The Letters of Robert Burns by Robert Burns
R >>
Robert Burns >> The Letters of Robert Burns
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21 |
22 |
23 |
24 | 25 |
26 |
27
Regret! Remorse! Shame! ye three hell hounds that ever dog my steps and
bay at my heels, spare me! spare me!
Forgive the offences, and pity the perdition of, Madam, your humble
slave,
R. B.
* * * * *
CXCVI.--To MRS. DUNLOP.
_15th December 1795._
My Dear Friend,--As I am in a complete Decemberish humour, gloomy,
sullen, stupid, as even the Deity of Dulness herself could wish, I shall
not drawl out a heavy letter with a number of heavier apologies for my
late silence. Only one I shall mention, because I know you will
sympathise with it: these four months, a sweet little girl, my youngest
child, has been so ill, that every day a week or less threatened to
terminate her existence. There had much need be many pleasures annexed
to the states of husband and father, for, God knows, they have many
peculiar cares. I cannot describe to you the anxious, sleepless hours
these ties frequently give me. I see a train of helpless little folks;
me and my exertions all their stay: and on what a brittle thread does
the life of man hang! If I am nipt off at the command of fate! even in
all the vigour of manhood as I am--such things happen every day
--Gracious God! what would become of my little flock! 'Tis here that I
envy your people of fortune. A father on his deathbed, taking an
everlasting leave of his children, has indeed woe enough; but the man of
competent fortune leaves his sons and daughters independency and
friends; while I--but I shall run distracted if I think any longer on
the subject!
To leave talking of the matter so gravely, I shall sing with the old
Scots ballad--
O that I had ne'er been married,
I would never had nae care;
Now I've gotten wife and bairns,
They cry crowdie evermair.
Crowdie ance, crowdie twice:
Crowdie three times in a day:
An ye crowdie ony mair,
Ye'll crowdie a' my meal away.
_25th, Christmas Morning._
This, my much-loved friend, is a morning of wishes; accept mine--so
Heaven hear me as they are sincere! that blessings may attend your
steps, and affliction know you not! In the charming words of my
favourite author--"The Man of Feeling," "May the Great Spirit bear up
the weight of thy grey hairs, and blunt the arrow that brings
them rest!"
Now that I talk of authors, how do you like Cowper? Is not the "Task" a
glorious poem? The religion of the "Task," bating a few scraps of
Calvinistic divinity, is the religion of God and Nature; the religion
that exalts, that ennobles man. Were not you to send me your _Zeluco_ in
return for mine? Tell me how you like my marks and notes through the
book. I would not give a farthing for a book, unless I were at liberty
to blot it with my criticisms.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXCVII.--To MRS. DUNLOP, IN LONDON.
DUMFRIES, _2Oth December 1795._
I have been prodigiously disappointed in this London journey of
yours.... Do let me hear from you the soonest possible. As I hope to get
a frank from my friend Captain Miller, I shall, every leisure hour, take
up the pen and gossip away whatever comes first, prose or poetry, sermon
or song. In this last article I have abounded of late. I have often
mentioned to you a superb publication of Scottish songs, which is making
its appearance in our great metropolis, and where I have the honour to
preside over the Scottish verse, as no less a personage than Peter
Pindar does over the English.
_December 29th._
Since I began this letter, I have been appointed to act in the capacity
of supervisor here, and I assure you, what with the load of business,
and what with that business being new to me, I could scarcely have
commanded ten minutes to have spoken to you, had you been in town, much
less to have written you an epistle. This appointment is only temporary,
and during the illness of the present incumbent; but I look forward to
an early period when I shall be appointed in full form: a consummation
devoutly to be wished! My political sins seem to be forgiven me.
This is the season (New Year's day is now my date) of wishing, and mine
are most fervently offered up for you! May life to you be a positive
blessing while it lasts, for your own sake; and that it may yet be
greatly prolonged is my wish for my own sake, and for the sake of the
rest of your friends! What a transient business is life! Very lately I
was a boy; but t'other day I was a young man; and I already begin to
feel the rigid fibre and stiffening joints of old age coming fast o'er
my frame. With all my follies of youth, and, I fear, a few vices of
manhood, still I congratulate myself on having had in early days
religion strongly impressed on my mind. I have nothing to say to any one
as to which sect he belongs to, or what creed he believes: but I look on
the man who is firmly persuaded of infinite Wisdom and Goodness
superintending and directing every circumstance that can happen in his
lot--I felicitate such a man for having a solid foundation for his
mental enjoyment; a firm prop and sure stay, in the hour of difficulty,
trouble, and distress; and a never-failing anchor of hope when he looks
beyond the grave.
