIPTION, MAY 1800. 
 Subscriptions, L.122, 173. 
 
 Lord de Dunstunville, L.5 5 
 
 Thomson Bonar, . 5 5 
 
 James Shaw, 
 
 Robert Shedden, . 5 5 
 
 James Mackenzie, 5 5 
 
 Peter Laurie, 
 
 John M'Ta^'gart, 
 
 David Hunter, 
 
 J. R. Miller, 
 
 Duncan Hunter, 
 
 John Inglis, 
 
 J. Mayne, 
 
 Adam Lymbourncr, 
 
 Colonel ]jlair, 
 
 John J. Angerstein, . 
 
 John Anderson, . 
 
 Robert Burns, 
 
 James Brymer, . 
 
 Dr Moore, 
 
 David Shaw, . . 
 
 W. Parker (Montreal) 
 
 Captain R. Gordon, 71st 
 
 Regt, . 
 Matthew Boyd, 
 William Boyd, . 
 (Jiiarles Ferguson, 
 John Grey, 
 James Innes, 
 John Frascr, 
 James Duff, . 
 Robert Hunter, . 
 John Rae, 
 T. Reid, . 
 J. Irving, 
 Tiiomas JLaiii, 
 •John Younger, 
 J. Parker, 
 AVilliam SVatson, 
 Mr Tweedy, 
 Jlenry Tiiompson, 
 A. Learmonth, . 
 Robert Service, 
 John Heatiicotc, 
 Adam Bell, . 
 J. F. Throckmorton, 
 
 VOL. IV. T 
 
 L.5 
 5 
 5 
 5 
 5 
 5 
 5 
 5 
 5 
 5 
 5 
 5 
 
 r> 
 
 O 
 
 2 
 2 
 
 2 
 2 
 2 
 2 
 2 
 
 2 
 2 
 2 
 2 
 2 
 2 
 
 2 
 2 
 
 2 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 1 
 1 
 1 
 1 
 1 
 ] 
 1 
 1 
 1 
 U 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 5 
 5 
 3 
 
 2 
 2 
 
 2 
 2 
 2 
 
 2 
 2 
 2 
 2 
 
 2 
 2 
 '■> 
 
 2 
 2 
 2 
 2 
 2 
 
 1 
 1 
 1 
 1 
 1 
 1 
 1 
 1 
 1 
 1 
 10 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 t) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 (t 
 
 
 
 
 
 G 
 
 J. Campbell, Inveraiy, 
 
 L.O 
 
 10 
 
 6 
 
 William Douglas, 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 Samuel Douglas, 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 James Douglas, 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 William Borredailo, 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 Hugh Mair, . 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 Wm. Walker, Birinin 
 
 cr- 
 
 
 
 ham, . 
 
 " 2 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 Alex. Wulkei-, ditto, 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 Capt. Errol Boyd, 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 Rn. Borradaile, 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 William Pratt, . 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 John Maitland, 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 Robert Buchannan, 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 Arch. Tod, 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 James Walker, 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 Joseph Berwick, 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 Charles Hornyold, . 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 Colonel A. Gamniell, 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 (► 
 
 James Fairlec, 
 
 
 
 
 
 John AValker, 
 
 
 
 
 
 Peter Bwansou, 
 
 
 
 
 
 James Colquhoun, 
 
 
 
 
 
 Alex. Riddell, 
 
 
 
 
 
 Edward Boyd, . 
 
 
 
 
 
 James Kctland, 
 
 
 
 
 
 John Paterson, 
 
 
 
 
 
 John Gillespie, . 
 
 
 
 
 
 Robert Cowie, 
 
 
 
 n 
 
 Samuel Lenox, . 
 
 
 
 
 
 John Bannatvnc, 
 
 
 
 
 
 William Barclay, 
 
 
 
 (» 
 
 Arch. i\Iackean, 
 
 
 
 
 
 John Scott, 
 
 
 
 (1 
 
 George Morrison, 
 
 
 
 
 
 George i\Iunro, . 
 
 
 
 
 
 Thomas (Jordou, 
 
 
 
 
 
 James Forsytii, . 
 
 
 
 n 
 
 James ]5ell, . 
 
 
 
 (1 
 
 JMark Sjirolt, 
 
 
 
 
 
 Wm. Dtigidd, 
 
 
 
 
 
 C. Harper, 
 
 
 
 
 
 Wm. Ogilvy, jun., 
 
 
 
 
 
 Joim Auldjo, 
 
 
 
 
 
 Miss Heudcrson, Dui) , 
 
 
 
 u
 
 306 
 
 LIFE AND WOKKS OF BURNS. 
 
 C. Bellen, . . L. 
 
 
 
 
 Alexander Begbee, . L.l 
 
 
 
 
 Mr TaafFe, 
 
 
 
 
 John Tait, . 1 
 
 
 
 
 James Dawson, . ] 
 
 
 
 
 James Smith, . 1 
 
 
 
 
 James Inglis, 
 
 
 
 
 Thomas Pinkertoii, 1 
 
 
 
 
 William Urquliart, . 
 
 
 
 
 Robert Arthur, . 1 
 
 
 
 
 DaA'id Maitland, . : 
 
 
 
 
 A. M. Bennett, . 1 
 
 
 
 
 K. Hamilton, . ; 
 
 
 
 
 Alexander Harper, . 1 
 
 
 
 
 J. Anderson, sen., 
 
 
 
 
 R. Haden, . 1 
 
 
 
 
 A. Glennio, . . ] 
 
 
 
 
 Thomas Bell, . 1 
 
 
 
 
 Hugh Bethune, . ] 
 
 
 
 
 Edward Penman, 1 
 
 
 
 
 George Service, 
 
 
 
 
 Malcolm Ross, . 1 
 
 
 a 
 
 Cochran M'Clure, 
 
 
 
 
 J. Parish, jun., Hambro', 1 
 
 
 
 
 Samuel Donaldson, . ] 
 
 
 
 
 Joseph Forsyth, . 1 
 
 
 
 
 Joseph Eodgers, . 
 
 
 
 
 Alexander Ross, jun., 1 
 
 
 
 
 Robert Ewing, 
 
 
 
 
 George Glenny, . 1 
 
 
 
 
 William Graham, ] 
 
 
 
 
 Thomas Watson, 1 
 
 
 
 
 George Reid, 
 
 
 
 
 David Maitland, . 1 
 
 
 
 
 Peter Swanson, second 
 
 
 
 Dividend on L.400 Stock 
 
 
 
 Donation, . 
 
 
 
 
 for lialf a year, pay- 
 
 
 
 H. S. Dickey, . ] 
 
 
 
 
 able in Oct. 1797, 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 Et. Anderson, 
 
 
 
 
 Ditto in April 1798, . 6 
 
 
 
 a 
 
 J. G. Gerrard, . ] 
 
 
 
 
 Ditto in October 1798, 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 George Lyon, . ] 
 
 
 
 
 Ditto in April 1799, 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 William Christie, 
 
 
 
 
 Ditto in October 1799, 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 Jos. Lachlan, . ] 
 
 
 
 
 Ditto on L.500, April 
 
 
 
 John Lyall, 
 
 
 
 
 1800, . . . 7 10 
 
 
 
 Total, 
 
 L.267 9 
 
 Mr James Shaw, subsequently Sir James Shaw, and chamberlain 
 of London, took upon himself the whole trouble connected with the 
 subscription in the metropolis. He purchased L.400 of the 3 per cent. 
 Reduced Stock in June 1797 at L..50|, and L.lOO of the same stock in 
 October 1799 at L.59 ; and this L.500 of stock was transferred in May 
 1800 to the magistrates of Ayr for the benefit of the poet's family. 
 
 'Mr Alderman Shaw, of London, an Ayrshire gentleman, some 
 time after the death of our admired poet, patronised a subscription 
 for the benefit of his widow and children. The sum so raised was 
 vested in the 3 per cent, annuities, and amounted to L.500 of that 
 stock. Last week, the alderman being in company with Sir Francis 
 Baring, the conversation turned on Burns and the circumstances of 
 his family. The worthy baronet, who is a warm admirer of our 
 poet, requested that he also might have the honour of being a con- 
 tributor, and immediately put into his hands L.lOO, which was also 
 bought into the same stock, and the receipts sent to the magis- 
 trates; and with the L.500 makes L.676, 19s. lOd. 3 per cents., 
 standing in the name of the provost and bailies of the town of 
 Ayr, for the benefit of the widow and children of Robert Burns.' — 
 Newspaper Paragraph, 1804.
 
 APPENDIX. 307 
 
 Another paragraph, of apparently little later date, is as follows : — 
 'It had lately come to the knowledge of Mr Alderman Shaw, 
 London, that Burns had left two daughters, natural children, who 
 have not hitherto hencfited by the liberality of the public to tlieir 
 father's family ; which induced that gentleman, whose active bene- 
 volence in behalf of this family is well known, to renew a subscription 
 among a few friends for making a small provision for the destitute 
 girls. The subscriptions have amounted to L.310, lis., at the head 
 of which is fifty guineas from William Fairlie, Esq., Calcutta. With 
 this sum, L.523 have been purchased in the reduced 3 per cents., 
 which, added to that already purchased in the same fund, and 
 together standing in the name of the pi'ovost and bailies of the town 
 of Ayr, makes a total of L. 1200, of which L.800 is to be appropriated 
 to the use of Mrs Burns and her tiiree sons, and L.400 to the use of 
 the two girls ; one moiety payable to each on marriage, or on 
 attaining the age of twenty-one ; and in the event of either of them 
 dying under these periods, the moiety due to her to go to the 
 survivor.' 
 
 The two girls here referred to were : Elizabeth Burns, the daughter 
 of Elizabeth Baton (i., 87) — ^born in 1784 — who became the wife of 
 Mr John Bishop, overseer at Polkemmet, and died in December 1816, 
 aged thirty-two ; and Elizabeth Burns, the daughter of Anne Park, 
 
 born 31st Marcli 1791 (iii., 260), and who became the wife of 
 
 Thomson, weaver, Pollockshaws. 
 
 No. 15. — TuE Cranium of Burns. 
 
 At the opening of the Mausoleum, March 1S34, for the interment 
 of Mrs Burns, it was resolved by some citizens of Dumfries, with 
 the concurrence of the nearest relative of the widow, to raise the 
 cranium of the poet from the grave, and have a cast moulded from 
 it, with a view to gratifying the interest likely to be felt by tho 
 students of phrenology respecting its peculiar development. This 
 purpose was carried into effect during the night between tlio 31st 
 March and the 1st April, and tlie following is tiie description of tho 
 cranium, drawn up at the time by Mr A. Blacklock, surgeon, one of 
 tiie individuals present: — 
 
 ' Tlie 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 tlie o.s xuujuli in tlie left, were sound, and uninjured by 
 death and the grave. The superior nuixillary bones still retained 
 the four most posterior teeth on each side, including the denies 
 fiapientiaj, and all without spot or blemish ; the incisures, cuspidati, 
 &c., had in all jjrobability recently droi)pcd from the jaw, for tho 
 alveoli were but little decayed. The bones of tho face and palate
 
 308 
 
 LIFE AKD WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 were also sound. Some small portions of black liair, with a very 
 few gray 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 tlie 
 cranium, or ofler 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 witli 
 all the tact and accuracy of an experienced artist. Tlie 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. Bt.acklock.' 
 
 A cast from the skull having been transmitted to the Plirenological 
 Society of Edinburgh, the following view of the cerebral development 
 of Burns was drawn up by Mr George Combe, and published iu 
 connection with four views of the cranium ( W. and A. K. Johnston, 
 Edinhurgh) : — 
 
 'l. — DIMENSIONS OF THE SKULL. 
 
 Inches. 
 
 Greatest circumference, 221 
 
 From Occipital Spine to Individuality, over the top of the head, 14 
 
 Ear to Ear vertically over the top of the head, . . .13 
 
 Pliiloprogenitivcness to Individuality (greatest length), . . 8 
 
 ■ Concentrativeness to Comparison, 7g 
 
 Ear to Philoprogenitivoncss, 4|- 
 
 Individuality, ....*... 4^ 
 
 ■ — — Benevolence, Si 
 
 Firmness, Si 
 
 Destructiveness to Destructivcness, 5| 
 
 Secretiveness to Secret ivencss, S|- 
 
 Cautiousness to Cautiousness, 5^ 
 
 Ideality to Ideality, 4§ 
 
 Constructivcuess to Constructiveness, 4.i 
 
 Mastoid Process to Mastoid Process, 4| 
 
 ■II. — DEVELOPMENT OF THE ORGANS. 
 
 1. Amativeness, rather large, 
 
 2. Philoprogenitiveness, very large, 
 
 3. Concentrativeness, large, 
 
 4. Adhesiveness, very large, . 
 
 5. Combativeness, very large, 
 
 6. Destructiveness, large, 
 
 7. Secretiveness, large, 
 
 8. Acquisitiveness, rather large, . 
 f). Constructivene.s.s, full, . 
 
 1 0. Self-Estecm, large, 
 
 11. Love of Approbation, very large, 
 
 12. Cautiousness, large, . 
 
 Scale. 
 
 IG 
 20 
 1,'! 
 20 
 20 
 18 
 1.9 
 16 
 15 
 18 
 20 
 19
 
 APPENDIX. 309 
 
 Scale. 
 
 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, largo, 19 
 
 22. Individuality, large, 1,9 
 
 23. Form, rather large, 16 
 
 24. Size, rather large, 17 
 
 25. Weight, rather large, 1(> 
 
 26. Colouring, rather large, 16 
 
 27. Locality, large, 1!! 
 
 28. Number, rather full, 12 
 
 29. Order, full, 14 
 
 30. Eventuality, large, 18 
 
 31. Time, rather large, 16 
 
 32. Tune, full, 15 
 
 3.3. Language, uncertain. 
 
 34. Comparison, rather large, 17 
 
 35. Causality, large, 18 
 
 ' 77te scale of the orrjans indicates their relative proportions to each 
 other: 2 is idiocy; 10, moderate; 14, full; IS, larfje; and 20, very 
 large. 
 
 'The cast of a slcuU docs not shew the temperament of the indi- 
 vidual, but the portraits of Burns indicate tlie 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 tlie rapidity and impetuosity of Iiis manifestations, 
 establish the inference that his brain was active and susceptible. 
 
 ' .Size in the brain, other conditions being c<iual, is the measure of 
 mental power. The skull of Ikirns indicates a large brain. Tlio 
 length is eiglit, and the greatest lireadth nearly six inclies. Tlio 
 circumference is 22} inclies. These measurements exceed tlio 
 average of Scotch living Iicads, incladinr/ the integuments, for which 
 four-cigliths 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, 
 arc uncommonly large, indicating strong passions, and great energy 
 in action under their influence. The group of organs manifesting 
 the domestic afi'ections (Amativenc'^s, riiiioprogcnitivencss, and 
 Adhesiveness), is large ; riiili)progenitiveness uncommonly so for a 
 male head. The organs of (Jonibativcncss and Dcstructivoness arc 
 large, bespeaking great heat of temper, impatience, and liability to 
 irritation. 
 
 ' Secretivcness and Cautiousness are both large, and would confer 
 considerable power of restraint, wliere he felt restraint to be 
 necessary.
 
 310 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 ' 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 propertj', a high consideration of self, 
 and desire of the esteem of others. The fii'st 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 Keflection 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 consti- 
 tuted a character of the most despei'ate description. The combina- 
 tion 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 C'ombativeness, Destructivenesf, 
 and Self-Esteem, we find the fundamental qualities Avhich inspired 
 Scots wha hae wi' Wallace hied, and similar productions. 
 
 * The combination of large Secretiveness, Imitation, and the percep- 
 tive 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 com- 
 bination 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 further back than usual. An anterior lobe of this magni- 
 tude indicates great Intellectual power. The combination of large
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Perceptive and Reflecting organs (Causality predominant), -with 
 large Concentrativeness and large organs of the feelings, gives 
 that sa^acitv and vigorous common sense for which Burns was 
 distinguished. 
 
 ' The skull rises liigh above Causality, and spreads wide in the 
 reo-Ion 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 unfavour- 
 able circumstances in which he was placed, accounts for the melan- 
 choly 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 Appro- 
 bation, 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, notwitlistanding the smallness of 
 his salary. 
 
 'No phrenologist can look upon this head, and consider the circum- 
 stances 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.' 
 
