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CURRIE’S MEMOIR OF THE POET, AN ID AN ESSAY ON HIS GENIU S AND CHARACTER, BY PROFESSOR WILSON. ALSO NUMEROUS NOTES, ANNOTATIONS, AND APPENDICES. EMI BELLISHED BY EIGHTY-ONE PORTRAIT AND LANDSCAPE ILLUSTRATIONS. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. B L A C KIE AND SON, QUEEN STREET, GLASGOW; SOUTH COLLEGE STREET, EDINBURGH; ! AND WA R W I C K S QUAR E, L ON DO N. MDCCCXLIV. º §§§ $3S3 SES3 Šáš Šáš Šáš3 ƺś2, S&Nº.2697 SQ 9’ SQ97 \e 97 \es’ \e?\@ASPN §§º $º $º Sę93% A697 \e 97°9'Seş’Wes/\e.9/\e 9/SQ9/\e.9/\89^{923;Seley Veº }} .# &S GLASGOW - Sºğ2697 AS97 92 w. G. BLACKIE AND Co., PRINTERs. \{*0\ 9/ * \º Sºś26>N263N263)/6&N/6övé àN/63N26&N/6 ºvéºzóðv6ºzó9’ A39” º .\e 9. gºes; ºššº dº zo *26% ºvé%@$övé%?ºv6%2FèNA6% ºvé9” *ś Pºš º Pºž CONTENTS.—WOL. II. SONGS. Page Songs Continued. Page Handsome Nell, l Where, braving angry winter's storms, . 24 Luckless Fortune, 1 Tibbie Dunbar, e & 24 I dream'd I lay, & 2 | Castle Gordon, gº e . 24 Tibbie, I ha'e seen the Day, 2 My love she's but a lassie yet, 25 My Father was a Farmer, 2 | Jamie, come try me, o . 25 The Rigs o' Barley, 3 || My bonnie Mary, 25 Montgomery's Peggy, 4 The lazy mist, tº ſº . 26 Peggy, * 4 My Harry was a gallant gay, 26 Bonnie Peggy Alison, 4| The Tailor fell thro’ the bed, . 26 Young Peggy, * g 5 Summer's a pleasant time, 27 The ranting Dog the Daddie o’t, 5 || Beware o’ bonnie Ann, . 27 My heart was ance, º 5 When rosy May, 27 Nannie, . * & § te 6 Blooming Nelly, tº & . 27 Fragment.—“One might as I did wander,” G | The day returns, my bosom burns, 28 Green grow the Rashes, ë * > 6 | The Captain's Lady, & * . 28 Robin, * º e 7 || Of a the airts the wind can blaw, 28 The Highland Lassie, 7 | Whistle o'er the lave o't, . 29 Mary, * * tº 8 || Ye ha'e lien a’ wrang, lassie, 29 Fragment.—“Her flowing locks,” 8 Q! were I on Parnassus Hill, . 29 When first I came to Stewart Kyle, v} There’s a youth in this city, 30 O leave Novels, . gº hearts i' the Highlands, 30 The Belles of Mauchline, g #. John Anderson, my Jo, sº g 30 Hunting Song, . tº º Qur thrissles flourished fresh and fair, . 31 O why the deuce should I repine 9 || Come, redeme dame, 3] Robin shure in Hairst, . g 9 || Ca' the ewes to the knowes, 32 Sweetest May, º e * 10 | Travelling Tinker's song, 32 When I think on the happy days, 10 ſº Braes o' Ballochmyle, . 32 Ratherine Jaffray, & º 10 WTo Mary in Heaven, 32 My Jean, • 10 | Eppie Adair, we * 33 The Cure for all Care, l'O | The Battle of Sheriff-Muir, 33 Eliza, g * ll Young Jockey, * tº . 34 The Sons of Old Killie, ll O, Willie brew’d a peck o’ maut, 34 Menie, . & & & º g ll Whare hae ye been, & . 34 Farewell to the Brethrem of St James' Lodge, 12 | I gaed a waeful gate yestreen, 35 On Cessnock Banks, º g e e 12 | The Banks o' Nith, e . 35 The Lass o' Ballochmyle, 13 | Tam Glen, Vº º e 35 The Gloomy Night, 14 | Frae the friends and land I love, 35 Bonnie Dundee, lst version, 15 | Craigie-burn, & & * 36 —--, 2nd version, 15 || Cock up your Beaver, tº 36 The Joyful Widower, g 15 Bonnie Peg, . . e de 37 Come down the Back Stairs, 15 Lament, written when the Poet was about to leave I am my Mammie's ae Bairn, | 6 Scotland, we º * 37 The Birks of Aberfeldy, 16 || Happy friendship, . * * 37 M'Pherson’s Farewell, g 16 || Meikle thinks my love o' my beauty, 37 #º Lads of Galla Water, 17 | Game is the day and mirk's the night, 38 The Discreet Hint, º * 18 There’ll never be peace till Jamie comes hame, 38 Stay, my Charmer, can you leave me? . 18 How can I be blithe an’ glad, . 38 Strathallan's Lament, tº 18 I do confess thou art sae fair, 39 My Hoggie, e 18 Oh! Chloris, & * 39 Her Daddie forbade, 18 Yon wild mossy mountain, * 39 Up in the morning early, 19 It is na, Jean, thy bonnie face, º The young Highland Rover, 19 |Q saw ye my dearie, my Eppie M'Nab, Hey the Dusty Miller, . e tº 19 | Wha is that at my bower door, There was a Lass, they ca’d her Meg, . 19 What can a young lassie, Theniel Menzie’s bonnie Mary, 20 | The bonnie wee thing The Banks of the Devon, 20 The tither morn, Weary fa’ you, Duncan Gray, , 20 Ae fond kiss, . The Ploughman he’s a bonnie Lad, . 21 Lovely Davies, * Landlady, count the Lawin, 2] | The weary pund o' tow, Raving winds around her blowing, . 21 | Amma, thy charms, How long and weary is the might, 22 | Nae body, . º is Musing on the roaring Ocean, . 22 || O for ame-and-twenty, Tam, } Blythe was she, . tº ſº * 22 || O, Kenmure's on an’ awa, The Blude Red Rose at Yule may blaw, . 22 || My collier laddie, e Come boat me o'er to Charlie, . º 23| Nithsdale's welcome hame, & A rose-bud by my early walk, © 23 As I was a wandering, ſ Rattlin’ Roarin' Willie, * 23 l Bess and her spinning-wheel, : % G) iii º,*..."N {. %;gº. ** * & . A 23r- . .* ſº sº- ſº, R A. K14 N -5, X-’;Y--"-" rº-º-; ºs/{O)3 * ğ9 CONTENTS. 3. +. ...}\}; Songs Continued. Page The Posie, º & e ſº 45 Correspondence WITil Tiio Mison, * tº S Country lassie, ſº º * 46 || Introduction, * * & e o Fair Eliza, º gº : Ye Jacobites by mame, .. & e T Pºtºs ; The Banks o' Doom, 1st version, ſº 47 | No. 1792. ——, , 2nd version, 47 i. MR THOMsoN to BURNS, desiring the Poet Sic a wife as Willie had, & wº 47 to supply songs suited to the mational Lady Mary Amm, . . . . . . 48 melodies, & ë wº * 81 Such a parcel of Rogues in a nation, # ii. Burns to Mr T., complying with the request, 81 The Carle of Kelly-burn Braes, 43 iii. Mr T. to Burns, with eleven Songs, ſº 82 Jockey’s ta’em the partin’ kiss, . tº 49 iv. Burns to Mr T., containing “My aim kind Lady Onlie, . º g e 50 dearic O,” and “Will ye go to the Indies, The Chevalier's lament, 50 my Mary 2” . tº * e 83 ong of Death, tº * e 50 v. Burms to Mr T., with “She is a winsome Flow gently, sweet Afton, 51 wee thing,” “O saw ye bonnie Lesley,” 84 The smiling sprimg, Śl vi. Burns to Mr T., with “Ye banks and The Carles of Dysart, . 52 braes,” &c. ſe ſº & * 85 The gallant weaver, • * • 32 vii. Mr T. to Burns, suggesting alterations in The bairns gat out, {} e * 52 the words of “Bonnie Lesley,” &c., . 87 She’s fair and fause, . . : ſº § viii Burns to Mr. T., not approving of any altera- The Do’il’s awa, wi' the Exciseman, 53 tion, also supplying another stanza, “My The lovely lass of Inverness, e 53 aim kind deatie Ö,” . & dº 87 A red red rose, . & 34 ix. Burns to Mr T., with “Auld Rob Morris,” Louis, what reck I by thce, . 54 and “Dumcan Gray,” . . . . . 88 Had I the wyte, * 54 | x. Burns to Mr T., with “O poortith cauld,” Comin’ through the Rye, . . tº ë . 55 and “Galla water,” tº º - 80 Young Jamie, pride of a the plaim, 55 Out over the Forth, e 55 * * * The lass of Ecclefecham, & & 55 1793, The cooper o’ Cuddie, g e Q 56 . tº gº º e Somebody, © ge 56 | xi. Mr T. to Burns, intimating his resolve to The cardin’ o't, 56 include every Scotch air and song of worth When Januar’ wind, 56 in the collection, & * : * 90 Sae far awa, * & . 57 | xii. Burns to Mr T., approving the plan, sends I’ll aye ca’ in by yon town, 57 his own “Lord Gregory,’ & g O wat ye wha’s in yon town, gº . 58 | xiii. Burns to Mr T., with “Mary Morison,” . 92 O May, thy morm, Q * § 58 | xiv. Burns to Mr T., with “Wandering Willie,” 92 Lovely Polly Stewart, * . 59 | xv. Burns to Mr T., with “Open the door to The Highland laddie, . 59 me O,” . º wº tº tº 3 Cassillis’ banks, tº . 59 | xvi. Burns to Mr T., with “Jessie,” . * 93 To thee, loved Nith, 59 | xvii. Mr T. to Burns, with list of songs, with Bannocks o' barley, º & . 60 alterations on “Here awa’, Willie, . 93 Hee balou, e * tº * 60 | xviii. Burns to Mr T., with “The poor and homest Wae is my heart, 60 Sodger,” and “Meg o' the mill,” 4 Here’s his health in water, º 60 xix. Burns to Mr T., “Voice of Coila;” opinion on My Peggy’s face, g gº * ſº . 61 various songs, “ The lass o’ Patie's mill,” &c. 95 Gloomy December, ſº º 6] | xx. Mr T. to Burns, Ballad making, * - 97 My lady’s gown there's gairs upon’t, . . . 61 | xxi. Burns to Mr T., simplicity requisite in a Amang the trees, º tº (\l song—sacrilege in one bard to mangle the Yestreen I had a pint o' wine, 62 works of another, sº e e 97 The winter of life, • ‘ 62 | xxii. Burns to Mr T., a hint that Pleyel should To Mary, * , gº e º . 62 not alter the original “Scottish airs,” . 98 Here’s to thy health my bonnie lass, 63 | xxiii. Mu T. to Burns, “Pleyel does not alter a It was a” for our rightfu' king, - 63 single mote of the songs,” & * 98 O steer her up, ; : 63 | xxiv. Burns to Mr T., with “Blythe hae Ibeen,” . 99 O aye my wife she dang me, 64 | xxv. Burns to Mr T., with “Logan braes,” and Oh, wert thou in the cauld blast, 64 “Q, gin my love were yon red rose,” . 99 O wha is she that lo’es me, § . 64 | xxvi. Mr T. to Burns, with first book of songs, . 100 Caledonia, • ' ſº gº ſº 64 | xxvii, Burns to Mr T. with “Bonnie Jean,” . 101 O lay thy loof in mime, lass, . 65 | xxviii. Burns to Mr T., indignantly spurns the The fete champetre, * * 65 idea of any pecuniary transactions, . 101 Here’s a health, {e ge 66 | xxix. Mr T. to Burns, with notice of “Bonnie The Highland widow’s lament, . 67 brucket lassic,” &c. & © 103 Meg o' the mill, 67 | xxx, Burms to Mr T., for Mr Clarke, * 103 Address to general Dumourier, 67 | xxxi. Burns to Mr T., with “Phillis the fair.” 103 Peg-a-Ramsay, gº sº 68 xxxii. Mr T. to Burns, “Allan's paintings of John There was a bonnie lass, ſº 68 Anderson my jo,” t º & 104 O Mally's meek, Mally’s sweet, e 68 | xxxiii. Burns to Mr T., “Had I a cave,” . 104 Owat ye what my Mammie did, ſº 68 | xxxiv. Burns to Mr T., “By Allan stream,” ... 105 The Dumfries volumteers, . e & . 69 | xxxv. Burns to Mr T., “O, whistle and I’ll come to Damon and Sylvia, º e 09 yon,” “Adown winding Nith,” º 105 Q, were my love yon lilac fair, e e 69 | xxxvi. Burns to Mr T., “Come, let me take thce,” 106 Shelah O’Neil, & gº 69 xxxvii. Burns to Mr T., “Dainty Davie,” e 107 There's news, lasses, news, tº . 70 | xxxviii. Mr T. to Burns, asking “twenty-three fa- There was a wife, * e * 70 vours from the bard,” . . . - 107 O, guid ale comes, e tº gº 70 | xxxix. Burns to Mr T., “ Bruce's address,” . 108 Comin’ thro’ the braes o' Cupar, 70 | xl. Burns to Mr T., “Behold the hour,” ... 109 Evan banks, * © ſe * . 7l xli. Mr. _T. to Burns, suggests alterations on * () *E=mºs- s “Scots wha ha'e,” ſº tº ę 24.4 IV §: (~Xº, ...tv, *. -93 •-> * I-3-->~~ 4. -- } R t}- & 39 # § \ ** º .* * .N. Y. * *, i / ; Y 3. "..//~ Cy^2 *-y x. † A- Jr. ** º 3. Nøe ſº §§ º- SQ º CONTENTS. 9 - - - ~) No. General Correspondence Continued. Page | No. General Correspondence Continued. P gº s f like your way in your church-yard lu- clxii. To Richard Brown, Mauchline, 21st May, 233 § cubrations,” - * - 216 clxiii. To Mr James Hamilton, Ellisland, 26th } cxxxiv. To the same, Ellisland, 10th August, May, “He who has lived the life of all o l “After all that has been said on the homest man, has not lived in vain!” ., 233 || other side of the question, man is by clviv. To William Greech, Esq., “I approach } mo means a happy creature,” tº 2| 6 my bookseller with an offering in my cxxxv. To Mr Beugo, Ellisland, 9th September, hand,” e . ." * “ “I am here at the very elbow of exis- clxv. To Mr. M'Auley, Ellisland, 4th June, I tence,” e º * º am here in my old way, holding the º cxxxvi. To Miss Chalmers, Ellisland, September plough,” &c. . . . $. * 2 16th, “I am secure against the crush- clxvi. To Mr Robert Ainslie, Ellisland, 8th ing grasp of iron poverty,” . . 218 June, “Life, my dear Sir, is a serious cxxxvii. To Mr Morison, Ellisland, September 22d, 219 matter,” ----. . " e . 234 cxxxviii.To... Mrs Dunlop, Mauchline, 27th Sept., clxvii. To Mr MºMurdo, Ellisland, 19th June, “Your criticisms are truly the work of “A poet and a beggar are, in so many ... a friend,” - º e º points of view, alike,” &c. ge 235 cxxxix. To Mr Peter Hill, Mauchline, 1st October, clxviii. To Mrs Dunlop, Ellisland, 21st June, “Fiction is the soul of many a song “There is an incomprehensible Great that is nobly great,” e e Being, to whom I owe my existence,” &c. 235 cxl. To the editor of “The Star,” Nov. 8th, clxix. To Mr — , “begging permission to “We forget the injuries and feel for the place a tombstone oyer poor Fergusson,” 236 man,” e - 5 º 22l clxx. To Helen Maria Williams, Ellisland, cxli. To Mrs Dunlop, Mauchline, 13th Nov., * “Your poem I have read with the . “Men are said to flatter women becausé highest pleasure,” . . . . º 236 they are weak,” © * . 222 | clzxi. To Mr John Logan, Ellisland, 7th Aug., cxlii. To Mr James Johnson, Mauchline, Nov. “Finished ‘the kirk's alarm,” . 237 15th, “I have sent you two more songs,” 222 clxxii. To Mrs Dunlop, Ellisland, 6th Septem- cxliii. To Dr Blacklock, Mauchline, Novembér ber, “Appointment to the Excise,” &c. 237 15th, “I move to Nithsdale.” - 223 clxxiii. To Captain Riddel, Ellisland, 16th Oct., cxliv. To Mrs Dunlop, Ellisland, 17th Dec., “Out ... “Here are we met, three merry boys,” 239 upon the ways of the world! They spoil clxxiv. To Captain Riddel, Ellisland, & 240 these “social offsprings of the heart,’” 223 clxxv. To Mr Robert Ainslie, Ellisland, Nov. cxlv. To Miss Davies, December, “There is 1st, “I am now appointed to an excise Something so provoking in the idea of division,” º º e 240 being the burthen of a ballad,” 223 clxxvi. To Mr Richard Brown, Ellisland, 4th cxlvi. To Mr John Tennant, December 22nd, 224 Nov., “I have been lucky in getting an additional income of £50 a year,” . 241 1789. clxxvii. To R. Graham, Esq., 9th December, “I take the liberty to inclose you a few cxlvii. To Mrs Dunlop, Ellisland, January 1st, bagatelles,” : & wº 2. d “We know nothing, or next to nothing, clxxviii. To Mrs. Dunlop, Ellisland, 13th Decem- of the structure of our souls,” . 224 ber, “Tell us, ye dead; will none of cxlviii. To Dr Moore, Ellisland, 4th January, “I you in pity,” e 3. * 242 enclose you an essay of mime in a walk clxxix. To Lady W. M. Constable, Ellisland, 16th of poesy to me entirely new ;” & 225 December, “Common sufferers, in a cxlix. To Mr Robert Ainslie, Ellisland, Jam. 6th, cause where even to be unfortunate is ‘... I am still catering for Johnson’s pub. glorious,” e * lication,” º º º e º 226 clxxx. To Provost Maxwell, Ellisland, 20th De- cl. To Professor Dugald Stewart, Ellisland, cember, “Shall I write you on politics 20th January, “A copy of verses I sent or religion, two master subjects for to Mr Graham of Fintray,” e 227 your sayers of nothing 2* * 243 cl. To, Bishop Geddes, Ellisland, 3rd Feb, “I have good hopes of my farm,” . 227 1790. cli. To Mr James Burness, Ellisland, 9th Feb., “The farm is beautifully situated clxxxi. To Sir John Sinclair, “To store the minds on the Nith,” - º e 227 of the lower classes with useful know- cliii. To, Mrs. Dunlop, Ellisland, 4th March, ledge, is certainly of very great in- “The bustle of Edinburgh will soon be portance.” s º º . 244 a business of sickening disgust,” ... 228 clxxxii. To Charles Sharpe, Esq., “A brother cat- Cliv. To the Rev. P. Carfrae, “I have thought gut gave me a charming Scotch air of of sending a copy of the poem to some your composition,” º e 244 periodical publication,” t 229 clxxxiii. To Mr Gilbert Burns, Ellisland, 11th cly. To Dr Moore, Ellisland, 23rd March, January, “This farm has undone my “The inclosed ode is a compliment to enjoyment of myself,” º . 245 the memory of the late Mrs Oswald,” 230 clºxxiv. To Mr William Dunbar, Ellisland, J4th clvi. To Mr William Burns, Isle, March 25th, 231 January, “I have not by any means clvii. To Mr Peter. Hill, Ellisland, 2nd April, given up the muses,” º . 246 “O Frugality thou mother of tem clxxxv. To Mrs Dunlop, Ellisland, 25th January, thousand blessings,” tº º 23] “Old Scottish songs are a favourité clviii. To Mrs Dunlop, Ellisland, 4th April, study and pursuit of mine,” º “How wisdom and folly meet, mix, &c.” 232 clxxxvi. To Mr Peter Hill, Ellisland, 2nd Feb., clix. To Mrs M*Murdo, Ellisland, 2nd May, “I am a poor rascally gauger, con- “You cannot easily imaginé what thin. demned to gallop at least two hundred l skinned animals—what sensitive plants miles every week,” e . 248 | poor poets are,” e * © clxxxvii. To Mr W. Nicol, Ellisland, Feb. 9th, t clx. To Mr Alexander Cummingham, Ellisland, “I have done little in the poetic way,” 249 4th May, “Inhuman man! curse on thy clxxxviii.To Mr Alexander. Cunningham, Ellis- barb’rous art,” & * . 232 land, 13th Feb., “My poverty, but not clxi. To Mr Samuel Brown, Mossgiel, 4th May, 233 | my will, consents,” e & 249 J }'s viii * O jº §§§ 66 º 9 × 2 –— “ - ~~~~.------~<> 363 He stole my tender heart away, 328 The bonnie lass made the bed to me, 363 Fairest of the fair, . g 328 I had a horse, and I had mae mair, 364 The blaithrie o’t, º g 329 A rose-bud by my early walk, 364 May eve, or Kate of Aberdeen, . 329 || Auld Robin Gray, * 364 Tweed side, e * 330 | Up and warn a’, Willie, e 365 The Boatie rows, . 331 O can ye labour lea, young man, 366 The happy marriage, 332 Gil Morice, . * ge 366 The posie, ſº 332 Absence, . sº e 366 Mary’s dream, . º ſº 332 When I upon thy bosom lean, 366 The Maid that tends the goats, 333 My Harry was a gallant gay, 366 I wish my love were in a mire, 333 The Highland character, 366 Allan Water, * t g 333 Leader-haughs and Yarrow, 367 There’s mae luck about the house, 334 || Muirland Willie, 368 Tarry woo, & ſº & 334 The Gaberlunzie man, 369 Gramachree, . e 335 | The Smiling plains, 370 The collier’s bonnie lassie, 335 | This is mo mime ain house, 370 My ain kind dearie, O, * 336 | The Flowers of the forest, 370 Mary Scott, the Flower of Yarrow, 336 | Tibbie Dunbar, . tº tº 371 Down the burn, Davie, tº 337 || The day returns, my bosom burns, 37 l Willie brew’d a peck o' maut, 337 I love my Jane, . • 37 I Blink o'er the burn, * * 337 Cease, cease, my dear friend, 372 The blythsome bridal, 337 Johnnie Cope, g tº 372 John Hay's bonnie lassie, 338 Donald and Flora, 372 The bonnie brucket lassie, 339 Laddie, lie near me, 373 Sae merry as we twa ha'e been, 339. The black eagle, • 373 The Banks of Forth, ſº & 340 The shepherd's preference, 373 The bush aboom Traquair, . wº tº 340 || O were I on Parmassus' hill, 374 Bothwell banks, . * e e 340 || The captive ribbon, 374 Cromlet’s lilt, . ę 340 | A waukrife minnie, . 374 My dearie, if thou die, 341 || There’s a youth in this city, 374 She rose and let me in, * 342 . The bonnie banks of Ayr, 375 Go to the ewe-bughts, Marion, 342 Tullochgorum, e º 375 Lewis Gordon, . te & 343 || John o' Badenyon, tº te 376 O home a rie, & 343 | The ewie wi' the crooked horn 377 I’ll never leave thee, 343 Ca' the ewes to the knowes, 377 Corn rigs are bonnie, 343 Lady Mary Amn, 378 X1 & c/ . ~->------ . - -—-3- Sºğ * §3. J --> 㺠º | o / | cº-ºr . PORTRAIT OF BURNS. A snort account of the artist who executed this portrait of Burns, as well as of the original drawing itself, may here be deemed not uninteresting. Archibald Skirving was the eldest son of Adam Skirving, a farmer at Garleton, near Haddington, who is favourably known as the author of several popular songs. He was born in October 1749, and in early life evinced a strong partiality for the Fine Arts, and having cultivated the art of Design, he repaired to Rome for the purpose of perfecting himself in his profession. On his homeward voyage the vessel was captured, and he was for some time incarcerated in a French prison. On being released, he returned to his native country, and took up his residence in Edinburgh, where, for a number of years, he practised his pro- fession with much success. He always wrought in crayons, a department in which he attained rare excellence; but he never gained either the fame or the emolument he might have done. He was a person of very eccentric habits and cast of mind, and nourished a proud spirit of independence, disdaining the patronage of rank or fortune. He always spoke his mind very bluntly, and frequently in such a manner as to give offence, even to his friends. In his later years, he would only paint individuals who had attained some celebrity, or with whose physiognomy he was particularly pleased. On a gentleman applying to have a portrait painted, he has been heard to say, “’Yes, I will paint a portrait for you, but not one of you; you would not make a good picture.” Having some property, independent of his profession, he painted as much for pleasure as for profit. His character has been well summed up in the following lines, from an epitaph written on him by his brother: “To beauty, virtue, talent, he would bow, But claims from birth or rank would not allow ; Kept friends and foes at nearly equal distance; Knew how to give, but not to take assistance. At threescore-ten, when scarce begun to fail, He dropt at once, without apparent ail.” The portrait of Burns was compiled by Mr. Skirving from existing originals, assisted and corrected by his own recollections of the bard. The artist was so much pleased with it, and with one that he had painted of the late Sir John Rennie, the eminent engineer, that he would not part with them either for love or money, though often solicited by the admirers of Burns for the one, and by Sir John himself for the other. He kept these two portraits in his studio, and frequently desired his visitors to write upon the backs of them any remarks they had to make either upon the portrait or the person represented. The backs of the drawings are now covered over with these remarks, some of which are very curious. On the decease of Mr. Skirving, Sir John Rennie purchased both the portraits referred to, which are now in the possession of his son, George Rennie, Esq., London. The drawing of Burns is executed on tinted paper, with red chalk. The head is nearly the size of life, with a portion of the neck and shoulders merely indicated. But let it not be supposed that it is only a sketch, far from it; though at first sight it appears as if executed in a slight and sketchy style, yet, on closer examination, the experienced eye can detect the amount of elaborate finishing that has been bestowed upon it. The touch is extremely delicate, the general treatment broad and massive, combined with great clearness of effect. Altogether it is one of the most beautiful portraits with which we have ever had the good fortune to meet. In concluding, the Publishers beg to tender their warmest thanks to Mr. Rennie, for the handsome manner in which he has allowed them the use of this gem of art. ‘ānpull-Qur'ſ numi, Jº musn'ſ ; ºn / M4% J/ f 0. .. wº/, you!! */ A "MZ' º º, º zºº “y /?? Yºo &º º, ºrg/ º, 7. ºver”/-, 9.2 .* ſº “º cº, *, *hy hºu, *% %; (/('M/ º y” x, */ vvo 2/2/20 ºrwowe ony %r, º - - evº. 2; y” wº/e - ºyº º º * 27 y.º. º Aºy”y 7,/. º/ zºº, l/ * * *-)/ Vºº 'he' . % %%, • * * */ TT-mº. M03SeH) ,bST TITIII) so IETIO Jo uoissossod win III reußio 9U1 UIOJH Zº ^º 4. ~6. 4:4. wº 4%,w. 4./ wn a ſº wºn '6/, Ac/ 6. 40 ſº º %. 24/4 %. /4 tovu/ '000 º 49 º wº ſº ~/… M.A. c/t/, aft M./ % // 4/. /////%/ -3%eſ,” e Mazzaza, Zºº &/º/ø S O N G S. #antlygonte Nell. 1 TUNE–“I am a man wºn married.” O, ONCE I lov’d a bonnie lass, Ay, and I love her still; And whilst that virtue warms my breast I’ll love my handsome Nell. II. As bonnie lasses I ha'e seen, And mony full as braw, But for a modest graceful mien The like I never saw. 1 * The following composition,’ says Burns, in his Common- place Book, referring to this lyric, “was the first of my per- formances, and done at an early period of my life, when my heart glowed with honest warm simplicity, unacquainted and uncorrupted with the ways of a wicked world. The perform- ance is, indeed, very puerile and silly, but I am always pleased with it, as it recalls to my mind those happy days when my heart was yet homest, and my tongue was sincere. The subject of it was a young girl, who really deserved all the praises I have bestowed upon her. then—but I actually think so still, now that the spell is long since broken, and the enchantment at an end.” Of the subject of the song, Burns, speaks out more at large in the beautiful sketch of his early days which he sent to Dr Moore, and which will be found in the Memoir. The heroine's name was Nelly Blair, and, at the time Burns knew her, she was servant in the house of an extensive land-proprietor in Ayrshire. ‘This ballad,” says Lockhart, ‘though characterised by Burns as a very puerile and silly performance, contains here and there lines of which he need hardly have been ashamed at any period Of his life.” Among the Poet's memoranda, is the following somewhat elaborate criticism by himself on the same song:—‘The first distich of the first stanza is quite too much in the flimsy strain of our ordinary street ballads; and, on the other hand, the second distich is too much in the other extreme. The expres- Sion is a little awkward, and the sentiment a little too serious. Stanza the second I am well pleased with; and I think it con- veys a fine idea of that amiable part of the sex—the agreeables; or what in our Scottish dialect we call a sweet sonsylass. The third stanza has a little of the flimsy turn in it, and the third line has rather too serious a cast. The fourth stanza is a very indifferent one; the first line is, indeed, all in the strain of the Second stanza, but the rest is mere expletive. The thoughts in the fifth stanza come finely up to my favourite idea—a sweet Somsy lass: the last line, however, halts a little. The same sentiments are kept up with equal spirit and tenderness in the sixth stanza: but the second and fourth lines, ending with short syllables, hurt the whole. The seventh stanza has several minute faults; but I remember I composed it in a wild enthu- siasm of passion, and to this hour I never recollect it but my heart melts—my blood sallies at the remembrance.” II. I not only had this opinion of her III. A bonnie lass, I will confess, Is pleasant to the e'e, But without some better qualities She’s no a lass for me. IV. But Nelly’s looks are blithe and sweet, And what is best of a”, Her reputation is complete, And fair without a flaw. V. She dresses aye sae clean and neat, Both decent and genteel; And then there's something in her gait Garsony dress look weel. WI. A gaudy dress and gentle air May slightly touch the heart, But it's innocence and modesty That polishes the dart. VII. 