R. B.
* * * *
CXVIII.--To THE HON, THE PROVOST, ETC., OF DUMFRIES.
Gentlemen,--The literary taste, and liberal spirit, of your good town
has so ably filled the various departments of your schools, as to make
it a very great object for a parent to have his children educated in
them. Still, to me, a stranger, with my large family, and very stinted
income, to give my young ones the education I wish, at the high-school
fees which a stranger pays, will bear hard upon me.
Some years ago, your good town did me the honour of making me an
honorary Burgess. Will you allow me to request that this mark of
distinction may extend so far, as to put me on a footing of a real
freeman of the town, in the schools?
If you are so very kind as to grant my request, it will certainly be a
constant incentive to me to strain every nerve where I can officially
serve you; and will, if possible, increase that grateful respect with
which I have the honour to be, Gentlemen, your devoted humble servant,
R. B.[132]
[Footnote 132: With the Poet's request the Magistiates of Dumfries
very handsomely complied. He was induced to make the request through
the persuasions of Mr. James Gray and Mr. Thomas White, Masters of
the Grammar School, Dumfries whose memories are still green on the
banks of the Nith.--CUNNINGHAM.]
* * * *
CXCIX.--To MRS. DUNLOP.[133]
DUMFRIES, _3lst January 1796._
These many months you have been two packets in my debt--what sin of
ignorance I have committed against so highly valued a friend I am
utterly at a loss to guess. Alas! Madam, ill can I afford, at this time,
to be deprived of any of the small remnant of my pleasures. I have
lately drunk deep of the cup of affliction. The autumn robbed me of my
only daughter and darling child, and that at a distance too, and so
rapidly, as to put it out of my power to pay the last duties to
her.[133a] I had scarcely begun to recover from that shock, when I
became myself the victim of a most severe rheumatic fever, and long the
die spun doubtful; until after many weeks of a sick bed, it seems to
have turned up life, and I am beginning to crawl across my room, and
once indeed have been before my own door in the street.
R. B.
[Footnote 133: Cunningham says--"It seems all but certain that Mrs.
Dunlop regarded the Poet with some little displeasure during the
evening of his days."]
[Footnote 133a: This child died at Mauchline.]
* * * * *
CC.--To MR. JAMES JOHNSON.
DUMFRIES, _4th July 1796._
How are you, my dear friend, and how comes on your fifth volume?[134]
You may probably think that for some time past I have neglected you and
your work; but, alas! the hand of pain, and sorrow, and care has these
many months lain heavy on me! Personal and domestic affliction have
almost entirely banished that alacrity and life with which I used to woo
the rural muse of Scotia.
You are a good, worthy, honest fellow, and have a good right to live in
this world--because you deserve it. Many a merry meeting this
publication has given us, and possibly it may give us more, though,
alas! I fear it. This protracting, slow, consuming illness which hangs
over me will, I doubt much, my dear friend, arrest my sun before he has
well reached his middle career, and will turn over the poet to far more
important concerns than studying the brilliancy of wit, or the pathos of
sentiment! However, hope is the cordial of the human heart, and I
endeavour to cherish it as well as I can.
I am ashamed to ask another favour of you, because you have been so very
good already; but my wife has a very particular friend, a young lady who
sings well, to whom she wishes to present the _Scots Musical Museum_. If
you have a spare copy, will you be so obliging as to send it by the very
first fly, as I am anxious to have it soon.--Yours ever,
R. B.[135]
[Footnote 134: Of the _Musical Museum_.]
[Footnote 135: "In this humble manner did poor Burns ask for a copy
of a work to which he had contributed, gratuitously, not less than
184 original, altered, and collected songs!"--CROMEK.]
* * * * *
CCI--TO MR. CUNNINGHAM.
BROW, _Sea-bathing quarters, 7th July_ 1796.