 A more elaborate paper on the skull of Burns appeared in the 
 Phrenological Journal, No. XLI., from the pen of 3Ir Kobert Cox. 
 This gentleman endeavours to shew that the character of Burns 
 was in conformity with the full development of acquisitiveness. 
 * According to his own description,' says Mr Cox, ' he was a man 
 who " had little art in making money, and still less in keeping it." 
 That his art in making money was sufficiently moderate, there can 
 be no doubt, for he was engaged in occupations which his soul loatiied, 
 and thought it below his dignity to accept of jjccuniary remuneration 
 for some of his most laborious literary performances. He wa.s, how- 
 ever, by no means insensible to the value of money, and never threw 
 it away. On the contrary, ho was remarkably frugal, except when 
 feclin-^s stronger than acquisitiveness came into play— such as 
 benevolence, adhesiveness, and love of approbation ; tlie organs of 
 all which are very large, while acquisitiveness is only ratlier largo. 
 During his residence at Mossgicl, where his revenue was not more 
 than L.7, his expenses, as Gilbert mentions, « never in any one year 
 exceeded his slender income." It is also well known, that ho did not
 
 SI 2 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURXS. 
 
 leave beliind him a shilling of debt ; and I have learned from good 
 authority, that his household was much more frugally managed at 
 Dumfries than at EUisland — as in the former place, but not in the 
 latter, he had it in his power to exercise a personal control over the 
 expenditure. I have been told also, that, after his death, the 
 domestic expenses were greater than when he was alive. These 
 facts are all consistent with a considerable development of acquisi- 
 tiveness, for, when that organ is small, there is habitual inattention 
 to pecuniary concerns, even although the love of independence and 
 dislike to ask a favour be strong. The indifference with respect to 
 money which Burns occasionally ascribes to himself, appears, there- 
 fore, to savour of affectation — a failing into which he vv^as not unfre- 
 quently led by love of approbation and secretiveness. Indeed, in one 
 of his letters to Miss Chalmers, he expressly intimates a wish to be 
 rich.' The whole of this essay is highly worthy of perusal by all 
 who take an interest in the character of the Avrshire bard. 
 
 No. IC— Bibliography of Burns. 
 
 Poems, chiefly in the Scottish Dialect. By Robert Bums. 
 
 Svo, pp. 242. Kilmarnock : John AVilson, . . 17S6 
 
 Poems, &c. Svo, pp. 368. Edinburgh : Printed for the 
 
 Author, and sold by William Creech. [With a Portrait], 17S7 
 Poems, &c. Third Edition, Svo. London : A. Strachan, and 
 
 W.Cadell; and Edinburgh: W. Creech, . . 17S7 
 
 Poems, &c. 12mo. Belfast : Printed and Sold by James 
 
 Magee, . . . . . . . 1787 
 
 [An Irish pirated edition, prefaced with an extract from the Lounger, No. 97-] 
 
 Animadversions on some Poets and Poetasters of the Present 
 
 Age, especially Il[ober]t B[urn]s and J[oh]n L[aprai]k, 
 
 with a Contrast with some of a former Age. By James 
 
 Maxwell, Poet, Paisley, .... 17SS 
 
 Poems, &c. Edinburgh : W. Creech. . . [July], 1790 
 
 Poems, &c. [containing nineteen new pieces.] 2 vols. 
 
 small Svo. London : T. Cadell ; and Edinburgh : W. 
 
 Creech. ..... [April], 1793 
 
 Poems, &c. 2 vols. [lieprint of the above], . . 1794 
 
 Poems, he. [Reprint of the above], . . . 1797 
 
 Some Account of the Life and Writings of Robert Burns, the 
 
 Ayrshire Poet. [Article in Scols Magazine, Jan. 1797.] 
 
 pp. 6. 
 The Scots Musical Museum. 6 vols. Svo. [Published between 
 
 17S7 and 1803, by James Johnson, Engraver, Edinburgh. 
 
 In this work are included 1S4 Songs, written or collected 
 
 by Burns.]
 
 APPENDIX. 313 
 
 Same work, reprinted, with Xotes by the late Mr William 
 Stenliouse, and additional Illustrations [by David Laing.] 
 6 vols. Edinburgh : Blackwood & Sons, . . 1S39 
 
 The Melodies of Scotland ; with Symphonies and Accompani- 
 ments for the Pianoforte, Violin, &c. The Poetry chiefly 
 by Burns. The whole collected by George Thomsoji, 
 F.A.S.E. In .') volumes [to which a Gth was finally added. 
 Published between 1793 and 1841.] London: T. Preston; 
 and Edinburgh : G. Thomson. 
 
 [The songs by Burns in this work are 100 in number.] 
 
 Liverpool Testimonials to the departed Genius of Robert 
 Burns. 8vo. Liverpool. 
 
 A Memoir of the Life of Robert Burns. [By Robert Heron.] 
 
 8vo. Edinburgh, . . . . . 1797 
 
 The Works of Robert Burns ; with an Account of his Life, and 
 a Ci'iticism on his Writings : to which are prefixed some 
 Observations on the Character and Condition of the Scottish 
 Peasantry. 4 vols., 8vo. [The dedication is subscribed J. 
 Currie, Liverpool, 1st May ISOO.] Liverpool: Printed by 
 J. M'Creery, for T. Cadell, Jun., and W. Davies, Strand, 
 London ; and W. Creech, Edinburgh, . . . 1800 
 
 Currie's Second Edition, .... ISOl 
 
 Third Edition, . . . , .... 
 
 Fourth Edition, .... 1803 
 
 ... Fifth Edition, ..... 1806 
 
 ... Sixth Edition, .... 1809 
 
 Seventh Edition, ..... 1813 
 
 Poems ascribed to Robert Burns, the Ayrshire Bard, not 
 contained in any Edition of his Works hitherto published. 
 Svo, pp. 94. Glasgow : printed for Thomas Stewart, . 1801 
 
 Poems, chiefly in the Scottish Dialect. By Robert Burns. To 
 which are added several other Pieces not containc-d in .any 
 former Edition of his Poems. P2mo. Glasgow : W. 3I'Millan, 1801 
 
 Alonzo and Cora ; with other Original Poem.s, principally 
 Elegies ; to which are added Letters in A'ei-se, by Black- 
 lock and Burns. By Elizabeth Scot, a native of Edinburgh. 
 Svo. London, ...... 1801 
 
 Letters Addressed to Clarinda. By Robert Burns, the 
 Ayrshire Poet. Never before published. 12mo. Glasgow: 
 T.Stewart, ...... 1S02 
 
 Stewart's Edition of Burns's Poems : including a number 
 of Original Pieces never before j)ul)lishcd. To which is 
 added an Appendix, consisting of his Correspondence 
 with Clarinda, &c. ISmo. Glasgow : T. Stewart, and 
 A. Macgown, ...... 1802 
 
 [Burns's Poetical Works: editions at this time (1802) by 
 M'Lcllan, Glasgow; Cliapniaii, Glasgow; Robertson, Edin- 
 burgh; Denliam & Dick, Edinburgh; Oliver i<c Boyd, 
 Edinburgh; liay, Dundee.]
 
 314 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Crerar's Edition of Burns's Poems ; with his Life and Cha- 
 racter. [Portrait and Plates by R. Scott.] 18mo, 2 vols. 
 Kirkaldy: Crerar, ..... 1802 
 
 Information for Thomas Stewart, Bookseller in Greenock, 
 against Messrs Cadell & Davies, and others. Answers for 
 James Robertson, Printer in Edinburgh, to the Petition of 
 Cadell & Davies, respecting the Printing and Publishing of 
 the Letters to Clarinda. 4to. (2 pieces), , 1803-4 
 
 Burns's Cotter's Saturday Night. 12mo. Cupar-Fife, 1804 
 
 The Poetical Works of Robert Burns: a New Edition, in- 
 cluding the Pieces published in his Correspondence, with 
 his Songs and Fragments. 3 vols., 18mo. London : Cadell 
 & Davies, ...... 1S04 
 
 Nineteen Views in North Britain, illustrative of the Works of 
 Robert Burns, Drawn and Engraved by James Storer and 
 John Greig ; accompanied by a Sketch of the Poet's Life 
 [abridged from Currie's Memoir.] Royal 8vo. London, 1805 
 
 [Reprint of the above in quarto. London, . . 1811] 
 
 Letters addressed to Clarinda, &c., by Robert Bums. A new 
 Edition. Printed for Archer & Ward, and D. Simms, 
 Belfast, . . . . . . _ . 1806 
 
 Reliques of Robert Burns ; consisting chiefly of Original 
 Letters, Poems, and Critical Observations on Scottish 
 Songs. Collected and Published by R. H. Cromek. London : 
 Cadell & Davies, ..... 1808 
 
 The Works of Robert Burns ; with his Life [numerous wood- 
 cuts by Bewick, after Thurston. 2 vols. 12mo], . 1808 
 
 Poems, Letters, &c., ascribed to Robert Burns, not in his 
 
 Works. 12mo. London : Prout, . . . 1809 
 
 The Life of Robert Burns, by David Irving, LL.D., pp. 60. 
 [Forming part of Lives of the Scottish Poets, 2 vols.] 
 London : Longman & Co., .... 1810 
 
 Critique on Cromek's Reliques of Burns, Edinburgh Review, 
 No. 26, Jan. 1809. [Written by Francis Jcff'rey.] 
 
 Critique on Cromek's Reliques of Burns, Quarterly Review, 
 No. 1, Feb. 1809. [Written by Sir Walter Scott.] 
 
 Select Scottish Songs, Ancient and Modern ; Avith Critical 
 Observations and Biographical Notices, by Robert Burns. 
 Edited by R. H. Cromek, F.A.S.E. 2 vols. London : 
 T. Cadell, . . . . . . 1310 
 
 Burnomania ; the Celebrity of Robert Burns considered, in a 
 Discourse addressed to all real Christians ; witli Epistles in 
 Verse respecting Peter Pindar, Burns, &c. 12mo. Edin- 
 burgh, ....... 1811 
 
 Poems of Robert Burns; with an Account of his Life and 
 Miscellaneous Remarks on his Writings [by Josiah Walker] ; 
 containing also many Poems and Letters not printed in 
 Dr Currie's edition. 2 vols. 8vo. [Plates by J. Burnet.] 
 Edinburgh: Trustees of James Morison, . . 1811
 
 ArPENDIX. 315 
 
 An Account of the Life and Character of Robert Burns, with 
 Miscellaneous Eemarks on his Writings. Edinburirh : 
 Trustees of James Morison, .... 1811 
 
 £This is simply a separate publication of Dr 'Walker's contributions to 
 the preceding work.] 
 
 A Critique on the Poems of liobert Burns, illustrated by [24] 
 Engravings [after Designs by J. Burnet.] Svo. Edinburgh : 
 Printed by John Brown for Bell k Bradfute, kc, . 1812 
 
 Poems and Songs by Robert Burns ; with a Short Sketch of 
 the Author's Life, and a Glossary. 24to [pp. 332.] Edin- 
 burgh: Oliver & Boyd. N. D., but probably about . 1S12 
 
 Poems by Robert Burns. 2 vols., Svo. [Price 21s.] London: 
 
 Hamilton, ...... 1812 
 
 *** Another impression of the same in royal Svo, Sis. 6il. 
 
 Burns's Poems, 24to. London : Walker, . . 1813 
 
 Poetical Works of Robert Burns. 24to. London : Cadell & 
 
 Daviesi, ....... 1813 
 
 Poetical Works of Robert Burns. ISmo. Edinburgh, 1814 
 
 A Review of the Life and Writings of Robert Burns, and of 
 various Criticisms on his Character and Writings. By 
 Alexander Peterkin. Svo. Edinburgh, . . 1814 
 
 Works of Robert Burns, with Life by Currie. 5 vols., ISmo. 
 
 [A scarce edition.] London, .... 1S15 
 
 Life and Works of Robert Burns, as originally edited by 
 James Currie, M.D. ; to which is prefixed a Review of the 
 Life of Burns, by Alexander Peterkin. 4 vols., Svo. Edin- 
 burgh, ...... IS15 
 
 A Letter to a Friend of Robert Bums [James Gr^^j', Esq.], 
 occasioned by an Intended Republication of tlio Account of 
 the Life of Burns by Dr Currie. By AVilliani Wordsworth. 
 Svo. London, ...... 1S16 
 
 The Works of Robert Burns [reprint of Curric's edition.] 
 
 4 vols., 12mo. Montrose: Smitli & Hill, . . 1S16 
 
 The Works of Robert Burns [rejjrint of Currie's edition.] 
 
 4 vols., 12ino. Edinburgh : William Sawcrs, . . 1818 
 
 Works of Robert Burns [as edited by Currie], ilhistrated by 
 24 Plates by Burnet [same as in 3Iorison's edition.] 
 4 vols. Edinburgh : Stirling & Slade, . . 1S19 
 
 The Prose Works of Robert Burns; containing his Letters 
 and Correspondence, Literary and Critical, and Amatory 
 Epistles; including Letters to Clariuda, &c.; with nine 
 Engravings. Svo, jip. GIO. Newcastle : Mackenzie & Dent, 1819 
 
 The Works of Robert Burns, with many additional Poems 
 
 and Songs. 2 vols., 24to. Montrose, . . .1819 
 
 Poems and Songs of Robert Burns; with a life of the Author, 
 &c., by tho Rev. Hamilton Paul. IJmo. [portrait and 
 vignette.] Ayr, ..... 1819
 
 316 LIFE AND WOKKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Works of Robert Burns [Carrie's edition] ; with many 
 Additions communicated by his Brother, Mr Gilbert 
 Burns. 4 vols., 8vo. London : Cadell & Davies, . 1820 
 
 Letters addressed to Clarinda. By Robert Burns. Glasgow : 
 
 Chapman, ...... 1820 
 
 Poetical Works of Robert Burns; with a Glossary and a 
 Biographical Sketch of the Author. 2 vols., 96to. Diamond 
 Edition. London : Jones & Co. [N. D., but probably about 
 1820. Now published with fresh title-pages by AV. S. Orr 
 & Co.] 
 
 The Poetical Works of Robert Burns. 2 vols. [Forming vols. 
 32 and 33 of Wldttingham^s Cabinet Library.^ London : 
 Whittingham, ..... 1821 
 
 Life of Robert Burns [forming part of the Lives of Eminent 
 
 Scotsmen. 3 vols., 18mo. London: Boys, . . 1822] 
 
 The Works of Robert Burns ; including his Letters to Cla- 
 rinda, and the whole of his suppressed Poems. With an 
 Essay on his Life, Genius, and Cliaracter. 4 vols., small 
 18mo. Printed for the Editor, htj Riclmrds <t Co., London, 1821 
 
 A Pilgrimage to the Land of Burns ; containing Anecdotes of 
 the Bard, &c. [By Hugh Ainslie.] Crown 8vo. London : 
 Sherwood, ...... 1822 
 
 The Poetical Works of Burns. 3 vols., ISnio. London: 
 
 Cadell & Davies, ..... 1823 
 
 Burns's Cotter's Saturday Night and other Poems. London : 
 
 Sharpe, . . . . . . 1824 
 
 Burns's Songs, chiefly Scottish. London : Sharpe, . 1824 
 
 The Poetical Works of Robert Burns, the Ayrshire Bard; 
 including all the Pieces originally published by Dr Currie, 
 with various Additions. A New Edition, with an enlarged 
 and Corrected Glossary, and a Biographical Memoir of 
 tlie Author. Thin Svo. London : Jones & Co., . 1824 
 
 [The Life by Currie, and Prose Writings, printed uniformly, 
 without titles, but with separate series of pages.] 
 
 Poetical AVorks and Correspondence of Robert Bui-ns. 1 vol., 
 
 Svo. London: Jones & Co., .... 1826 
 
 Letters to Clarinda, by Robert Burns, 12nio. Belfast, . 1826 
 
 Works of Robert Burns ; containing his Poems, Letters, &c., 
 
 with Life by Currie. 2 vols., 24to. London, . . 1826 
 
 Life of Robert Burns. By J. G. Lockhart, LL.B. Edinburgh : 
 
 Constable & Co., ..... 1828 
 
 [Constituting vol. xxiii. of Constable's Miscellany.] 
 
 An Edition of tliis Work in 8vo, unconnected with the 
 
 Miscellany. 
 [A second and third edition, the latter containing some additions, 
 
 subsequently aiipearcd.] 
 
 Critique on Lockhart's Life of Burns. Edinburgh Review, 
 No. m, Dec. 1828 [by Thomas Carlyle.]
 
 APPENDIX. 317 
 
 Unpublislied Remains of Robert Burns, &c. Account of a 
 lately -discovered Portrait, with Letters concerninn; it. 
 [Article in Edinburgh Literary Gazette, Nov. 21, 1829.] 
 
 More Information concerning Robert Burns. The New- 
 Portrait. [Article in Edinburgli Literary Journal, Dec. 5, 
 1829.] 
 
 Tam o'Shanter; a Talc. By Robert Burns. To which are 
 added Observations on the Statues of Turn o'Shanter and 
 Souter Johnny, now exhibiting. [London] : Murray, 
 printer, ...... [IS29] 
 
 Poetical Works of Robert Burns; with a Memoir. 1 vol., 
 
 24to. London : .Joseph Smith, . . . 18.30 
 
 A Series of Twelve Illustrations of the Poems of Robert 
 Burns, engraved on Steel by John Shury, from Original 
 Paintings by William Kidd, Esq. Royal 8vo. London, 1832 
 
 Works of Robert Burns ; including his Letters to Clarinda, 
 and the whole of his Suppressed Poems; with an Essay 
 on his Life, Genius, and Character. [1 vol.] London: 
 Wm. Clark, ...... 1S31 
 
 The Entire Works of Robert Burns; with his Life, and a 
 Criticism on his Writings, &c. By James Cun-ie, M.D. 
 The Four Volumes complete in One, with an Enlarged 
 and Corrected Glossary. AVith 13 Engravings. Diamond 
 Edition. London : Allan Bell & Co., . . . 1S33 
 
 [Several reprints of this edition have appeared. Tlic seventh bears 
 date 184i, with D. A. Correnstein as publisher.] 
 
 Works of Robert Burns ; with his Life by Allan Cunningham. 
 
 8 vols. London : Cochrane and IMacrone, . . 1S34 
 A Reprint of tlie above AVork. 
 