'Tis this in Nelly pleases me, 'Tis this enchants my soul; For absolutely in my breast She reigns without control. #Lucitlegg ſortune.” I. O RAGING fortune's withering blast Has laid my leaf full low, O! O raging fortune's withering blast Has laid my leaf full low, O! 2 This song was composed under the pressure of a heavy train of those misfortunes to which the youth of Burns was subject. ‘’Twas at the same time,’ says he, referring to the close of one of these ‘dreadful periods,” as he calls them, ‘ I set about composing an air in the old Scotch style. I am not musical scholar enough to prick down my tune properly, so it can never see the light, and perhaps it is no great matter; but the following are the verses I composed to suit it. The tune consisted of three parts, so that the above verses just went through the whole air. However,’ he continues, in the antici- pation of being utterly overwhelmed by one of those tempests which he fancied he saw ‘brewing round him in the grim sky of futurity,” “however, as I hope my poor country muse, who, all rustic, awkward, and unpolished as she is, has more charms for me than any other of the pleasures of life beside—as I hope she will not them desert me, I may even then learn to be, if not happy, at least easy, and sowth a sang to soothe my misery. A | | Jill, * 5 àº. ~ \ BURNS’ SONGS. II. II. W My stem was fair, my bud was green, I doubt na, lass, but ye may think, My blossom sweet did blow, O'; Because ye ha'e the name o’clink, . The dew fell fresh, the sun rose mild, That ye can please me at a wink, | And made my branches grow, O. Whene'er ye like to try. III. III. But luckless fortune’s northern storms But sorrow tak’ him that's sae mean, Laid a my blossoms low, O; Altho’ his pouch o' coin were clean, But luckless fortune's northern storms Wha follows ony saucy quean Laid a my blossoms low, O. That looks sae proud and high. IV. Altho' a lad were e'er sae Smart, If that he want the yellow dirt, Ye'll cast your head amither airt, And answer him fu’ dry. # IBream't I glap. I I DREAM'D I lay where flowers were springing, V. Gaily in the sunny beam; But if he ha'e the name o' gear, List’ning to the wild birds singing, Ye'll fasten to him like a brier, By a falling, crystal stream: Tho' hardly he, for sense or lear, Straight the sky grew black and daring; Be better than the kye. Thro’ the woods the whirlwinds rave; VI. Trees with aged arms were warring But, Tibbie, lass, tak’ my advice, O'er the swelling, drumlie wave. Your daddie's gear mak’s you sae nice; II. The deil a ane wad spier your price, Such was my life's deceitful morning, Were ye as poor as I. Such the pleasures I enjoy’d; VII. But lang or noon, loud tempests storming There lives a lass in yonder park, A’ my flow’ry bliss destroy’d. I would na gi'e her in her sark, Tho' fickle fortune has deceiv'd me, For thee wi' a' thy thousand mark; (She promis’d fair, and perform'd but ill;) Ye need na look sae high. Of mony a joy and hope bereav'd me, I bear a heart shall support me still. £ip ſatijet imag a ſatmer, 3 TUNE—“ The Weaver and his Shuttle, O.” Clibbie, it ja'e geen tije Bap.2 - I. MY father was a farmer Upon the Carrick border, O, TUNE–% Invercawld's Reel.” CHORUS. And carefully he bred me In decency and order, O: O Tibbie, I ha'e seen the day, He bade me act a manly part, Ye wad na been sae shy; Though I had ne'er a farthing, O, |For lack o' gear ye lightly me, For without an honest manly heart, But, trowth, I care na by. No man was worth regarding, O. . I. II. YESTREEN I met you on the moor, Then out unto the world Ye spak’ na, but gaed by like stour; My course I did determine, O, Ye geck at me because I’m poor, Tho' to be rich was not my wish, But fient a hair care I. Yet to be great was charming, O. My talents they were not the worst; Nor yet my education, O; 1 ‘These two stanzas,’ says Burns, “I composed when I was 5 seventeen: they are among the oldest of my printed pieces.’— Resolv’d was I, at least to try, ‘On comparing these verses with those on “Handsome Nell,” To mend my situation, O. the advance achieved by the young bard in the course of t two short years must be regarded with admiration.”—J. G. | Lockhar T. 3 ‘The following song,” says Burns, in the Common-Place 2 Burns, in his notes on Johnson's Museum, merely says, Book already referred to, “is a wild rhapsody, miserably defi- ‘This song I composed about the age of seventeen.” The cient in versification; but as the sentiments are the genuine heroine is said to have been Isabella Steven, the daughter of a feelings of my heart, for that reason I have a particular plea- small laird near Lochlee. sure in conning it over.’ 2 BURNS’ SONGS. III. In many a way, and vain essay, I courted fortune's favour, O; Some cause unseen still stept between, To frustrate each endeavour, O; Sometimes by foes I was o'erpower'd; Sometimes by friends forsaken, O; And when my hope was at the top, I still was worst mistaken, O. IV. Then sore harass'd, and tir’d at last, With fortune's vain delusion, O; I dropt my schemes, like idle dreams, And came to this conclusion, O'; The past was bad, and the future hid; Its good or ill untried, O ; But the present hour was in my pow'r, And so I would enjoy it, O. V. No help, nor hope, nor view had I; Nor person to befriend me, O; So I must toil, and sweat, and broil, And labour to sustain me, O, To plough and sow, to reap and mow, My father bred me early, O; For one, he said, to labour bred, Was a match for fortune fairly, O. VI. Thus all obscure, unknown, and poor, Thro’ life I’m doom'd to wander, O, Till down my weary bones I lay In everlasting slumber, O: No view nor care, but shun whate'er Might breed me pain or sorrow, O'; I live to-day, as well's I may, Regardless of to-morrow, O. VII. But cheerful still, I am as well As a monarch in a palace, O, Tho' fortune’s frown still hunts me down, With all her wanton malice, O; I make indeed, my daily bread, But ne'er can make it farther, O'; But as daily bread is all I need, I do not much regard her, O. VIII. When sometimes by my labour I earn a little money, O, Some unforeseen misfortune Comes generally upon me, O; Mischance, mistake, or by neglect, Or my good-natur'd folly, O; But come what will, I’ve sworn it still, I’ll ne'er be melancholy, O. IX. All you who follow wealth and power With unremitting ardour, O, The more in this you look for bliss, You leave your view the farther, O; Had you the wealth Potosi boasts, Or nations to adore you, O, A cheerful honest-hearted clown I will prefer before you, O. Oſije 33igg o' 33ariep.” TUNe—“Corn rigs are bonnie.” I. IT was upon a Lammas night, When corn rigs are bonnie, Beneath the moon’s unclouded light, I held away to Annie : The time flew by wi' tentless heed, Till 'tween the late and early, Wi’sma’ persuasion, she agreed To see me thro’ the barley. II. The sky was blue, the wind was still, The moon was shining clearly : I set her down, wi right good will, Amang the rigs o’ barley: I ken’t her heart was a my ain: I lov’d her most sincerely; I kiss'd her owre and owre again, Amang the rigs o' barley. III. I lock'd her in my fond embrace! Her heart was beating rarely : My blessings on that happy place, Amang the rigs o' barley! But by the moon and stars so bright, That shone that hour so clearly She aye shall bless that happy night, Amang the rigs o’ barley. IV. I ha'e been blithe wif comrades dear; I ha'e been merry drinking; I ha'e been joyful gatherin’ gear; I ha'e been happy thinkin’: But a the pleasures e'er I saw, Tho' three times doubled fairly, That happy night was worth them a', Amang the rigs o’ barley. CHORUS. Corn rigs, an’ barley rigs, An’ corn rigs are bonnie : I’ll ne'er forget that happy night, Amang the rigs wi' Annie.” 1 ‘Such of these juvenile performances as have been preserved are, without exception, beautiful. They show how powerfully his boyish fancy had been affected by the old rural minstrelsy of his own country, and how easily his native taste caught the secret of its charm. The truth and simplicity of nature breathe in every line,—the images are always just, often ori- ginally happy, and the growing refinement of his ear and judgment may be traced in the terser language and more mellow flow of each successive ballad.'—J. G. Lockh ART.’ 2 The “Annie” celebrated in this song has been differently assigned to Annie Blair and Annie Ronald, both daughters of farmers in Tarbolton parish. 3 BURNS’ SONGS. #Iontgomery's Beggp.l TUNE—“Galla Water,” I ALTHO’ my bed were in yon muir, Amang the heather in my plaidie, Yet happy, happy would I be, Had I my dear Montgomery's Peggy. II. When o'er the hill beat surly storms, And winter nights were dark and rainy; I’d seek some dell, and in my arms I’d shelter dear Montgomery's Peggy. III. Were I a Baron proud and high, And horse and servants waiting ready, Then a’’twad gi'e o’ joy to me, The sharin't with Montgomery's Peggy. 33 eggp.” TUNE—“I had a horse, I had nae mair.” I. NOW westlin’ winds and slaught’ring guns Bring autumn's pleasant weather; The moorcock springs, on whirring wings, Amang the blooming heather; Now waving grain, wide o'er the plain, Delights the weary farmer; And the moonshines bright, when Irove at night, To muse upon my charmer. II. The partridge loves the fruitful fells; The plover loves the mountains; The woodcock haunts the lonely dells; The soaring hern the fountains: Thro' lofty groves the cushat roves, The path of man to shun it; The hazel bush o'erhangs the thrush, The spreading thorn the linnet. 1 ‘My Montgomery's Peggy,’ says Burms, “was my deity for six or eight months. She had been bred (though as the world says, without any just pretence for it) in a style of life rather elegant; but, as Vanburgh says in one of his comedies, “My damned star found me out” there too; for though I began the affair merely in a gaieté de caeur, or, to tell the truth, which will scarcely be believed, a vanity of showing my parts in court- ship, particularly my abilities at a billet-dowa, which I always piqued myself upon, made me lay siege to her; and when, as I always do in my foolish gallantries, I had battered myself into a very warm affection for her, she told me one day in a flag of truce, that her fortress had been for some time before the right- ful property of another; but, with the greatest friendship, and politeness, she offered me every alliance except actual posses- sion. I found out afterwards that what she told me of a pre- engagement was really true; but it cost me some heart-aches to get rid of the affair.’ 2 This is said by Cunningham to be on the same heroine as the preceding song, as are also the two songs which follow. We III. Thus ev’ry kind their pleasure find, The savage and the tender; -º- Some social join, and leagues combine; Some solitary wander: Avaunt, away! the cruel sway, Tyrannic man's dominion; The sportsman's joy, the murd'ring cry, The flutt’ring, gory pinion! IV. But Peggy dear, the evening's clear, Thick flies the skimming swallow; The sky is blue, the fields in view, All fading-green and yellow: Come let us stray our gladsome way, And view the charms of nature; The rustling corn, the fruited thorn, And every happy creature. We'll gently walk, and sweetly talk, Till the silent moon shine clearly; I’ll grasp thy waist, and, fondly prest, Swear how I love thee dearly: Not vernal show’rs to budding flow’rs, Not autumn to the farmer, So dear can be as thou to me, My fair, my lovely charmer! 360nnie Beggp &Iígon. 3 I'LL kiss thee yet, yet, An' I'll kiss thee o'er again, An' I'll kiss thee yet, yet, My bonnie Peggy Alison, I ILK care and fear, when thou art near, I ever mair defy them, O; Young kings upon their hansel throne Are no sae blest as I am, O! - II. When in my arms, wi' a' thy charms, I clasp my countless treasure, O; I seek nae mair o’ heaven to share, Than sic a moment's pleasure, O ! III. And by thy een, sae bonnie blue, I swear I’m thine for ever, O! And on thy lips I seal my vow, And break it shall I never, O. are here, however, much confounded by the differentstatements of biographers. One of the poet's Peggys, we know, was a Margaret Thomson of Kirkoswald, who afterwards became 3. Mrs Neilson of Ayr. She it was of whom he speaks as having & overset his trigonometry,” while studying that science. To this Peggy, we rather think, the present Song is to be ascribed. 3 Burns had even thus early in his career begun to eke out the remains of the old lyrics of his Country. The chorus is all that in this instance he has deemed worthy of preservation. It belongs to an old song whose indelicacy seems to have con- demned it to the uncertain keeping of the memories of Iſlens BURNS’ SONGS. I’ll kiss thee yet, yet, An’ I’ll kiss thee o'er again, An' I'll kiss thee yet, yet, My bonnie Peggy Alison! Young Beggp. I i TUNE–% Last time I cam' o'er the muir.” I. YOUNG Peggy blooms our bonniest lass, Her blush is like the morning, The rosy dawn, the springing grass, With early gems adorning: Her eyes outshine the radiant beams That gild the passing shower, And glitter o’er the crystal streams, And cheer each fresh'ning flower. II. Her lips more than the cherries bright, A richer dye has grac'd them, They charm th’ admiring gazer's sight, And sweetly tempt to taste them : Her smile is as the ev’ning, mild, When feather'd pairs are courting, And little lambkins wanton wild, In playful bands disporting. III. Were Fortune lovely Peggy's foe, Such sweetness would relent her, As blooming Spring unbends the bow . Of surly, savage Winter. Detraction's eye no aim can gain Her winning powers to lessen; And fretful envy grins in vain, The poison'd tooth to fasten. IV. Ye pow'rs of Honour, Love, and Truth, From ev’ry ill defend her; Inspire the highly favour'd youth The destinies intend her. Still fan the sweet connubial flame Responsive in each bosom; And bless the dear parental name With many a filial blossom. 1 Allan Cunningham charges ‘Montgomery's Peggy’ with being more alive to the beauties of ‘corn rigs,’ than those of either poetry or music, and of preferring the addresses of a Swain who could bring in meal and money to one who was skilful only in courting and complimenting. The charge has been adopted by another of Burns' editors. This is both unge- merous and unjust. Burns insinuates against her no such accu- sation. Her affections were engaged before she was wooed by the poet. The extract from his Common-place Book, previously quoted, leaves no doubt on this point. Qſìe 33 anting IBog tije IBabbie o't.2 TUNE –“ East nook o' Fife.” I. O wha my babie clouts will buy? O who will tent me when I cry? Wha, will kiss me whare I lie 3 The rantin’ dog the daddie o't. II. O wha will own he did the fau’t? O wha will buy my groanin'-maut” O wha will tell me how to ca’t 2 The rantin’ dog the daddie o’t. III. When I mount the creepie-chair, Wha, will sit beside me there 7 Gie me Rob, I’ll seek nae mair, The rantin’ dog the daddie o’t. IV. Wha will crack to me my lane? Wha can mak’ me fidgin’ fain? Wha will kiss me o'er again? The rantin’ dog the daddie o't. fúp £eart mag &nte, TUNE—“To the weavers gin ye go." I. MY heart was ance as blyth and free As simmer days were lang, But a bonnie, westlin’ weaver lad Has gart me change my sang. To the weavers gin ye go, fair maids, To the weavers gin ye go; I rede you right, gang ne'er at night, To the weavers gin ye go. II. My mither sent me to the town, To warp a plaidin’ wab; But the weary, weary warpin’ o't Has gart me sigh and sab. A bonnie Westlin’ weaver lad, Sat working at his loom; He took my heart as wi' a net, In every knot and thrum. 2. We have the poet's own authority for asserting that these Verses were sent to a ‘young girl, a particular acquaintance of his, at that time under a cloud.” This is the affair alluded to in his letter to Dr Moore, as occurring shortly after he put his hand to the plough, on his return from Irvine. Some one has asserted, that the mother of his ‘sonsie, smirking, dear-bought Bess,' was in person not at all attractive. This must be a mis- take. Burns somewhere speaks of the “sweet image of his bonnie Betty.’ He was not, to be sure, a fastidious critic in judging of female beauty, but one whom he thus describes could not be without attraction. 5 BURNS’ SONGS. III. I sat beside my warpin’-wheel, And aye I ca’d it roun’; But every shot and every knock, My heart it ga’e a stoun. The moon was sinking in the west Wi’ visage pale and wan, As my bonnie westlin’ weaver lad Convoy’d me thro’ the glen. IV. But what was said, or what was done, Shame fa’ me gin I tell; But, oh! I fear the kintra soon Will ken as weel's mysel’. To the weavers gin ye go, fair maids, To the weavers gin ye go; I rede ye right, gang ne'er at night, To the weavers gin ye go. TXſaltmie, I TUNe—“My Nannie, O.” I. BEHIND yon hills, where Lugar 2 flows, *Mang moors an’ mosses many, O, The wintry sun the day has clos'd, And I’ll awa to Nannie, O. II. The westlin’ wind blaws loud an’ shrill; The night's baith mirk an’ rainy, O; But I’ll get my plaid, an’ out I’ll steal, An’ owre the hills to Nannie, O. III. My Nannie's charming, sweet, an’ young: Nae artfu' wiles to win ye, O: May ill befa’ the flattering tongue That wad beguile my Nannie, O. IV. - Her face is fair, her heart is true, She’s spotless as she's bonnie, O: The op'ning gowan, wet wi' dew, Nae purer is than Nannie, O. A country lad is my degree, And few there be that ken me, O; But what care I how few they be? I'm welcome aye to Nannie, O. VI. My riches a 's my penny-fee, An' I maun guide it cannie, O; But warl's gear ne'er troubles me, My thoughts are a my Nannie, O. VII. Our auld guidman delights to view His sheep an’ kye thrive bonnie, O; But I’m as blythe that hauds his pleugh, An' has nae care but Nannie, O. VIII. Come weel, come woe, I care na by, I’ll tak’ what Heav'n will sen’ me, O; Nae ither care in life have I, But live, an’ love my Nannie, O. JFragment. TUNE—“John Anderson my Jo.” ONE night as I did wander, When corn begins to shoot, I sat me down to ponder, Upon an auld tree root: Auld Ayr ran by before me, And bicker'd to the seas; A cushat crooded o'er me, That echoed thro’ the braes. (ºfteen (from tije ºtagijeg. 3 TUNE–" Green grow the rashes.” CEIORUS. Green grow the rashes, O! Green grow the rashes, O! The sweetest hours that e'er I spend, Are spent amang the lasses, O. I. THERE's nought but care on ev'ry han’, In ev'ry hour that passes, O: What signifies the life o’ man, An’’twere na for the lasses, O2 4 II. The war’ly race may riches chase, An’ riches still may fly them, O; And tho’ at last they catch them fast, Their hearts can ne'er enjoy them, O. 1 The heroine of this song was Agnes Fleming, a servant at Calcothill, near Lochlea. The air to which it is composed is very ancient: Ramsay wrote a ballad called “Nannie, O ;' and the recollection of words older than either Ramsay or Burns still lingers in the land. 2 The Lugar is a tributary of the Ayr, which it joins a little above old Barskimming bridge. Like its principal, it pursues its way for some miles through a deep chasm in the red sand- stone which forms the basis of the district. In the illustration given, the scene selected is in the grounds connected with the mansion of Auchinleck, the seat of a family whose name has become familiar in our literature. The ruin on a pinnacle near the centre of the picture is that of the original and very ancient castle of the Auchinlecks, and afterwards of the Boswells of Auchinleck, which Johnson describes in his Journey to the Western Islands. * 3 David Herd has preserved a fragment of a spirited song, called “Green grow the rashes, O,’ and which was a great favourite with our ancestors. It contains here and there a freedom of touch, indicating the hand of a master:- ‘We’re a' dry wi' drinking o't, We're a dry wi' drinking o't; The parson kiss'd the fiddler's wife, An' he could na preach for thinking o't.” BURNS’ SONGS. 0 JO III. But gi'e me a canny hour at e'en, My arms about my dearie, O; An' war’ly cares, and war’ly men, May a gae tapsalteerie, O! IV. For you sae douse, ye sneer at this, Ye're nought but senseless asses, O: The wisest man the warl’e”er saw, He dearly lov’d the lasses, O. V. Auld Nature swears, the lovely dears Her noblest work she classes, O: Her ‘prentice han’ she tried on man, An' then she made the lasses, O. Green grow the rashes, O! Green grow the rashes, O! The sweetest hours that e'er I spend, Are spent amang the lasses, O. #0thin. TUNE–" Daimtie Davie.” I. THERE was a lad was born in Kyle, But whatna day o' whatna style, I doubt it's hardly worth the while To be sae nice wit Robin. Robin was a rovin' boy, Rantin’ rovin', rantin’ rovin’; Robin was a rovin’ boy, Rantin’ rovin’ Robin. II. Our monarch's hindmost year but ane Was five and twenty days begun, *Twas then a blast o’ Janwar’ win’ Blew hansel in on Robin. III. The gossip keekit in his loof, Quo’ she, wha lives will see the proof, This waly boy will be nae coof, I think we’ll ca’ him Robin. IV. He'll ha'e misfortunes great and sma’, But aye a heart aboon them a'; He’ll be a credit till us a’, We'll a’ be proud o' Robin. V. But sure as three times three mak’ nine, I see by ilka score and line, This chap will dearly like our kin', So leeze me on thee, Robin. VI. Guid faith, quo' she, I doubt you'll gar The bonnie lasses lie aspar, But twenty fauts ye may ha'e waur— So blessin's on thee, Robin' Robin was a rovin’ boy, Rantin’ rovin', rantin’ rovin’; Robin was a rovin' boy, Rantin’ rovin’ Robin. Qſìje #igiſland 3Laggie. 