My Dear Cunningham,--I received yours here this moment, and am indeed
highly flattered with the approbation of the literary circle you
mention; a literary circle inferior to none in the two kingdoms. Alas!
my friend, I fear the voice of the bard will soon be heard among you no
more! For these eight or ten months I have been ailing, sometimes
bedfast and sometimes not; but these last three months I have been
tortured with an excruciating rheumatism, which has reduced me to nearly
the last stage. You actually would not know me if you saw me. Pale,
emaciated, and so feeble, as occasionally to need help from my chair--
my spirits fled! fled!--but I can no more on the subject--only the
medical folks tell me that my last and only chance is bathing and
country quarters, and riding. The deuce of the matter is this--when an
exciseman is off duty, his salary is reduced to £35 instead of £50. What
way, in the name of thrift, shall I maintain myself, and keep a horse in
country quarters, with a wife and five children at home, on 35 pounds? I
mention this, because I had intended to beg your utmost interest, and
that of all the friends you can muster, to move our Commissioners of
Excise to grant me the full salary; I dare say you know them all
personally. If they do not grant it me, I must lay my account with an
exit truly _en poete_; if I die not of disease, I must perish with
hunger.[136]
I have sent you one of the songs; the other my memory does not serve me
with, and I have no copy here, but I shall be at home soon, when I will
send it you. Apropos to being at home, Mrs. Burns threatens in a week or
two to add one more to my paternal charge, which, if of the right
gender, I intend shall be introduced to the world by the respectable
designation of _Alexander Cunningham Burns_. My last was _James
Glencairn_, so you can have no objection to the company of
nobility. Farewell.
R. B.
[Footnote 136: _Not_ granted.]
* * * * *
CCII.--To MR. GILBERT BURNS.
_10th July 1795._
Dear Brother,--It will be no very pleasing news to you to be told that I
am dangerously ill, and not likely to get better. An inveterate
rheumatism has reduced me to such a state of debility, and my appetite
is so totally gone, that I can scarcely stand on my legs. I have been a
week at sea-bathing, and will continue there, or in a friend's house in
the country, all the summer. God keep my wife and children; if I am
taken from their head, they will be poor indeed. I have contracted one
or two serious debts, partly from my illness these many months, partly
from too much thoughtlessness as to expense when I came to town, that
will cut in too much on the little I leave them in your hands. Remember
me to my mother.--Yours,
R. B.
* * * * *
CCIII.--To MRS. BURNS.[137]
BROW, _Thursday._
My Dearest Love,--I delayed writing until I could tell you what effect
sea-bathing was likely to produce. It would be injustice to deny that it
has eased my pains, and I think has strengthened me; but my appetite is
still extremely bad. No flesh nor fish can I swallow: porridge and milk
are the only things I can taste. I am very happy to hear, by Miss Jess
Lewars, that you are all well. My very best and kindest compliments to
her, and to all the children. I will see you on Sunday.--Your
affectionate husband,
R. B.
[Footnote 137: One evening, while at the Brow, Burns was visited by
two young ladies. The sun, setting on the western hills, threw a
strong light upon him through the window. One of them perceiving
this, proceeded to draw the curtain; "Let me look at the sun, my
dear," said the sinking poet, "he will not long shine on me."]
* * * * *
CCIV.--To MRS. DUNLOP.
BROW, _Saturday, 12th July 1796._
Madam,--I have written you so often, without receiving any answer, that
I would not trouble you again, but for the circumstances in which I am.
An illness which has long hung about me, in all probability will
speedily send me beyond that bourne whence no traveller returns. Your
friendship, with which for many years you honoured me, was a friendship
dearest to my soul. Your conversation, and especially your
correspondence, were at once highly entertaining and instructive. With
what pleasure did I use to break up the seal! The remembrance yet adds
one pulse more to my poor palpitating heart. Farewell!!!
R. B.
* * * * *
CCV.--To MR. JAMES BURNESS, WRITER, MONTROSE.
DUMFRIES, _12th July._
MY DEAR COUSIN,--When you offered me money assistance, little did I
think I should want it so soon. A rascal of a haberdasher, to whom I owe
a considerable bill, taking it into his head that I am dying, has
commenced a process against me, and will infallibly put my emaciated
body into jail. Will you be so good as to accommodate me, and that by
return of post, with ten pounds? O James, did you know the pride of my
heart, you would feel doubly for me! Alas! I am not used to beg! The
worst of it is, my health was coming about finely. Melancholy and low
spirits are half my disease. If I had it settled, I would be, I think,
quite well in a manner.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCVI.--To HIS FATHER-IN-LAW, JAMES ARMOUR, MASON, MAUCHLINE.[138]
DUMFRIES, _18th July 1799._
MY DEAR SIR,--Do, for heaven's sake, send Mrs. Armour here immediately.