 4 vols. Boston [U. S.] : Hilliard, Gray, & Co., . 1S34 
 
 Works of Robert Burns. Edited by the Ettrick Shepherd 
 
 and AVilliam Motherwell, Esq. 5 vols. Gla.sgow : 
 
 Archibald Fullarton k Co., . . • .1834 
 
 Tlie Widow of Bmns; her Death, Character, and Funeral. 
 
 Dumfries : M'Diarmid & Co., .... 1*^34 
 
 The I'oetical AVorks of Robert P.urns; with a Life, Glossary, 
 
 &c. 1vol., 24to. London: Josu]ili Smith, . . 1S34 
 
 The Real Souter Johnny, &c. A I'ocm ; with E.xplanatory 
 
 Notes and an Appendix. By Jock Jinglcvcrb. (Pp. 24.) 
 
 May bole : M. Porteous, .... 1^34 
 
 Works [Curric's edition.] 1 vol., Svo. Edin. : Nelson & Brown, 1835 
 Landscape Illu.strations to the first Complete and Tniform 
 
 Edition of the Life and AVorks of Ro!>crt Burns; with 
 
 Original Descriptions by Allan Cunningham. Svo. 
 
 London : James Cociiraue .'<: r'o., . . . 1S35 
 
 A Descriptive Sketch of Burns's Birthplace, Alloway Kirk, 
 
 Monument and Slabs, and liis Haunts on tin; Ayr. (I'p. 22.) 
 
 Printed at the Ayr Observer Office, by J. F. Eraser, . IS37
 
 318 LIFE AMD -WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 The Complete Works of Robert Burns ; containing his Poems, 
 )Songs, and Correspondence. Illustrated by Bartlett, AUom, 
 and other Artists. With a new Life of the Poet, and 
 Notices Critical and Biographical. By Allan Cunningham. 
 2 vols., 4to. London : Virtue, , . . 1839 
 
 Fac-simile of Bnrns's celebrated Poem entitled The Jolly 
 Beggars, from the Original Manuscript. With a Frontis- 
 piece from the Original Drawing by Wm. AUan. 4to. 
 Glasgow: James Lumsden & Son, . . . 1838 
 
 The Poetical Works of Robert Burns [with a Memoir of Burns 
 by Sir Harris Nicolas.] 3 vols., 12mo. London : WiUiam 
 Pickering, ...... 1839 
 
 [Forming part of the series of the Aldine Poets.] 
 
 1. The Life of Robert Burns. By James Currie, M.D. 
 Extended by Additional Particulars, many of which were 
 never before made Public. 
 
 2. The Poetical Works of Robert Burns ; to which are now 
 added Notes, illustrating Historical, Personal, and Local 
 Allusions. 
 
 3. The Prose Works of Robert Burns. With the Notes of 
 Currie and Cromek, and many by the Present Editor. 
 Royal 8vo. Edinburgh : W. & R. Chambers, . 1838-9 
 
 The Life, Letters, and Land of Burns, Illustrated by W. H. 
 Bartlett, T. Allom, and other Artists ; with a new Memoir 
 of the Poet, and Notices, Critical and Biographical, of his 
 Writings, by Allan Cunningham. 2 vols., 4to. London : 
 Yirtue, . . . . . . . 1839 
 
 The Contemporaries of Burns, and the more recent Poets of 
 
 Ayrshire. [By James Paterson.] Edin. : Hugh Baton. 8vo. 1840 
 
 The Land of Burns; a series of Landscapes and Portraits, 
 illustrative of the Life and Writings of the Scottish Poet. 
 The Landscapes from Paintings made expressly for this 
 work by D. 0. Hill, Esq., R.S.A. The Literary Depart- 
 ment by Professor Wilson and Robert Chambers, Esq. 
 2 vols. Glasgow : Blackie & Son, . . . 1840 
 
 Works of Robert Burns ; with Life by Allan Cunningham, and 
 Notes by Gilbert Burns, Lord Byron, Thomas Carlyle, 
 Thomas Campbell, &;c. 1 vol., 8vo. London: T. Tegg, 
 and C. Daly, ..... 1840 
 
 Tomas Seannsair, Maile ri Naoidh dain Eile Le Roibeart 
 Burns, air an cuir an Gaelig le Rob. Mac-Dhughaill, agus 
 oraran ura leis an Eadar-Theangair. Glascho, . . 1840 
 
 [This fasciculus contains Gaelic translations of Tarn o'Shanter, the Twa 
 Dogs, the Calf, Lament for James Earl of Glencairn, Bruce's Address, 
 Highland Mary, &c.] 
 
 Works [Cunningham's edition reprinted.] 1 vol., 8vo, with 
 
 many engravings. London : G. Virtue, . No date.
 
 APPENDIX. ' 319 
 
 The Correspondence between Burns and Clarinda; with a 
 Memoir of Mrs M'Lebose (Clarinda.) Arrannjed and Edited 
 by her Grandson, W. C. M'Lehose. Svo. Edin. : W. Tait, 1843 
 
 A Guide to Ayr, its Environs, and the Land of Bums. Ayr : 
 
 M'Cormick & Gemmell, .... 1844 
 
 A Winter with Robert Burns. Being Annals of his Patrons 
 and Associates in Edinburgh during the year 1 786-7, and 
 the details of his Inauguration as Poet-Laureate of the 
 Can[ongate] Kil[winniug Mason Lodge.] Edinburgh: 
 Peter Brown, ..... 184$ 
 
 The "Works of Fiobert Bums ; with a complete Life of the 
 Poet [by Dr Currie], and an Essay on his Genius and 
 Character, by Professor "Wilson; also numerous Notes, 
 Annotations, and Appendices. Embellished by eighty-one 
 Portraits and Landscape Illustrations. 2 vols., royal Svo. 
 Glasgow : Blackie & Son, .... 1846 
 
 The Complete Poetical "\Vorks of Eobert Bums; with 
 Explanatory and Glossarial Notes, and the Life of the 
 Poet, by Dr Carrie. London : Adam Scott, . 1846 
 
 Poetical Works of Piobert Burns, complete. 1 vol., ISmo. 
 
 Edinburgh: Martin, ..... 1847 
 
 Sylvan's Guide to the Land of Burns. London : Johnstone, 1848 
 
 Works [Currie's edition.] 1 vol., Svo. Halifax: Milner, 1S50 
 
 Robert Burns as a Poet and as a Man. By Samuel Tyler. 
 
 1 vol., 12nio. Dublin : M'GIashan, . . . 1849 
 
 The Complete Works of Robert Burns [Currie's edition] ; 
 with an enlarged and corrected Glossary. 1 vol. 12mo. 
 Aberdeen : George Clarke & Son, . . . 1848 
 
 The Poetical and Prose Writings of Robert Bums; with 
 Life, Notes, and Correspondence, by Allan Cunning- 
 ham, Esq., and Illustrations. Small Svo. London : 
 Daly, ...... circa 1850 
 
 Poetical Works of Robert Burns. [1 vol., very small.] 
 
 Halifax : Milner k Sowcrby, . . . 1851 
 
 Notes on his Name and Family. By James Burnos, K.H., 
 
 F.R.S. Edinburgh : printed for private circulation, . 1851 
 
 American Eomoys op Borm. 
 
 Poems, 32mo, cloth. E. Kearney. 
 
 32mo, clotli, extra. II. F. Anncrs, Philadelphia. 
 
 2 vols, roan. T. Davis. 
 The Life and Land of, by Professor Wilson. Langlcy. 
 Works, 8vo, cloth. Crissy k Marklcy, Piiiladclphia. 
 
 12mo, cloth. II. F. Anners. 
 '... 12nio, cloth, extra. I'liillips k Sampson, Boston. 
 
 ICnio, morocco. Api)leton. 
 
 16mo, cloth. ApjUeton. 
 
 Svo, with Life by Lockhart. Otis, Broadcrs, & Co., Boston.
 
 320 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Life and AVorks of Burns, in one volume, 8vo. J. and J. A. James, 
 
 Cincinnati. 
 Same work, 32mo. 
 
 Germak Editions and Thanslations of Burxs. 
 
 Choice of Burns's Poems ; to wliicli is added a Glossary. 
 
 Royal 8vo. Ansbacli : Dollfuss, . . . '. 1831 
 
 Same work, new edition, .... 1S34 
 
 Works, kc. "With Selected Notes of Allan Cunningham, a 
 BiograiDhical and Critical Introduction, and a Comparative 
 Etymological Glossary, by Adolphus Wagnei*. Complete 
 in one volume [royal 8vo.] Leipsic : Frederick Fleischer, 1835 
 
 Burns : Gedichte Uebers v. Phil. Kaufmann. 8vo. Stuttgart 
 
 und Tubingen. Cotta'sche Buchhandlung, . . 1S40 
 
 Burns : Lieder n. Balladen. Uebertragen v. Ileinr. Jul. 
 Heintze. 2d Ausg. mit d. Bildn. u. einem Kurzen Lebens- 
 abriss d. Distungen nebst erlaut. Anmerkungen. 12mo. 
 Braunschweig : AVestermann, . . . 1840 
 
 Burns's Select Poems and Songs, cliiefly in the Scottish 
 Dialect ; with a Glossary. 8vo. Berlin : Schlcsinger'schc 
 Buchhandlung, ...... 1S41 
 
 Poetical AVorks of Piobert Burns ; with a Life of the Author, 
 and an Essay on the Genius and AA'ritings of Burns, by A. 
 Cunningham. 12mo. [Part of a Collection of British 
 Authors.] Nurnberg : Fr. Campe, . . . 1843 
 
 Burns : Gedichte, Deiitscli v. AV. Gerhard. 
 
 French Translation of Burxs. 
 
 Poesies Completes de Pvobert Burns. Traduites de I'Ecossais 
 par M. Leon de AVailly, avec ime Introduction dn Meme. 
 Paris, ....... 1843
 
 INDEXES. 
 
 THE POEMS, ACCORDING TO THEIR DATES. 
 
 VOL. 1. — JUVENILE. 
 
 * AU Devil as I am, a damned 
 Wretch,' 
 
 The Torbolton Lassos, 
 
 Verses on the Ronald Family, . 
 
 ■\Vinter, a Dirge 
 
 I'rayer written under the Pressure 
 of violent Anguish, . 
 
 Page 
 
 37 
 45 
 4B 
 61 
 
 C2 
 
 1782. 
 
 Death and Dying Words of Poor 
 Mailie, 
 
 1784. 
 
 Extempore Verses—' Oh, why the 
 deuco should I repine," . 
 
 A I'rayer in Prospect (if Death, . 
 
 St:inzas on the same Occasion, 
 
 The First Psalm, 
 
 The First Six Verses of the Nine- 
 teenth Psalm, .... 
 
 Epistle to .John Ranliine, 
 
 Elej<y on the Death of Robert Ruis- 
 seaux, 
 
 The Uelles of Mauchline, . 
 
 1785. 
 
 Epistle to Davie, a brothcr-poct, 
 Death and I)r Hornbook, . 
 Epistle to .John l.aprail*, 
 Second Epistle to .John I.apraik, 
 Epistle to Jolui tiuudie of Kilmar 
 
 nock, 
 
 The Twa Herds, or Holy Tulzic, 
 To William S[im|)son], 
 Holy Willie's I'rayer, 
 Iqiitaph on Hnly Willie, 
 Third Kpistlc to .luliii I.apraik, 
 ]:piH(le to the Rev. Julin M'.Matli, 
 'J'o a Mouse, .... 
 
 JIallowecn, .... 
 Second Kpistle to Davie, 
 Man was made to Mourn, 
 'J'he Cotter's .Saturday Nii;lit, 
 Address to the Deil, 
 
 VUL. IV, 
 
 67 
 
 105 
 110 
 115 
 119 
 
 I?3 
 
 1-J4 
 IL'H 
 I.I.'. 
 1.17 
 I. 'ill 
 140 
 144 
 Mfi 
 l.'*5 
 156 
 
 im 
 
 lfJ5 
 
 Page 
 On John Dove, .... 170 
 The Jolly liegaars, . . . .171 
 To .James Smith, ... 182 
 
 The Vision 187 
 
 , Additional Stanzas of, ii. 311 
 
 A AVinter Night 195 
 
 Scotch Drink, .... 199 
 
 178G. 
 
 The Author's Earnest Cry and 
 
 Prayer, 203 
 
 The Auld Farmer's New- Year Salu- 
 tation to his Auld Marc Maggie, 203 
 
 The Twa Dogs 212 
 
 To a Louse, 218 
 
 The Ordination 22U 
 
 An Address to the Unco Guid, or 
 
 t!ie Rigidly Righteous, . . 224 
 
 Tlie Inventory, .... 227 
 
 To Mr John Kennedy, . . 229 
 
 To a Mountain Daisy, . . .236 
 Lament for the unfortunate Issue 
 
 of a Friend's Amour, . . . 237 
 
 Despondency, an Ode, . . 239 
 
 To Ruin 241 
 
 Note to Gavin Hamilton, . . 243 
 
 ICpistle to a Young Friend, . . 244 
 
 Address of Beelzebub, iVc, . . 255 
 
 A Dream 258 
 
 The Holy I'air 2(13 
 
 On a Scotch Hard, .... 272 
 
 A Hard's Fpitaph, ... 2/3 
 A Dedication to Gavin Hamilton, 
 
 Esq 274 
 
 To Mr Mackenzie, surgeon, Mauch- 
 line, 273 
 
 The I'arewell 2N7 
 
 Lines written on a Ilank-note, . 2UH 
 VVriiicn on a Jtlank Leaf of a Copy 
 
 of the I'oems, iVc 28;) 
 
 Vcr.ses written under violent Grief, 2ll!» 
 
 The Calf, «I2 
 
 Willie Ch.-ilmcrs •.'(.I 
 
 Tarn .Samson's Kleg)-, . . . 2!(4 
 
 To Mr .M'.Adam of Craigengillan, . 29» 
 Verses left in the Room where ho 
 
 slept, .3(K) 
 
 The llrigs of Ayr ;«i6 
 
 U
 
 322 
 
 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Page 
 Lines on mooting with Basil, Lord 
 
 Daer 321 
 
 Epistle to Major Logan, . , . 322 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 Address to Edinburgh, . . 23 
 
 On Charles Edward's Birthday, . 26 
 
 1787. 
 
 To Miss Logan, with Boattie's Poems, 27 
 The Gudewife of Wauchope House 
 
 to Burns, 38 
 
 Burns to the Gudowife of Wauchope 
 
 House, 38 
 
 Description of William SmoUie, 41 
 To Mrs David Wilson, Rosl in, . 43 
 Inscription for the Tomb of Fergus- 
 son, 46 
 
 Verses under the Portrait of Fer- 
 
 gusson 47 
 
 Yerses intended to be -wTittcn below 
 
 a noble Earl's Picture, . . 48 
 
 To a Haggis, .... 51 
 
 Extempore in the Court of Session, 54 
 Prologue spoken by Mr Woods on 
 
 his Benefit Night, ... 69 
 
 Willie's awa, .... 85 
 
 Symon Gray 88 
 
 On Incivility shewn him at Inverary, 99 
 On loaWng a Place in the Highlands 
 
 where he had been kindly enter- 
 tained, 103 
 
 On reading in a Newspaper the 
 
 Death of John M'Leod, Esq., . IOC 
 On the death of Sir James Hunter 
 
 Blair, 108 
 
 To Miss Forrier, .... 109 
 "Written on a Window of the Inn at 
 
 Carron, 115 
 
 Lines on the Window of an Inn at 
 
 Stirling, 120 
 
 Verses written with a Pencil over 
 
 the Chimney-piece in the Parlour 
 
 of the Inn at Kenmore, Taymouth, 121 
 The Humble Petition of Bruar Water 
 
 to the noble Duke of Atholo, . 120 
 Verses written while standing by 
 
 the Fall of Fycrs, near Loch Ness, 130 
 Castle-Gordon, . . . .13-2 
 
 The Bonny Lass of Albany, . 138 
 
 On scaring some Water-fowl in Loch 
 
 Turit 150 
 
 To Miss Cruikahank, a very young 
 
 L.ady, 159 
 
 Address to Mr William Tytler, . 109 
 Elegy on the Death of Lord President 
 
 Dundas, 179 
 
 1788. 
 
 On Mr Elphinstonc's Translation of 
 
 Martial, 195 
 
 A Farewell to Clarinda, . . 207 
 
 Pag» 
 To Clarinda, with a Pair of Drinking- 
 
 glasses, 247 
 
 Epistle to Hugh Parker, . . 26S 
 Verses in Friars' Carse Hermitage, 270 
 The Fete Champetre, . . .282 
 First EpistletoMrGraham of Fintry, 287 
 Mrs Fergusson of Craigdarroch's La- 
 mentation for the Death of her Son, 289 
 Lines ^vTitton in Friars' Carse Her- 
 mitage—extended copy, . . 302 
 
 1789. 
 Elegy on the year 1788, 
 
 SOff 
 
 VOL. III. 
 