1 TUNE—“ The Dewks dang o'er my Daddy.” I. NAE gentle dames, tho’ e'er sae fair, Shall ever be my muse's care; Their titles a’ are empty show; Gi'e me my Highland Lassie, O. Within the glen sae bushy, O, Aboon the plain sae rushy, O, I sit me down wi' right good will, To sing my Highland Lassie, O. II. Oh, were yon hills and valleys mine, Yon palace and yon gardens fine! The world then the love should know I bear my Highland Lassie, O. III. But fickle fortune frowns on me, And I maun cross the raging sea; But while my crimson currents flow I'll love my Highland Lassie, O. IV. Altho’ thro’ foreign climes I range, I know her heart will never change, For her bosom burns with honour’s glow, My faithful Highland Lassie, O. V. For her I’ll dare the billow's roar, For her I’ll trace a distant shore, That Indian wealth may lustre throw Around my Highland Lassie, O. VI. She has my heart, she has my hand, By sacred truth and honour's band! Till the mortal stroke shall lay me low, I’m thine, my Highland Lassie, O. Farewell the glen sae bushy, O! Farewell the plain sae rushy, O! To other lands I now must go, To sing my Highland Lassie, O! 7 aris M 1 This is the Highland Mary whom the Poet afterw celebrated in such impassioned strains. Ö N-- º 29)/º) 'KSJ S㺠BURNS’ SONGS. £harp. 1 TUNE–" Blue Bonnets,” I. POWERS celestial, whose protection Ever guards the virtuous fair, While in distant climes I wander, Let my Mary be your care: Let her form sae fair and faultless, Fair and faultless as your own; Let my Mary’s kindred spirit, Draw your choicest influence down! II. Make the gales you waft around her, Soft and peaceful as her breast: Breathing in the breeze that fans her, Soothe her bosom into rest: 1 This is another song of the Poet's on his Highland Mary. The history of this humble maiden is now known to all the world, and will continue to be remembered as long as Scottish song exists. Her name was Mary Campbell, and her parents resided at Campbelltown, in Argyleshire. At the time Burns became acquainted with her, she was servant at Coilsfield House, the seat of Colonel Montgomery, afterwards earl of Eglinton. In his notes to the Museum, Burns says of the present song, “This was a composition of mine before I was known at all in the world. My Highland Lassie was a warm-hearted, charming young creature, as ever blessed a man with generous love. After a pretty long trial of the most ardent reciprocal attachment, we met by appointment, on the second Sunday of May, in a sequestered spot on the banks of Ayr, where we spent the day in taking a farewell before she should embark for the West Highlands, to arrange matters among her friends for our projected change of life. At the close of the autumn following, she crossed the sea to meet me at Greenock, where she had scarce landed when she was seized with a malignant fever, which hurried my dear girl to her grave in a few days, before I could even hear of her illness." Cromek adds a few particulars of the final interview of the youthful lovers. “This adieu was performed with all those sim- ple and striking ceremonials, which rustic sentiment has devised to prolong tender emotions and to inspire awe. The lovers stood on each side of a small purling brook, they laved their hands in the limpid stream, and holding a Bible between them, they pro- nounced their vows to be faithful to each other. They parted, never to meet again.” Cromek's account of this parting inter- view was considered somewhat apocryphal, till, a good many years ago, a pocket Bible, in two volumes, presented by Burns to Mary Campbell, was discovered in the possession of her sister at Ardrossam. This Bible afterwards found its way to Canada, whence the family had removed; and having excited the interest of some Scotsmen at Montreal, they purchased it, (for its possessors were unfortunately in reduced circumstances.) and had it conveyed back to Scotland, with the view of being permanently placed in the monument at Ayr. On its arrival at Glasgow, Mr Weir, Stationer, Queen Street, (through the instrumentality of whose son, we believe, the precious relic was mainly procured,) kindly announced, that he would will- ingly show it for a few days at his shop to any person who might choose to see it. The result was, that thousands flocked to obtain a view of this interesting memorial, and the ladies, in particular, displayed an unwonted eagerness regarding it, some of them being even moved to tears, on beholding an object which appealed so largely to female sympathies. On the anni- versary of the Poet in 1841, the Bible, inclosed in an oaken glass case, was deposited among other relics in the monument at Ayr. On the boards of one of the volumes is inscribed, in Burns's hand-writing,-‘“And ye shall not swear by my name falsely, I am the Lord,” Levit. chap. xix. v. 12;’ and on the other, ‘“Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oath,” St Matt. chap. v. v. 33;’ and on the blank leaves of both volumes, “Robert Burns, Mossgiel.” Guardian angels, O protect her, When in distant lands I roam; To realms unknown while fate exiles me, Make her bosom still my home! iſfragmtent. HER flowing locks, the raven's wing, Adown her neck and bosom hing; (How sweet unto that breast to cling,) And round that neck entwine her! Her lips are roses wat wi' dew, O, what a feast, her bonnie mou’! Her cheeks a mair celestial hue, A crimson still diviner. &ſijem first iſ came to $feſpart #ple. TUNe—“I had a Horse, I had nae mair.” WHEN first I came to Stewart Kyle, My mind it was nae steady; Where’er I gaed, where’er I rade, A mistress still I had aye: But when I came roun’ by Mauchline town, Not dreadin’ any body, My heart was caught before I thought, And by a Mauchline lady. QB Icabe Nobelg. TUNE–" Mawchline Belles.” I. O LEAVE novéls, ye Mauchline belles, Ye're safer at your spinning-wheel; Such witching books are baited hooks For rakish rooks, like Rob Mossgiel. II. Your fine Tom Jones and Grandisons, They make your youthful fancies reel, They heat your brains, and fire your veins, And then you’re prey for Rob Mossgiel. III. Beware a tongue that's smoothly hung, A heart that warmly seems to feel; That feeling heart but acts a part, 'Tis rakish art in Rob Mossgiel, IV. The frank address, the soft caress, Are worse than poisoned darts of steel, The frank address, and politesse, Are all finesse in Rob Mossgiel. BURNS’ SONGS. Oſije 36eſſes of ſāaucíline.] TUNE–% Bonnie Dwºndee.” I. IN Mauchline there dwells six proper young belles, The pride of the place and its neighbourhood a”; Their carriage and dress, a stranger would guess, In Lon’on or Paris they’d gotten it a': II. Miss Miller is fine, Miss Markland’s divine, Miss Smith she has wit, and Miss Betty is braw: There's beauty and fortune to get wi' Miss Morton, But Armour's the jewel for me o’ them a”. £unting $50mg. TUNE—“I rede yow beware at the hunting.” I. THE heather was blooming, the meadows were mawn, Our lads gaed a hunting ae day at the dawn, O'er moors and o'er mosses, and mony a glen, At length they discover'd a bonnie moor-hen. I rede ye beware at the hunting, young men; I rede ye beware at the hunting, young men; Tak” some on the wing, and some as they spring, But cannily steal on a bonnie moor-hen. II. Sweet brushing the dew from the brown heather bells, Her colours betray’d her on yon mossy fells; Her plumage outlustr'd the pride o’ the spring, And Ol as she wantoned gay on the Wing. 1 The matrimonial fates of the “six proper young belles' of Mauchline, were as follows:—Miss (Helen) Miller was married to Dr Mackenzie of Mauchline, a friend of Burns'; Miss Mark- land was married to a Mr Finlay, an officer of excise at Green- ock; Miss Smith was married to a Mr Candlish; Miss Betty (Miller) to a Mr Templeton; Miss Morton to a Mr Paterson; and Miss Armour to a-a Mr Robert Burns. # The ‘fortune' of ‘Miss Morton' was five or six hundred pounds, and it was entirely under her own control. We have been told by one who remembers her, that she was a young woman of very considerable beauty, of great propriety of demeanour, and sweetness of manner. Our informant had little doubt but that she secretly cherished an attachment to the Poet, and was much affected when his preference of Miss Armour became evident. On that occasion, she engaged her- self to assist during a harvest season with a farmer in the parish of New Cumnock, and privately assigned as a reason, that “there were so many clashes (stories) going about Robert Burns, she wished to be out of the way.' While at work in the fields, (our informant added,) she was “very dull,' and never joined in any of the merry-makings. Some years afterwards, she married a Mr Paterson, a farmer in Ochiltree parish. Regarding the other ‘belles,'—always excepting ‘bonnie Jean,’—we have no particular information. II. 9 III. Auld Phoebus himsel’, as he peep’d o'er the hill, In spite, at her plumage, he tried his skill; He levell’d his rays where she bask’d on the brae— His rays were outshone, and but mark’d where she lay. IV. They hunted the valley, they hunted the hill, The best o’ our lads, wi' the best o’ our skill; But still as the fairest she sat in their sight, Then, whirr! she was over a mile at a flight. I rede ye beware at the hunting, young men; I rede ye beware at the hunting, young men; Tak’some on the wing, and some as they spring, But cannily steal on a bonnie moor—hen. Q) toſp tije Đeuce gijouſt 1: 33 epime. I. O WITY the deuce should I repine, And be an ill foreboder? I’m twenty-three, and five feet nine— I’ll go, and be a sodger. II. I gat some gear wi' meikle care, I held it weel thegither; But now it's game, and something mair— I'll go and be a sodger. 33 obin $5ure in £airgt. CHORUS. Robin shure in hairst, I shure wi' him ; Feint a heuk had I, Yet I stack by him, I. I GAED up to Dunse, To warp a wab o' plaiden; At his daddie's yett, Wha met me but Robin 7 II. Was na Robin bauld, Tho' I was a cotter, Play’d me sic a trick, An' me the eller's dochter? III. Robin promis'd me A’ my winter vittle; Feint haet he had but three Goose feathers and a whittle. Robin shure, &c. B BURNS” SONGS. $tmeetest ſtilap. I. SWEETEST May, let love inspire thee; Take a heart which he desires thee; As thy constant slave regard it; For its faith and truth reward it. II. Proof o' shot to birth or money, Not the wealthy, but the bonnie; Not high-born, but noble-minded, In love's silken bands can bind it! &ldájen if think on the #gppp Bang. I. WHEN I think on the happy days I spent wi' you, my dearie; And now what lands between us lie, How can I be but eerie? II. How slow ye move, ye heavy hours, As ye were wae and wearyſ It was na sae ye glinted by When I was wi' my dearie. #atijerine Jaffrap.] I. THERE lived a lass in yonder dale, And down in yonder glen, O! And Katherine Jaffray was her name, Weel known to many men, O! II. Out came the Lord of Lauderdale, Out frae the South countrie, O ! All for to court this pretty maid, Her bridegroom for to be, O ! III. He's tell'd her father and mother baith, As I hear sundry say, O! But he hasna tell'd the lass hersel', Till on her wedding day, O! IV. Then came the Laird o’ Lochinton, Out frae the English border, All for to court this pretty maid, All mounted in good order. 1 This first appeared in Pickering's edition of the Poet's works, London, 1839. It is printed from a copy in Burns' handwriting,but he may not be the author of it notwithstanding. £ily ſcatt. TUNE–" The Northern Lass.” THOUGH cruel fate should bid us part, . Far as the pole and line; Her dear idea round my heart Should tenderly entwine. Tho' mountains frown and deserts howl, And oceans roar between; Yet, dearer than my deathless soul, I still would love my Jean. Oſije (Ture for all (Tare, TUNE—“Prepare, my dear brethren, to the tavern let's fly.” I. No churchman am I for to rail and to write, No statesman nor soldier to plot or to fight, No sly man of business contriving to snare, For a big-belly’d bottle's the whole of my care. II. The peer I don’t envy, I give him his bow; I scorn not the peasant, tho’ ever so low; But a club of good fellows, like those that are here, And a bottle like this, are my glory and care. III. Here passes the squire on his brother—his horse; There centum per centum, the cit, with his purse; But see you The Crown how it waves in the air! There, a big-belly’d bottle still eases my care. IV. The wife of my bosom, alas! she did die; For sweet consolation to church I did fly; I found that old Solomon proved it fair, That a big-belly’d bottle’s a cure for all care. V. I once was persuaded a venture to make; A letter inform'd me that all was to wreck;- But the pursy old landlord just waddled up stairs, With a glorious bottle that ended my cares. VI. “Life’s cares they are comforts,” 2 a maxim laid down By the bard, what d'ye call him, that wore the black gown; And, faith, I agree with th' old prig to a hair; For a big-belly’d bottle’s a heav'n of care. VII. Added in a Mason Lodge, Then fill up a bumper and make it o'erflow, And honours masonic prepare for to throw; May every true brother of the compass and square, Have a big-belly’d bottle when harass'd with care. 2 Young's Night Thoughts.]—B. 10 º % Nſ)0 3.4% 3) gº Tºº---- Ex=&ſ. §§ \ \ c "ºº--. § ºv O0 *@º BURNS’ SONGS. §§ I’ve little to say, but only to pray, s: r (ſºlita. As praying’s the ton of your fashion; $ Tune—“Gilderoy.” A prayer from the muse you well may excuse, I 'Tis seldom her favourite passion. - II. * FROM thee, Eliza, I must go sº º º 2 .. go, Ye powers who preside o'er the wind and the tide, And from my native shore; 3. y Who marked each element’s border; The cruel fates between us throw gº * º 2 Who formed this frame with beneficent aim, A boundless ocean's roar: * º * * Whose sovereign statute is order; But boundless oceans, roaring wide, tº 8 ° tº * º e Within this dear mansion, may wayward contention Between my love and me, tº 2 tº 9 Or withered envy ne'er enter; They never, never can divide & MV heart and soul from thee! May secrecy round be the mystical bound, : y II wº And brotherly love be the centre i tº ł Farewell, farewell, Eliza dear, The maid that I adore 1 fHente, 3 A boding voice is in mine ear, † : ! TUNE—“Johnny's Grey Breeks.” : We part to meet no more | But the last throb that leaves my heart, I. While death stands victor by, AGAIN rejoicing nature Sees | * > g e g | That throb, Eliza, is thy part, Her robe assume its vernal hues, . And thine that latest sigh Her leafy locks wave in the breeze, *-m-m-m-m-m is All freshly steep'd in morning dews. i * * * * And maun I still on Menie doat Oſije Śong of Q9IU #illie.” º *z, * i And bear the scorn that’s in her e'e | TUNE–“ Shawnboy.” For it’s jet, jet black, an’ it’s like a hawk, I. An’ it winna let a body be YE sons of old Killie, assembled by Willie, II. To follow the noble vocation; In vain to me the cowslips blaw, Your thrifty old mother has scarce such another In vain to me the viºlets spring; To sit in that honoured station. In vain to me, in glen or shaw, 1 Discarded by Jean Armour, and driven from her father's The mavis and the lintwhite sing. door with contumely, Burns' affections turned towards the III, heroine of this song. The gloom, however, which the quarrel The merr 1ghbov ch his l with the Armours shed over his future prospects—the blighting e • 3 e y plot o boy cheers his team, of that heartfelt affection which his fancy had so long and so Wi joy the tentie seedsman stalks, ardently cherished, show themselves even when proclaiming But life to me 's a wearie dream, his everlasting affection for another. He sung, but the tones A dr f that y tºº lks of his voice insensibly modulated themselves to the hoarse ea.In Of all G that, D.62VGI Wall K.S. wailings of the dirge: his countenance wore the resemblance IV. of smiles, but his heart was ‘Dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze The wanton coot the water skims of noon.’ … 2 John Galt told Allam Cunningham that the heroine of this Amang the reeds the ducklings cry, feeling song was a relation of his, by name Elizabeth Barbour; The stately SWall maj estic swims, others have pointed to the Miss Miller, who figures as one of And every thi is bl but I the Mauchline Belles, as the inspirer of these evil-boding nd every thing is blest but I. verses. From the following obituary notice, however, which V. appeared in the newspapers about the year 1827, it would - Tº ºi" - ~ is : ino sla. appear that neither of the above ladies was Burns' Eliza. “At The sheep herd steeks his faulding slap, Alva, on the 28th ult, in the 74th year of her age, Mrs Elizabeth And owre the moorlands whistles shrill, Black, relic of the late Mr James Stewart, vintner there. Wi’ wild, unequal, wand'ring step, Though called upon to discharge the uncongenial duties con– I hin he dew in nected with a humble public-house, and early deprived of her meet him on the dewy & partner, Mrs Stewart, in her guarded walk and conversation, 3 The gloom that pervades this touching song points it out during the many years she spent in Alyº, threw such a moral as a composition of that dreary period when the thoughts of the halo around her character as secured for her the unceasing poet were intently directed towards the west. The chorus, esteem and good wishes of her fellow-villagers. She Was Burns' | Burns tells us, was the composition of a gentleman in Edin- ELIZA. She was born and brought up n Ayrshire, and in the burgh: Currie has objected to it, as perpetually interfering bloom of youth was possessed of no ordinary share of personal with the sentiment of the song; every one will feel the force charms. She early became acquainted with Burns, and made of the objection. The reason which induced currie to retain no small impression on his heart. She possessed several love- it is of equal force, now. No one can presume to alter what epistles he had addressed tº her. It Wº. When $ºotia's hard | Burns has deliberately published. It need only be added, on the w intended emigrating from his ºwn to a foreign shore that he authority of the Poet, that Menie is an abbreviation of Mariamne. y wrote the stanzas beginning. From thee, Eliza, ** 59"- || Jeffrey has quoted this affecting lyric with commendation. the subject being of course Elizabeth Black. “Sometimes,” he observes, ‘the rich imagery of the poet's fancy 2 The original MS. of this song was given by Burns to Mr almost overcomes the leading sentiment : the sensibility which Nº Parker, who was master of the Kilmarnock Kilwinning lodge. the Poet has in this instance associated with simple imagery {\ It is now in the possession of Mr Gabriel Neil, Glasgow. and gentle melancholy is to us most winning and attractive.” gº | 1 Q&Q G) º TN &= (gº) - **** < Z Sy j \; ; Sº Gº- S_2: C BURNS’ SONGS. COME down the back stairs When ye come to court me; Come down the back stairs When ye come to court me; Come down the back stairs, And let maebody see, And come as ye were na Coming to me. I am nip ſhammtie's at 33airm." TUNE—“I’m owre young to marry yet.” I. I AM my mammie's ae bairn, Wi unco folk I weary, Sir; And lying in a man’s bed, I’m fley’d wad mak’ me eerie, Sir. I'm o'er young to marry yet; I'm o'er young to marry yet; I’m o'er young—’twad be a sin To tak’ me frae my mammie yet. II. * Hallowmas is come and game, The nights are lang in winter, Sir; And you and I in ae bed, In trouth, I darena venture, Sir. I’m o'er young to marry yet; I'm o'er young to marry yet; I’m o'er young—’twad be a sin To tak’ me frae my mammie yet. -- III. • * Fu’ loud and shrill the frosty wind Blaws thro’ the leafless timmer, Sir ; But if ye come this gate again, I'll aulder begin simmer, Sir. I'm o'er young to marry yet; I’m o'er young to marry yet; I’m o'er young—twad be a sin To tak” me frae my mammie yet. Oſije 33irkg of 36erfelop.2 TUNE– The Birks of Aberfeldy.” Bonnie lassie, will ye go, Will ye go, will ye go, Bonnie lassie, will ye go, To the birks of Aberfeldy ? I. Now simmer blinks on flowery braes, And o'er the crystal streamlet plays, Come let us spend the lightsome days In the birks of Aberfeldy. II. While o'er their heads the hazels hing, The little birdies blithely sing, Or lightly flit on wanton wing In the birks of Aberfeldy. . III. The braes ascend like lofty wa's, The foaming stream deep-roaring fa’s, O'er-hung wi' fragrant spreading shaws, The birks of Aberfeldy. IV. The hoary cliffs are crown'd wi' flowers, White o'er the linns the burnie pours, And rising, weet wi' misty showers The birks of Aberfeldy. V. Let Fortune’s gifts at random flee, They ne'er shall draw a wish frae me, Supremely blest wi' love and thee, In the birks of Aberfeldy. Bonnie lassie, will ye go, Will ye go, will ye go, Bonnie lassie, will ye go, To the birks of Aberfeldy? {{\acpjergon's iſ arefuelſ;” * TUNe—“Macpherson's Rant.” I. FAREWELL, ye dungeons The wretch's destinie! Macpherson’s time will not be long, On yonder gallows-tree. dark and strong, 1 * The chorus of this song,” says Burns, in his notes in the Museum, ‘is old. The rest of it, such as it is, is mine.” 2 Burns says he composed this song while standing near the Falls of Aberfeldy, near Moness, Perthshire. The chorus belongs to an old song, called ‘The Birks of Abergeldy,” of which there are several versions. Part of one of these has been preserved in Herd's Songs and Ballads. It was in the course of his Highland tour, September 1787, that Burns visited the celebrated waterfalls of Moness, in the neighbourhood of the village of Aberfeldy in Strath Tay. These Falls, which occur in a deep and narrow chasm behind Moness House, are described by Pennant in language suffi- ciently complimentary—‘an epitome, (he calls them,) of every thing that can be admired in the curiosity of waterfalls.' They comprehend not only the usual phenomenon of a rivulet dash- ing down a rocky recess in the side of a range of hills, but seve- ral accessory cascades, which pour down the precipitous sides of that recess, and unite their waters with those of the principal stream below. The visitor of this beautiful scene first enters a glen, called the Dem of Moness, clothed with hazel and birch in great luxuriance. As he advances, the sides of this glen become sheer precipices, of about two hundred feet in height, so near each other that the trees shooting out from the respective sides almost intermingle their branches. When visited by Burns, the beautiful domain of Moness was the property of a gentleman named Fleming. For more than the last forty years, it has belonged to the Breadalbane family. 3 ‘Macpherson's Lament,” says Sir Walter Scott, “was a well- known song many years before the Ayrshire Bard wrote those additional verses which constitute its principal merit. This 16 ， |× ） <>--—--~~ \ BURNS’ SONGS. Sae rantingly, sae wantonly, Sae dauntingly gaed he ; He play’d a spring, and danc'd it round, 1 Below the gallows-tree. II. O what is death but parting breath 7— On mony a bloody plain I’ve dar'd his face, and in this place I scorn him yet again! III. Untie these bands from off my hands, And bring to me my sword; And there's no a man, in all Scotland, But I’ll brave him at a word. IV. I’ve liv'd a life of sturt and strife; I die by treacherie: It burns my heart I must depart And not avenged be. V. Now farewell, light, thou sunshine bright, And all beneath the sky | May coward shame distain his name, The wretch that dares not die! Sae rantingly, sae wantonly, Sae dauntingly gaed he; He play’d a spring, and danc'd it round, Below the gallows-tree. 33rain £alyg of Q5alla @ſºlater 2 TUNE—“Galla Water.” CHORUS. Braw, braw lads of Galla Water; O braw lads of Galla Water: I'll kilt my coats aboon my knee, And follow my love thro’ the water. I. 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. II. O'er yon bank and o'er yon brae, O'er yon moss amang the heather; I’ll kilt my coats aboon my knee, And follow my love thro’ the water. III. Down amang the broom, the broom, Down amang the broom, my dearie, The lassie lost a silken Snood, That cost her mony a blirt and blearie. Braw, braw lads of Galla Water; O braw lads of Galla Water: I'll kilt my coats aboon my knee, And follow my love thro’ the water. noted freebooter was executed at Inverness, about the begin- ning of the last century. When he came to the fatal tree, he played the tune, to which he has bequeathed his name, upon a favourite violin, and holding up the instrument, offered it to any one of his clan who would undertake to play the tune over his body, at his lyke-wake; as mone answered, he dashed it to pieces on the executioner's head, and flung himself from the lad- der.” Scott has erred, however, in naming Inverness as the place of Macpherson's execution. The records of his trial are still extant, and have been recently published. Through this document it appears that he was tried at Banff, along with three others, and convicted of being “repute an Egyptian and vagabond, and oppressor of his majesty's free lieges, in a bang- stree manner, and going up and down the country armed, and keeping markets in a hostile manner,’ and was sentenced to be executed at the cross of Banff, November 16, 1700, eight days after his conviction. Tradition asserts, that the magistrates hurried on the execution early in the morning, and that Mac- pherson suffered several hours before the specified time. The motive for this indecent haste is said to have been a desire to defeat a reprieve, then on the way. An amonymous article in the first volume of the New Monthly Magazine, supplies some particulars of his lineage and exploits. “James Macpherson was born of a beautiful gipsy who, at a great wedding, attracted the notice of a half-intoxicated Highland gentleman. He acknowledged the child, and had him reared in his house, until he lost his life in bravely pursuing a hostile clan, to recover a spread of cattle taken from Badenoch. The gipsy woman hearing of this disaster in her rambles, the following summer came and took away her boy, but she often returned with him, to wait upon his relations and clansmen, who never failed to clothe him well, besides giving money to his mother. He grew up in beauty, strength and stature, rarely equalled. His sword is still preserved at Duff House, a residence of the Earl of Fife, and few men of our day could carry, far less wield it as a wea- pon of war; and if it must be owned that his prowess was debased by the exploits of a free-booter, it is certain no act of cruelty, no robbery of the widow, the fatherless, or the dis- tressed, and no murder, was ever perpetrated under his com- mand. He often gave the spoils of the rich to relieve the poor; and all his tribe were restrained from many atrocities of rapine by the awe of his mighty arm. Indeed it is said that a dispute with an aspiring and savage man of his tribe, who wished to rob a gentleman's house, while his wife and two children lay on the bier for interment, was the cause of his being betrayed to the vengeance of the law. * * * He was betrayed by a man of his own tribe, and was the last person executed at Banff, pre- vious to the abolition of heritable jurisdiction.’ “Another wild stormful song,” says Carlyle, finely,' that dwells in our ear and mind with a strange tenacity, is “Macpherson’s Farewell.” Perhaps there is something in the tradition itself that co-operates. For was not this grim Celt, this shaggy North- land Cacus, “that lived a life of sturt and strife, and died by treacherie,” was not he, too, one of the Nimrods and Napoleons of the earth in the arena of his own remote misty glens, for want of a clearer and wider one 2 Nay, was there not a touch of grace given him P A fibre of love and softness, of poetry itself, must have lived in his savage heart; for he composed that air the night before his execution ; on the wings of that poor melody his better Soul would soar away above oblivion, pain, and all the ignominy and despair, which, like an avalanche, was hurling him to the abyss : * * * Who, except Burns, could have given words to such a soul; words that we never listem to without a strange, half-barbarous, half-poetic fellow-feeling.’ 1 We have seen a German translation of this song, in which an amusing but fatal misinterpretation is given of this line,— “He play’d a spring, and danc'd it round"— fatal, we mean, to the spirit of the piece. Not understanding the Scottish meaning here of the word spring, the translator, instead of saying that poor Macpherson played a lively tune, and danced a Highland fling beiow the gallows-tree, merely announces, that he took a leap from the gallows and swirled about, -a feat no ways remarkable, as it was one which every malefactor, however craven, was, in these days, before the invention of “new drops,' obliged to perform. 2 The air and chorus of this song are both very old. In 1793, Burns wrote another version of the song for Thomson, which will be found in the Correspondence. 17 C º Yº:N-> |28.5 º ſº- - Ü Qſìje Bigtreet 3% int. BURNS LASS, when your mither is frae hame, May I but be sae bauld As come to your bower-window, And creep in frae the cauld 3 As come to your bower-window, And when it’s cauld an’ wat, Warm me in thy fair bosom, Sweet lass, may I do that ? Young man, gin ye should be sae kind, When our gudewife's frae hame, As come to my bower-window, Whare I am laid my lane, To warm thee in my bosom, Tak’ tent, I’ll tell thee what, The way to me lies through the kirk:- Young man, do ye hear that ? $tap, mip (Tijarmter, can pott leabe mte. TUNE–"Am Gille dubh ciar-dhwbh.” I. STAY, my charmer, can you leave me? Cruel, cruel to deceive me ! Well you know how much you grieve me; Cruel charmer, can you go º Cruel charmer, can you go º II. By my love so ill requited; By the faith you fondly plighted; By the pangs of lovers slighted: Do not, do not leave me so | Do not, do not leave me so | $tratijallam's 34 antent." TUNE–Strathallan's Lament. I. THICKEST night, o'erhang my dwelling! Howling tempests, o'er me rave! Turbid torrents, wintry swelling, Still surround my lonely cave! II. Crystal streamlets, gently flowing, Busy haunts of base mankind, Western breezes, softly blowing, Suit not my distracted mind. 1 Burns supplied these words to suit an air composed by Mr Allan Masterton, schoolmaster, Edinburgh. Being both tinged with Jacobitism, they agreed to dedicate the air and the words to the cause. Viscount Strathallan commanded a squadron of horse at the battle of Culloden, where he fell. The words of the song are supposed to be uttered by his son James Drummond, after the events of that fatal day had for ever blasted the hopes of the adherents of the unfortunate house of Stuart. SONGS. III. In the cause of right engaged, Wrongs injurious to redress, Honour’s war we strongly waged, But the heavens denied success. IV. Ruin's wheel has driven o'er us, Not a hope that dare attend, The wide world is all before us— But a world without a friend! £ip 390ſ, gie. ” TUNE–“ O what will I do gim my Hoggie die.” I. WHAT will I do gin my Hoggie die 2 My joy, my pride, my Hoggie My only beast, I had nae mae, And vow but I was vogieſ II. The lee-lang night we watch'd the fauld, Me and my faithfu' doggie; We heard nought but the roaring linn, Amang the braes sae scroggie; III. - But the houlet cried frae the castle wa', The blitter frae the boggie, The tod replied upon the hill, I trembled for my Hoggie. IV. When day did daw, and cocks did craw, The morning it was foggie; An unco tyke lap o'er the dyke, And maist has kill'd my Hoggie. 49er Damie 4Porbate. 3 TUNE–"Jumpin’ John.” I. HER daddie forbade, her minnie forbade; Forbidden she wadna be: She wadna trow’t, the browst she brew’d Wad taste sae bitterlie. The lang lad they ca' Jumpin' John Beguiled the bonnie lassie; The lang lad they ca' Jumpin' John Beguiled the bonnie lassie. 2 Burns says of this tune: “Dr Walker, who was minister at Moffat in 1772, and is now [1791] Professor of Natural History in the University of Edinburgh, told me the follow- ing anecdote concerning this air. He said, that some gem- tlemen, riding a few years ago through Liddesdale, stopped at a hamlet, consisting of a few houses, called Moss Platt; they were struck with this tume, which an old woman, spinning on a rock at the door, was singing. All she could tell concerning it was, that she was taught it when a child, and it was called “What will I do gin my Hoggie die.” No person except a few females at Moss Platt knew this fine old tune, which in all probability would have been lost, had not one of the gentlemen, who hap- pened to have a flute with him, taken it down.' 3 This song is founded on an old and somewhat indecorous ditty. 18 BURNS’ SONGS. II. A cow and a cauſ, a yowe and a hauf, And thretty guid shillin's and three; A very good tocher, a cotter-man's dochter, The lass with the bonnie black e'e. The lang lad they ca' Jumpin’ John Beguiled the bonnie lassie; The lang lad they ca' Jumpin’ John Beguiled the bonnie lassie. Qāp in tie ſtilorming 33arln." TUNE—“Cold blows the wind.” 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. I. CAULD 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. II. 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. 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. Oſije Young #igilamb #ober. TUNE—“Morag.” I * Loud blaw the frosty breezes, The snaws the mountains cover; Like winter on me seizes, Since my young Highland Rover Far Wanders nations over. Where'er he go, where'er he stray, May Heaven be his warden: Return him safe to fair Strathspey, And bonnie Castle-Gordon! 1 The air and burden of this song are very old. Burns adapted them, as above, to modern taste, with great skill. The old burden ram— * I'd rather gae supperless to my bed, Than rise in the morning early.” There is an excellent song of five double verses on the same subject and to the same air, by John Hamilton, which is popu- lar over Scotland. II. The trees, now naked groaning, Shall soon wi' leaves be hinging, The birdies, dowie moaning, Shall a’ be blithely singing, And every flower be springing. Sae I’ll rejoice the lee-lang day, When by his mighty warden My youth's return'd to fair Strathspey, And bonnie Castle-Gordon. 49ep, tije IBugtu ſăiller.” TUNE–" The Dusty Miller.” I. HEY, the dusty miller, And his dusty coat; He will win a shilling, Or he spend a groat. Dusty was the coat, Dusty was the colour; Dusty was the kiss I got frae the miller. II. Hey, the dusty miller, And his dusty sack, Leeze me on the calling Fills the dusty peck. Fills the dusty peck, Brings the dusty siller; I wad gi'e my coatie For the dusty miller. Oſijere mag a 3Lagg, tijep ca’t jet ſtieg. TUNE–" Duncan Davison.” I. THERE was a lass, they ca’d her Meg, And she held o'er the moors to spin; There was a lad that follow’d her, They ca’d him Duncan Davison. The moor was dreigh, and Meg was skeigh, Her favour Duncan couldna win; For wit the roke she wad him knock, And aye she shook the temper-pin. II. As o'er the moor they lightly foor, A burn was clear, a glen was green, Upon the banks they eas'd their shanks And aye she set the wheel between; 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. 2 To Burns belongs the merit only of modifying this lively song from an old one, for the pages of the Museum. ! 19 BURNS” SONGS. III. We'll big a house—a wee, wee house, And we will live like king and queen, Sae blythe 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 bonnie lass, And aye be welcome back again. (Iijenieſ ſtilentic'; $30mmie ſharp. TUNE–" The Ruffian's Rant.” I. IN coming by the brig o' Dye, At Darlet we a blink did tarry; As day was dawin in the sky, We drank a health to bonnie Mary. Theniel Menzie’s bonnie Mary, Theniel Menzie’s bonnie Mary; Charlie Gregor tint his plaidie, Kissin’ Theniel's bonnie Mary. II. Her een sae bright, her brow sae white, Her haffet locks as brown's a berry; And aye they dimpl’t wi' a smile, The rosy cheeks o' bonnie Mary. III. We lap and danced the lee-lang day, Till piper lads were wae and weary; But Charlie gat the spring to pay, For kissin’ Theniel's bonnie Mary. Theniel Menzie's bonnie Mary, Theniel Menzie’s bonnie Mary; Charlie Gregor tint his plaidie, Kissin’ Theniel’s bonnie Mary. Qſìje 3Ganttä. of tije IBehon. I TUNE—“Bhannerach dhom no chri.” I. How pleasant the banks of the clear-winding Devon, With green-spreading bushes, and flowers blooming fair! But the bonniest flower on the banks of the Devon, Was once a sweet bud on the braes of the Ayr. Mild be the sun on this sweet blushing flower, In the gay rosy morn as it bathes in the dew And gentle the fall of the soft vernal shower, That steals on the evening each leaf to renew. II. O, spare the dear blossom, ye orient breezes, With chill hoary wing as ye usher the dawn! And far be thou distant, thou reptile, that seizes The verdure and pride of the garden and lawn! Let Bourbon exult in his gay gilded lilies, And England triumphant display her proudrose; A fairer than either adorns the green valleys Where Devon, sweet Devon, meandering flows. Qſì earp fa’ pou, Buncant (ºtap.” TUNe—“Duncan Gray.” I. WEARY fa’ you, Duncan Gray— Ha, ha, the girdin’ o't! Waegae by you, Duncan Gray— Ha, ha, the girdin’ o't I When a’ the lave gae to their play, Then I maun sit the lee lang day, And jog the cradle wi' my tae, And a' for the girdin’ o't. * II. Bonnie was the Lammas moon— Ha, ha, the girdin’ o't! Glowrin' a' the hills aboon— Ha, ha, the girdin’ o't! } 2',4's 1 Charlotte Hamilton was the inspirer of this song. She was the sister of Gavin Hamilton, but had early in life removed to Harvieston, on the banks of the Devon, Clackmanamshire, where the poet saw her during his second Highland tour. For Charlotte Hamilton Burns seems to have imbibed a feeling more endearing than friendship. Immediately after their first inter- view he thus speaks of her in prose: “Of Charlotte I cannot Speak in common terms of admiration; she is not only beautiful but lovely. Her form is elegant; her features not regular, but they have the Smile of sweetness, and the settled complacency of good nature in the highest degree; and her complexion, now that she has happily recovered her wonted health, is equal to Miss Burnet's. * * Her eyes are fascinating; at once expres- sive of good sense, tenderness, and a noble mind. Elsewhere he says, in reference to this song, ‘Tell her I have, to the best of my power, paid her a poetic compliment now completed. The air is admirable, true old Highland. It was the tune of a Gaelic song, which an Inverness lady sung to me when I was there. I was so charmed with it that I begged her to write me a set of it from her singing; for it had never been set before. * * I won’t say the poetry is first-rate; though I am convinced it is very well; and what is not always the case with compli- ments to ladies, it is not only sincere, but just.” Burns was accompanied on his tour by Dr Adair of Harrowgate, whom he introduced to Miss Hamilton, and who afterwards made her his wife. See in the Life, Dr Adair's account of the northern tour. “I was indebted to Burns,’ says the doctor, ‘for a connection, from which I have derived, and expect further to derive, much happiness.” 2 This is the poet's first version of the old song. The “Duncan Gray' of our ancestors had both spirit and freedom. Burns relieved it of some of the latter qualities; enough still remains. The air, it is said, was the composition of a Glasgow Carman, from whose whistling it was noted down. Burns seems to have liked the air: he again tried his hand on Duncan Gray, and sent the result to Thomson. His last version silenced all the others.-See Correspondence with Thomson. Q// 20 §§ 69 ſº º Q Dr. ºš- § 2"/c/xº~ : %.(2)) - •. * , * BURNS’ SONGS. ! The girdin’ brak, the beast cam' down, I tint my curch, and baith my shoon; Ah! Duncan, ye're an unco loon— Wae on the bad girdin’ o't! III. But, Duncan, gin ye’ll keep your aith— Ha, ha, the girdin’ o't! I’se bless you wi' my hindmost breath— Ha, ha, the girdin’ o't! Duncan, gin ye’ll keep your aith, The beast again can bear us baith, And auld Mess John will mend the skaith, And clout the bad girdin’ o’t. QIije Bloughman je's a bonnie 3Lab. 1 TUNE—“Up wi' the Ploughman.” I. 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' my ploughman lad, And hey my merry ploughman! Of a the trades that I do ken, Commend me to the ploughman. II. My ploughman he comes hame at e'en, He’s aften wat and weary; Cast off the wat, put on the dry, And gae to bed, my dearie! III. - I will wash my ploughman’s hose, And I will dress his o'erlay; I will mak’ my ploughman's bed, And cheer him late and early. IV. I ha'e been east, I ha'e been west, I ha'e been at Saint Johnston; The bonniest sight that e'er I saw Was the ploughman laddie dancin’. & W. Snaw-white stockings on his legs, And siller buckles glancin’; A gude blue bonnet on his head— And O but he was handsome! VI. Commend me to the barn-yard, And the corn-mou, man; I never gat my coggie fou, Till I met wi' the ploughman. Up wit my ploughman lad, And hey my merry ploughman! Of a the trades that I do ken, Commend me to the ploughman. 1 In this instance Burns has merely fitted, for the Museum, a song under the same name in Herd's Collection. #Lambſalºp, Glount tije 31amin.” TUNE—“ Hey, Tutti, Taiti.” I. LANDLADY, count the lawin’, The day is near the dawin’; Ye're a blind drunk, boys, And I’m but jolly fou. Hey tutti, taiti, How tutti, taiti– Wha’s fou now 7 II. Cog, an’ ye were aye fou, Cog, an’ ye were aye fou, I wad sit and sing to you, If ye were aye fou. * III. Weel may ye a' be! Ill may we never see! God bless the king, boys, And the companie! Hey tutti, taiti, How tutti, taiti– Wha’s fou now Ż 33abing &limbs around jet 33ſotning. 3 TUNE—“Macgregor of Rwara's Lament.” I. RAVING winds around her blowing, Yellow leaves the woodlands strowing, By a river hoarsely roaring, Isabella stray’d deploring— “Farewell, hours that late did neasure Sunshine days of joy and pleasure; Hail, thou gloomy night of sorrow, Cheerless night that knows no morrow! II. “O'er the past too fondly wandering, On the hopeless future pondering; Chilly grief my life-blood freezes, Fell despair my fancy seizes. Life, thou soul of every blessing, Load to mis’ry most distressing, O how gladly I’d resign thee, And to dark oblivion join thee!” 2 Burns supplied the two first verses to this chaunt. The third belongs to a political song of an earlier date 3. The muse of Burns seems to have been ever ready to Sym- pathize with the subject of this song. It was composed on his ‘particular friend' Miss Isabella M'Leod, of Rasay, on the death of her sister, and of her sister's husband, the Earl of Loudon, who shot himself, in consequence of pecuniary embarrassment. Among the poems will be found some verses addressed by Burns to Miss M*Leod, on the death of her brother. 21 BURNS’ SONGS. JX, | g * 36litſe imag $je.8 & #om Iang amb brearg is tije Nigiſt.] TUNe—“Andro and his cutty gum.” ; FIRST SET. CHORUS. I Blithe, blithe and merry was she, How lang and dreary is the night, Blithe was she but and ben: When I am frae my dearie! Blithe by the banks of Ern, I sleepless lie frae e'en to morn, And blithe in Glenturit glen. Tho' I were ne'er sae weary. I. I sleepless lie frae e'en to morn, BY Auchtertyre grows the aik, Tho' I were ne'er sae weary. On Yarrow banks the birken shaw; II. But Phemie was a bonnier lass When I think on the happy days Than braes o' Yarrow ever saw. I spent wi' you, my dearie, II. And now what lands between us lie, Her looks were like a flower in May, How can I be but eerieſ Her Smile was like a simmer morn; And now what lands between us lie, She tripped by the banks of Ern, How can I be but eerieſ * As light’s a bird upon a thorn. III. - III. How slow ye move, ye heavy hours, Her bonnie face it was as meek As ye were wae and weary' As ony lamb upon a lea; It was na sae ye glinted by The evening sun was ne'er sae sweet When I was wi' my dearie. As was the blink o’ Phemie's e'e. It was na sae ye glinted by IV. When I was wi' my dearie. The Highland hills I’ve wander'd wide, And o'er the Lowlands I ha'e been; But Phemie was the blithest lass That ever trod the dewy green. Blithe, blithe and merry was she, Blithe was she but and ben: Blithe by the banks of Ern, I. And blithe in Glenturit glen. MUSING on the roaring ocean, - Which divides my love and me; Wearying heaven, in warm devotion, For his weal, where’er he be. II. I fºluging on fije 33dating QPteam.” iº TUNE—“ID)-wimion dubh.” &ſje 36Jute 33ely $oge at Yule map $6ſain. TUNE–" To dawnton me.” Hope and fear's alternate billow Yielding late to nature’s law; Whisp'ring spirits round my pillow Talk of him that’s far awa. III. Ye whom sorrow never wounded, Ye who never shed a tear, Care-untroubled, joy-surrounded, THE blude red rose at Yule may blaw, The simmer lilies bloom in snaw, The frost may freeze the deepest sea; But an auld man shall never daunton me. To daunton me, and me so young, Wi’ his fause heart and flattering tongue, That is the thing you ne'er shall see; For an auld man shall never daunton me. Gaudy day to you is dear. II. IV. For a’ his meal and a his maut, Gentle night, do thou befriend me; For a his fresh beef and his saut, Downy sleep, the curtain draw; For a his gold and white monie, Spirits kind, again attend me, An auld man shall never daunton me. Talk of him that’s far awa! 3 ‘This song was composed,” says Burns, on Miss Euphemia Murray of Lintrose, commonly and deservedly called the Flower of Strathmore.' The verses were produced during his resi- dence at Auchtertyre in one of his Highland tours. The affa– } bility and beauty of Miss Murray charmed the heart of the poet, and he gave his feelings fitting utterance in song. Miss Murray was married, in 1794, to David Smith, Esq. of Methven, a judge in the court of session, with the title of Lord Methven, by whom she had several children. I Burns afterwards altered this song to suit the air of ‘Cauld Kail in Aberdeen’ for Thomson's work. The original air is said to be “True Highland.” - 2 “I composed these verses,’ says Burns, “out of compliment \ to a Mrs M'Lachlan, whose husband is an officer in the East (ndies." 22 - --- - - - - BURNS’ SONGS. * III. . His gear may buy him kye and yowes, His gear may buy him glens and knowes; But me he shall not buy nor fee, For an auld man shall never daunton me. IV. He hirples twa-fauld as he dow, Wi’ his teethless gab and his auld beld pow, An' the rain rains down frae his red bleer'd e'e— That auld man shall never daunton me. To daunton me, and me sae young, Wi’ his fause heart and flatt’ring tongue, That is the thing you ne'er shall see; For an auld man shall never daunton me. (Tomte 330at me o'er to (Tijarlie. 1 TUNE–º O'er the Water to Charlie.” I. COME boat me o'er, come row me o'er, Come boat me o'er to Charlie; I’ll gi'e John Ross another bawbee, To boat me o'er to Charlie. We’ll o'er the water and o'er the sea, We’ll o'er the water to Charlie; Come weal, come woe, we'll gather and go, And live or die wi' Charlie. II. I lo’e weel my Charlie's name, Tho’ some there be abhor him: But O, to see auld Nick gaun hame, Arld Charlie's faes before him! III. I swear and vow by moon and stars, And sun that shines so early, If I had twenty thousand lives, I’d die as aft for Charlie. We’ll o'er the water and o'er the sea, We’ll o'er the water to Charlie; Come weal, come woe, we’ll gather and go, And live or die wi' Charlie! § 330ge-hub hp mp 35arlp &#aſk.” TUNR—“ The Rose-bud.” I. A ROSE-BUD by my early walk, Adown a corn-inclosed bawk, Sae gently bent its thorny stalk, All on a dewy morning. Ere twice the shades o’ dawn are fled, In a’ its crimson glory spread, And drooping rich the dewy head, It scents the early morning. II. Within the bush, her covert nest A little linnet fondly prest, The dew sat chilly on her breast Sae early in the morning. She soon shall see her tender brood, The pride, the pleasure o’ the wood, Amang the fresh green leaves bedev’d, Awake the early morning. III. So thou, dear bird, young Jeanie fair! On trembling string or vocal air, Shall sweetly pay the tender care That tends thy early morning. So thou, sweet rose-bud, young and gay, Shall beauteous blaze upon the day, And bless the parent's evening ray That watch'd thy early morning. 33afflin', 33 garín' (ſºaillie. 3 TUNE–º Rattlin', Roarin' Willie.” I. O RATTLIN’, roarin’ Willie, O, he held to the fair, And for to sell his fiddle, And buy some other ware; But parting wil his fiddle, The saut tear blin’t his e'e; And rattlin', roarin’ Willie, Ye're welcome hame to me! II. O Willie, come sell your fiddle, O sell your fiddle sae fine; O Willie, come sell your fiddle, And buy a pint o' wine! If I should sell my fiddle, The warl’ would think I was mad; For mony a rantin’ day My fiddle and I ha'e had. III. As I cam’ by Crochallan, I cannilie keekit ben— Rattlin', roarin' Willie Was sitting at yon board en’; Sitting at yon board en', And amang guid companie; Rattlin', roarin’ Willie, Ye're welcome hame to me! 1 Part of this is from the pen of Burns: the rest is old. The second and third stanzas bear indubitable marks of his pen. 2 Miss Cruickshanks, daughter of William Cruickshanks, of the High School, in whose house Burns resided for some time during his visit to Edinburgh, was the subject of this song. (See Note at p. 66.) The air is a production of David Sillar. 3 William Dumbar, W. S., Edinburgh, colonel of the Croch- allan corps, already referred to, ‘one of the worthiest fellows in the world,” as he is called by Burns, was the hero of this chaunt. Burns claims only the last stanza. 23 BURNS’ SONGS. &lºšijere, 3Grabing angry Jºãinter's $formig. 