My wife is hourly expecting to be put to bed. Good God! what a situation
for her to be in, poor girl, without a friend! I returned from
sea-bathing quarters to-day, and my medical friends would almost
persuade me that I am better, but I think and feel that my strength is
so gone that the disorder will prove fatal to me.--Your son-in-law,
R. B.
[Footnote 138: Mrs. Burns's father. This is the very last of Burns's
compositions, being written only three days before his death.]
* * * *
THE THOMSON LETTERS.
PREFATORY NOTE.
This correspondence began in September 1792, when Burns had already been
domiciled nine months in the town of Dumfries, and ended only with his
death in July 1796. It originated in the request of a stranger for a
series of songs to suit a projected collection of the best Scottish
airs. The stranger was George Thomson, a young man of about Burns's own
age, and head clerk in the office of the Board of Manufactures in
Edinburgh. Thomson outlived his great correspondent by more than half a
century. He died so recently as 1851, at the advanced age of ninety-two.
Robert Chambers has described him as a most honourable man, of
singularly amiable character and cheerful manners. It may interest some
people to know that his granddaughter was the wife of Dickens, the
famous novelist.
THE THOMSON LETTER.
I.
DUMFRIES, _16th September 1792._
Sir,--I have just this moment got your letter. As the request you make
to me will positively add to my enjoyments in complying with it, I shall
enter into your undertaking with all the small portion of abilities I
have, strained to their utmost exertion by the impulse of enthusiasm.
Only, don't hurry me. "Deil tak the hindmost" is by no means the _crie
de guerre_ of my muse. Will you, as I am inferior to none of you in
enthusiastic attachment to the poetry and music of old Caledonia, and,
since you request it, have cheerfully promised my mite of
assistance--will you let me have a list of your airs, with the first
line of the printed verses you intend for them, that I may have an
opportunity of suggesting any alteration that may occur to me? You know
'tis in the way of my trade; still leaving you, gentlemen,[139] the
undoubted rights of publishers, to approve or reject at your pleasure,
for your own publication. _Apropos_ if you are for _English_ verses,
there is, on my part, an end of the matter. Whether in the simplicity of
the ballad, or the pathos of the song, I can only hope to please myself
in being allowed at least a sprinkling of our native tongue. English
verses, particularly the works of Scotsmen, that have merit, are
certainly very eligible. "Tweedside;" "Ah! the Poor Shepherd's Mournful
Fate;" "Ah! Chloris, could I now but sit," etc., you cannot mend; but
such insipid stuff as "To Fanny fair, could I impart," etc., usually set
to "The Mill, Mill, O," is a disgrace to the collections in which it has
already appeared, and would doubly disgrace a collection that will have
the very superior merit of yours. But more of this in the farther
prosecution of the business, if I am to be called on for my strictures
and amendments--I say, amendments; for I will not alter, accept where I
myself, at least, think that I amend.
As to any renumeration, you may think my songs either above or below
price; for they shall absolutely be the one or the other. In the honest
enthusiasm with which I embark in your undertaking, to talk of money,
wages, fee, hire, etc., would be downright sodomy of soul! A proof of
each of the songs that I compose or amend I shall receive as a favour.
In the rustic phrase of the season, "Gude speed the wark!"--I am, Sir,
your very humble servant,
R. BURNS.
P.S.--I have some particular reasons for wishing my interference to be
known as little as possible.
[Footnote 139: Thomson in his letter spoke of coadjutors, but in less
than a year he became sole editor of the collection.]
* * * * *
II.
My Dear Sir,--Let me tell you that you are too fastidious in your ideas
of songs and ballads. I own that your criticisms are just; the songs you
specify in your list have, _all but one_, the faults you remark in them;
but how shall we mend the matter? Who shall rise up and say--Go to, I
will make a better? For instance, on reading over "The Lea-rig," I
immediately set about trying my hand on it, and, after all, I could make
nothing more of it than the following, which, Heaven knows, is
poor enough:--
When o'er the hill the eastern star
Tells bughtin-time is near, my jo, (etc.)
Your observation as to the aptitude of Dr. Percy's ballad to the air,
"Nannie O," is just. It is besides, perhaps, the most beautiful ballad
in the English language. But let me remark to you, that in the sentiment
and style of our Scottish airs there is a pastoral simplicity, a
something that one may call the Doric style and dialect of vocal music,
to which a dash of our native tongue and manners is particularly, nay,
peculiarly apposite. For this reason, and upon my honour, for this
reason alone, I am of opinion (but, as I told you before, my opinion is
yours, freely yours to approve or reject as you please) that my ballad
of "Nannie, O", might perhaps do for one set of verses to the tune. Now
don't let it enter into your head that you are under any necessity of
taking my verses. I have long ago made up my mind as to my own
reputation in the business of authorship; and have nothing to be pleased
or offended at, in your adoption or rejection of my verses. Though you
should reject one half of what I give you, I shall be pleased with your
adopting the other half, and shall continue to serve you with the same
assiduity.