 A Sketch [W. Creech], . . .15 
 
 Extempore to Captain Riddel, . 18 
 Ode, Sacred to the Memory of Mrs 
 
 Oswald, L9 
 
 To John Taylor, .... 20 
 Sketch, inscribed to Charles James 
 
 Fox, 35 
 
 [Verses on a Wounded Hare,] . 38 
 
 Delia, ^0 
 
 On seeing a Wounded Hare limp by 
 
 me 42 
 
 RhjTned Epistle to James Tennant 
 
 of Glenconner, .... 43 
 
 Address to the Toothache, . . 46 
 
 The Kirk's Alarm, ... 55 
 
 The Whistle, 68 
 
 To Mary in Heaven, ... 73 
 
 To Dr Blacklook, .... 77 
 On Captain Grose's Peregrinations 
 
 through Scotland, . . . 7f> 
 
 Epitaph on Captain Grose, . 80 
 
 Written in an Envelope, enclosing a 
 
 Letter to Captain Grose, . - 81 
 The Five Carlines [an Election 
 
 Ballad] «» 
 
 1790. 
 
 Ske'teh— Now- Year's Day, . . 100 
 Prologue spoken at the Theatre, 
 Dumfries, on New- Year's Evening 
 
 (1790), 102- 
 
 Prologue for Mr Sutherland's Benefit 
 
 Night, Dumfries, . . .107 
 
 Peg Nicholson, .... 118 
 Written to a Gentleman who had sent 
 the Poet a Newspaper, and offered 
 to continue it free of Expense, . 121 
 [Second] Epistle to Mr Graham of 
 
 Fintry, IS."* 
 
 On Captain Matthew Henderson, 135 
 Epitaph on Captain Henderson, 137 
 
 Tarn o'Shanter : a Tale, . . 152 
 Stanzas on the Birth of a Posthu- 
 mous Child, born under peculiar 
 circumstances of Family Dis- 
 tress, . .... 102
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Elegy on the late Miss Burnet of 
 
 Monboddo ]C7 
 
 Lament of Mary Queen of Scots on 
 
 the approach of Spring, . . 170 
 Lament for James, Earl of Glcn- 
 
 caim 176 
 
 Lines sent to Sir John AVhitefoord, 
 
 Hart., of Wliitefoord, with the 
 
 Foregoing Poem, . . . 178 
 Third Epistle to Jlr Graham of 
 
 Fintry, 188 
 
 Address to the Shade of Thomson, 194 
 To Mr Maxwell of Tcrraughty on his 
 
 Birthday, 204 
 
 Fourth Epistle to Mr Graham of 
 
 Fintry, 
 
 Sensibility, .... 
 
 207 
 212 
 
 1792 
 
 Lines on Forgusson, . . . 221 
 The Rights of AVoman, an Occa- 
 sional Address spoken by Miss 
 Fontenellc, .... 256 
 To Miss Fontcnelle, on seeing her 
 in a favourite Character, . . 257 
 
 1793. 
 Sonnet on hearing a Thrush sing, 281 
 
 TOL. iv. 
 Epitaph on a Lap-dog, . . .15 
 
 1794. 
 
 Page 
 Monody on a Lady famed for her 
 
 Caprice, 61 
 
 Epistle from Esopus to Maria, . 62 
 
 A Vision, fi<) 
 
 Sonnet on the Death of Glonriddcl, 77 
 Fragment of an Ode for Washing- 
 ton's Birthday, ... 83 
 Address to the Daughter of Jlr 
 
 Graham of Fintry, ... 85 
 
 The Tree of Liberty, ... 87 
 To Dr Maxwell, on Miss Jessy 
 
 Staig's Recovery 95 
 
 1795. 
 
 To Chloris 
 
 Toast for the 12th of April, . 
 
 Epigrams on Mr Syme, 
 
 Inscription for an Altar to Independ- 
 ence, 
 
 Verses on the Destruction of the 
 Woods near Drumlanrig, 
 
 Address, spoken by Miss Fonte- 
 nellc on her Benefit Niglat (Dec. 
 1795) 
 
 179C. 
 
 To Collector Slitchcll, . 
 To Colonel de I'eyster, 
 A Toast to Jessy, 
 Epigrams on Miss Lewars, 
 Versicles— Epigrams, Epitaphs, 4:c., 
 
 104 
 152 
 157 
 
 171 
 
 172 
 
 179 
 
 180 
 185 
 197 
 199 
 235
 
 THE SONGS, ACCORDING TO THEIR FIRST LINES. 
 
 Page 
 Adieu ! a heart-warm, fond adieu, i. 277 
 AdowTi winding Nith I did wander, iv. 26 
 Ae fond kiss, and then we sever, iii. 214 
 Again rejoicing nature sees, . i. 241 
 A Highland hid my love was bom, i. 175 
 Altliough my bed were in yon 
 
 muir, . . . . . i. 73 
 
 Ance mair I hail thee, thou 
 
 gloomy December, . . iii. 215 
 
 And O for ane-and-twenty. Tarn, iii. 239 
 Anna, thy charms my bosom lire, iv. 75 
 A rose-bud by my early walk, ii. 158 
 
 As I was a wandering ae midsum- 
 mer e'enin', . , . iv. 260 
 A' the lads o' Thornie-bank, iv. 253 
 A wa wi' your witchcraft o' beauty 's 
 
 alarms, . . . . iv. 1R8 
 
 Awa, Whigs, awa ! . . . iv. 2.i6 
 Bannocks o' bear-meal, . iv. 272 
 
 Behind yon hills where Stinsiar 
 
 flows, i. 43 
 
 Behold the hour, the boat, arrive — 
 
 iii. 2U ; iv. ;',3 
 Blithe, blithe and meny was she, ii. 151 
 Blithe hae I been on yon hill, iii. 31)9 
 Bonnie lassie, will ye go, . ii. 122 
 
 Bonnie wee thing, cannie wee 
 
 thing iii. 1!)7 
 
 But lately seen in gladsome green, iv. 102 
 By Allan Stream I chanced to 
 
 rove, iv. 24 
 
 Hy yon castle wa', at the close of 
 
 the day, .... iii. 175 
 
 Ca' the yowcs to the knowcs, iv. 92, 257 
 Canst thou leave me thus, my 
 
 Katy? .... iv. 119 
 
 Clarinda, mistress of my soul, ii. 207 
 Come, let me take thee to my 
 
 breast, iv. 28 
 
 Coming through the rye, i)oor 
 
 body, . . . . iv. 268 
 
 Contented -wi" little, and cantie 
 
 wi' mair, . . , . iv. 118 
 
 Cojild aught of song declare my 
 
 pains, .... iv. 73 
 
 Deluded swain, the pleasure, iv. 43 
 
 Dire was the hate at old JIarlaw, iv. 182 
 Does haughty Gaul invasion 
 
 threat? .... i v. 1.51 
 
 Dimcan Gray cam here to woo, iii. 264 
 Fairest maid on Devon banks, jv; 206 
 I'areweel to a' our Scottish fame, iv. 265 
 Farewell, thou fair day, thou 
 
 green earth, and ye skies, . iii. 205 
 
 Page 
 Farewell, ye dungeons dark and 
 
 strong, .... ii. 213 
 
 First when Maggj- was my care, iv. 255 
 Flow gently, sweet Afton, among 
 
 thy green braes, . . iii. 245 
 
 Forlorn^ my love, no comfort near, iv. 165 
 Frae tlie friends and land I love, iii. 236 
 From thee, Eliza, I must go, i. 252 
 
 Gane is the day, and mirk 's the 
 
 night, .... iv. 261 
 
 Gat ye mo, O gat ye me, . . iv. 269 
 Go fetch to me a pint o' wine, ii. 301 
 
 Had I a cave on some wild dis- 
 tant shore, . . . iv. 23 
 Here awa, there awa, wandering 
 
 Willie, . . iii. 217, 288, 293-4 
 
 Here is the glen, and hero the 
 
 bower, . . . . iv. 80 
 
 Here 's a health to ane I loe dear, iv. 193 
 Here's a health to them that's 
 
 awa, iii. 271 
 
 Here 's to thy health, my bonnie 
 
 lass, iv. 71 
 
 How can my poor heart be glad, iv. 90 
 How cruel are the parents, . iv. 161 
 
 How lang and dreary is the night, iv. lOO 
 How pleasant the banks of the 
 
 clear-winding Devon, . ii. 170 
 
 Husband, husband, cease your 
 
 strife, . . . . iv. 51 
 
 I am a bard of no regard, . . i. 178 
 I am a son of Mars, who have 
 
 been in many wars, . . i. 172 
 
 I am my mammy's ae bairn, iv. 251 
 
 I bought mj' wife a stanc o' lint, iv. 260 
 I coft a stane o' haslock woo', iv. 26!) 
 I do confess thou art sae fair, . iii. 238 
 I dreamed I lay where ilowers were 
 
 springing, .... i. 37 
 
 I gaed a waefu' gate yestreen, . iii. 9H 
 I hae a wife o' my ain, . . ii. 298 
 
 I '11 aye ca' in by yon town, . iv. 272 
 I '11 kiss thee yet, yet, . . ii. 216 
 In Mauchline there dwells six 
 
 proper young belles, . . i. 99 
 In simmer, when the hay was 
 
 mawn, iii. 241 
 
 I once was a maid, though I can- 
 not tell when, ... i. 173 
 Is there, for honest poverty, . iv. 133 
 Jt is na, Jean, thy bonnie face, iv. 261 
 It was a' for our rightfu' king, iv. 273 
 It was in sweet Senegal that my 
 
 foes did me enthral, . . iv. 267
 
 INDEX. 
 
 325 
 
 Page 
 It was the charming month of 
 
 May iv. in 
 
 It was upon a Lammas night, i. 72 
 
 Jamiii, come try me, . . iv. 255 
 
 Jockey's taen the parting kiss, iv. 75 
 John Anderson my jo, John, iii. 110 
 
 Lassie wi' the lint-white loelvs, iv. 112 
 Last May a braw wooer cam down 
 
 the Jang glen, ... iv. 165 
 
 Let love sparkle in her ee, . iv. 2fi7 
 Let me ryke up to dight that tear, i. 176 
 Let not woman e'er complain, . iv. loo 
 Long, long the niglit, . . iv. 159 
 
 Loud blaw the fiMsty breezes, . ii. 215 
 Louis, what reck I by theo y . iv. 71 
 Mark yonder pomp of costly 
 
 fashion, .... iv. 162 
 Musing on the roaring ocean, ii. 216 
 
 My bonny hiss, I work in brass, i. 177 
 My Chloris, mark how green the 
 
 groves, .... iv. 110 
 
 My fatlier was a farmer upon the 
 
 Carriek border, (J, . . i. 62 
 
 My Harry was a gallant gay, . iii, 109 
 My lieart is a breaking, dear 
 
 tittie, .... iii. lU 
 
 My heart is sair— I dare na tell, iv. 71 
 My heart is v/iw, and unco wae, ii. 138 
 My heart's in the Highlands, my 
 
 heart is not here, . . iii. IIS 
 My Peggy's face, my Pegg>''8form, ii. 165 
 Nae gentle dames, though e'er sac 
 
 fail- i. 219 
 
 No eliurchman am I for to rail 
 
 and to write, ... i. 94 
 
 >'ow in hiT green mantle blithe 
 
 nature arrays, . . . iii. 217 
 Now rosy .May comes in wi' flowers, iv. 28 
 Now spring has clad tlie grove in 
 
 green, iv. 169 
 
 Now westlin winds and slaught'r- 
 
 ing guns, . . . . i. 74 
 O aye my wife she dang me, . iv. 275 
 () bunnie was yon rosy brier, iv. 170 
 
 O cam ye liere tlie fight to shun, iii. Ill 
 Of a' tlie nirts the wind can t>law, ii. 26H 
 O gin my love « ere yon red rose, iii. 31 1 
 O guid ule comes and guid ale 
 
 goes iv. 276 
 
 Oh, I am come to the low oountric, iv. 273 
 Oh, Lady Mary Ann looked o'er 
 
 the castle wa", ... iv. 263 
 
 Oh, Mary, at thy window bo, . i. 71 
 Oh, once I IdvciI a honnie lass, i. ."JO 
 
 O hiiw can I be blithe ami glad, iii. 2,'I7 
 () hiiw shall I, luiskiifu', try, . iii. HI' 
 Oh, raging fortune's willuring 
 
 blast, i. I<i4 
 
 Oh, saw ye my dear, my I'hely, iv. 9H 
 Oh, Tibbie, I hae Ri-en the day. i. 44 
 Oh, waL ye wha's in yon town 'I iv. l.W 
 Oh, were I on I'arnnsdus' bill, . ii. 2(i!( 
 Oh, wert thou in the caiild blast, iv. 195 
 Oh, wha will to tit Stephen's 
 House, ii. 282 
 
 Page 
 
 O Kenmure 's on and awa, Willie, iv. 264 
 O ken ye what Meg o' the Mill has 
 
 gotten? .... iii. 296 
 O lassie, art thou sleeping yet ? iv. 1,19 
 O lay thy loof in mine, lass, . iv. 76 
 O leeze me on my spinning-wheel, iii. 240 
 O Logan, sweetly didst thou glide, iii. .SIO 
 O lovely Polly Stewart ! . . iv. 7- 
 O luve will venture in where it 
 
 daurn.a weel be seen, . . iii. 243 
 O Mally's meek, .Mally 's sweet, iv. 76 
 O May, thy morn was ne'er so 
 
 sweet, iii. 216 
 
 O meiklo tiiinks my luve o' my 
 
 beauty " iii. 236 
 
 O mirlc, mirk is this midnight 
 
 hour, iii. 284 
 
 O my hive's like a red, red rose, iv. 6S 
 On a bank of flowers, in a summer 
 
 day, iii. 112 
 
 On Cessnock Banks there lives a 
 
 lass, i. Ri 
 
 O open the door, some pity to shew, iii. 290 
 O Philly, liappy be that day, . iv. 116 
 O poortith cauld, and restless love, iii. 2/9 
 O sad and heavy should I part, iv. 271 
 O saw ye bonnie Lesley, . . iii. 228 
 O stay, sweet warbling woodlark, 
 
 stay, iv. 159 
 
 O steer her up and hand her gaun, iv. 274 
 O tell na me o' wind and rain, iv. 140 
 O this is no my ain lassie, . iv. 16S 
 
 Out over tiie Forth I look to the 
 
 north, iv. 71 
 
 Out ower yon muir, out ower yon 
 
 moss iv. 75 
 
 O wat ye wlia's in yon town, . iv. 13!( 
 O wha is she that Iocs me, . iv. 249 
 
 O whare did you get that hauvcr 
 
 meal bannock ? . . . iv. 251 
 
 O whistle, and I'll come to you, 
 
 my lad, . . ii. 212 ; iv. 26, 167 
 
 O Willie brewed a peck o' maut, iii. 64 
 O wilt thou go wi' me, sweet Tibbie 
 
 Dunbar.' .... iii. 108 
 I'o« ers celestial ! whose protec- 
 tion i. 2.50 
 
 Having winds around her blowing, ii. 215 
 Kobin ahure in hairst, . . iv. 276 
 Sac Haxeu were lur ringlets, iv. 9,1 
 
 .Scots,whahae wi' Wallaecbled, iv. 31, .39 
 Bee! the Hiiioking bowl befiire us .' i. 179 
 She is a winsDUie wee thing, . iii. 254 
 .She 's fair and fause that causes 
 
 my smart iii. 247 
 
 Should auld ae>|uaintance be for- 
 got , . . . . ii. 300 ; iv. Xi 
 Simmer "s a plciiK.int time, . iv. 2.14 
 Sir Wisdom 'sa fool when he's fou, i. 174 
 SIcep'st thou, or wak'st thou, 
 
 fairest creature / . . . iv. 101 
 Stny, my charmer, can you leave 
 
 me? ii. 214 
 
 Streamii that glido iu orient 
 
 plains, ii. 132
 
 326 
 
 LIFE AND "WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Sweet closes the eve on Craigie- 
 
 buin Wood, . . . iii. 234 
 
 Sweet fa's the eve onCraigieburn, iii. 235 
 Sweetest May, let love inspire tliee, iv. 276 
 The bonniest lad that e'er I saw, iv. 271 
 TheCatrinewoodswere yellow seen, i. 156 
 The day returns, my bosom burns, ii. 285 
 The deil came fiddling through the 
 
 town, ill 224 
 
 The gloomy night is gathering fast, i. 302 
 Their groves o' sweet myrtle let 
 
 foreign lands reclion, . . iv. 160 
 The laddies by the banks o' Nith, iii. 87 
 The last time I came o'er the moor, iii. 304 
 The lazy mist hangs from the brow 
 
 of the hill ii. 295 
 
 The lovely lass o' Inverness, . iv. 67 
 The noble Maxwells and their 
 
 powers, .... iii. 241 
 The ploughman he's a bonnie lad, iv. 253 
 There lived a carle on Ivellyburn 
 
 Braes, .... iv. 266 
 
 There's auld Rob Morris that 
 
 wons in yon glen. . . . iii. 234 
 Thei'e 's braw, braw lads on Yar- 
 row braes, .... iii. 280 
 There 's nought but care on every 
 
 hand i. 92 
 
 There was a lad was born in Kyle, i. 97 
 There was a lass, and she was fair, iii. 313 
 There was a lass, they ca'd her Meg, iv. 252 
 There was once a day, but old 
 