1 (Tagtſe (ſºurbon.” TUNE—“Neil Gow's Lamentation for Abercairny.” TUNE –“Morag.” I. WHERE, braving angry winter's storms, I. The lofty Ochils rise, STREAMS that glide in orient plains, Far in their shade my Peggy's charms Never bound by winter's chains! First blest my wondering eyes. Glowing here on golden sands, As one who, by some savage stream, There commix’d with foulest stains, A lonely gem surveys, - From tyranny's empurpled bands: Astonish'd, doubly marks its beam, - These, their richly-gleaming waves, With art's most polish’d blaze. I leave to tyrants and their slaves; II. Give me the stream that sweetly laves Blest be the wild, sequester'd shade, The banks by Castle Gordon. And blest the day and hour, - - Where Peggy's charms I first survey’d, When first I felt their pow'r, 2 Gordon Castle, well known to be the finest house north of * g •; * the Frith of Forth, is situated in the parish of Bellie, and The ty. ant death, with grim control, county of Banff, on the right bank of the Spey, and at the dis- May seize my fleeting breath; tance of about five miles from the efflux of that river into the But tearing Peggy from my soul Moray Frith. The house lies in a beautifully wooded park, * generally of level ground, and comprising ten or twelve square Must be a str onger death. miles. The grand entry is by an arched building close beside the -- village of Fochabers; from which a road winds about a mile - through a green parterre, till it is lost in an oval in front of the # * * g. castle. The front of the building, 568 feet in length, broken (ſihite ſpuntar. - into strong light and shade by the recession of some of its parts, -> “ 7. ** * * * and gaining dignity from a lofty tower surmounting the centre, TUNE—“Johnny M Gill. is of that grandeur which suits to almost princely rank and influence. From the house the view outward is equally fine. I. The site of the castle was selected as a defensible position for O, WILT thou go wi' me, the erection of a feudal tower, by George, second earl of Sweet Tibbie Dunbar 2 Huntly, who died in 1501. This house was accessible by a nar- ". . e. row causeway through a morass, and by a draw-bridge across O, wilt thou go wi' me, - a moat. It was called the House of the Bog, or the Bog, the Sweet Tibbie Dunbar 2 name constantly given to it by Spalding in his many references * & to it in connection with the troublous affairs of the civil war. Wilt thou ride on a horse, Each of the noble line who lived in it, successively earls of Or be drawn in a car, Huntly, marquisses of Huntly, and dukes of Gordon, was also popularly distinguished by the familiar appellative of The Gwdeman o' the Bog. Additions and alterations took place at Or walk by my side, O Sweet Tibbie Dunbar 2 different times, until in the latter part of the eighteenth century, II George fourth duke of Gordon erected the present magnificent - --. mansion—retaining, however, the original fortalice of the fif- I care nā, thy daddie - teenth century, towering high and proud over all the rest. His lands and his money, With the fifth duke of Gordon, May 28, 1836, expired the main line of this great historical family, and Gordon Castle, with the I care na thy kin, connecting territory, to the value of £30,000 per annum, then Sae high and sae lordly: became the property of the duke of Richmond, son of the eldest. º 3. sister of the deceased duke. The representation of the family Iſl tº e But say thou wilt ha'e me and the title of marquis of Huntly devolved at the same time For better for waur— upon George earl of Aboyne, descended from a younger son of And come in thy coatie, - the Second marquis, who was beheaded in 1649. Sweet Tibbie Dunbar ! - George fourth duke of Gordon—himself a clever writer of C. º verses—and his beautiful and witty duchess, Jane Maxwell, were, it is well known, fond of the society of literary men. - - Beattie was their frequent guest at this noble mansion, and an 1 Margaret Chalmers, the friend of Charlotte Hamilton, was intimate correspondent of the Duchess. Burns, during the the inspirer of this song. She was the youngest daughter of first winter of his residence in Edinburgh, was introduced to James Chalmers, Esq., of Fingland. By her mother, Euphemia her Grace, whose name appears in the list of the subscribers to his Murdoch, daughter of the last laird of Cumloddan in the Stew- first metropolitan edition, for twenty-one copies. In the course artry of Kirkcudbright, she was connected with the family of of his Highland tour with Mr Nicol (September, 1787), coming Burns' friend, Mr Gavin Hamilton of Mauchline. Through to Fochabers, and presuming, says Dr Currie, on his acquaint- this channel, the Poet, during 1787, became acquainted with ance with the Duchess, he proceeded to Gordon Castle, leaving Miss Chalmers, whose personal elegance and accomplished Mr Nicol at the inn in the village. At the castle our Poet was mind appear to have made a deep impression on him. She was received with the utmost hospitality and kindness, and the | then the bosom friend of Miss Charlotte Hamilton, and in his family being about to sit down to dinner, he was invited to letters he usually speaks of the two ladies together. She after- take his place at the table as a matter of course. This invita- wards became the wife of Mr Lewis Hay, of Sir W. Forbes tion he accepted, and after drinking a few glasses of wine, he & Co.'s bank, Edinburgh. Several letters addressed to her will rose up and proposed to withdraw. On being pressed to stay, be found among the Poet's correspondence. Mrs Lewis Hay he mentioned for the first time his engagement with his fellow- has for many years resided at Pau, in Bearn. traveller; and his noble host offering to send a servant to con- Ž 9...N * º Q)^ () N. º ‘x s, XT-3 --- C ~: 3. & (º2. 2^) (; {} º *J ， ， ， ， ， ， , ， ， ， ſ'： '，') !! ！!! ：) BURNS’ SONGS. II. Spicy forests, ever gay, Shading from the burning ray, Hapless wretches sold to toil, Or the ruthless native's way, Bent on slaughter, blood, and spoil: Woods that ever verdant wave, I leave the tyrant and the slave; Give me the groves that lofty brave The storms by Castle Gordon. III. Wildly here, without control, Nature reigns and rules the whole; In that sober pensive mood, Dearest to the feeling soul, She plants the forest, pours the flood: Life's poor day I’ll musing rave, And find at night a sheltering cave, Where waters flow and wild woods wave, By bonnie Castle Gordon. iſłąp 3Lobe $je'; but a £aggie ºpt. 1 TUNE—“Lady Badinscoth's Reel.” I. MY love she's but a lassie yet, My love she’s but a lassie yet; We'll let her stand a year or twa, She’ll no be half sae saucy yet. duct Mr Nicol to the castle, Burns insisted on undertaking that office himself. He was, however, accompanied by a gen- tleman, a particular acquaintance of the Duke, by whom the invitation was delivered in all the forms of politeness. The invitation came too late ; the pride of Nicol was inflamed into a high degree of passion, by the neglect which he had already suffered. He had ordered the horses to be put to the carriage, being determined to proceed on his journey alone, and they found him parading the streets of Fochabers, before the door of the inn, Venting his anger on the postillion, for the slowness with which he obeyed his commands. As no explanation nor entreaty could change the purpose of his fellow-traveller, our Poet was reduced to the necessity of separating from him entirely, or of instantly proceeding with him on their journey, He chose the last of these alternatives; and seating himself beside Nicol in the post-chaise with mortification and regret, he turned his back on Gordon Castle, where he had promised himself some happy days. Sensible, however, of the great kindness of the noble family, he made the best return in his power, by composing the above song, which he sent to James Hoy, librarian at Gordon Castle. How much the Poet felt the abruptness of his departure, may be gathered from a passage in one of his letters to Mr Hoy – I shall certainly, among my legacies, leave my latest curse to that unlucky predicament which hurried—tore me away from Castle Gordon. obstimate son of Latin prose be curst to Scotch mile periods, and damned to seven league paragraphs; while declension and conjugation, gender, number, and tense, under the rag- ged banners of dissonance and disarrangement, eternally rank against him in hostile array.” 1 Part of this song is old, and part of it was supplied by Burns. The concluding verse forms part of the old version of “Green grows the rashes, quoted by Herd. May that || 25 I rue the day I sought her, O, I rue the day I sought her, O; Wha gets her needs na say she's woo'd, But he may say he's bought her, O! II. Come, draw a drap o’ the best O't yet, Come, draw a drap o' the best o’t yet; Gae seek for pleasure where ye will, But here I never miss'd it yet. We're a' dry wi' drinking o't, We're a dry wi' drinking o't; The minister kiss'd the fiddler's wife, And couldna preach for thinkin’ o't. jamie, comic QCrp ſºle. TUNe—“Jamie, come try me.” CEHORUS. Jamie, come try me, Jamie, come try me; If thou would win my love, Jamie, come try me. I. IF thou should ask my love, Could I deny thee? If thou would win my love, Jamie, come try me. II. If thou should kiss me, love, Wha could espy thee? If thou wad be my love, Jamie, come try me. Jamie, come try me, Jamie, come try me; If thou would win my love, Jamie, come try me. flap 330mmie ſharp. 2 TUNE—“Go fetch to me a pint o' wine.” -- I. GO fetch to me a pint o' wine, An’ fill it in a silver tassie; That I may drink before I go, A service to my bonnie lassie. 2 Burns introduced this fine lyric to the notice of his brother Gilbert as a production of the olden muse, and inquired if he did not think it beautiful. Gilbert declared it the most heroic of lyrics, adding, ‘Ah! Robert, if you would write oftener in that way, your fame would be surer.” In a letter to Mrs Dun- lop, Burns quotes the song with the remark, that he “cannot D | Ä & Ç. i... § <2* BURNS’ SONGS. | The boat rocks at the pier o’ Leith; Fu’ loud the wind blaws frae the ferry; The ship rides by the Berwick-law, And I maun leave my bonnie Mary. II. The trumpets sound, the banners fly, The glittering spears are ranked ready; The shouts o' war are heard afar, The battle closes thick and bloody; But it’s not the roar o’ sea or shore Wad make me langer wish to tarry; Nor shouts o' war that’s heard afar, It's leaving thee, my bonnie Mary, Qſìje 31a;p ſtilist. TUNE—“The Lazy Mist.” I. THE lazy mist hangs from the brow of the hill, Concealing the course of the dark winding rill; How languid the scenes, late so sprightly, appear, As autumn to winter resigns the pale year! The forests are leafless, the meadows are brown, And all the gay foppery of summer is flown: Apart let me wander, apart let me muse, How quick time is flying, how keen fate pursues II. How long I have liv'd—but how much liv'd in vain! How little of life's scanty span may remain What aspects, old Time, in his progress, has worn! What ties, cruel fate in my bosom has torn! How foolish, or worse, till our summit is gain’d! And downward, how weaken'd, how darken'd, how pain'd? This life's not worth having with all it can give, For something beyond it poor man sure must live. flip #arrp has a (Baſſant Gap. I TUNE–“ Highlanden’s Lament.” I. MY Harry was a gallant gay, Fu’ stately strode he on the plain: But now he's banish’d far away, I’ll never see him back again. help inserting two old stanzas which pleased him mightily.” Notwithstanding all these disclaimers, three-fourths of the song are undoubtedly from the pen of Burns. Something simi- lar to the opening verse is to be found in an old ballad, com- posed, according to Mr Peter Buchan, in 1636, by Alexander Jºesly, of Edin, on Doveran side, on a fair one named Helen Christie. * 1. ‘The oldest title I ever heard of this air," says Burns, “was “The Highland Watch's Farewell to Ireland.” The chorus O for him back again! O for him back again! I wad gi'e a' Knockhaspie's land, For Highland Harry back again. II. When a’ the lave gae to their bed, I wander dowie up the glen; I set me down and greet my fill, And aye I wish him back again. III. O were some villains hangit high, And ilka body had their ain! Then I might see the joyful sight, My Highland Harry back again. O for him back again! O for him back again! I wad gi'e a” Knockhaspie's land, For Highland Harry back again. Qſìje (ſailor ſPell fúto’ tie 36th.” TUNE—“ The Tailor fell thro' the bed, thimbles and a'.” I. THE tailor fell thro’ the bed, thimbles and a', The tailor fell thro’ the bed, thimbles and a”; The blankets were thin, and the sheets they were Sma', The tailor fell thro’ the bed, thimbles and a’. II. The sleepy bit lassie, she dreaded nae ill, | The sleepy bit lassie, she dreaded nae ill; The weather was cauld, and the lassie lay still, She thought that a tailor could do her naill. III. Gi'e me the groat again, canny young man, Gi'e me the groat again, canny young man; The day it is short, and the night it is lang, The dearest siller that ever I wan! I picked up from an old woman in Dumblane; the rest of the Song is mine.” Mr Peter Buchan says, that the hero of the ori- ginal song was a Harry Lumsdale, the second son of a Highland gentleman, who made love to Miss Jeanie Gordon, daughter to the laird of Knockhaspie. He went abroad, and the lady was married to her cousin, a son of the laird of Rhymie. Tra. dition says, that, some time after, her former lover accidentally met her, and while in the act of Shaking her hand, her husband assailed him, and with his sword lopped off several of Highland Harry's fingers. This must have happened, we should think, (ºfter the song was composed, if we may judge from the last line of the following verse: - - ‘O for him back again! O for him back again I would gi'e a Knockhaspie's land, For ae shake o' my Harry's hand 1’ Burns, who knew nothing of the story, evidently intended the Song to be taken in a Jacobitical sense. 2. This air,’ says Burns, ‘is the March of the corporation of Tailors. The second and fourth stanzas are mine.' 26 BURNS’ SONGS. to 2 O º: O ; IV. II. ºir There's somebody weary wi' lying her lane, Youth, grace, and love, attendant move, * There's somebody weary wi' lying her lane; And pleasure leads the van : There's some that are dowie, I trow wad be fain In a’ their charms, and conquering arms, . To see the bit tailor come skippin’ again. They wait on bonnie Ann. 4 The captive bands may chain the hands, But love enslaves the man; Ye gallants braw, I red ye a', $intnter'; a 33 ſeagant (Time. I Beware o’ bonnie Ann. TUNE—“Aye Waukin, O.” —----- I. &ſajen 33:05p £Hap. 3 SIMMER’s a pleasant time, Flow’rs of ev'ry colour; TUNe—“The Gardener wi' his paidle.” The water rins o'er the heugh, And I long for my true lover. I. Aye waukin, O, WHEN rosy May comes in wi' flowers, Waukin still and wearie: To deck her gay green-spreading bowers, Sleep I can get name Then busy, busy are his hours— For thinking on my dearie. The gard’ner wi' his paidle. II. The crystal waters gently fa’; When I sleep I dream, The merry birds are lovers a'; When I wauk I’m eerie; The scented breezes round him blaw— Sleep I can get name The gard’ner wil his paidle. For thinking on my dearie. II. - III. When purple morning starts the hare Lanely night comes on, To steal upon her early fare, A” the lave are sleepin’; - Then thro’ the dews he maun repair— I think on my bonnie lad, The gard’ner wi' his paidle. And I bleer my een with greetin’. When day, expiring in the west, Aye waukin, O, The curtain draws of nature's rest, Waukin still and wearie: He flies to her arms he lo’es best— Sleep I can get name The gard’ner wit his paidle. For thinking on my dearie. *-*==== $32tuate o' 360nnie &Inn. 2 33ſoonting Neſſp. 4 TUNE—“Yo Gallants Bright.” TUNE—" On a Bank of Flowers.” - I. YE gallants bright, I red you right, I. Beware o’ bonnie Ann; ON a bank of flowers, in a summer day, Her comely face sae fu' o' grace, For summer lightly dress'd, Your heart she will trepan. The youthful blooming Nelly lay, Her een sae bright, like stars by night, With love and sleep oppress'd; Her skin is like the swan; When Willy, wand'ring thro’ the wood, Sae jimply lac’d her genty waist, Who for her favour oft had sued, That sweetly ye might span. He gaz'd, he wish'd, he fear'd, he blush'd, And trembled where he stood. 1 The two last verses of this song are very old. Ritson thinks & Tºlºscº rºss 2 * * * & 3 that it is one of the oldest of our melodies. Burns supplied the 3 This air,’ says Burns in his notes to the Museum, ‘is the ! first verse, and revised the others. Gardener's March. The title of the song only is old; the rest is mine.” 2 Ann Masterton, daughter of Mr Allan Masterton, school- master, Edinburgh, was the inspirer of these verses. Miss 4 Burns has here done little more than softened down a little Masterton afterwards became Mrs Derbishire, and in 1840 was —a very little, the warmth of a song in Ramsay's Tea Table resident in London. Miscellany. | 27 ºo: 4.sº- **s--- sº BURNS’ SONGS. C}{\| Q a II. Ú Her closed eyes, like weapons sheath’d, Were seal’d in soft repose, Oſije (Taptain's 31alp. Her lips still as they fragrant breath’d, tº p | It richer dyed the rose, TUNE–% O Mowmt and go. The springing lilies sweetly press'd, CHORUS. Wild—wanton kiss'd her rival breast; He gaz'd, he wish'd, he fear’d, he blush'd, O mount and go, His bosom ill at rest. Mount and make you ready; III. O mount and go, Her robes, light waving in the breeze, And be the captain's lady. Her tender limbs embrace, I. Her lovely form, her native ease, WIIEN the drums do beat, All harmony and grace. And the cannons rattle, Tumultuous tides his pulses roll, Thou shalt sit in state, A flattering ardent kiss he stole; And see thy love in battle. He gaz'd, he wish'd, he fear’d, he blush'd, II. 2 And sigh’d his very soul. When the vanquish’d foe IV Sues for peace and quiet, To the shades we’ll go, And in love enjoy it. O mount and go, Mount and make you ready; As flies the partridge from the brake, On fear-inspired wings; So Nelly startling, half awake, Away affrighted springs. But Willy follow’d as he should, O mount and go, He overtook her in the wood; And be the captain’s lady. He vow’d, he pray’d, he found the maid Forgiving all, and good. QBf a' fije airts fije (ſāimī, can blaſm.” TUNE–º Miss Admiral Gordon's Strathspey.” &ſje ZBap #eturng, mp. 36.050mt 33 urità." I. TUNE—“Seventh of November.” te & AJ j i OF a” the airts the wind can blaw, I. I dearly like the west, THE day returns, my bosom burns, For there the bonnie lassie lives, y , my The blissful day we twa did meet, The lassie I lo’e best : Tho' winter wild in tempest toil'd, Though wild woods grow, and rivers row, Ne'er summer-sun was half sae sweet. And mony a hill between: y 2 Than a’ the pride that loads the tide, Baith day and night my fancy's flight And crosses o'er the sultry line; Is ever wit my Jean. Than kingly robes, than crowns and globes, Heaven gave me more, it made thee mine ! 2 “It was during his honey-moon, as he calls it, while chiefly II. resident in a miserable hovel at Ellisland, and only occasion- While day and night can brin g deli gh t, tººkÉ . § º in Ayrshire, that he wrote this beau- Or nature aught of pleasure give; The ‘miserable hovel' alluded to here was a temporary place *T., a T ~ * & of residence for the Poet while the farm-house of Ellisland While joys above my mind can move, was being built. The song, it need scarcely be added, was in For thee, and thee alone, I live! honour of Jean Armour, who was now on the eve of being installed at Ellisland as his lawful wife. The evidence which it furnishes of the Poet's unabated attachment to his ‘Jean,’ at When that grim foe of life below Comes in between to make us part; this period, when his fame and prosperity were highest, is very The iron hand that breaks our band, gratifying, and goes to confute the insinuation of some biogra- * Arº gº i x* g º An * phers, that he married her latterly more from a sense of justice It breaks my bliss, it br eaks my heart. than a feeling of affection. Another song, given in the fol- lowing page, (“O, were I on Parnassus' hill,’) shows still more 1 ‘ I composed this song out of compliment to one of the strongly the strength of his attachment to his now-publicly- happiest and worthiest married couples in the world, Robert adopted wife. º Riddel, Esq., of Glenriddel, and his lady. At their fireside I “Of a the arts the wind can blaw', was the most universally have enjoyed more pleasant evenings than at all the houses of popular of all Burns' songs-at least, in the west of Scotland, { fashionable people in the country put together; and to their —and it is still a great favourite. The air is by Mr Marshall, kindness and hospitality I am indebted for many of the happiest who in Burns' time was butler to the duke of Gordon, and who 2 hours in my life.”—Burns' notes in the Musewan. The air is said composed several other fine airs. Only the first two stanzas were f \ to be the composition of Mr Riddel himself, who named it from written by Burns. The last two have been ascribed to John | } |; the day of his marriage, The Seventh of November. Hamilton, musicseller, Edinburgh. Two others were written by %9) 28 º º (25 º Jºº-º-Lº- ~~~~<> ) *-> ſ Sis BURNS’ SONGS. II. II. I see her in the dewy flowers, How we live, my Meg and me, I see her sweet and fair: How we love and how we 'gree, I hear her in the tunefu' birds, I care na by how few may see; I hear her charm the air: Whistle o'er the lave o’t. There’s not a bonnie flower that springs, Wha I wish were maggot's meat, By fountain, shaw, or green, Dish’d up in her winding sheet, There’s not a bonnie bird that sings, I could write—but Meg maun see’t— But minds me o' my Jean. Whistle o'er the lave o’t. III. O blaw, ye westlin winds, blaw saft Amang the leaſy trees; ¥e fja'e 3Liem a' &ſarang, 3Laggie, Wi’ gentle gale, frae muir and dale, Bring hame the laden bees; CHORUS. And bring the lassie back to me Ye ha'e lien a’ wrang, lassie, That's aye sae neat and clean: Ye’ve lien a’ wrang; Ae smile o’ her wad banish care, Ye’ve lien in an unco bed, Sae lovely is my Jean. And wi' a fremit man. IV. I. What sighs and vows, amang the knowes, YoUR rosy cheeks are turned sae wan, Ha’e past atween us twa! Ye're greener than the grass, lassie; How fain to meet, how was to part, Your coatie's shorter by a span, That day she gaed awa! Yet ne'er an inch the less, lassie. The powers aboon can only ken, II. To whom the heart is seen, O, lassie, ye ha'e play’d the fool, That name can be so dear to me And ye will feel the scorn, lassie; As my sweet lovely Jean. For aye the brose ye sup at e'en, Ye bock them eter the morn, lassie. III. O ance ye danc'd upon the knowes, Qſìàjígtle o'er tije Iabe d’t. And thro’ the wood ye sang, lassie, But in the herrying o' a bee byke, TUNE–% Whistle o'er the lave o’t." I fear ye’ve got a stang, lassie. Ye ha'e lien a’ wrang, lassie, 2. I. Ye’ve lien a wrang, FIRST when Maggy was my care, Ye’ve lien in an unco bed, Heav'n, I thought, was in her air; And wi' a fremit man. Now we’re married—spier nae mair— Whistle o'er the lave o’t.— sm- tº-ms-m-º- Meg was meek, and Meg was mild, Bonnie Meg was nature's child; Q9, here it on 33armaggug' #ill." —Wiser men than me's beguil’d— Whistle o'er the lave o’t. TUNE—" My love is lost to me.’ William Reid, of the firm of Brash & Reid, booksellers, Glas- I. gow. These are as follows:— ! O, WERE I on Parnassus’ bill | º: ººº Or had of Helicon my fill, But º i. they had put on, That I might catch poetic skill, My Jeanie dings them a' ' To sing how dear I love thee. lºº But Nith maun be my muse's well, Baith sage and gay confess it sae, My muse maun be thy bonnie sel’; Though drest in russet gown. On Corsincon I'll glow’r and spell, “The gamesome lamb, that sucks its dam, And write how dear I love thee. Mair harmless canna be ; . She has nae faut (if sic ye ca’t), 1 ‘Another song was composed in honour of Mrs Burns, dur- ; Except her love for me. ing the happy weeks that followed her arrival at Ellisland, “O, ! - The sparkling dew, o' clearest hue, were I on Parnassus' hill.” In the second stanza,the Poet rather Å Is like her slining een 3 transgresses the limits of connubial decorum : but, on the whole, - In shape and air name can compare these tributes to domestic affection are among the last of his Wi’ my sweet lovely Jean.” performances that one would wish to lose.”—J. G. LockHART. | º 29 Öğ O º $22- Pl :=>= - =º ~) (. ºs- º % &/ BURNS’ SONGS. II. º s CJ Then come, sweet muse, inspire my lay! For a’ the lee-lang simmer's day, I couldna sing, I couldna say, How much, how dear I love thee. I see thee dancing o'er the green, Thy waist sae jimp, thy limbs sae clean, Thy tempting lips—thy roguish een— By heaven and earth, I love thee! III. By night, by day, a-field, at hame, The thoughts o’ thee my breast inflame; And aye I muse and sing thy name, I only live to love thee. Tho' I were doom'd to wander on, Beyond the sea, beyond the sun, Till my last weary sand was run; Till then—and then I love thee. Qſìjere's a 33duff) in fjig (Titº. I To a Gaelic Air. I. THERE's a youth in this city, It were a great pity, That he from our lasses should wander awa’; For he's bonnie and braw, Weel-favour’d wi' a', And his hair has a natural buckle an’ a”. His coat is the hue Of his bonnet sae blue; His fecket” is white as the new driven snaw; His hose they are blae, And his shoon like the slae, And his clear siller buckles they dazzle usa’. II. For beauty and fortune, The laddie’s been courtin’; Weel-featured, weel-tocher'd, weel-mounted, and braw: But chiefly the siller,- That gars him gang till her, The pennie's the jewel that beautifies a”. There's Meg wi' the mailen, That fain wad a ha'en him, And Susy, whase daddy was laird o’ the ha’; There's lang-tocher'd Nancy, Maist fetters his fancy, —But the laddie's dear sel’ he lo’es dearest of a”. £Hp #eart's in tie ibigilambs." TUNE–" Failte na Miosg.” I. My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here; My heart's in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer; Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe; My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go. Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the north, The birth-place of valour, the country of worth; Wherever I wander, wherever I rove, The hills of the Highlands for ever I love. II. Farewell to the mountains high cover'd with snow; Farewell to the straths and green valleys below: Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods; Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods. My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here; My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer; Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe, My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go. Jojit 3intergon, mp jo.4 TUNE—“John Anderson, my Jo." I. 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 snow; But blessings on your frosty pow, John Anderson, my jo. 1 ‘This air, says Burns, in his notes on Johnson's Museum, “is claimed by Neil Gow, who calls it his lament for his brother. The first half stanza of the song is old. The rest is mine.' 2 Fecket—an under waistcoat with sleeves.—CROMEK or B. 3 The first half stanza of this, as well as of the preceding song, is the work of other days. Burns caught the spirit of the originals, and eked out the fragments which fell in his way with unequalled felicity. 4 “John Anderson my Jo 'is founded on an old song, set to an air which is said to have been a piece of sacred music pre- Yious to the Reformation. In Johnson's Museum the hero of the song is, from tradition, said to have been the town-piper of Kelso. In a collection of poetry published by Brash and Reid of Glasgow, is given what is called an improved version of this song, said to be from the pen of Burns. Currie has pronounced it spurious: Allan Cunningham, on the other hand, thinks he discovers traces of Burns' pen in the second stanza. As some of the stanzas of Brash and Reid's version of ‘John Anderson, my jo, are generally mingled up, in singing, with the undoubted production of Burns, we think it proper to give a copy of them here. Our opinion is, that the additions wero made by William Reid, who was also somewhat successful in enlarging the Song entitled, “Of a the airts the wind can blaw." See the two previous pages. ‘John Andersom, my jo, John, I wonder what you mean, To rise so soon in the morning, And sit up so late at elem; | BURNS” SONGS. II. John Anderson, my jo, John, We clamb the hill thegither; And mony a cantie day, John, We’ve had wi' ane anither: Now we maun totter down, John, But hand in hand we’ll go, And sleep thegither at the foot, John Anderson, my jo. QBut Iſfjriggleg iſ? Iourišij'U iſ regi) and iſfair. 1 TUNE—“Awa, Whigs, awa. CHORUS. Awa, Whigs, awa! Awa, Whigs, awa! Ye're but a pack o’ traitor louns, Ye'll do nae good at a'. Ye'll blear out a your e'en, John, And why should you do so * Gang sooner to your bed at e'en, John Anderson, my jo. II. ‘John Anderson, my jo, John, When Nature first began To try her cannie hand, John, Her master-work was man ; And you amang them a', John, Sae trig frae tap to toe, She prov'd to be nae journey-work, John Anderson, my jo. III. ‘John Anderson, my jo, John, Ye were my first conceit, And ye needma think it strange, John, Tho' I ca' ye trim and neat: Tho' Some folks say ye're auld, John, I never think ye so, But I think ye're aye the same to me, John Anderson, my jo. ‘John Anderson, my jo, John, We’ve seen our bairns' bairns, And yet, my dear John Anderson, I'm happy in your arms; And Sae are ye in mine, John— I'm sure ye’ll ne'er say no, Tho' the days are game that we have seen, John Anderson, my jo, V. ‘John Anderson, my jo, John, What pleasure does it give To see Saemony sprouts, John, Spring up tween you and me ! And ilka lad and lass, John, In our footsteps to go, Makes perfect heaven here on earth, John Anderson, my jo, VI. ‘John Anderson, my jo, John, Frae year to year we've past, And soon that year maun come, John, Will bring us to our last; But let na that affright us, John, Our hearts were ne'er our foe, While in innocent delight we liv'd, John Anderson, my jo.” 1 The second and fourth verses of this song are from the pen of Burns. The others belong to a Jacobite ditty, which is 31 I. OUR thrissles flourish’d fresh and fair, And bonnie bloom'd our roses But Whigs came like a frost in June, And wither'd a our posies. II. Our ancient crown's fa’n in the dust— Deil blin’ them wi' the stour o’t; And write their name in his black beuk, Wha ga’e the Whigs the power o’t. III. Our sad decay in church and state Surpasses my descriving; The Whigs came o'er us for a curse, And we ha'e done wi' thriving. IV. Grim vengeance lang has ta'en a nap, But we may see him wauken; Gude help the day when royal heads Are hunted like a maukin. Awa, Whigs, awa! Awa, Whigs, awa! Ye're but a pack o’ traitor louns, Ye'll do nae guid at a”. (Tomte retre mte, ſºame. I. COME rede me, dame, come tell me, dame, And nane can tell mair truly, What colour maun the man be of, To love a woman duly. II. The carlin clew baith up and down, And leugh and answer'd ready, I learn’d a sang in Annandale, A dark man for my lady. '- III. - But for a country quean like thee, Young lass, I tell thee fairly, That wi' the white I’ve made a shift, And brown will do fu' rarely. IV. There's mickle love in raven locks, The flaxen ne'er grows youden, There's kiss and hause me in the brown, And glory in the gowden. given in a more complete form in Hogg's Jacobite Relics. The air is very old, and is the foundation of the tunes, ‘What ails this heart o' mine 2' and ‘My dearie, an ye die.” “I have now lying before me,” says Mr Stenhouse, “a very ancient copy of it, in one strain, entitled, ‘Oh, silly soul, alace tº The second strain appears to have been added to it, like many others of this kind, at a much later period, by a slight altera- tion of the first.”—The name Whigs was originally applied to the Scottish Covenanters, and continued to be used by the Jacobites as a term of reproach against all those who opposed the Stuart dynasty and despotism, and supported the principles of the Revolution of 1688 and the Hanoverian succession. This we note for the benefit of young readers, who might think the song related to modern political parties. gº oG) ~~~~<><>–—--~ 2 -* * S. BURNS’ SONGS. II. On ilka hand the burnies trot, And meet below my theekit cot; The scented birk and hawthorn white Across the pool their arms unite, Alike to screen the burdie's nest, And little fishes’ caller rest: The sun blinks kindly in the biel', Where blithe I turn my spinning-wheel. III. On lofty aiks the cushats wail, And echo cons the doolfu’ tale; The lintwhites in the hazel braes, Delighted, rival ither's lays; The craik amang the clover hay, The paitrick whirrin’ o'er the lea, The swallow jinkin’ round my shiel, Amuse me at my spinning-wheel. IV. Wi’sma’ to sell and less to buy, Aboon distress, below envy, O wha wad leave this humble state, For a’ the pride of a the great? Amid their flaring, idle toys, Amid their cumbrous, dinsome joys, Can they the peace and pleasure feel Of Bessy and her spinning-wheel ? QTije Đogie. 1 TUNE–4* The Posie.” I. O LUVE will venture in, Where it daurna weel be seen, O luve will venture in, Where wisdom ance has been; But I will down yon river rove, Amang the woods sae green,_ And a to pu' a posie To my ain dear May. 1 The Posie has received the commendation of Professor Wilson. He has compared it with a production of the Grecian muse, and gives the preference to the bard of Coila for poetry as well as passion. In Burns the tenderness is more beautiful —the expression more exquisite. A version of this beautiful lyric, presenting some very interesting varieties, each verse concluding, “And a' to be a posie to my aim dear Jean,’ was printed in ‘The Harp of Caledonia.’ This, it may be presumed, is the original draught of the song. From what source it was obtained, we are ignorant. In the second stanza, the third couplet stands “I’ll join the scented birk To the breathing eglantine.’ In the third stanza, the second couplet reads— “The morning's fragrance breathing Like her sweet bonnie mou’.” In the fourth the poet says– * I'll pu' the lily pure, That adorns the dewy vale, The richly blooming hawthorn, That scents the vermal gale.” II. 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. III. I’ll pu’ the budding rose, When Phoebus peeps in view, For it’s like a baumy kiss O’ her sweet bonnie mou’; The hyacinth 's for constancy, Wi’ its unchanging blue, And a to be a posie To my ain dear May. IV. 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. V. The hawthorn. I will pu’ Wi’ its locks o' siller gray, Where, like an aged man, It stands at break o’ day. But the songster's nest within the bush I winna tak” away,+ And a to be a posie To my ain dear May. WI. The woodbine I will pu’, When the e'ening star is near, And the diamond-draps o' dew Shall be her een sae clear: The violet's for modesty, Which weel she fa’s to wear, And a to be a posie To my ain dear May. VII. I’ll tie the posie round Wi’ the silken band o’luve, And I’ll place it in her breast, And I’ll swear by a' above, That to my latest draught o' life The band shall ne'er remuve, And this will be a posie To my ain dear May. In the sixth- “The violet for modesty, The odour-breathing bean.” 45 BURNS’ SONGS. QTountry ſlaggie. Tone—“The Cowntry Lassie.” I. IN simmer, when the hay was mawn, And corn wav'd green in ilka field, While clover blooms white o'er the lea, And roses blaw in ilka bield; Blithe Bessie in the milking shiel, Says, “I’ll be wed, come o’t what will; ” Out spak a dame in wrinkled eild,— “O’ guid advisement comes nae ill. II. “It’s ye ha'e wooers mony ane, And, lassie, ye're but young, ye ken; Then wait a wee, and cannie wale, A routhie but, a routhie ben: There's Johnnie o’ the Buskie-glen, Fu’ is his barn, fu' is his byre; Tak’ this frae me, my bonnie hen, It's plenty beets the lover's fire.” III. “For Johnnie o’ the Buskie-glen, I dinna care a single flie; He lo’es sae weel his craps and kye, He has nae love to spare for me: But blithe’s the blink o’ Robie's e'e, And weel I wat he lo’es me dear: Ae blink o’ him I wad na gi'e For Buskie-glen and a his gear.” IV. “O thoughtless lassie, life’s a faught; The canniest gate, the strife is sair; But aye fu’ han’t is fechtin’ best, A hungry care’s an unco care: But some will spend, and some will spare, An' wilful folk maun ha'e their will; Syne as ye brew, my maiden fair, Keep mind that ye maun drink the yill.” V. “O, gear will buy me rigs o' land, And gear will buy me sheep and kye; But the tender heart o’leesome love, The gowd and siller canna buy: We may be poor—Robie and I, Light is the burden love lays on; Content and love bring peace and joy, What mair ha'e queens upon a throne?” 4Pair 35Iija. A Gaelic Air, I. TURN again, thou fair Eliza, Ae kind blink before we part, Rue on thy despairing lover! Can’st 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! II. Thee, dear maid, ha'e I offended? The offence is loving thee: Can'st 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. III. 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 e'e, Kens the pleasure, feels the rapture, That thy presence gi'es to me." #2 Jacobites by Nante.” TUNE–" Ye Jacobites by name.” I. 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. II. What is right and what is wrang, by the law, by the law Ż What is right and what is wrang, by the law? What is right and what is wrang? A short sword and a lang, A weak arm, and a strang For to draw. III. What makes heroic strife, fam'd afar, fam’d afar? What makes heroic strife, fam’d afar? What makes heroic strife? To whet th’ assassin's knife, Or hunt a parent's life Wi’ bluidie War. I “Fair Rabima,’ was the original title of this song, and it was written by Burns for a friend, whose sweetheart's name was Rabina. It was altered, however, by Johnson, in the Musical Museum, to Eliza, as being more euphonious. 2 This is founded on an old Jacobite song. 46 ºlº tºº lººſ º lºº ------------- -º-º-º- BURNS’ SONGS. IV. 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. ºffe 33amíčg o' Boom." [FIRST VERSION.] TUNE–“ Catharine Ogie.” I. . YE flowery banks o' bonnie Doon, How can ye blume sae fair! How can ye chant, ye little birds, And I sae fu'o' care! II. Thou’ll break my heart, thou bonnie bird, That sings upon the bough; Thou minds me o’ the happy days When my fause luve was true. III. Thou’ll break my heart, thou bonnie bird, That sings beside thy mate; For sae I Sat, and sae I sang, And wist na o' my fate. • IV. Aft hae Irov’d by bonnie Doon, To see the woodbine twine, And ilka bird sang o' its love, And sae did I o' mine. V. Wi’ lightsome heart I pu’d a rose, Frae aff its thorny tree, And my fause luver staw the rose, But left the thorn wit me. 1 Cromek found this song among the papers of Burns, and inserted it in the Reliques. Burns altered it, as given in the second version, to suit an air composed by a Mr Miller, a writer in Edinburgh. The altered version is more pleasing perhaps, but it wants the simplicity of its predecessor. It, how- ever, has entirely supplanted the first version, and in Scotland is almost sure to be heard, sung in chorus, at every party where singing is going. The character of the air seems to suit all sorts of voices, and thousands who would blush, not without reason, to hear themselves join in any other song, think they can at least take a second in The Banks o' Doom. The conse- quence is, that this sweet song is often desecrated by people taking a part in it, who have no more ear for music than a log, and whose voice resembles the creaking of a timber-yard on a windy day. “The Banks o' Doon,’ says Robert Chambers, ‘relates to an incident in real life. The unfortunate heroine was a beautiful woman, daughter to a landed gentleman of Carrick, and niece to a baronet. Her lover was a landed gentleman of Wigton- shire. A mother without the sanction of matrimony, and de- serted by her lover, she died of a broken heart.” Allan Cum- ningham says, that the heroine was Miss Kennedy of Dalgar- rock, who fell a victim to her love for M*Douall of Logan. 47 Qſìje 36ankg o' Boom. [SECOND VERSION.] I. YE banks and braes o’ bonnie Doon, How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair! How can ye chant, ye little birds, And I sae weary, fu'o' care! Thou'lt break my heart, thou warbling bird, That wantons thro’ the flowering thorn: Thou minds me o’ departed joys, Departed—never to return! II. Aft ha'e Irov’d by bonnie Doon, To see the rose and woodbine twine; And ilka bird sang o' its love, And fondly sae did I o' mine. Wi’ lightsome heart I pu’d a rose, Fu’sweet upon its thorny tree: But my fause lover stole my rose, And, ah! he left the thorn wi' me. $ic a 31&#ife ag (ſaillie jab.” I. WILLIE Wastle dwalt on Tweed, The spot they ca’d it Linkum-doddie, Willie was a wabster guid, Cou’d stown a clue wi' ony bodie. He had a wife was dour and din, O, tinkler Madgie was her mither; Sie a wife as Willie had, I wad na gi'e a button for her. II. She has an e'e, she has 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 had, I wad na gi'e a button for her. III. She's bow-hough’d, she's hein-shinn'd, Ae limpin’ leg a hand-breed shorter; She's twisted right, she's twisted left, To balance fair in ilka quarter: 2 Cummingham says, that the subject of this song was a far- mer’s wife who lived near Ellisland. The first verse, how- ever, does not bear this out; and werather think, that no single individual sat for the portrait, which seems to be merely a gro- N tesque exaggeration of the Poet's fancy. 26% £º ~~~~<>~. & J. zºº Vº) C sº 3. sº & BURNS” SONGS. \ Ty2-N O fºc - , ºr O <27, 1% º Vº Q º *” º ,-> ...? (9. Y } C. J glaup QBuſie," TUNe—“The Ruffian's Rant.” I. A” THE lads o' Thornie-bank, When they gae to the shore o’ Bucky, They’ll stap in and tak” a pint Wi’ Lady Onlie, honest Lucky Lady Onlie, honest Lucky, Brews gude ale at shore o’ Bucky, I wish her sale for her gude ale, The best on a’ the shore o’ Bucky, II. Her house sae bien, her curch sae clean, I wat she is a dainty chucky; And cheerlie blinks the ingle-gleed Of Lady Onlie, honest Lucky! Lady Onlie, honest Lucky, Brews gude ale at shore o’ Bucky, I wish her sale for her gude ale, The best on a’ the shore o’ Bucky. &ſje (Tijebaſter'g £antent.” TUNE–" Captain O'Kean.” I. THE Small birds rejoice in the green leaves returning. The murmuring streamlet winds clear through the vale; The hawthorn trees blow in the dews of the morning, And wild scattered cowslips bedeck the green vale; But what can give pleasure, or what can seem fair, While the lingering moments are number'd by care 7 No flowers gaily springing, nor birds sweetly Singing, Can soothe the sad bosom of joyless despair. 1 Part of this song is old. 2 ‘Yesterday,” says Burns, in a letter to Robert Cleghorn, dated 31st March, 1788, “as I was riding through a track of melancholy, joyless muirs, between Galloway and Ayrshire, it being Sunday, I turned my thoughts to psalms, and hymns and spiritual songs, and your favourite air, “Captain O'Kean,” coming at length unto my head, I tried these words to it. * * * I am tolerably pleased with these verses, but as I have only a sketch of the tune, I leave it with you to try if they suit the measure of the music.” This letter enclosed the first eight lines of the ‘Chevalier's Lament.” Cleghorn replied that he was delighted with the words, and that they suited the tune to a hair; adding that he would like a verse or two more, and 50 II. * The deed that I dar'd could it merit their malice, A king and a father to place on his throne 7 His right are these hills, and his right are these valleys, Where the wild beasts find shelter, but I can find none. But 'tis not my sufferings, thus wretched, forlorn, My brave gallant friends, ’tis your ruin I mourn: Your deeds prov’d so loyal, in hotbloody trial,— Alas! can I make you no sweeter return $ong of IBeatſ, 3 TUNe—“Oram an Aoig.” SCENE–A field of battle; time of the day—evening ; the wounded and dying of the victorious army are supposed to join in the following Song. I. FAREWELL, thou fair day, thou green earth and ye skies, Now gay with the bright setting sun' Farewell, loves and friendships, ye dear tender ties,— Our race of existence is run! II. 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! III. 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! IV. In the field of proud honour—our swords in our hands— Our king and our country to save— While victory shines on life's last ebbing sands, O! who would not rest with the brave? suggesting that they should be in the Jacobite style. “Suppose,' says he, “it should be sung after the fatal field of Culloden, by the unfortunate Charles.' Burns took the hint; he added two more verses, infusing into them the strong Jacobitical spirit which his friend desiderated. 3 “I have,’ says Burns, in a letter to Mrs Dunlop, “just finished the following song ; which, to a lady, the descendant of Wal- lace, and many heroes of this truly illustrious line, and herself the mother of several soldiers,needs neither preface nor apology. The circumstance which gave rise to these verses was looking over, with a musical friend, M*Donald's Collection of High. land 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 verses.” HURNS’ SONGS. Aſ Iom gently, $5tpect @fton." TUNE—“Afton Waters.” I. 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. Now crystal clear are the falling waters, 1 One of the first persons of rank who became acquainted with Burns, was the late Mrs Stewart of Afton and Stair. According to the recollection of a surviving friend of the lady, the medium through which they became acquainted was a cer- tain Peggy Orr, who had the charge of Mrs Stewart's children. It is said that seeing some letters and poems of Burns in that girl's possession, and being struck by their superior style, Mrs Stewart expressed a desire to see the poet, and he consequently waited upon her. Of the treatment he experienced on this occasion from Mrs Stewart, he thus speaks in a letter addressed to her about the time he intended to go abroad :—‘One feature of your character,’ he says, “I shall ever with grateful pleasure remember—the reception I met with when I had the honour of waiting on you. I am little acquainted with politeness; but I know a good deal of benevolence of temper and goodness of heart. Surely, did those in exalted stations know how happy they could make some classes of their inferiors by condescen- sion and affability; they would never stand so high, measuring out with every look the height of their elevation, but conde- scend as sweetly as did Mrs Stewart of Stair.’ It was in the old castle of Stair—the cradle of one of the most illustrious of our Scottish families, though, since their possession of it, it has gone through many hands—that this interview took place. Mrs Stewart, who was connected with that ancient mansion by her marriage, was, by descent proprietress of ano- ther estate, situated in Glen Afton, in the parish of New Cum- nock. With this vale Burns probably became acquainted in the course of his frequent rides between Ayrshire and Niths- dale, when about to settle at Ellisland. It is a remarkably fine specimen of the pastoral vale of southern Scotland. The Afton, which gives it a name, rises in the high grounds where the counties of Ayr and Dumfries and the Stewartry of Kirk- cudbright, meet; and after a course of ten miles, in a northerly direction, it joins the Nith at New Cumnock kirk. In the lower part of the vale, near New Cumnock, there are a few houses, but the general character of the vale is an almost pri- mitive solitude. The writer of the statistical account of the parish, published by Sir John Sinclair, mentions that, at the commencement of his incumbency, in 1757, Glen Afton con- tained but one house. On entering it from the south, the eye is delighted with the fine mixture of wood and glade, which lies along the slopes, like the light and shade of an April day. At no remote period, the whole vale was probably overspread with wood, as Yarrow, and other vales now pastoral, are known to have been. There is a tradition that the trees formerly grew so thick, that a certain laird of Craigdarroch, on one occasion, found his way from branch to branch, for five miles, without coming to the ground: such wonderful tales, even when not admitted as literally true, show the strength of the impression which the real fact originally made on the popu- lar mind. The vale now seems half way between the ome con- dition and the other. Birches in great number—the ash—the mountain ash—the pine—together with numerous havthorns, of great age and considerable size—constitute the materials of the woods of Glen Afton, the outskirts of which betray mami- fest tokens that they are rapidly sinking beneath the assaults of the sheep. Here and there a hawthorm may be seen standing by itself on a green slope, the sole survivor of a goodly com- munity of trees, all of which have long since perished. The whole scene is most characteristically Scottish, and, in spring, when the hawthorns are in bloom, it is extremely beautiful. 5] II. Thou stock-dove, whose echo resounds thro’ the glen; Ye wild whistling blackbirds on yon thorny den; Thou green-crested lapwing, thy screaming for- bear, I charge you disturb not my slumbering fair. III. How lofty, sweet Afton! thy neighbouring hills, Far mark’d wi' the courses of clear, winding rills; There daily I wander as noon rises high, My flocks and my Mary's sweet cot in my eye. IV. How pleasant thy banks and green valleys below, Where 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. V. 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 flowercts she stems thy clear Wa We. VI. Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes, Flow gently, sweet river, the theme of my lays! My Mary 's asleep by thy murmuring stream— Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream. Qſìje Śmiſing $pring. TUNE–º Bonnie Bell.” I. THE Smiling spring comes in rejoicing, And surly winter grimly flies: And bonnie blue are the sunny skies; Fresh o'er the mountains breaks forth the morning, The ev’ning gilds the ocean's swell; All creatures joy in the sun's returning, And I rejoice in my bonnie Bell. As we advance along the vale, the woods lessen, and finally cease, and we then see only long reaching green uplands, swelling afar into the lofty bounding hills which separate three counties. Connecting the pastoral loveliness of this vale with his kind-hearted patroness, Mrs Stewart, Burns composed his exquisitely melodious song entitled, “Afton Water;" in which he imagined the proprietress of no small part of its soil, as a simple cottage maiden, and himself as her lover—a mode of compliment to gentlewomen which he seems to have prefer- red to all others, but which, we suspect, must have been in general much more pleasant to himself than to them. There is a riding tract along Glen Afton, which crosses the hills into Galloway, being marked by cairns at regular intervals, to direct the traveller. Queen Mary, on her retreat from Langside, is said by tradition to have passed by this tract on her way to Dundremnan. On Dalhenna Holm, a cairn still bears her name, in consequence of her having paused for a short time on the spot to take some refreshment. Dalhenna is the property of a race of Campbells, who are the oldest lairds of that part of the country. Č Q —w & D —3×T gºš S&Nºs % $ 225 Y <\º '-º' C. J sº wº-* BURNS” SONGS. II. 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. Qſìje (Tarſeg of IBggart. TUNE–" Hey ca’ thro’.” I. UP wi' the carles o’ Dysart, And the lads o’ Buckhaven, And the kimmers o’ Largo, And the lasses o’ Leven. Hey, ca’ thro’, ca’ thro’, For we ha'e mickle ado; Hey, ca’ thro’, ca’ thro’, For we ha’e mickle ado. II. We ha'e tales to tell, And we ha'e sangs to sing: We ha'e pennies to spend, And we ha'e pints to bring. III. We’ll live a' our days, And them that come behin’, Let them do the like, And spend the gear they win. Hey, ca’ thro, ca’ thro, For we ha'e mickle ado; Hey, ca’ thro’, ca’ thro’, For we ha'e mickle ado. Uſije (Baſſant Jºãcaber.2 TUNE–º The Weaver's March,” I. WHERE Cart rins rowin’ to the sea, By monie a flow'r, and spreading tree, There lives a lad, the lad for me, He is a gallant weaver. Oh I had wooers aught or nine, They gied me rings and ribbons fine; And I was feared my heart would tine, And I gied it to the weaver. II. My daddie sign'd my tocher-band, To gi'e the lad that has the land; But to my heart I’ll add my hand, And gi'e it to the weaver. While birds rejoice in leafy bowers; While bees rejoice in opening flowers; While corn grows green in simmer showers, I’ll love my gallant weaver. &ſje 33airits gat out.8 TUNE—“The dewks dang o'er my daddie.” I. THE bairns gat out wi' an unco shout, The deuks dang o'er my daddie, O ! The fient ma care, quo’ the feirie auld wife, He was but a paidlin’ body, O ! He paidles out, and he paidles in, An' he paidles late and early, O; This seven lang years I ha'e lien by his side, An' he is but a fusionless carlie, O ! II. O haud your tongue, my feirie auld wife, O haud your tongue now, Nansie, O ! I’ve seen the day, and sae ha'e ye, Ye wadna been sae donsie, O ! 1 The air of this is very old. Burns adopted the name and a lime or two from an old song, by which it was accompanied, and added the rest from the mintage of his own mind. 2 Mr Robert Chambers gives the following account of the origin of this song. ‘Jean Armour, to avoid the immediate pressure of her father's displeasure, went about the month of May (1786) to Paisley, and took refuge with a relation of her mother, one Andrew Purdie, a wright. There was at Paisley a certain Robert Wilson, a good-looking young weaver, a native of Mauchline, and who was realizing wages to the amount of perhaps three pounds a-week by his then flourishing profession. Jean Armour had danced with this “gallant weaver” at the Mauchline dancing-school balls, and, besides her relative Purdie, she knew no other person in Paisley. Being in much need of a small supply of money, she found it necessary to apply to Mr Wilson, who received her kindly, although he did not conceal that he had a suspicion of the reason of her visit to Paisley. When the reader is reminded that village life is not the sphere in which high-wrought and romantic feelings are most apt to flourish, he will be prepared in some measure to learn that Robert Wilson not only relieved the necessities of the fair appli- cant, but formed the wish to possess himself of her hand. He called for her several times at Purdie's, and informed her, that, if she should not become the wife of Burns, he would engage himself to mone while she remained unmarried. Mrs Burns long after assured a female friend that she never gave the least en- couragement to Wilson; but, nevertheless, his visits occasioned some gossip, which soon found its way to Mauchline, and entered the Soul of the Poet like a demoniac possession. He now seems to have regarded her as lost to him for ever, and that not purely through the objections of her relations, but by her own eruel and perjured desertion of one whom she had acknowledged as her husband. It requires these particulars, little as there may be of pleasing about them, to make us fully understand much of what Burns wrote at this time, both in verse and prose. Long afterwards, he became convinced that Jean, by no part of her conduct with respect to Wilson, had given him just cause for jealousy: it is not improbable that he learmed in time to make it the subject of sport, and wrote the song, “Where Cart rims rowing to the sea,” in jocular allusion to it.” 3 This is founded on an old ditty, beginning in the same man Iłęr. woºseſº nos º orxa eta ºn porisnan， ſººſ O ∞ Iſ №. ！! ！！ @ Mſ ， m o - BURNS’ SONGS. I’ve seen the day ye butter'd my brose, And cuddl’d me late and earlie, O ; But downa do's come o'er me now, And, Oh, I find it sairly, O ! II. We’ll mak’ our maut, we’ll brew our drink, We’ll dance, and sing, and rejoice, man; And mony thanks to the muckle black de'il, That danc'd awa’ wi' the Exciseman. III. There’s threesome reels, there’s foursome recls, There's hornpipes and strathspeys, man; But the ae best dance e'er cam’ to our land, $ffe's fait and fauge. TUNE—“She's fair and fawse.” I. Was—the de'il’s awa’ wif the Exciseman. SHE's fair and fause that causes my smart, t The de’il’s awa’, the de’il’s awa’, I lo'ed her meikle and lang; The de'il’s awa’ wi' the Exciseman; She's broken her vow, she's broken my heart, He’s danc'd awa’, he’s danc'd awa’, And I may e'en gae hang. : He's danc'd awa’ wi' the Exciseman A coof cam’ in wi' rowth o' gear, And I ha'e tint my dearest dear; But woman is but warld’s gear, &ſije Iobelp £agg of Himbermegg, 2 Sae let the bonnie lassie gang. II. TUNe—“Lass of Inverness.” Whae'er ye be that woman love, ’ I. To this be never blind, THE lovely lass o' Inverness, Nae ferlie ’tis tho’ fickle she prove, Nae joy nor pleasure can she see; A woman has’t by kind, For e'en and morn she cries, alas! O woman, lovely woman fair! And aye the saut tear blin's her e'e: An angel form 's fa’m to thy share, Drumossie moor, Drumossie day,+ 'Twad been ower meikle to gi'en thee mair— A wacfu’ day it was to me! I mean an angel mind. For there I lost my father dear, - | My father dear, and brethren three. - - - II. Oſije IBe'iſ's ama' ini' tie 33rciseman." Their winding sheet the bluidy clay, Their graves are growing green to see; Tuse—" The Deu can fiddlind thro' the town." * UN 6 Deºl caim. f ddling thm O?!?!, And by them lies the dearest lad I. - That ever blest a woman’s ele! THE De'il cam’ fiddling thro’ the town, Now wac to thee, thou cruel lord, And danc'd awa’ wi' the Exciseman; A bluidy man I trow thou be; And ilka wife cries, Auld Mahoun, For mony a heart thou hast made sair, I wish you luck o’ the prize, man! That ne'er did wrang to thine or thee. The dell's awa', the dell's awa', 2 the finest examples of simple and unpretending tender. The de'il’s awa’ wi' the Exciseman; ness are to be found in those songs which are likely to transmit He’s danc'd awa’, he’s danc'd awa’, the name of Burns to all future generations. He found this delightful trait in the old Scottish Ballads, which he took for his model, and upon which he has improved, with a felicity and --- delicacy of emulation altogether unrivalled in the history of 1 * This spirited song was composed on the shores of the Sol- literature. Sometimes, as in the case now before us, it is the way, while the poet and a party of his brother excisemen were brief and simple pathos of the genuine old ballad.'—FRANcis engaged in watching the motions of a suspicious-looking brig, Jeffrey. which had put in there, and which, it was supposed, was en- Drumossie moor is the name of the spot where the battle of gaged in smuggling. The day following that on which she was Culloden was fought. This celebrated field is situated about first seem, the vessel got into shallow water, and it was then five miles to the east of Inverness, near the shore of the Moray discovered that the crew were numerous, and not likely to Firth. It is an extensive piece of mossy and broken ground, yield without a struggle. Lewars accordingly was despatched bounded on the north side by the plantations connected with to Dumfries for a party of dragoons, and another officer pro- | Culloden House, and on the south by the river Nairn, beyond ceeded on a similar errand to Ecclefecham, leaving Burns with which rises a range of lofty hills. One poor little farm-stead, some men under his orders, to watch the brig and prevent and here and there a wretched cottage, with a public road landing or escape. Burns manifested considerable impatience between Nairn and Inverness, slightly mark the surface of this while thus occupied, being left for many hours in a wet salt- dreary waste; and if the visitor look a little more narrowly, he marsh with a force which he knew to be inadequate for the will see at a particular spot a few tumuli, green amidst the gen- purpose it was meant to fulfil. One of his comrades hearing eral brownness, where he is told repose many who fell in the him abuse his friend Lewars in particular, for being slow about | fight which decided the fate of the house of Stuart. This battle, his journey, the man answered that he also wished the devil as is well known, took place on the 16th April, 1746, between had him for his pains, and that Burns in the meantime would the royal troops, about eight thousand in number, under the He’s danc'd awa’ wi' the Exciseman } * * & \ do well to indite a song upon the sluggard. Burns said nothing; Duke of Cumberland, and the Highland clans, amounting to : but after taking a few strides by himself among the reeds and five thousand, under Prince Charles Stuart. The latter were \ § shingle, rejoined his party, and chanted to them this well-known drawn up across the moor, facing the east, with the view of ń «» IX; S. ditty."—J. G. LocKHART. protecting Inverness from the royal troops, which advanced . Ts £º, 53 (K) D ** G *) ºr- ‘. . . . . C. tº º A f sº ©s --- –––.9 㺠Yº 3% G K.I.N.C.—--> ~~~-— Sº Tºsº, y ...' j})^ C sº ...) & BURNS’ SONGS. f 3 tely, rely 3 toge. A qLouis, tuijat reck it by tſjee.” ; TUNE—“Graham's Strathspey.” TUNE–º Louis, what reck I by thee?” j I. I. O, MY love’s like a red, red rose, Louis, what reck I by thee, That’s newly sprung in June: Or Geordie on his ocean? O, my love's like the melodie Dyvor, beggar louns to me, - That's sweetly play’d in tune. I reign in Jeanie's bosom. II. II. As fair art thou, my bonnie lass, Let her crown my love her law, So deep in love am I: And in her breast enthrone me: And I will love thee still, my dear, Kings and nations,—swith awa’ſ Till a’ the seas gang dry. Reif randies, I disown ye! III. Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear, And the rocks melt wi' the Sun: £at it file inpfe.8 I will love thee still, my dear While the sands o' life shall run. Tene—“Had I the wyte, she bade me.” IV. I. And fare thee weel, my only love! HAD I the wyte, had I the wyte, And fare thee weel a while ! Had I the wyte, she bade me; And I will come again, my love, She watch'd me by the hie-gate side, Tho' it were ten thousand mile. And up the loan she shawed me; And when I wadna venture in, A coward loon she ca’d me; from Nairn. It has been the wonder of all who have seen Cul- Had kirk and state been in the gate, ºº:::::::::::: I lighted when she bade me. tute of horse and artillery worthy of the name, to wait on such II. an open plaim the advance of a more numerous and better dis- Sae craftily she took me ben, ciplined army, supported by both horse and artillery in consi- derable strength. The battle began about two in the afternoon, And bade me make nae clatter; and lasted forty minutes. The right wing of the Highland “For Our ramgunshock glum gudeman front line made a gallant assault, under Lord George Murray, Is out and owre the water:” on the left wing of the king's troops, who were broke by its 2 impetuosity; but the British regiments kept their ranks well, Whae’er shall say I wanted grace, and in a little time destroyed or repulsed these assailants. The When I did kiss and dawte her, left wing of the Highlanders did not advance. A movement by cavalry on the right flank of the Prince's army decided the day. Let him be planted in my place, The clans fled or deliberately marched off the field, the Prince Syne say I was the fautor. retiring across the Nairm to Stratherrick. The chief slaughter III took place on the spot where the Highlanders broke through tº Barrel's regiment, on the left of the royal forces; and the green Could I for shame, could I for shame, mounds above mentioned, appear to be the graves of those who Could I for shame refuse her ? fell in that encounter. A great number of the Highlanders, And d hood bl who retreated towards Inverness, were cut down on the way nd wadna manhood been to blame, by the British cavalry, and afterwards buried by the road side. Had I unkindly used her ? The allusion in the last verse of the song is to the cruelties com- • vari” +h a 1-inlin? mitted by the Duke of Cumberland, on the poor Highlanders, He clawed her wif the riplin -kame, after their defeat. He allowed the wounded of the insurgent And blue and bluidy bruised her; party to lie unrelieved on the field for three days, and then sent When sic a husband was frae hame parties to put them out of pain. Some were placed in ranks, & ..' and shot by platoon. It is also an undoubted fact that a barn in What wife but had excused her? which a considerable number had taken refuge was set fire to, IV. and every person in it burnt or otherwise dispatched. Human- I dighted aye her een sae blue ity yet shudders as she pronounces the name of William Duke Sº 2 5 of Cumberland. And bann'd the cruel randy; Burns, in the course of his Highland tour with Nicol, Sep- And weel I Wat her willing mou’ tomber, 1787, visited Culloden Moor, and soon after contributed the above song to Johnson's Scots Musical Museum. i Part of this song is old; the first and half of the second verse are from the pen of Burns. Cunningham says that the original song was written by a lieutenant Hinches, as a fare- well to his sweethoart. Was elen like sugar-candy. l 5 §§, 54 c Tºº ºš) (Q: (? yº. ºr-º- ~~~<> vocation on the part of the Poet, proved on his death his most ls generous eulogist. See the Memoir. 'º, N to §(3), º * 3 2-º)--~ 3- lº-Q--—--~~ § 270 O TC) 64 CP tuja is gije tijat Io'es me.” TUNE–"Morag.” I. O WHA is she that lo’es me, And has my heart a-keeping 2 O sweet is she that lo’es me, As dews o' simmer weeping, In tears the rose-buds steeping! 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. II. If thou shalt meet a lassie, In grace and beauty charming That e'en thy chosen lassie, Erewhile thy breast sae warming, Had ne'er sic powers alarming: III. If thou hadst heard her talking, And thy attentions plighted That ilka body talking, But her by thee is slighted; And thou art all delighted: IV. 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 ame to peer her. 2. (Taledonia. 3 TUNE–" Caledonian Hunt's delight.” I. 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 fixed her reign, And pledg’d her their godheads to warrant it good. 2 This was found among the Poet's MSS. after his death. At what time it was written is unknown. 3 The Poet here presents us with a curious epitome of early BURNS’ SONGS. II. 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!” With tillage or pasture at times she would sport, To feed her fair flocks by her green rustling ; corn; But chiefly the woods were her favºrite resort, Her darling amusement the hounds and the horn. III. Long quiet she reigned; till thitherward steers A flight of bold eagles from Adria's strand; Repeated, successive, for many long years, They darken'd the air, and they plunder'd the land: Their pounces were murder, and terror their cry, They’d conquer'd and ruin’d a world beside; She took to her hills, and her arrows let fly,– The daring invaders they fled or they died. IV. The fell harpy-raven took wing from the north, The scourge of the seas, and the dread of the shore; The wild Scandinavian boar issued forth To wanton in carnage and wallow in gore: O'er countries and kingdoms their fury prevail’d, No arts could appease them, no arms could repel; But brave Caledonia in vain they assail’d, As Largs well can witness, and Loncartie tell. The Cameleon-savage disturb’d her repose, With tumult, disquiet, rebellion, and strife; Provok'd beyond bearing, at last she arose, And robb’d him at once of his hopes and his life: The Anglian lion, the terror of France, Oft prowling, ensanguin’d the Tweed's silver flood; But, taught by the bright Caledonian lance, He learned to fear in his own native wood. WI. Thus bold, independent, unconquered, and free, Her bright course of glory for ever shall run: For brave Caledonia immortal must be; I’ll prove it from Euclid as clear as the sun: ; r s | | ! i | | | | | Rectangle-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’ll match them, and match them always. Q9 lap tip [oof in mine, 3Lagg. I TUNE–* Cordwainer's March.” H. O LAY thy loof in mine, lass, In mine, lass, in mine, lass; And swear on thy white hand, lass, That thou wilt be my ain. A slave to love's unbounded sway, He aft has wrought me meikle wae; But now he is my deadly fac, Unless thou be my ain. II. There's monie a lass has broke my rest, That for a blink I ha'e lo’ed best; 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 thy white hand, lass, That thou wilt be my ain. (Ije iſ ete (Tijampetre.” TUNE–“ AT]licrankie.” I. O WHA will to Saint Stephen's house, To do our errands there, man? O wha will to Saint Stephen's house, O' th' merry lads o' Ayr, man? Or will we send a man-o’-law Ż Or will we send a sodger? Or him wha, led o'er Scotland a' The meikle Ursa-Major! national history. The first two stanzas are occupied in describ- ing Caledonia at that period “When wild in woods the noble savage ran.” The third stanza alludes to the Romans; the fourth to the incursions of the Norwegian sea-kings, and the Danes; the fifth to the contentions with the Picts (‘the Cameleon-savage’) and with England; and the last stanza concludes with the solu- tion of a problem, which shows at least that Burns did not study mathematics at Tarbolton altogether in vain. 1 This was written for Johnson's Museum. The air is usu- ally played on king Crispin's day, when his majesty and liege subjects make public procession. 2 “The occasion of this ballad was as follows:–When Mr Cunningham of Enterkin came to his estate, two mansion houses upon it, Enterkin and Ambank, were both in a ruinous state Wishing to introduce himself with some eclat to the county, he got temporary erections made on the banks of Ayr, tastefully decorated with shrubs and flowers, for a supper and ball, to which most of the respectable families in the county were in- vited. It was a novelty in the county, and attracted much motice. A dissolution of Parliament was soon expected, and this festivity was thought to be an introduction to a canvass for representing the county. Several other candidates were spoken of, particularly Sir John Whitefoord, then residing at Cloncaird, commonly pronounced Glencaird, and Mr Boswell, the well- known biographer of Dr Johnson. The political views of this festive assemblage, which are alluded to in the ballad, if they ever existed, were laid aside, as Mr Cunningham did not can- vass the county.”—GILBERT BURNs, 65 I Q Tºº--—--~ ~~~~~~~~ BURNS’ SONGS. } II. W Come, will ye court a noble lord, | Or buy a score o’ lairds, man? £eve'g a £ealtſ).” ! For worth and honour pawn their word, ë . Their vote shall be Glencaird's, man? Ane gi'es them coin, ane gi'es them wine, TUNE–" Here's a health to them that’s awa’. Anither gi'es them clatter; Anbank, wha guess'd the ladies’ taste, I. He gi'es a Fête Champêtre. HERE's a health to them that’s awa’, III. Here’s a health to them that’s awa’; When Love and Beauty heard the news, And wha winna wish guid luck to our cause, The gay green-woods amang, man; May never guid luck be their fa’! Where gathering flowers and busking bowers It's guid to be merry and wise, They heard the blackbird's sang, man: It's guid to be honest and true, ! A vow, they seal’d it with a kiss, It's guid to support Caledonia's cause, Sir Politics to fetter, And bide by the buff and the blue.3 As theirs alone, the patent-bliss, II. To hold a Fête Champêtre. Here’s a health to them that’s awa’, IV. Here’s a health to them that’s awa’; : Then mounted Mirth, on gleesome wing, Here’s a health to Charlie, 4 the chief o’ the clan, O'er hill and dale she flew, man; Altho’ that his band be but sma’. } Ilk winnpling burn, ilk crystal spring, May liberty meet wi' success! Ilk glen and shaw she knew, man; May prudence protect her frae evil! } She summon'd every social sprite, May tyrants and tyranny time in the mist, { That sports by wood or water, And wander their way to the devil! i On th’ bonnie banks o' Ayr to meet, III i And keep this Féte Champêtre. Here’s a health to them that’s awa’, V. Here’s a health to them that’s awa’; Cauld Boreas, wi' his boisterous crew, Here’s a health to Tammie, 5 the Norland laddie, Were bound to stakes like kye, man; That lives at the lug o’ the law And Cynthia's car, o' silver fu’, Here's freedom to him that wad read, Clamb up the starry sky, man; Here’s freedom to him that wad write! Reflected beams dwell in the streams, There’s name ever fear'd that the truth should Or down the current shatter: be heard º 5 The western breeze steals thro’ the trees, But they wham the truth wad indite. To view this Féte Champêtre. IV VI. Here’s a health to them that’s awa’, How many a robe sae gaily floats! Here’s a health to them that’s awa’; What sparkling jewels glance, man! Here’s chieftain M*Leod, 6 a chieftain worth To harmony's enchanting notes, gowd 8-9 5 As moves the mazy dance, man. Tho' bred amang mountains o’ snaw! | The echoing wood, the winding flood, Here’s a health to them that’s awa’, Like Paradise did glitter, Here’s a health to them that’s awa; - When angels met, at Adam's yett, And wha winna wish guid luck to our cause, ! º A. A tº © To hold their Féte Champêtre. May never guid luck be their fa’! | y sº f VII. When Politics came there, to mix * e e ſ And ke his ether-st | ] 2 This first appeared in its complete form in the Scots Maga- not make his etner–Stane, man : zine for January, 1818. It was printed from a manuscript of He circled round the magic ground, Burns', found among his papers after his decease. A song with But entrance found he name, man: a somewhat similar burthen he had previously sent to John- 2 > * Son's Museum. He blush’d for shame, he quat his name, g * e *** • A $4. •V 1 * 3 The colours of the Whigs. The striped waistcoat, which Forswore it, every letter, figures so prominently in the portraits of Burns, was buff and Wi’ humble prayer to join and share blue. This festive Féte Champêtre. 4 The Right Hon. Charles James Fox. 5 Lord Thomas Erskine, the celebrated Whig advocate, | i | afterwards lord high chancellor. He was brother to the ! 1 Certain small annular stones with streaked colouring are . less celebrated Scottish barrister, Henry Erskine, and } called adder's stones, and are supposed by the Superstitious to oth were younger sons of the earl of Buchan. !, be formed of the serpent's slough. 