In the printed copy of my "Nannie, O", the name of the river is horridly
prosaic. I will alter it,
Behind yon hills where _Lugar_ flows.
Girvan is the name of the river that suits the idea of the stanza best,
but Lugar is the most agreeable modulation of syllables.
I will soon give you a great many more remarks on this business; but I
have just now an opportunity of conveying you this scrawl, free of
postage, an expense that it is ill able to pay; so, with my best
compliments to honest Allan,[140] goodbye to ye.
_Friday night.
Saturday morning._
As I find I have still an hour to spare this morning before my
conveyance goes away, I will give you "Nannie, O", at length.
Your remarks on "Ewe-bughts, Marion", are just; still it has obtained a
place among our more classical Scottish songs; and what with many
beauties in its composition, and more prejudices in its favour, you will
not find it easy to supplant it.
In my very early years, when I was thinking of going to the West Indies,
I took the following farewell of a dear girl. It is quite trifling, and
has nothing of the merits of "Ewe-bughts", but it will fill up this
page. You must know that all my earlier love-songs were the breathings
of ardent passion, and though it might have been easy in after-times to
have given them a polish, yet that polish, to me, whose they were, and
who perhaps alone cared for them, would have defaced the legend of my
heart, which was so faithfully inscribed on them. Their uncouth
simplicity was, as they say of wines, their _race_.
Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary, (etc.)
"Gala Water," and "Auld Rob Morris," I think, will most probably be the
next subject of my musings. However, even on _my verses_, speak out your
criticisms with equal frankness. My wish is, not to stand aloof, the
uncomplying bigot of _opiniātretč_, but cordially to join issue with you
in the furtherance of the work. Gude speed the wark!
Amen.
[Footnote 140: David Allan, the artist.]
* * * * *
III.
_November_ 8_th_, 1792,
If you mean, my dear Sir, that all the songs in your collection shall be
poetry of the first merit, I am afraid you will find more difficulty in
the undertaking than you are aware of. There is a peculiar rhythmus in
many of our airs, and a necessity of adapting syllables to the emphasis,
or what I would call the _feature-notes_ of the tune, that cramp the
poet, and lay him under almost insuperable difficulties. For instance,
in the air, "My Wife's a wanton wee Thing", if a few lines, smooth and
pretty, can be adapted to it, it is all you can expect. The enclosed
were made extempore to it; and though, on farther study, I might give
you something more profound, yet it might not suit the light-horse
gallop of the air so well as this random clink.
I have just been looking over the "Collier's bonny Dochter", and if the
enclosed rhapsody which I composed the day, on a charming Ayrshire girl,
Miss Baillie, as she passed through this place to England, will suit
your taste better than the "Collier Lassie", fall on and welcome.
I have hitherto deferred the sublimer, more pathetic airs until more
leisure, as they will take, and deserve a greater effort. However, they
are all put into your hands, as clay into the hands of the potter, to
make one vessel to honour, and another to dishonour. Farewell, etc.
* * * * *
IV.
Inclosing "Highland Mary".--Tune--_Katharine Ogie_.
Ye banks, and braes, and streams around, (etc.)
14_th November_ 1792.
My Dear Sir,--I agree with you, that the song "Katharine Ogie", is very
poor stuff, and unworthy, altogether unworthy, of so beautiful an air. I
tried to mend it; but the awkward sound "Ogie," recurring in the rhyme,
spoils every attempt at introducing sentiment into the piece. The
foregoing song pleases myself; I think it is in my happiest manner; you
will see at the first glance that it suits the air. The subject of the
song is one of the most interesting passages of my youthful days; and I
own that I should be much flattered to see the verses set to an air
which would ensure celebrity. Perhaps, after all,'tis the still glowing
prejudice of my heart that throws a borrowed lustre over the merits of
the composition.
I have partly taken your idea of "Auld Rob Morris". I have adopted the
two first verses, and am going on with the song on a new plan, which
promises pretty well. I take up one or another, just as the bee of the
moment buzzes in my bonnet-lug; and do you, _sans ceremonie_, make what
use you choose of the productions. Adieu! etc.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21 |
22 |
23 |
24 | 25 |
26 |
27