 Time then was young, . iv. 248 
 
 There were five carlines in the 
 
 south, .... iii. 89 
 
 There were three kings into the 
 
 east i. 70 
 
 The small birds rejoice in the green 
 
 leaves returning, . . ii. 250 
 
 The smiling spruig comes in re- 
 joicing, .... iii. 246 
 The Thames flows proudly to the 
 
 sea, iii. 114 
 
 The tither morn, wlien I forlorn, iv. 259 
 The woaiy pund, the weary pund, iv. 260 
 Thickest night, o'erhang my 
 
 dwelling ! . . . . ii. 214 
 
 Thine am I, my faithful fair, iii. 106 
 Though cruel fate should bid us 
 
 part i. 254 
 
 Though women's minds, like 
 
 winter winds, . . . iv. 258 
 Thou hast left me ever, Jamie ! iv. 37 
 To thee, loved Nith, thy gladsome 
 
 plains, iv. 137 
 
 True-hearted was he, the sad 
 
 swain o' the Yarrow, . . iii. 291 
 Turn again, thou fair Eliza, iii. 242 
 
 'Xwaa even— tlie dewy fields were 
 
 green, i. 281 
 
 'Twaa in the seventeen hunder 
 
 year iv. 147 
 
 Page 
 'Twas na her bonnie blue ee was 
 
 my ruin, .... iv. 100 
 
 Up in the morning 's no for me, iv. 252 
 Up wi' the carles o' Dysart, iv. 265 
 
 Wae is my heart, and the tear 's in 
 
 my ce, .... iv. 73 
 
 AVee Willie Gray, and his leather 
 
 wallet, iVi 275 
 
 Wha is that at my bower-door ? iv. 258 
 ■Whare hae ye been sae brav/, lad? iv. 256 
 What can a young lassie, what 
 
 shall a young lassie, . . iii. 237 
 What will I do gin my hoggie die ? iv. 254 
 Wha will buy my troggin ? iv. 196 
 
 AVhen clouds in skies do come 
 
 together, . . . . i. 103 
 
 When first I came to Stewart Kyle, i. 101 
 When first I saw fair Jeanie's 
 
 face iii. 98 
 
 When GuUdford good our pilot 
 
 stood, ii. 49 
 
 When o'er the hill the eastern 
 
 star, .... iii. 251, 263 
 When rosy morn comes in wi' 
 
 showers, .... iii. 109 
 When wild war's deadly blast was 
 
 blawn, iii. 294 
 
 When winter's wind was blawing 
 
 cauld, iv. 270 
 
 Where are the joys I hae met in 
 
 ' the morning ? . . . iv. 37, 42 
 
 Where, braving angry winter's 
 
 storms, ii. 165 
 
 Where Cart rina rowin' to the 
 
 sea, iii. 246 
 
 Where live ye, my bonnie lass ? iv. 262 
 While larks with little wing, iv. 21 
 
 AVhom will ye send to London 
 
 town? iv. 141 
 
 Why, why tell thy lover? . iv. 166 
 Willie Wastle dwalt on Tweed, iii. 244 
 Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary ? i. 250 
 Wilt thou be my dearie ? . . iv. 72 
 Ye banks, and braes, and streams 
 
 around, .... iii. 254 
 Ye banks and braes 0' bonnie 
 
 Doon, iii. 244 
 
 Ye flowery banks o' bonnie Doon, ii. 33 
 Ye gallants bright, I rede ye right, iii. 110 
 Ye Jacobites by name, give an ear, 
 
 give an eai-, . . . iv. 263 
 
 Ye 're welcome to despots, 
 
 Dumourier, .... iii. 299 
 Ye sons of old Killie, assembled 
 
 by Willie, .... i. 280 
 
 Yestreen I got a pint o' wine, iii. 299 
 
 Yon wild mossy mountains sae 
 
 lofty and wide, . . . iii. 238 
 YoungJamie,prideofa'the plain, iv. 268 
 Young Jockey was the blithest lad, iv. 258 
 Young Peggy blooms our bonniest 
 
 lass i. 198
 
 GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 Alierdeen, Bums at, ii. 134. 
 
 Aberfeldy, the falls at, ii. 122. 
 
 Adair, Dr James M., accompanies Bums 
 
 to Harvieston, ii. 145, 315. 
 AddLngton, Mr Henry [Lord Sidmouth], 
 
 verses by, on Burns, ii. 133 ; iv. 153. 
 Afton, river, celebrated by Burns, iii. 245. 
 Aiken, Andrew, poem addressed to, i. 214. 
 
 , Miss Grace, i. 105 ; ii. 110; iv. 190. 
 
 , Mr Robert, writer in Ayr, i. 135, 
 
 IGO; account of, 225, 227; letter to, 
 234; 290; letter to, 317; ii. 201, 250; 
 iv. 225, 235. 
 Ainslie, Rachel, ii. 79, 92. 
 
 , Robert, a young fiiend of Bums, 
 
 ii. 71 ; accompanies Burns on a tour, 
 78; letters to, 100, 105, 113, IG/; anec- 
 dote told by, 168 ; letters to, 234, 259, 
 264, 270, 271, 309; iii. 48, 84; visits 
 Burns at EUisland, 151; letters to, 
 211,306. 
 Ainslie's map of .Scotland, iiL 167. 
 Airds HUl, adventure of Burns at, iv. 18. 
 Albany, Bonny Lass of, a Jacobite effu- 
 sion, ii. 138. 
 Alexander, Wilhclmina, of Balloclunylc, 
 
 i. 280 ; letter to, 32s. 
 Alison, Rev. Arcliibald, iii. IGO. 
 Allan, David, painter, iii. 287 ; iv. 161, 164. 
 Alloway Kirk, iii. 151, 155, 159. 
 Alnwick, Bums at, ii. 93. 
 American war, ballad on, ii. 49. 
 Anderson, Dr James, editor of the Cce, 
 
 iii. 145; letter to, 140. 
 • Anna,' a song upon, iii. 299. 
 Argyle, Duke of, anecdote of, iv. 291. 
 Association theory of beauty, iii. 169. 
 Atholc, Duke of, entertains Burns, ii. 123. 
 Auld, Rev. Mr, minister of Mauchline, 
 
 i. 1.34, 270; iii. 57. 
 AjT, Bums resides at, in boyhood, i. 20. 
 Ayton, Sir Robert, a song by, iii. 23a 
 
 Bacon, of Bmu-nhill Inn, iv. 49. 
 Baillie, Lady Grizcl— a b;illad of hers 
 
 cuiotcd, iv. 81. 
 Baillie, Miss Lesley, song upon, iii. 228, 
 
 231 , 254. 
 Baird, Rev. Ocorgc, letter to, iii. 174. 
 Balfour, Mr James, a noted singer of 
 
 Scottish son^'.s, iv. 41. 
 Ballads, ancient, llurns's admiration 
 
 of, i. 102. 
 Ballantyne, John, E.iq., of Ayr, i. 234, 
 
 .305 ; letters to, ii. 2<J, 28, 38, 44 ; nncc- 
 
 dute of, iii. 50. 
 
 Ballochmyle, adventure of Bums at, 
 
 i. 280. 
 Balmerino's dirk, iv. 67. 
 Banff, Burns at, ii. 1,33. 
 Banks of Helicon, au old tune, iv. 39. 
 Bannockburn, Bums on the field of, 
 
 ii. 116. 
 Baptism , anecdote of a, in Bums's house, 
 
 iii. 278. 
 Barelaj', Mr, a Bcrean minister, iii. 111. 
 Begbie, Ellison, i. 52 ; letters to, 55. 
 Begg, Mrs (Isabella Bui-ns), sister of the 
 
 poet, i. 41, 65, 75, 81, 82. 
 Belles of Mauchline, i. 99. 
 Benson, Miss (Mrs Basil Montagu), letter 
 
 to, iii. 288; anecdote reported by, 
 
 iv. 56. 
 Beugo, Mr, engraver of Bums's portrait, 
 
 ii. 42 ; letter to, 280. 
 Biggar, Misses, Kirkoswald, i. 35. 
 Birtwhistle, Alciaader, Esq., iii. 88; 
 
 iv. 143. 
 Blacklock, Dr Tliomas, the blind poet, 
 
 i. 303, 329 ; ii. 34 ; letter to, 296 ; epistle 
 
 from, iii. 76 ; epistle to, 77 ; verso 
 
 epistle from, 145. 
 Blackstock, Miss Jane, song upon, 
 
 iii. 281. 
 Blair, Burns visits the Diikc of Atholo 
 
 at, ii. 123. 
 Blair, Rev. Hugh, i. 330 ; ii. 61, 68 ; letter 
 
 to, "5 ; letter by him to Bums, 76. 
 Blair, Sir J. XL, elegy on, ii. I07. 
 Blane, John, paudsnian to Bums, i. 146. 
 Bloomfield, Robert, the poet, iii. 276. 
 Bonnie Doon, a song, ii. 33. 
 Books bought by Bums from Mr Peter 
 
 Hill, iii. 167. 
 Books read by Burns in early life, i. 13, 
 
 339. 
 Bowm.aker, Rev. Dr, of Dunsc, ii. 79, 92, 
 Boyd, Rev. AVilliam, of I'enwick, i. 222. 
 Breadalbanc, Earl of, satirised by Burns, 
 
 i. 255, 
 Brice, Mr David, letters to, i. 253, 271. 
 Brow, Burns at, for sea-bathing, iv. 201. 
 Brown, Dr John, author of Brownonian 
 
 Sy.stem, ii. 111. 
 Brown, .Mr .Samuel, letter to, ii. 2.18. 
 , Richard, an earlj- friend of 
 
 Bums, i. .39, .W ; ii. 18G, 2'M, 229 ; letters 
 
 to, 231, 2,39,248; iii. 44, 85. 
 Brownhill Inn, Burns at, iv. 49. 
 Brn.-ir Water, Tails of, visited by Burns, 
 
 ii. 124; verses on, 126. 
 Bruce, Michael, the i)ott, iii 171.
 
 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Bruce, Mrs, of Clackmannan, ii. 154. 
 
 ,Robcrt, his sword, Burns knighted 
 
 by, ii. 153. ' Address to his Men at 
 Bannockburn,' iv. 31. 
 
 ' Bruce's Address ' — Scots wha hae, &c. 
 Circumstances of its composition, 
 iv. 32. 
 
 Brydses, Sir Egerton, ideal visit of, to 
 Burns, iii. 143. 
 
 Buehan, Earl of, ii. 15, 3(); letter to, ZS; 
 invitation fi'om and letter to, iii. 193; 
 letter to, iv. 55. 
 
 Buchanites, Burns's account of the, i. 95. 
 
 Burn, Mr Robert, architect, iii. 221. 
 
 Burnes, Mr James, of Montrose, letters 
 of the poet to, i. 83, 95, 297 ; visited 
 by the poet, ii. 13j ; letter to, iii. 22; 
 iv. 205 ; sends help to Burns, 207 ; his 
 generous offers to Mrs R. Burns, 222. 
 
 Burnes, Mr James, of Montrose (second 
 of the name), ii. 136 ; iv. 206. 
 
 Burnet, Eliza, daughter of Lord Mon- 
 boddo, ii. 21, 22, 24 ; iii. Ifi7. 
 
 Burns, Agnes, mother of the poet, i. 26, 
 27,331,338; iv. 233. 
 
 Burns, Agnes and Annabella, sisters of 
 the poet, i. 41 , 331. 
 
 Burns, Eliz.abeth, a daughter of the 
 poet, iii. 260; iv. 175, 185. 
 
 Burns, Elizabeth, two children of Burns, 
 iv. 307. 
 
 Burns, Francis Wallace, the poet's 
 second son, born, iii. 60 ; iv. 229. 
 
 Burns, Gilbert, brother of the poet, i. 12, 
 25, 84, 109,331, 337; letter to, ii. 136, 
 217; Robert Burns lends money to, 
 251 ; writes to R. Burns, 305 ; letter to, 
 iii. 101; remarks by, on political time- 
 servers, 277; letter to, iv. 204; letter 
 from, iv. 221; conduct at his brother's 
 death, 222; letter of to Mr George 
 Thomson, 226 ; his edition of the poet's 
 works, 231-3. 
 
 Burns, James Gloncairn, the poet's 
 youngest surviving son, iv. 230. 
 
 Burns, Miss, iii. 117; iv. 241. 
 
 , Mr Robert, the poet's eldest son, 
 
 iii. 289; iv. 70, 130, 132,229. 
 
 Burns, Mrs Robert, the poet's Avife 
 (see also ' Jean"), iii. 72, 140, 152, 2(iO; 
 iv. 125, 132, 174, 205, 208, 209, 222, 229, 230. 
 
 Burns, Robert, the poet, his ancestry, 
 i. 333; parentage and early days, 10; his 
 first love, 12, 29 ; books read by him in 
 boyhood, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19, 22, 38, 339, 
 343; early companions, 11, 12; anec- 
 dote of his birth, 10; at Kirkoswald 
 school, 31; at Irvine, .39,58; early love 
 affairs, 40; musical .accomplishments 
 of, Gtj; sober habits in early life, 85; 
 as a farmer and man of business, 85 ; 
 (also iii. 1.39, 141, 146); severe illness and 
 penitential reflections, 86 ; as a free- 
 mason, 94, 278; acquaintance with 
 Jean Armour, 97; tirst determination 
 of his mind to literature, 99; religious 
 
 feelings and habits, 159 (also ii. 55, 
 1.90,219; iii. 49, 63, 93) ; collects money 
 for his poems at Maybole, 290; visits 
 St Marg.aret's Hill, 3(10; contemplates 
 emigration to the West Indies, 231, 
 233, 247, 271, 283, 290, 305, 315, 327; 
 troubles connected with his passion for 
 Jean Armour, 231, 237, 283; publishes 
 his poems, 284 ; first criticism on his 
 poems, 327; metresof Burns, 345 ; sale 
 of Kilmarnock edition of the poems, 
 349 ; comes to Edinburgh, ii. 13 ; re- 
 ception by the Edinburgh literati, 21 ; 
 personal appearance and conversation 
 in Edinburgh, 25; atSmellie'sprinting- 
 oflice, 40 ; portrait of, by Nasmyth, 42 ; 
 raises a monument to Robert Fergus- 
 son, 45 ; as a lion of the season, 57 ; 
 description of, at Br Blacklock's, 60 ; 
 meeting of Sir AValter Seottand Burns, 
 64 ; second edition of his poems pub- 
 lished, 70 ; tour in the south of Scot- 
 land, 78-90 ; trip to West Highlands, 
 99; Highland tour, 113-136; trip to 
 Harvieston, 145; feeling for fine scenery » 
 155 ; acquaintance with Mrs M'Lehose 
 (Clarinda), 175; appointed to a situa- 
 tion in the Excise, 227 ; takes a farm 
 in Dumfriesshire, 242 ; confinns his 
 union with Jean Armour, 258 ; com- 
 mences residence at EUisland, 263 ; 
 becomes exciseman of his district, 
 iii. 60 ; manner of performing his duty, 
 82; breaks his arm, 179; gives up 
 his farm, and removes to Dumfries, 
 206 ; his acrimony and its source, 
 187, 260 ; his manner of life in Dum- 
 fries, 266; his political manifestations, 
 270 ; escapes of political feeling, 299 ; 
 reprimanded by the Excise Board, 274 ; 
 sufferings from bad times, iv. 13 ; 
 excursion with BIr Syme through 
 Galloway, 14; exasperations, 19; his 
 favourite walks, 25, 70 ; anecdote of, 
 connected Avith a library, 44 ; im- 
 promptus, 49; gives an imprudent 
 toast, 57 ; offends and quarrels with Mrs 
 Riddel, 58; democratic effusions, 86: 
 a poetical goddess, 97 ; his insouciant 
 character, 120 ; his style of housekeep- 
 ing at Dumfries, 124 ; his daily life in 
 Dumfries, 130 ; adventure at Ecele- 
 fechan, 138 ; neglect of, by the mi- 
 nistry, 1,')3; his moral habits, 174; his 
 health fatally injured, 183; his death, 
 209; funeral, 2!0 ; remarks on his 
 character and talents, 217 ; his debts, 
 221 ; exertions in behalf of his family, 
 223 ; his works edited by Dr Currie, 
 228 ; monument to, 233 ; versicles of, 
 235 ; reputation in his latter years, 299; 
 subscriptions for Burns's family, 304 ; 
 bibliography of Burns, 312. 
 Burns, William, brother of the poet, 
 iii. 24 ; letters to, ibid., 33, 85, 119 ; letter 
 to, 120; death of, 140.
 
 GENERAL IXDEX. 
 
 329 
 
 Biims, William Nicol, the poet's second 
 son, bom, iii. 180; iv. ItiS, 230. 
 
 13ums, William, father of the poet, i. 10, 
 15, 17, 18, 23 ; foresees his son's genius, 
 29; letter of the poet to, 60; last ill- 
 ness, 80; Mrs Begg's recollections of, 
 81 ; death, 82 ; epitaph on, by the poet, 
 83; his religious sentiments, 122. 
 
 Busliby Maitiand, , Esq., iv. 145. 
 
 , Mr John, entertains Um'ns, 
 
 iv. 64 ; quarrel with, ibid., 141, 144 ; his 
 Lamentation, U7, 196 ; epitaph on, 246. 
 
 Business, Burns as a man of, i. 85; 
 iii. 139, 141, UC. 
 
 Cadell and Davies, Messrs, of London, 
 publish the poet's works, iv. 227 ; en- 
 gage Mr Gilbert Burns on an improved 
 edition, 231. 
 
 Caledonian Hunt, gentlemen of, sub- 
 scribe for Burns's poems, ii. 71; dedi- 
 cation to, 70. 
 
 Cameron, Omeron, story of, ii. I.i3. 
 
 Campbell, Hay, lord advocate, ii. .'J4. 
 
 , Mary (Highland Mary), 
 
 account of, i. 247 ; parting of Burns 
 with, 248; Question regarding the date 
 of Burns's attachment to, 248-251, 312- 
 315 ; death of, 313 ; anniversary of her 
 death in 1789, iii. T- ; poem on, 73 ; final 
 investigation of the date, 74 ; song upon 
 (' Highland Mary'), 2.'-i4. 
 
 Candlish, Mr James, letters to, ii. 55, 
 225; allusion to, iii. 30. 
 
 Canongate Kilwinning Lodge of Free- 
 masons, ii. 17. 
 
 Cardonnel, Jlr. antiquary, envelope 
 addressed to, iii. HI. 
 
 Carfrae, Rev. Mr i'., letter from, iii. 20 ; 
 letter to, 28. 
 
 ' Carlines, the I'ive,' an election ballad, 
 iii. 89. 
 
 C'arlini, the melancholy, iv. 79. 
 
 Carlisle, Bums at, ii. 93. 
 
 Carlyle, Thomaa, iv. 137, 218. 
 
 Carrick coast, i. 31, .32. 
 
 Carronades, four, bought by Burns, 
 and sent to I'nince, iii. 224. 
 
 Carron Works, liiuiis passes, ii. 115 ; 
 visited by Burns, 145. 
 
 Catheart, MisM, ii. 12Ii. 
 
 Chalmers, Miss .Margaret, ii. 117; letters 
 to, 144, 164 ; songs upon, 165; letter to, 
 166; her character, 167 ; letters to, 170, 
 179, 182, 199, 227, 242, 2.';3, 2H3. , 
 
 Chalmers, .Mr William, writer in AjT, 
 i. 293, 329; ii. 24. 
 
 Chloria (Jean Lorimer), songs on, iii. 
 235; iv. 93, 101; verses to, lOJ ; her 
 story, 103 ; songs uiion, 110, 112. 
 
 Clarke, .Mr James, U-acher, iii. 1H5 ; letters 
 to, 218, 222; besought for a return of 
 lent money, iv. 189; letter from, Iblt; 
 letter to, iw ; 221. 
 
 Clarke, Mr, nmsician, ii. Ifil, 217: letter 
 to, iu. 227 1 232 ; iv. 21 ; jocular allusions 
 
 to, 22 ; letter to, askinghis interference 
 
 in a quarrel, 57, 168. 
 Clark, William, a servant of Bums, 
 
 iii. 141. 
 Cleghorn, Mr Robert, letter to, ii. 2.50. 
 Clunie, Rev. Mr, a song sung by, iv. <»2. 
 Cochrane, Grizel, anecdote of, ii. 117. 
 Coekburn, Lord, iv. 227. 
 
 , Mrs, i. 36; iii. 315. 
 
 Coldstream bridge. Burns at, ii. 80. 
 CoUins's Ode to Evening, imitated by 
 
 Bums, iii. 194. 
 Combe, Mr George, his phrenological 
 
 view of Burns's character, iv. 308. 
 Commonplace-book of Burns, 1783, i. 75, 
 
 92, 96, 101, 159. 
 Commonplace-book, 1787, ii. G7. 
 
 , 17KH, ii. 265. 
 
 Communion, circumstances attending 
 
 administration of, in Scotland, i. 261. 
 Constable, Lady Winifred Maxwell, 
 
 iii. 87 ; letter to, 94 ; 183 ; letter to, 184 ; 
 
 song upon, 241. 
 ' Contented wi" little, and cantie wi' 
 
 mair,' a song representing Burns'.? 
 
 own character, iv. 118, 12U. 
 Copland, Mrs, (jf Dumfries, iv. 190. 
 ' Cotter's Saturday Night,' account of 
 
 that poem, i. 143 ; the poem, i. 160 ; ii. 80, 
 
 134; picture of by David Allan, iv. 164. 
 Covenant, Solemn League and, epigram, 
 
 iv. 242. 
 Cowpcr, the poet, Burns's opinion of, 
 
 iv. 180. 
 Co.K, Mr Robert, ijaper by, on Burns's 
 
 head, iv. 311. 
 Craig, Mrs, visited by Burns when at 
 
 Brow. iv. 208. 
 Craigieburn Wood, iii. 2.34. 
 Craik, Miss, of Arbigland, iii. 289; iv. 10. 
 Cranium of Burns, iv. ;i(i7. 
 Crawford, Robert, the pastoral poet,, 
 
 iv. 35, 2a3-4. 
 Crawford, Thomas, of Cartaburn, ii. 24H. 
 Creech, Mr William, publisher, ii. 16: 
 
 letter to, ii. 85 ; tedious settlement of 
 
 accounts with, 174, HKt, 2iiO ; sum paid 
 
 by to Hums, 247 ; satirical sketch 
 
 of, iii. 15; :i new settling of accounts, 
 
 24; 'at last amicable and fair,' ;!2; 
 
 letter to, 45 ; Burns tukca revenge 
 
 upon, 184. 
 Cririe, Rev. I)r, ii. 591. 
 Crochallan Feneililes. ii, 41. 
 (^rombie, Alexander, iii. 106. 
 Cromck, Robert, his' Reliqucs of Burns* 
 
 quoted, ii. 02, 273. 
 ' Cromlel's Lilt," anecdote of, iv. 285. 
 Cruikshank, Miss Jenny, ' Beauteous 
 
 rose-bud," ii. 158. 
 Cruikshank, .Mr William, letter to. 
 
 ii. 149 ; Hums ludRcs with, 15/ ; lettiTH 
 
 to, 2.33, 304; noticed, iii .'19; epigram 
 
 upon, iv. 241. 
 Cunningham, Allan — his 'Life and 
 
 Works of Burus' referred to, i. fi;
 
 330 
 
 LIFE AND WORKS OF EUKNS. 
 
 quoted, ii. 43 ; corrected, 23i, 315 ; 
 a circumstantial misstatement by, 
 iii. 65; quoted, 83, 134, 198, 199, 208, 283. 
 
 Cunningham, a player and poet, iv. 282. 
 
 , Lady E., letter to, iii. 179. 
 
 ■ , Mr Alexander, a friend of 
 
 the poet, ii. 59 ; letter to, iii. 38 ; letter 
 from, 12-2 ; letters to, 123, 138, 174, 185, 
 230, 286 ; song on an event in his life, 
 iv. 23 ; letter to, 66 ; song addressed to, 
 169 ; letter to, 203 ; his exertions for 
 the family of Burns, 223. 
 
 Cunninghame, Mr, of Enterkin, ii. 281. 
 
 Curling, a game on the ice, i. 187. 
 
 Ciurie, Dr James, i. 16 ; iv. 133, 223 ; 
 publication of his edition of Burns's 
 •works, 228. 
 
 Daer, Lord, Burns dines with, i. 31.9. 
 Daily life of Burns at Dumfries, iv. 1.30. 
 Dalgarnock, allusion to, in a song, iv. 167. 
 Dalrymple, Dr William, i. 16, 21, 126; 
 
 anecdote of, iii. 56. 
 Dalrymple, James, Esq., of Orangefiekl, 
 
 ii. 14, 18 ; letter to, 19. 
 DalrjTnple, school of, attended by Bm-ns, 
 
 i. 19. 
 Dalrymple, Sir John, ii. 41. 
 Dalzell, John of Barncroch, iv. 16. 
 Davidson, Betty, her legendary lore, 
 
 i. 10, 17. 
 Davidson, John,' Souter Johnny,' iii. 161. 
 Davies, Miss, letter to, iii. 196 ; songs to, 
 
 197 ; letter to, 198 ; ilite of, 199. 
 Dean of Faculty, the, a satirical ballad, 
 
 iv. 182. 
 Debts of Bums, iv. 221. 
 Delany, Captain, iii. 199. 
 Delia, an ode, iii. .39. 
 Delolme on the English Constitution, a 
 
 copy of, anecdote of, iv. 44. 
 Democratic effusion of Burns, iv. 87. 
 sentiments of Burns in 
 
 1793-4, iv. 86-89. 
 Dempster, George, of Dunnichcn, i. 185. 
 De Peyster, Colonel, versified note to, 
 
 iv. 185. 
 Dissipation in country to'ivns of Burns's 
 
 time, iii. 209. 
 DistUlers, Scotch, i. 203: iv. 292. 
 Distress, national, in 17^3, iv. 13, 181. 
 Dogs, Burns's, iii. 39. 
 Domestic circumstances of Burns at 
 
 Dumfries, iv. 124. 
 Doon, river, ii. 33; iii. 159, 244. 
 Douglas, Mr William, his inquir}' into 
 
 tlie date of Burns's attachment to 
 
 Highland Mary, i. 248; ii. 217. 
 Dove, John, innkeeper in Mauchline, 
 
 i. 170. 
 Dramatic ivTiting reconnnended to 
 
 Bums, iv. 96. 
 Drumlanrig, woods of— verses on their 
 
 destruction, iv. 172. 
 Drummond, Mrs, of Perth, ii. 151. 
 Dudgeon, Mr, a poet, ii. 79. 
 
 ' Dumbarton Drums,' a tune, iv. 287. 
 
 Dumfries, Burns at, ii. 96; theatre in, 
 iii. 102; Burns removes to, 209; his 
 style of living there (1792), 266 ; letter 
 to magistrates of, 290 ; library at, iv. 44; 
 king's bii'thday (1794), celebrated at, 
 81 ; Burns's style of living at, 124 ; 
 Burns's daily life at, 130; volunteers at, 
 150; Burns's funeral at, 210. 
 
 Dumfries election, ballad on the, iii. 87; 
 a second ballad on, 89 ; description of 
 in verse, 129. 
 
 Dumourier, General, iii. 299. 
 
 Dunbar, Burns at, ii. 91. 
 
 ■, Mr AVilliam, ii. 41 ; letters to, 
 
 54,252; iii. 103, 164. 
 
 Duncan, William, recommended by 
 Burns, iii. 149. 
 
 Dundas, Lord I'resident, verses on the 
 death of, ii. 179. 
 
 Dundas, Mr Henry, ii. 125. 
 
 Dunfermline, Burns at, ii. 155. 
 
 Dimlop, Mrs, of Dunlop, becomes the 
 friend of Burns, i. 324 ; letters to, 325 ; 
 ii. 29, 55, 57, 75, 201), 225, 241, 257, 258, 
 239, 263, 275, 277, 278, 289, 295, 299, 305 ; 
 iii. 27, 35, 49, 62, 92, 100, 105, 126, 138, 
 162, 179, 180, 205, 227, 248, 253, 272, 270 
 lis; iv. 83, 126, 178, 204; gives up 
 Burns's letters for publication, 224. 
 
 Dunn, Jean, a suspected contrabandist, 
 iii. 83. 
 
 Dunscore, parish kirlv of, iii. 49. 
 
 Dunse, Buiuis at, ii. 78, 89. 
 
 Ecelefeehan, Burns at, in a snow-storm, 
 iv. 137 ; the lass of, 209. 
 
 Edinburgh, Burns arrives in, ii. 15 ; Ad- 
 dress to, 22 ; society in, in 1787, 57 ; 
 Burns's final visit to, iii. 211. 
 
 Eglintoun, Earl of, letter to, ii. 27 ; 71. 
 
 Eliza, a heroine of Burns, i. 2.52. 
 
 Ellisland, a farm in Dumfriesshire, 
 taken by Burns, ii. 243 ; he commences 
 living there, 263; description of, 276; 
 ceremonial at entering the new house, 
 iii. 59 ; crop sold at, 193 ; character as 
 a farm, 206 ; quitted by Burns, 207. 
 
 Elphinstone, James, epigram on his 
 translation of Martial, ii. 19,5. 
 
 English gentlemen, two, visit Burns, 
 iii. 191. 
 
 Erskine, Hon. Andrew, iii. 17, 232 ; post- 
 script from, 283 ; his death, iv. 40. 
 
 Erskine, Hon. Henry, ii. 16, 17 ; letter 
 to, 51 ; sketch of, 54 ; displaced from the 
 deanship of Faculty, iv. 181. 
 
 Erskine, J. F., Esq., letter to, iii. 300. 
 
 Excise, a situation in, for Biuns, ii. 202; 
 applies for an appointment in his own 
 district, iii. CO. 
 
 Excise Board reprimands Bums, iii. 274. 
 
 Excursions, dates of Burns's, examined, 
 ii. 314. 
 
 Eyemouth, Bums made royal -arch 
 mason at, ii. 90.
 
 GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 331 
 
 Falconer, William, author of The Ship- 
 wreck, iii. 105. 
 
 Fallviik, Burns at, ii. 114. 
 
 Ferguson, Ur A., entertains Burns, ii. fi4. 
 
 Fergusson, AlcxaniltT, of Craigdarroch , 
 iu. (i7, fi9, 147. 
 
 Fergusson, Mrs, of Craigdarroch, ii. 289. 
 
 , Robert, the Scottish poet, 
 
 i. 263 ; ii. 45, 46 ; verses under the por- 
 trait of, 47 ; described by Peter Stuart, 
 iii. 61 ; account for his monument, 221. 
 
 Ferintosh -whisky, i. 202. 
 
 Ferrier, Miss, verses to, ii. 109. 
 
 Findlater, Mr Alexander, a brother- 
 officer and friend of Burns, iii. 275; 
 iv. 174, 192, 299. 
 
 Findlay, Mr James, trains Bums for 
 the Excise, ii. 251. 
 
 Fleming, Agnes [_My Ayinfe.O .'], i. 43, 341. 
 
 Flint, Kirsty, a singer of songs to Burns, 
 iii. 115. 
 
 • Flower of Yarrow, the,' iv. 284. 
 
 Fontenelle, Miss, an actress, address 
 WTitten for her, iii. 256 ; letter to, 257 ; 
 epigram upon, 257 ; address for, iv. 1/9. 
 
 Fox, C. J., i. 260; sketch of, iii. 35. 
 
 Fraser's hautboy, iv. .30, 30. 
 
 Friars' Carsc Hermitage, verses in, 
 ii. 270 ; second version, 303. 
 
 Frugality, apostrophe to, iii. 34. 
 
 Fxigcc, -writ in meditatioiic, against 
 Burns, ii. 110. 
 
 FuUarton, Colonel, i. 192 ; iii. 139; letter 
 to, 195. 
 
 Fyers, Fall of, ii. 130. 
 
 Gainsborough, anecdote of a picture by, 
 
 iL 129. 
 Gala Water, song upon, iii. 2!)0. 
 Galloway, F.arl of, iv. 16, 111, 196,246. 
 Gatehouse, Burns at, iv. l.i. 
 Gatcslack, aUuilcd to in a song, iv. 167. 
 Gazetteer, a democratic newsi)aper, or- 
 dered by Hums, iii. 270. 
 Geddcs, Bishop, letter to, iii. 21. 
 Gillespie, Mr, a friend of Burns, iii. 2;!.". 
 . , Professor, anecdotes related 
 
 by, iii. 83, 116. 
 Glen, Tarn, a song, tii. 114. 
 Glencairn, Countess of, ii. 16; iii. 98; 
 
 letter to, 99. 
 Glencairn, .Tames, Earl of, ii. Ifi, 20; 
 
 lettcrto, 47; verses on his portrait, 4H; 
 
 68; letter to, 205; Lament for, iii. 17<). 
 Glencairn, .John, Karl of, iii. 29i. 
 Glenlee, Lord, iv. 14.3. 
 Globe Tavern, Dumfries, frequented by 
 
 Bums. iv. 49, 131, IKI, 244. 
 Glover, .lean, author of a Bong, iv. 291. 
 Goldic, Commis-siiry, epigram nn, iv. 24.'i. 
 Goldielea, near Dunifriert, iii. 219. 
 Gordon Castlo visited by Burns, ii. 131, 
 
 215. 
 Gordon, Duke of, entertains Burns, 
 
 ii. 1,31 ; Song by referred to, 162. 
 Gordon, June, Duchess of, ii. 21, 58. 
 
 Gordon, Mr, of Kenmure, iv. 14, 145. 
 
 of Balmaghie, Iv. 141, 196. 
 
 Goudie, John, of Kilmarnock, i. 122; 
 epistle to, 123 ; 219. 
 
 Graces before meat, iv. 49, 239. 
 
 Gracie, Mr James, banker, his kindness 
 to Burns, iv. 'JOB. 
 
 Graham, Douglas, original of Tarn o* 
 Shanter, i. 35 ; iii. 161. 
 
 Graham, Miss, of Fintry, inscription 
 for, iv. 85. 
 
 Graham, Mr Robert, of Fintry, letter to, 
 ii. 204 ; first verse epistle to, 287 ; letter 
 to, iii. 88 ; second vei'se epistle to, 129 ; 
 third verse epistle to, 188 ; fourth verse 
 epistle to, 207 ; letter to, on the Excise- 
 office reprimand, 274 ; scheme for the 
 promotion of Burns, iv. 164; sends a 
 sum of money to Burns, 192. 
 
 Graham, Sirs, of Fintry, letter to, iii. 170. 
 
 Graham, Mr, of Gartmore, alluded to, 
 iii. 117. 
 
 Graham, T., of Balgowan, ii. 129, 149. 
 
 G[rant], Mr, a player, iii. 258. 
 
 Gray, Mr James, teacher, iv. 174, 231, 
 2.32 ; his testimony in favour of Burns's 
 character, 300. 
 
 Gray, Simon, epigram on, ii. 88. 
 
 Greenock, death of Highland Mary at, 
 i. 312, 313 ; her monument there, 316. 
 
 Gregory, Dr James, ii. 86, 181, 184; 
 letter from, iii. 41. 
 
 Grose, Francis, antiquarj-, comes to 
 Scotland, iii. 78 ; poem on his peregri- 
 nations, 79 ; epitaph on, 80 ; letters to, 
 81, 159. 
 
 Haggis, verses on a, ii. 51. 
 
 Hall, Sir James, ii. 91. 
 
 Ilalliday, James, iii. 141. 
 
 Halloween (All Saints' Eve), supersti- 
 tions concerning, i. 146. 
 
 Hamilton, Captain John, iii. 266; corre- 
 spondence of Burns with, iv. 135, 221. 
 
 Hamilton, Charlotte, ii. 118, 146, 155; 
 songs upon, 170 ; iv. 2i'6. 
 
 Hamilton, tiavin, writer in Mauchline, 
 i. 85, 134 ; versified note to, 243; dedi- 
 enti.-n to, 274 ; 314 ; letters t<i. ii. 17, 52, 
 118, 171 ; ei)itaph upon, iv. 235. 
 
 Hamilton, Mr .lames, letter to, iii. 45. 
 , Mrs Gavin, ii. 256. 
 
 Hare, verses on a, iii. .38, 41, 42. 
 Harvieston, Burns at, ii. 117, 110 ; second 
 
 visit to, 14.';. 
 Hnugb, George, a blacksmith, iii. 266, 
 
 'J()7, 307 ; iv. 46. 
 Hay, Mr Charles, loiter to, ii. lltO. 
 Henderson, Matthew, account of, and 
 
 ])oeni on, iii. 1.34. 
 Henri, Mrs, iii. 161, 24S ; her dc.lth, 253. 
 Heron, l.iidy Eli/.ii))rlh, iv. (ID. 
 , Mr, of Heron, iv. 82 ; ballads on 
 
 his election in 1795, 141-9 ; letter to, 
 
 146; 19.'>, 197. 
 Huron, Robert, i, 287 ; iii- 70.
 
 332 
 
 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Highlands, epigram on hospitality in 
 the, ii. 103. 
 
 Highlands, the, song upon, iii. 113. 
 
 , tour in.ii. iU-i36. 
 
 , AVest, short tour of Bums 
 
 in, ii. 98. 
 
 Hill, Mr Peter, bookseller, ii. 2/3 ; letters 
 to, 273, 201 ; iii. 29, 33, 117, 125, 164, 
 184, 190, 220, 308; iv. 13, 10? ; a kipper 
 sent to, iv. 184. 
 
 Hogg, James, anecdote related by, ii. 81. 
 
 Howden, Mr Francis, letter to, ii. 181. 
 
 Howff, Burns's, at Dumfries, iv. 192. 
 
 ' Howlet face' — epigi'am, iv. 242. 
 
 Hoy, Mr James, letters to, ii. 160, 102. 
 
 Humphry, James, i. 170; iv. 236. 
 
 Hunter, W., of Cockrune, his testimony 
 regarding the Whistle contest, iii. 71. 
 
 Hyslop, John, of Globe Tavern, Dum- 
 fries, iv. 49 ; his wife, 192. 
 
 Income of BunisatDimifries, estimated, 
 iv. 124 ; Excise salary reduced, 203. 
 
 Innerleithen, Burns at, ii. 87. 
 
 Intemperance, excess of, at Dumfries in 
 1794, iv. .57. 
 
 Inverary, Burns at, ii. 99. 
 
 Inverness, Burns at, ii. 130. 
 
 Irvine, Burns resides at, i. 40, 59. 
 
 Isle, the, a house occupied by Bums, 
 ii. 298. 
 
 Jaeobitism of Burns, ii. 25, 50, 137, 293; 
 iii. 87, 95. 
 
 *Jean,' Burns's (.Jejin Armour), i. 98, 
 232; withdraws to Paisley, 253; 270; 
 her first cliildrun, 290 ; Burns's renewed 
 intimacy with, ii. 9S, 202, 2.35; finally 
 married to Burns, 254; marriage for- 
 mula, 277; comes to Ellisland, 297. 
 See ' Bitrns, Mrs Robert.' 
 
 Jedburgh, Burns at, ii. 81. 
 
 Jeffrey, Miss, ' The Blue-eyed Lassie,' 
 iii. 96, 98. 
 
 Jeffrey, Rev. Mr, of Loehmaben, iii. 95. 
 
 Johnson, .Tames, his Musical Museum, 
 ii. 77, 160 ; songs of Burns in 2d volume, 
 212-217; letter to, 297; songs in 3d 
 volume, iii. 108-115; songs in 4th 
 volume, 234-247; letter to, iv. 67; 
 Bongs of Burns in 5th volume of his 
 Museum, 67-74; songs of Burns in 
 fith volume, 74-/6 ; letter to, 201. 
 
 Johnstone, Captain, a democratic editor, 
 iii. 270. 
 
 Johnston, Sir .lames, of Wcstcrhall, in 
 an election contest, iii. 87. 
 
 J. T., Burns answers the petition of, 
 iii. 147. 
 
 Kelso, Burns at, ii. 81. 
 Kemble, Mrs Stephen, iv. 108. 
 
 , Mrs, epigi'am upon, iv. 108. 
 
 Kemmis-hall, Burns at, iv. 103. 
 Kenmore, Burns at, ii. 121 ; verses 
 written at, ibid. 
 
 Kcnmure Castle, Bums .at, iv. 14, 17. 
 
 , Lord, a song upon, iv. 264. 
 
 Kennedy, a chapman, iv. 238. 
 , John , a friend of Burns, i. 229 ; 
 
 letters to, 235, 287. 
 Kennedy, Miss, ii. 242. 
 K , Miss Peggy, heroine of < Ye 
 
 Banks and Braes of Bonnie Doon,' 
 
 i. 197; letter to, 197; song upon, 198; 
 
 allusion to her story, 325; ii, 34; 
 
 iii. 244. 
 Ker, Mr, postmaster, ii. 300. 
 Kilbagie whisky, i. 177. 
 Kilmarnock, i. 220 ; 2i57, 270. 
 
 mason-lodge, i. 279. 
 
 respectables, i. 219. 
 
 Kilpatrick, Nelly, the poet's first love, 
 
 i. 29. 
 Kilravock, Burns at, il. 130. 
 ' Kirk wad let me be,' an anecdote, 
 
 iv. 288. 
 Kirk's Alarm, the, a satirical poem, 
 
 iii. 55. 
 Kirkcudbright election of 1795, iv. 141 ; 
 
 election of 1/96, 19.'>. 
 Kirkoswald, Burns resides at, i. 31, 32; 
 
 iii. 153. 
 Kirkpatrick of Dunscore, a Calvinistic 
 
 clergyman, ii. 293; iii. 49; 118, 202. 
 Kirn, the, at Ellisland, 1790, iii. 151. 
 
 Ladyman, Mr, anecdote communicated 
 
 by, iv. 49. 
 Langhorne quoted, ii. 65. 
 Lapraik, John, i. 115, 119, 139. 
 Lass o' Patie's Mill, a song by Ramsay, 
 
 anecdote respecting, iii. 297. 
 Lawrie, Rev. Archibald, i. 300; letters 
 
 to, 326, ,327. 
 Lawrie, Rev. George, of London, i. 299, 
 
 304, 325 ; ii. 35. 
 Lawrie, Sir R., of Maxwolton, iii. 67, 7?. 
 Legion Wood, a haunt of Wallace, i. 48. 
 Leith, scheme to remove Burns to, iv. 164. 
 Lewars, Jessy, .i young friend of Mrs 
 
 Burns — her kind services, iv. 194; 
 
 songs upon, 193, 195; epigrams upon, 
 
 198, 199, 246. 
 Lewars, .John, a brother-officer of Burns, 
 
 iii. 83 ; iv. 194, 222. 
 ' Liberty, Tree of,' a poem, iv. 87. 
 Library, a parish, Burns's care of, iii. 
 
 .33, 125 ; account of by Burns, 203. 
 Licentious traditionary poetry described, 
 
 iv. 52. 
 Light, New, described, i. 131. 
 Lindsay, Isabella, admired by Burns at 
 
 Jedburgh, ii. 82, 84. 
 Linlithgow, Burns at, ii. 114. 
 Little, Janet, the poetical milkmaid, 
 
 iii. 162, 179. 
 Lochlea, Burns family at, i. 31. 
 Loekhart, Mr, biographer of Burns, 
 
 quoted, iii. 1.52, 223 ; iv. 66. 
 Loekhart, Mr George, of Glasgow, letter 
 
 to, ii. 274.
 
 GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 333 
 
 liOgan, Major William, epistle to, i. 322. 
 
 , Miss, verses to, ii. 27- 
 
 , Mr John, of Knockshinnoch, 
 
 letter to, iii. 54 ; 59. 
 Lorimcr, Miss Jeiin, iii. 235; her story, 
 
 iv. 103. See ' Cliloris.' 
 Lounger, Burns criticised in the, ii. 18 ; 
 
 Burns's opinion of, iii. 127. 
 Love-letters, early, of Burns, i. .'''.">. 
 Love-letter to an iinlcnown lady, ' My 
 
 dear Countrj^woman,' ii. 10;). 
 Love-letters written by Burns for a 
 
 friend, iv. 128. 
 Lowe, author of Mary's Dream, iv. 
 
 14, 18. 
 Lumsdale, Ilenr)-, ' Highland Ilarry," 
 
 iii. 109. 
 
 Mabane, Miss, rote to, ii. 172. 
 
 M'Adani, Mr, of ( i:iii,'cnj,'illan, i. 297- 
 
 WAulcy, Mr, of Dumbarton, letter to, 
 iii. 47. 
 
 M'Crccry, John, of Liverpool, printer of 
 Carrie's edition, iv. 229. 
 
 M'CuIIoch, David, of Anlwell, iv. 81. 
 
 M'Gill, Kev. Mr, of Ayr, iii. rA, 119. 
 
 M'Ouire, the Ayr violcr, ii. IG. 
 
 Mackenzie, Henry, author of ' The Man 
 of Feeling,' ii. 18; remarks on his j 
 writings, iii. 127 : ballads by, iv. 290. ] 
 
 Mackenzie, Mr.lohn. surgeon at .Mauch- 
 line, i. 2(i7, 279, 319; letters to, 321; 
 ii. 28, 172. 
 
 JIaekenzie of Applecross, satirised by 
 Burns, i. 2.>(>. 
 
 Mackinlay, Uev. James, i. 220 ; iii. .'i7. 
 
 Slaclauchlan, Mrs. a song upon, ii. 21G. 
 
 M'Lehose, Mrs (Cliirinda). accoimt of, 
 ii. 175 ; letters to, 175, 176, 177, 178, 183 ; 
 lines by, 185; letters to, 185, 187, 1H9, 
 190, 192, 194 lis, 195, I9(), 197, 206; a 
 farewell to, 207; letters to, 207, 208, 
 209, 210, 211 ; her religious views, 219; 
 letters to, 219, 220, 221 , 222, 223, 224 bis, 
 23t> bis, 232, 2.17, 2.'i«, 245; remarks on 
 the correspondence with, 2.')5; letters 
 to, iii. 25, 105; song to, KKJ; letter to, 
 with versi'S, 212 ; her voyage to the 
 West Indies, 213; letters to, 213; songs 
 iipon. 214, 215,216,217; returns from 
 the West Indies, 2(i«; letter to, 285; 
 last letter to, iv. 83; final allusion of 
 Burns to, 107; letters of Burns in her 
 possession, 224. 
 M'l.eod, Isabella, of Hnasay, a song 
 
 upon, ii. 21.5. 
 M'l.eod, John, on the di'atli of, ii. 106. 
 
 . of Dunvfuan, iii. 272. 
 
 ■M'I.eods of Buasay, Burns intimate with 
 
 the, ii. 10."). 
 M'Math, H.v. .lohn, i. 127, MO. 
 M'Miirine, Bev. Mr, minister of Cacr- 
 
 laverock, iii. 2/8. 
 M'Murdo, John, Esq., letters to, iii. 1.1, 
 
 1.34, 292; 314; iv. .V2, 224. 
 M'Murdo, Mrs, letter to, iii. 37. 
 
 M'Murdo, Phillis, song referring to, 
 
 iv. 21 , 27. 
 Macpherson, James, a Ilighland robber, 
 
 ii. 213. 
 Macquechan's, Rob, eli^hon, an incident 
 
 in life of Bruce, iii. 142. 
 M'Wliinnic, Mr, writer, Ayr, i. 2.15. 
 Marriage, Burns's, question if it was 
 
 ever annulled, ii. 317- 
 Marriage, irregular, not to be annulled 
 
 except b}' divorce, ii. 201. 
 Martial, epigram on a translation of, 
 
 ii. 195; a paraphrase upon one of his 
 
 epigrams, iv. 149. 
 Mary, Jtiiihlaiid, see ' Campbell, Mary.' 
 
 — , Queen of Scots, iii. 170. 
 
 Mason-'odge at Dumfries, notes from its 
 
 book, iv. 191. 
 Masterton, Allan, iii. 64. 68; iv. 50. 
 
 , Ann, ^Bonnie Ann,' iii. 110. 
 
 Mauchlinc, i. 84, 98, 1(11 ; description of, 
 
 168; Burns's return to, ii. 9fi. 
 Blaxwell, Dr, a physician at Dumfries, 
 
 iv. 95, 173, 198, 22,i. 
 Maxwell, John, Esq. of Tcrraughty, 
 
 verses to. iii. 204 ; iv. 143. 
 Maxwell, Provost, of Lochmabcn, letter 
 
 to, iii. 95. 
 Mayne, John, a Scottish poet, i. 154 ; 
 
 iii. 310. 
 ' Merry Beggars,' an old song, prototype 
 
 of Burns's ' Jolly Beggars," i. 181. 
 Miehie, William, epitaph upon, iv. 241. 
 Miller, Captain, of Daiswinton, iii. 87, 
 
 129; iv. 5.^). 
 Miller, Mr James, produces air of ' Yo 
 
 banks and braes,' <.\;e., iv. 114. 
 Miller, Patrick, of Ual.swinton, ii. 21, 28, 
 
 96; letUrs to, 1.19, l.">7; lets a farm to 
 
 Burns, 242 ; his concern in originating 
 
 steam navigation, 244; iii. 184, 207; 
 
 letUT to, 291. 
 Miller, Peter, junior, iv. li.1. 
 Mill-Mannoch on the C'oyl, scene of a 
 
 Hong, iii. liW. 
 Mill Vcnnel, Dumfries, Burns removes 
 
 to, iii. 307. 
 Ministry, neglect of Burns by the, 
 
 iv. 152. 
 
 Mirceleuch proaceution, iii, 146. 
 
 Mirry, Mrs Anne, i. 7.1- 
 
 MitcluU, Collector, iii. 148; letter to, 
 
 149 ; rcfcrrcil to by Burns as a critic, 
 
 iv. 156 ; rliyincd note to, IbO. 
 MitchclHon, Mr ^SaInuel, W.S., ii. 77. 
 Moir, .1., jiriuKT, anecdote told by, ii. 23. 
 Mcmbodilii, l.c.nl, ii. 'IX. 
 Money, Burns's objections to writing 
 
 fur, iii. 173, .tlti. 
 Monkland Friendly Society, iii. 31, 125, 
 
 202, 20.1. 
 Mons Meg, a cannon, iii. I.iO. 
 Monteiith, Sir .lames, of Clo.scburn, 
 
 anecdiite communicated by, iii. 11.5. 
 Montgomery, Maj.-gen. James, i. 278.
 
 334 
 
 LIFE AND WOKKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Montgomery's Peggy, i. 73, 102. 
 Montrose, Burns at, ii. 136. 
 Moodie, Rev. Alexander, i. 154, 26S. 
 Moore, Dr Jolm, ii. 29 ; letters to, 31, 43, 
 
 72, 107, 307 ; iii. 31 ; letter from, 32 ; 
 
 letters to, 128, 172 ; advice from, 173. 
 Blorine, Mr, purchases EUisland, iii. 208. 
 Morning Chronicle, Burns asked to con- 
 tribute to, iv. 123 ; writes a letter to 
 
 the editor of, 129. 
 Morrison, Maiy, a song, i. 71 ; ii. 217. 
 
 , Mr, Mauchline, note to, ii. 286. 
 
 Mossgiel, Burns's farm, i. 84 ; Burns's 
 
 room at, i. 144, 187. 
 Muir, Robert, of Kilmarnock, an early 
 
 friend of Burns, i. 219 ; letters to, 230, 
 
 291 ; ii. 71, IIG, 240. 
 Muir, W., of Torbolton Mill, i. 110 ; ii. 230. 
 Muirhead, Rev. James, of Urr, iv. 148, 
 
 149, 197. 
 Murdoch, John, first teacher of Burns, 
 
 i. 17, 18, 21, 24 ; letter of the poet to, 
 
 Jan. 1783, 64; letter from, ii. 163; 
 
 iii. 119; letter to, 133. 
 Murray, .Esq., of Broughton, iv. 141, 
 
 146, 148, 196. 
 Murray, Euphcmia, of Lintrosc, ii. 150. 
 , Sir ■\Villiam, of Ochtertyre, 
 
 ii. 123, 145. 
 Murray's Literary History of Galloway 
 
 quoted, iii. 59. 
 Mylne, Mr, poems of, iii. 28, 29. 
 
 Nasmyth, Alexander, paints Burns's 
 portrait, ii. 42 ; iv. 163. 
 
 Newal, Mr David, writer, ii. 298 ; iii. 141 ; 
 iv. 130. 
 
 Newcastle, Burns at, ii. 93. 
 
 Nicholson, Peg, a horse, iii. 118. 
 
 Nicol, Mr William, ii. 93; letters to, 94, 
 97; his character and history. 111 ; ac- 
 companies Burns in Highlands, 113- 
 136; letter to, 149; aifair of 'Willie 
 brewed a peck o' Maut,' iii. 64 ; pur- 
 chases an estate, 65; letter to, 117; 
 letter of Nicol to Ainslie, 144 ; letter 
 to, 222 ; with Allan Masterton at 
 Dumfries, iv. 50 ; epitaph upon, 241. 
 
 Nielson, Rev. Mr, of Kirkbean, iii. 118. 
 
 Nith, song on the, iii. 114. 
 
 Niven, Rev. Dr, of Dunkeld, i. 1,33. 
 
 , William, a companion of Burns 
 
 at Kirkoswald, i. 33, 244, note, 290. 
 
 Ochtertyre on the Teith, Burns at, ii. 152. 
 
 Ochtertyre, Stratliearn, Burns enter- 
 tained at, ii. 148. 
 
 OflBcer, military, quarrel of Burns with, 
 at Dumfries, iv. 57. 
 
 Old Rome Forest, Burns concealed at, 
 i. 283. 
 
 Oswald, Mrs, of Auchincruive, satire on, 
 iii. 19. 
 
 Oswald, Richard A., Esq. of Auchin- 
 cruive, iv. 114 ; letter to, 153 ; song upon 
 his wife, 155. 
 
 Paine's Rights of JIan, &c., anecdote cf 
 
 a copy of, iv. 45. 
 Paisley, Burns at, ii. 100. 
 Parker, Hugh, epistle to, ii. 266. 
 
 , W^., Kilmarnock, i. 219, 279. 
 
 Patron, an unkno^vn, letter to, iii. 17. 
 Pattison, Mr, of Kelvip Grove, rencon- 
 tre of, with Burns, iv. 173. 
 Pattison, ]VIr, of Paisley, letter to, ii. 
 
 89; 100,231. 
 Peacoclc, Miss Mary (Mrs James Gray), 
 
 ii. 209 ; letter to, iii. 268 ; 28.'>. 
 Peebles, Rev. William, i. 267 ; iii. 57. 
 Penn, Matthew, solicitor, iv. 205, 209. 
 Percy's Reliques of English poetiy, 
 
 iii. 172. 
 Perry, Mr, of the Morning Chronicle, 
 
 makes an ofler to Burns, iv. 123. 
 Phrenological view of Burns's head, 
 
 iv. 307. 
 Pickering, author of ' Donocht-Hoad,' 
 
 iv. 99. 
 Pindar, Peter, iii. 282, 284 ; iv. 27. 
 Pitt, William, his opinion of Burns's 
 
 poetry, iv. 153. 
 Poet's Progress, the, fragment of, iii. 15. 
 Poet, wretchedness of the, depicted by 
 
 Burns, iv. 19. 
 Political feelings of Burns, ii. 50, 293; 
 
 iii. 87, 210 ; iv. 45, 57, 86. 
 Portraits of Burns : Nasmyth's, ii. 42 ; 
 
 Miors's, 168, 181 ; iv. 163. 
 Posthumous child, verses on birth of, 
 
 iii. 162; curious history of, 163, 205. 
 Poverty of Burns overstated, iv. 124. 
 Prentice, Archibald, of ' Manchester 
 
 Times," ii. 13. 
 Prentice, IMr, farmer at Covington 
 
 Mains, entertains Burns, ii. 13. 
 Psalms, verses of, quoted by Bums, 
 
 iii. 47, 48. 
 Punch-bowl, Burns's, iii. 191. 
 
 Queensberry, Duke of, iii. 87, 129; iv. 171. 
 
 Ramsay, Mr David, of Edinburgh Cou- 
 
 rant, iii. 30. 
 Ramsav, Mr John, of OchtertjTe, ii. 145, 
 
 147 ; iii. 142. 
 Rankine, John, a friend of Burns, i. 90 ; 
 
 iv. 238. 
 Religion, state of in west of Scotland in 
 
 Burns's time, i. 121. 
 Religious feelings and views of Burns, 
 
 i. 122, 159; ii. 55, 190, 219; iii. 49, 63, 
 
 93 ; iv. 65. 
 Ronton, Mr, of Lamerton, ii. 90. 
 Rcnwiek, Mrs, of New York, iii. 97- 
 Revolution, French, Burns's sympathy 
 
 with the, iii. 210, 269 ; iv. 87. 
 Richardson, Gabriel, epitaph on, iv. 245. 
 Richmond, .lohn, an early companion of 
 
 Burns, i. 143, 181 ; letters to, 226, 271, 
 
 283 ; ii. 25, 104. 
 Riddel, Captain, of Glenriddel, ii. 270, 
 
 285 ; verses on returning him a news-
 
 GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 335 
 
 paper, iii. 18 ; letter to, 18 ; affair of ' the 
 Whistle,' 67; 203; his death, iv. 77; 
 sonnet on, ibid. 
 Riddel, Mrs R., letter to her sister, iv. 78. 
 Riddel, Mr Walter, of Woodlcy Park, 
 iii. 219 ; iv. 58 ; episram upon, 108. 
 
 Riddel, Mrs Walter, an intimate friend 
 of Bums, iii. 218, 24!) ; letters to, 258, 
 259; impromptu on her birthday, 
 iv. 48 ; lives solitarily at Woodlcy Park, 
 55; letter to, 56; ofi'ended by Burns, 
 58; letters to, 59, GO; lampoons on, 
 61-64, 85; allusion to, 113; song upon, 
 119, lil ; song by, addressed to Bums, 
 121 ; another song addressed to Burns, 
 137 ; letter to, 184 ; last interview with, 
 202 ; writes an obituary notiec of Bums, 
 213;plantslaurelsi)nBurns'sgrave,214. 
 
 [Robertson], Captain, [of Lude], letter 
 to, iv. 54. 
 
 Robertson, Principal, ii. 25 ; iii. 186. 
 
 Rocking, a social meeting, explained, 
 i. 115. 
 
 Rodger, Hugh, schoolmaster at Kii-k- 
 oswald, i. 33. 
 
 Ronald, Misses, of Bennals, i. 46. 
 
 , Mr, iii. 86. 
 
 , William, his admiration of 
 
 Bums's prayers, i. 160. 
 
 Rpsc, Mrs, of KUravock, ii. 130, 227; 
 letter to, 221!. 
 
 Russell, Rev. John, i. 124, £68 ; iii. 56. 
 
 Samson, Tarn, of Kilmarnock, i. 294. 
 
 Sanquhar, Bums at, iii. 19. 
 
 Schetki, Mr, musician, ii. 206. 
 
 Scolding, literary, iii. 188. 
 
 Scott, Mrs, of Wauchope House, ii. 37, 83. 
 
 , Sir AValter, meets Burns at Dr 
 
 Ferguson's, ii. C4; in opposition to 
 Burns in a public iiucstiou, iv. 183. 
 Seal cut for Bums, iii. 286. 
 Selkirk, Burns at, ii. 84. 
 
 , Earl of, iv. 15, 16, 142. 
 
 Sharpe, Charles, of lluddam, letter to, 
 iii. 200 ; presents a mason's aprun to 
 15 urns, 202. 
 Shaw, Rev. Urs A. and D., i. 126. 
 Shaw, Sir James, his benevolent exer- 
 tions for Burns's family, iv. 306. 
 Sheep's head, a dinner of, iv. 50. 
 Bhephcrd, Hev. J(jlm, Muirkirk, iii. 51). 
 Sillar, David, an early Mend of the 
 
 poet, L 50, 6.'>, 105, 155. 
 Simpson, William, schoolmaster of 
 
 Ochiltrco, i. 128. 
 
 Sinehiir, Sir John, letters t<>. iii. 209,203. 
 
 Skinner, Hev. Julin, ii. I;t5, 14(1; letter 
 
 to, 141 ; letter from, 142 ; Utt<.r8 to, 226 ; 
 
 8on)iS by, noticed, iv. 200, 2;M>. 
 
 Skirving, Mr, writes a song ; anecdote of, 
 
 iv. 2«). 
 Slave-trade, a poem of H. M. WilllamB, 
 
 iii. 50. 
 Sliian, Mr Tliomas, a companion of 
 Bums, iii. 21, I'.W. 
 
 Smellie, Alexander, anecdotes commu- 
 nicated by, ii. 40 ; iv. 214. 
 Smellie, William, Bums's poems printed 
 by, ii. 40; verses on, 41 ; letter to, iii. 
 220; 249. 
 Smith, Elizabeth, a servant of Burns, 
 
 ii. 298 ; iii. 59, 72. 
 Smith, James, an early friend of Bums, 
 i. 170 ; epistle to, 182; letters to, 284 ; 
 ii. 96, 101,255. 
 Smith, Rev. George, i. 265. 
 Smuggling vessel, affair of a, iii. 223. 
 Snow-storm, an extraordinary, iv. 138. 
 Songs, Scotch, usually sung too slow, 
 
 iv. 20. 
 f Spunkie ' — apostrophe to, iii. 306. 
 Staig, JNIiss Janet, song upon, iii. 291 ; 
 
 epigram upon, iv. 95. 
 Star (newspaper), the. Bums writes a 
 letter to, ii. 293; corresponds with, 
 iii. 61. 
 Steven, Rev. William, i. 292. 
 Stewart, Mrs, of Stair, i. 108 ; letter to, 
 
 298; 311 : ii. 290 ; iii. 246. 
 Stewart, AVillie, epigram, iv. 243. 
 
 , Polly, a heroine of Bums, iv. 72. 
 
 , Professor Bugald, i. 304, 319; 
 
 ii. 59 ; his account of Burns in Edin- 
 burgh, 63 ; letters to, 257 ; iii- 14. 
 Stewart, Kev. Mr, of Luss, iii. 142. 
 Stirling, Burns writes disloyal lines at, 
 
 ii. 120; second visit to, 146. 
 St Marj''8 Isle, Bums at, iv. 15 ; 142. 
 Stobie, Mr, does duty for Burns, iv. 191. 
 Stock and horn, a Scottish musical in- 
 strument described, iv. 119. 
 Stonehaven, Burns at, ii. I3.''. 
 Strang's ' Oermanyin 1830' quoted, iv. ."SS. 
 Strathallan, Viscount, his ' Lament," 
 
 ii. 214. 
 Strephon and Lydia, anecdote of, iv. 2S7. 
 Stuart, Mr Daniel, iii. 61, 121. 
 
 , Peter, letter to, ii. 45 ; iii. .37 ; 
 
 noticed, 40 ; letter from, 61 ; letter to, 
 62; versified epistle to, 121. 
 Stuart, Prince Charles, his birthday cele- 
 brated by Bums, ii. 25; 1.39. 
 Sutherland, Mr, a player, iii. 102; pro- 
 logue for, 107 ; 256. 
 Sword-eane, story of a, iv. 158. 
 Sjnne, John, Esq., a friend of Bums, iii. 
 266 ; excursion with Burns in Gallo- 
 way, iv. 14 ; 32 ; 60 ; 144 ; letter to, 154 ; 
 account of in \i2C>, 150 ; exertions for 
 Burns's family, 223. 
 
 Tait, Crawford, Esq., letter to, iii. 149. 
 
 , Mr, rif llarvieston, ii. 118. 
 
 Tarn o' Shanter, iii. l.")2. 
 
 'Jiiylor, Dr John, of Paisley, ii. lOO. 
 
 , John, Wanloekhead, iii. 20. 
 
 , of Norwich, his work on Original 
 
 Sin, i. 122, 343. 
 Tennant, Mr James, of Glenconner, 
 
 ii. 2.t2 ; letter to, 302 ; versilied epistle 
 
 to, iii. 43.
 
 336 
 
 LIFE AND WORKS OF BURNS. 
 
 Tennant, Mr, of Ajt, his recollections of 
 
 Hums, i. 20. 
 Thomson, Mr George, of Edinburgh, 
 collection of Scottish Melodies pro- 
 jected by, iii. 232 ; letter to Burns, 232 ; 
 Burns'3 letters to, 233, 251, 253, 254, 
 263, 2fi4, 279, 283, 287, 290, 291, 294, 297, 
 303, 304, 308, 309, 312, sends a present 
 of money to Burns, 312 ; letters to, 314 ; 
 iv. 21 bis, 23, 24, 25, 27, 29, 30, 33, 35, 
 39, 41, 43, 4*;, 51, 80, 85, 90, 92, 93, 97, 
 110, 115, 126, 133, 138, 139, 158, 162 bis ,- 
 Mr T. attempts to remunerate Burns, 
 164 ; letters to, 165 bis, 107, 188 ; sends 
 Allan's etchings to Burns, 189; letters 
 to, 192, 193, 201; Burns asks assistance 
 from, 205 ; sends L.5 to Burns, 207 ; his 
 assistance to Currie's edition of Burns, 
 225 ; his Melodies, 227, note ,■ letter of 
 Gilbert Burns to, 227. 
 
 Thomson, Peggy, an early flame of Burns, 
 i. 32, 36, 74. 
 
 Thomson, the poet, temple to, iii. 193 ; 
 address to the shade of, 194 ; quoted, 
 •J73. 
 
 Thrush, sonnet on hearing one sing, 
 iii. 281. 
 
 Tinnocli, Nanse, alewife in Mauchline, 
 i. 169. 
 
 ' Toast for the 12th of April,' iv. 1.52. 
 
 Toothache, Burns afflicted by, and his 
 address to, iii. 46. 
 
 Torbolton, Bachelors' Club of, j. 49. 
 
 , Freemasons' Lodge of, i. 94 ; 
 
 farewell to, 277 ; books of, 278 ; account 
 of, 342. 
 
 Train, Joseph, anecdote communicated 
 by, iii. 84 ; 225 ; iv. 17. 
 
 Traquair, Burns at, ii. 88. 
 
 Troggin— ' Wha'll buy troggin ?'— a bal- 
 lad, iv. 196. 
 
 Turit, Loch, Burns visits, ii. 1.50. 
 
 Turnbull, Gavin, songs by, iv. 46-48. 
 
 Turner, Andrew, epigram upon, iv. 243. 
 
 Tytler, Alexander Fraser, letter from, 
 iii. 181 ; letter to, 183. 
 
 Tytler, Balloon, iv. 284. 
 
 Tytler, Mr AVilliam, of AVoodhouseleo, 
 ii. 1C8 ; iii. 282 ; iv. 283. 
 
 ' Vision, a,' a song, iv. 69. 
 
 Vision, the, a poem, i. 187; additional 
 
 stanzas of, ii. 32, 311. 
 Volunteers, Dumfries, iv. 150. ' 
 
 Walker, Professor, ii. 59, 124; letter to, 
 
 128; iv. 176. 
 Walks, favourite, of Burns at Dumfries, 
 
 iv. 25. 
 'Wallace,' Blind Harry's, quoted, iii. 63. 
 
 , Mr, writer in Dumfries, iv. 67. 
 
 Wanlockhead, Burns at, iii. 20. 
 AVashington, General, Burns proposes 
 
 celebrating his birthday, iv. 83. 
 Wauchope House, ii. 38 ; Burns's letter 
 
 to Avife of, ii. 38. 
 Whelpdale, Mr, husband of .Jean Lori- 
 
 mer, iv. 103. 
 ' AVhistle, the,' affair of, and poem .so 
 
 called, iii. 67, 68. 
 AVhitefoord, Sir John, i. }r,6; ii. 28; 
 
 letter to, 172; Lines sent to, iii. 178. 
 AVilliams, Helen Maria, ii. 32,43; letter 
 
 to, iii. 50 ; answer from, ,53. 
 Williamson, an actor, iv. 61. 
 
 , Mr David, clothier, iv. 20.5. 
 
 , Rev. David, hero of ' Dainty 
 
 Davie,' iv. 29. 
 AVillie. Holy, i. 1.35, 170; iv. .58. 
 Wilson, Hugh, a herd-boy, i. 66. 
 
 , John (Dr Hornbookl, i. 10.9. 
 
 , .John, printer at Ivilmarnock, 
 
 i. 257, 349 ; iv. 2.36. 
 AVilson, Mrs David, innkeeper at Roslin, 
 
 verses on, ii. 43. 
 Wood, Alexander, surgeon, ii. 184, 204. 
 Woodley, Maria, see ' Riddel, Mrs 
 
 Walla:' 
 Woodley Park, iii. 219. 
 Woods, Joseph, the player, ii. 69. 
 Wordsworth, AVilliam, remark by, iv. 
 
 218. Writes a pamphlet on Burns, 231. 
 
 ' Yarrow Visited,' quotation from, ii. 85. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 EDINDURGII : I'UINTED DY W. AND R. CHAMBERS.
 
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