6 Macleod, chief of that clan. C 66 BURNS’ SONGS. Qſìje #igijſamu Gºttofu's £antent.” OH! I am come to the low countrie, Och-on, och-on, och-rieſ Without a penny in my purse, To buy a meal to me. II. It was nae sae in the Highland hills, Och-on, och-on, och-rie" Nae woman in the countrie wide Sae happy was as me. - III. 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. IV. And there I had three score o' yowes, Och-on, och-on, och-rieſ Skipping on yon bonnie knowes, And casting woo’ to me. & V. I was the happiest o' a clan, Sair, sair may I repine; For Donald was the brawest lad, And Donald he was mine. VI. Till Charlie Stuart cam’ at last, Sae far to set us free; My Donald’s arm was wanted then, For Scotland and for me. VII. Their waefu’ fate what need I tell, Right to the wrang did yield: My Donald and his country fell Upon Culloden’s field. VIII. Oh! I am come to the low countrie, Och-on, och-on, och-rie" Nae woman in the world wide Sae wretched now as me. ſºleg o' tije ſtiliſſ.” TUNE –“Jockie Hume's Lament.” I. O KEN ye what Meg o' the mill has gotten, An' ken ye what Meg o' the mill has gotten? A braw new naig wit the tail o' a rottan, And that’s what Meg o' the mill has gotten. O ken ye what Meg o' the mill lo’es dearly 2 An' ken ye what Meg o' the mill lo’es dearly 2 A dram o' guid strunt in a morning early, And that’s what Meg o' the mill lo’es dearly. II. O ken ye how Meg o' the mill was married, An' ken ye how Meg o' the mill was married? The priest he was oxter'd, the clerk he was carried, And that's how Meg o' the mill was married. O ken ye how Meg o' the mill was bedded, An' ken ye how Meg o' the mill was bedded ? The groom gat sae fou, he fell twa-fauld beside it, And that's how Meg o' the mill was bedded. glūbregg to Q5eneral ſºumottrict. 3 [A PARoDY ON Robin ADAIR..] I. YOU’RE welcome to despots, Dumouricr; Your’re welcome to despots, Dumourier.— How does Dampiere do? Ay, and Bournonville too? Why did they not come along with you, Dumourier 7 II. I will fight France with you, Dumourier; I will fight France with you, Dumourier;-- I will fight France with you, I will take my chance with you; By my soul, I’ll dance a dance with you, Dumourier | III. 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 damn'd, no doubt— Dumourier' 1 Said to be translated from the Gaelic. 2 This is founded on an old ditty which the Poet altered and trimmed up for Johnson's Musical Museum. Another version of it he subsequently furnished to Mr Thomson, to the air of “O bonnie Lass, will ye lie in a Barrack,' which will be seen in his correspondence with that gentleman. 3 “One day Burns happened to be in the King's Arms Inn, Dumfries, when he overheard a stranger vindicating the defec- tion of general Dumourier from the ranks of the French army. The Poet presently began to croon words to the tune of Robin Adair, in a low tone of voice: on being asked what he was about, he said he was giving a welcome to general Dumourier, and repeated the above verses. They were inserted in Cro- mek’s Reliques of Burns.”—CUNNINGHAM. gº; =% Ü ſº ſ Q), $º & zºs' §§ A.º ſ. • & * * ºvº » !--> 67 & sº º $º (sº- LºC—->~~ S- C. BURNS’ SONGS. $3eg=3-3 tamgap." TUNE–% Cauld is the e'emin' blast.” I. CAULD is the e'enin’ blast O’ Boreas o'er the pool, And dawin’ it is dreary When birks are baro at Yule. II. O cauld blaws the e'enin’ blast When bitter bites the frost, And in the mirk and dreary drift, The hills and glens are lost. III. Ne'er sae murky blew the night, That drifted o'er the hill, But bonnie Peg-a-Ramsay Gat grist to her mill. &ſjere ina; a 350mmie glagg. I. THERE was a bonnie lass, And a bonnie, bonnie lass, And she lo'ed her bonnie laddie dear; Till war's loud alarms Tore her laddie frae her arms, Wi’mony a sigh and tear. II. Over sea, over shore, Where the cannons loudly roar, He still was a stranger to fear; And nocht could him quell, Or his bosom assail, But the bonnie lass he lo’ed sae dear. QB ſtiallp's meeft, ſhallp's gmpet. 2 I. O MALLY's meek, Mally's sweet, Mally's modest and discreet, Hally's rare, Mally's fair, Mally's every way complete. 1 This and the following piece were fragments by Burns, which Johnson inserted in the last volume of his Museum. 2 This is the last communication which the Poet sent to Johnson's Museum. It is said to have been written on seeing a beautiful country-girl going along the High Street, Dumfries, equipped for a journey in the fashion of Scottish damsels of the time, namely, with her stockings and shoes bundled up in her hand, instead of on her feet. As I was walking up the street, A barefit maid I chanc'd to meet; But O the road was very hard For that fair maiden's tender feet. II. It were mair meet that those fine feet Were weel lac’d up in silken shoon, And 'twere more fit that she should sit Within yon chariot gilt aboon. O Mally's meek, Mally's sweet, Mally's modest and discreet, Mally's rare, Mally's fair, Mally's every way complete. III. Her yellow hair, beyond compare, Comestrinkling down her swan-white neck; And her two eyes, like stars in skies, Would keep a sinking ship frae wreck. O Mally's meek, Mally's sweet, Mally's modest and discreet, Mally's rare, Mally's fair, Mally’s every way complete. Q9 mat me inijat my ſºil innie bib, I. O WAT ye what my minnie did, My minnie did, my minnie did, O wat ye what my minnie did, On Tysday teen to me, jo? She laid me in a saft bed, A saft bed, a saft bed, She laid me in a saft bed, And bade gude’en to me, jo. II. An' wat ye what the parson did, The parson did, the parson did, An' wat ye what the parson did, A” for a penny fee, jo? He loos'd on me a lang man, A mickle man, a strang man, He loos'd on me a lang man, That might ha'e worried me, jo. III. An' I was but a young thing, A young thing, a young thing, An' I was but a young thing, Wi’ name to pity me, jo. I wat the kirk was in the wyte, In the wyte, in the wyte, To pit a young thing in a fright, An' loose a man on me, jo. G8 BURNS’ SONGS. Qſìje IBumfrieg #ſolunteerg." Ti,NE—“Push about the jorwm.” I. DoEs haughty Gaul invasion threat 3 Then let the louns beware, Sir; There’s wooden walls upon our seas, And volunteers on shore, Sir. The Nith shall rin to Corsincon, The Criffel sink in Solway, Ere we permit a foreign foe On British ground to rally! We’ll ne'er permit a foreign foe On British ground to rally. II. O let us not, like Snarling curs, In wrangling be divided; Till, slap! comes in an unco loun, And wi' a rung decide it. Be Britain still to Britain true, Amang oursels united; For never but by British hands Maun British wrangs be righted! For never but by British hands, Maun British wrangs be righted! III. The kettle o’ the kirk and state, Perhaps a clout may fail in't; But de’il a foreign tinkler loun Shall ever ca” a nail int. Our fathers’ bluid the kettle bought; And wha wad dare to spoil it? By heavens! the sacrilegious dog Shall fuel be to boil it. By heavens! the sacrilegious dog, Shall fuel be to boil it. IV. The wretch that wad a tyrant own, And the wretch his true-sworn brother, Wha would set the mob aboon the throne, May they be damn'd together! Wha will not sing “God save the king,” Shall hang as high's the steeple; But while we sing “God save the king,” We’ll ne'er forget the People. But while we sing, “God save the king,” We’ll ne'er forget the People. £9amton and #plbia. TUNE–“ The tither morn, as I forlorn.” I. YON wand'ring rill, that marks the hill, And glances o'er the brae, Sir, Slides by a bower, where mony a flower Sheds fragrance on the day, Sir. II. There Damon lay, with Sylvia gay, To love they thought nae crime, Sir; The wild birds sang, the echoes rang, While Damon's heart beat time, Sir. Q9, there mp £obe pom £ilac fair.” TUNE—“ Hughie Graham.” I. 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. II. How I wad mourn when it was torn, By autumn wild, and winter rude 1 But I wad sing on wanton wing, When youthfu' May its bloom renew’d. III. 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’ | IV. O! there beyond expression blest, I’d feast on beauty a’ the night; Seal’d on her silk-saft faulds to rest, Till fley'd awa’ by Phoebus' light. $fjelaj Q'Neil.3 I. WHEN first I began for to sigh and to woo her, Of many fine things I did say a great deal, But, above all the rest, that which pleas'd her the best, Was, Oh will you marry me, Shelan O'Neil? 2 Only the first two stanzas of this song belong to Burns. The other two are old, and were much admired by the Poet for the beauty and delicacy of their sentiment, 3 This is given in the 8vo edition of Cummingham as a pro- duction of Burns’, but without any information regarding the Source from which it was obtained. 69 jº English army might walk over dry-shod.”—CUNNINGHAM. C. * Sº G) 1 * When the French threatened to invade this country in 1795, Burns enrolled himself among the gentlemen volunteers of Dum- fries, and stood shoulder to shoulder with his friends Maxwell, Staig, and Syme. On going home he wrote “The Dumfries Volunteers.” The song became popular at once, and was soon to be heard on hill and dale; for the peasantry of Scotland sing at the sheepfold and at the plough, and cheer themselves with verse in all ordinary pursuits of life. To extend its influence still farther, he had it printed with the music upon a separate sheet by Johnson, and thus it penetrated into the nobleman's drawing-room as well as into the farmer's Spence. “Some of the allusions are local, and require explanation. If Nith ram to Corsincon, it would run backward, and up hill too. The Criffel is a high green mountain on the Scottish side of the Solway, and is said, in the legends of the district, to be the materials which a witch had collected to choke up the sea, that O Q *}== * {} BURNS’ SONGS. | For she scolded, she fisted, O then I enlisted, Left Ireland, and whiskey, and Shelah O'Neil? II. Then tir’d and dull-hearted, O then I deserted, And fled unto regions far distant from home, To Frederick’s army, where none e'er could harm me, Save Shelah herself in the shape of a bomb. I fought every battle, where cannons did rattle, Felt sharp shot, alas! and the sharp pointed steel; But, in all my wars round, thank my stars, I ne'er found Ought so sharp as the tongue of curs’d Shelah O’Neil. Qſìjere's Nemš, 3Laggeg, Neing.] CEIORUS, The wean wants a cradle, An' the cradle wants a cod, An' I'll no gang to my bed, Until 1 get a nod. I. THERE's news, lasses, news, Gude news I have to tell, There’s a boat fu” o lads Come to our town to sell. II. Father, quo' she, Mither, quo' she, Do what ye can, I’ll no gang to my bed Till I get a man. III. I ha'e as gude a craft rig As made o’yird and stane; And waly fa’ the lea-crap, For I maun till'd again. Qſìjere mag a mife, I. THERE was a wife wonn’d in Cockpen, Scroggam; She brew’d guid ale for gentlemen, Sing auld Cowl, lay you down by me, Scroggam, my dearie, ruffum. My point I soon carried, for straight we were II. married, The gudewife's dochter fell in a fever, Then the weight of my burden I soon 'gan to Scroggam; feel,- The priest o' the parish fell in anither, Sing auld Cowl, lay you down by me, Scroggam, my dearie, ruffum. III. They laid the twai' the bed thegither, Scroggam; That the heat o' the tane might cool the tither, Sing auld Cowl, lay you down by me, Scroggam, my dearie, ruffum. QB, (Butt & Ie conteff.” CHORUS. O guid ale comes, and guid ale goes, Guid ale gars me sell my hose, Sell my hose, and pawn my shoon, Guid ale keeps my heart aboon. I I HAD Sax Owsen in a pleugh, They drew a weel eneugh, I sell'd them a' just ane by ane: Guid ale keeps my heart aboon. II. Guidale hauds me bare and busy, Gars me moop wit the servant hizzie, Stand i' the stool.3 when I ha'e done, Guid ale keeps my heart aboon, (Tomting füro' fije 33raeg o' (Tupar. CHORUS. Coming o'er the braes o' Cupar, Coming o'er the braes o' Cupar, Highland Donald met a lass, And row’d his Highland plaid about her. I. DONALD Brodie met a lass, Coming o'er the braes o' Cupar; Donald wi' his Highland hand, Rifled illza charm about her. II. Weel I wat she was a quean, Wad made a body’s mouth to water; Our Mess John, wi' his auld grey pow, His haly lips wad licket at her. III. Off she started in a fright, And through the braes as she could bicker; But souple Donald quicker flew, And in his arms he lock’d her sicker. 1 This and the following fragment are given in Johnson's Museum, where they are said to have been written by Burns. 2 Also given in Johnson's Museum, and said to be ‘corrected by R. Burns.” The burthen, at least, of the ditty is old. 3 The cutty-stool, or stool of repentance. 70 BURNS’ SONGS. (ºban $6amit5. I TUNE–" Savourma, Delish.” I. SLOW spreads the gloom my soul desires, The sun from India’s shore retires: To Evan banks with tempºrate ray, Home of my youth, he leads the day. II. Oh! banks to me for ever dear! Oh! stream whose murmurs still I hear! All, all my hopes of bliss reside Where Evan mingles with the Clyde. III. And she, in simple beauty drest, Whose image lives within my breast! Who, trembling, heard my parting sigh, And long pursued me with her eye; IV. Does she, with heart unchang'd as mine, Oft in the vocal bowers recline 7 Or, where yon grot o'erhangs the tide, Muse while the Evan seeks the Clyde 2 V. Ye lofty banks that Evan bound! Ye lavish woods that wave around, And o'er the stream your shadows throw, Which sweetly winds º far below; VI. What secret charm to mem'ry brings All that on Evan’s border springs! Sweet banks! ye bloom by Mary's side: Blest stream! she views thee haste to Clyde. VII. Can all the wealth of India’s coast Atone for years in absence lost? Return, ye moments of delight; With richer treasures bless my sight! VIII. Swift from this desert let me part, And fly to meet a kindred heart! Nor more may aught my steps divide From that dear stream which flows to Clyde. 1 This beautiful song is given in the Musical Museum, and in Cummingham's 8vo edition of Burns, as a production of the Poet; but the real author, we believe, was the late HELEN MARIA WILLIAMs. “The poet,” says the commentator in Cun- ningham's edition, “imagines himself in India, and his allusion to Mary in Heaven is extremely pathetic.” We can see no allusion whatever in the piece to Mary in Heaven : Some mis- take may have arisen, if the commentator be a cockney, fro pronouncing Evan with an aspirate. The spot, T& ‘Where Evan mingles with the Clyde,” l *...*.*.*.*, **~ *. 2- ºx- ºx^*... . . .º.º. º. Jºº is a locality with which Burns or his Highland Mary had no connection. It is situated near the town of Hamilton, in the middle ward of Lanarkshire, and is remarkable for the beauty of its scenery. The Evan, or Avon, here flows between “lofty banks,” overhung, as the poet says, with ‘lavish woods.’ This character attaches to the stream for several miles above its con- fluence with the Clyde; and the whole district around, from its extreme verdure and fertility, fully merits the title which it receives of the Garden of Scotland. <- *: # -> Q G)0 Tºxº~ Q Ø £6&6&g gº &@@@šg ºg sº &#. #3. *$º & Yº *. - $ * - a;&; §§ 2.6 ºg, $gºs 3%33333333%gº &S&Q997&$#2S2329 tº *ś 5%. §§§ § #3; # º SS$56. 3'Kº lºgs=} §3. §§§§ tº º º: & gºśćº g33& #º §G}(".")6)& WSQ 9. § gº §” §§ * N : Yº *\e 9-5 & Nºyº $333, SQ9. & <ſº tºº. gº §§§ 3&º - **gg33< x.9° 0'ſ, º iº9" gºexºgg3 8. *\ep. ººººº gº tº &\egg3/ºščNºggs tº CORRESPONDENCE WITH THOMSON: INCLUDING THE SONGS CONTRIBUTED TO THOMSON'S COLLECTION. $ | ; i l * } i } ; : ! | | i i ; : ; : ! | ; : | : ; : | ; : t i ! “The Songs in this (Mr Thomson's) Collection are, by many eminent critics, placed decidedly at the head of all our Poet's performances; it is by none disputed, that very many of them are worthy of his most felicitous inspiration. He bestowed much more care on them than on his contributions to the Museum; and the taste and feeling of the editor'secured the work against any intrusions of that overwarm element, which was too apt to mingle in his amatory effusions. Burns knew that he was now engaged on a work destined for the eye and ear of refinement; he laboured throughout under the salutary feeling “virginibus puerisque canto;” and the consequences have been very happy indeed for his own fame, for the literary taste and the national music of Scotland, and, what is of far higher importance, the moral and national feelings of his countrymen.” LocKHART. CORRESPONDENCE WITH THOMSON. IN 1792, Mr George Thomson, Clerk of the Honourable Board of Trustees in Edinburgh, and distinguished as a musical amateur, projected a work, entitled, “A Select Collection of original Scottish Airs for the Voice: to which are added, intro- ductory and concluding Symphonies and Accompaniments for the Piano Forte and Violin, by Pleyel and Koseluck, with select and characteristic Verses by the most admired Scottish Poets.” Although personally unacquainted with Burns, Mr Thomson's thoughts naturally turned to the great living master of Scottish Song, and he applied to him, by letter, explaining the nature of his publication, and beg- ging to know if he could furnish him with “twenty or twenty-five songs” suited to “particular melodies,” and otherwise assist in improving the words usually appended to many favourite Scottish airs. “Profit,” Mr Thomson avowed to be “ quite a secondary consideration" in his projected work, but he was willing to pay the Poet “any reasonable price” he should “please to demand.” Burns, although contri- buting at the time to Johnson's Musical Museum, entered with promptitude, and even enthusiasm, into Mr Thomson's views; and from the above period till within a week of his death, he continued a zealous correspondent of the musician's, furnishing him with, in all, oNE HUNDRED AND TWENTY SONGs, more than one half of which were wholly original, and the rest improvements on old verses or verses of his own which had previously appeared in the Museum. “As to any remuneration,” said the Poet in his first letter, “you may think my songs either above or below price; for they shall absolutely be either 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” [“ downright” is the word given in the published correspondence, but we have been told that in the original letter the expression which Burns used was “damnable”] “prostitution of soul.” It has surprised many how Burns, who had no hesitation in accepting the profits accruing from the early editions of his poems, should have taken up this generous crotchet of giving his services gratis, especially to an individual with whom he was personally unacquainted; but the two cases were evidently viewed in very different lights by the Poet. Although he had received a large sum of money from the Edin- burgh edition of his works, he had never penned a single line with that object in view; all his pieces were written from the genuine impulses of his heart, without * Mr Thomson's work was completed in 6 vols—one edition being in folio and another in octavo. Only one half-volume was published during the life time of Burns. l | s 75 3T-3- *-*.*** ~~~~<> 3 "Jä& } Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary, Across th’ Atlantic's roar! 1 MS. variation :- ‘Down by the burn where birken-buds.” 2 “In the copy transmitted to Mr Thomson, instead of wild, was inserted wet. But in one of the manuscripts, probably written afterwards, wet was changed into wild; evidently a great improvement. The lovers might meet on the lea-rig, “although the might were ne'er so wild;” that is, although the summer-wind blew, the sky lowered, and the thunder mur- mured: such circumstances might render their meeting still more interesting. But if the night were actually wet, why should they meet on the lea-rigº On a wet night the imagina- tion cannot contemplate their situation there with any compla- cency.—Tibullus, and after him Hammond, has conceived a happier situation for lovers on a wet night. Probably Burns had in his mind the verse of an old Scottish Song, in which wet and weary are naturally enough conjoined:— “When my ploughman comes hame at ev'n, He's often wet and weary; Cast off the wet, put on the dry, And gae to bed, my deary.” '—CURRIE. 3. At the instance of Mr Thomson, Burns added another stanza to this song; a complete version of it will be found in Letter No. VIII., p. 88. 4 Mr Thomson did not adopt this beautifully simple and yet energetic song into his collection. a > 83 BURNS’ CORRESPONDENCE II. | O sweet grows the lime and the orange, I never saw a º, And the apple on the pine; I never lo'ed a dearer, | But a the charms o’ the Indies And niest my heart I’ll wear her, \ Can never equal thine. For fear my jewel tine. III. III. I ha'e sworn by the Heavens to my Mary, She is a winsome wee thing, I ha'e sworn by the Heavens to be true; She is a handsome wee thing, And sae may the Heavens forget me, She is a bonnie wee thing, When I forget my vow ! This sweet wee wife o’ mine. IV. IV. O plight me your faith, my Mary, The warld’s wrack we share o't, And plight me your lily-white hand; The warstle and the care o’t; O plight me your faith, my Mary; Wi’ her I’ll blythely bear it, Before I leave Scotia’s strand. And think my lot divine. V. We ha'e plighted our troth, my Mary, I have just been looking over the ‘Collier's In mutual affection to join: bonny Dochter;' and if the following rhapsody, And curst be the cause that shall part us! which I composed the other day, OIl & charming The hour and the moment o’ time! Ayrshire girl, Miss Lesley Baillie, as she passed through this place to England, will suit your taste * Galla Water,’ and ‘Auld Rob Morris,' I think, better than the ‘Collier Lassie,’—fall on and will most probably be the next subjects of my welcome—: musings. However, even on my verses, speak out your criticisms with equal frankness. My wish is, $onnie £egley." not to stand aloft, the uncomplying bigot of opiniótreté, but cordially to join issue with you in I the furtherance of the work. - O SAW ye bonnie Lesley, As she gaed o'er the border ? She's gane, like Alexander, NO.V. To spread her conquests farther. II. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. To see her is to love her, And love but her for ever; For Nature made her what she is, And never made anither Nov., 8th, 1792. IF you mean, my dear Sir, that all the songs in your collection shall be poetry of the first merit, I III. am afraid you will find more difficulty in the under- Thou art a queen, fair Lesley, taking than you are aware of. There is a peculiar Thy subjects we, before thee: rhythmus in many of our airs, and a necessity of Thou art divine, fair Lesley, adapting syllables to the emphasis, or what I would The hearts o' men adore thee. call the feature-notes of the tune, that cramp the poet, and lay him under almost insuperable diffi- culties. For instance, in the air, “My wife’s a | . ) Burns has with his own hand sufficiently indicated the - 3 * - inspirer and circumstances attending the composition of this wanton wee thing, if a few lines Smooth and pretty song. ‘Know then,’ says he, in a letter to Mrs Dunlop, ‘that can be adapted to it, it is all you can expect. The the heart struck awe, the distant humble approach,-the following were made extempore to it: and though delight we should have in gazing upon and listening to a mes- S-> 2 8” senger of heaven, appearing in all the unspotted purity of his on further study, I might give you something more | celestial home, among the coarse, polluted, far inferior sons of profound, yet it might not suit the light-horse men, to deliver to them tidings that make their hearts Swim in 8–5 joy, and their imaginations soar in transport, such, so delight- gallop of the air so well as this random clink. ing, and so pure, were the emotions of my soul on meeting the g - other day with Miss Lesley Baillie, your neighbour. Mr Qſìje (ſātītāome mee (Tijing. Baillie, with his two daughters, accompanied by Mr H. of G., passing through Dumfries a few days ago, on their way to lºngland, did me the honour of calling on me: on which occasion º fe I. • ‘ I took my horse, (though, God knows, I could ill spare the She is a winsome wee thing, time,) and accompanied them fourteen or fifteen miles, and She is a handsome wee thing, dimed and spent the day with them. 'Twas about mine, I ſº º !-- ~~ think, when I left them; and riding home I composed the fol" She s a bonnie wee thing, - lowing ballad, (the song, namely, given above.) Miss Losley This sweet wee wife o’ mine. º, Bulle was afterwards married to Mr Cumming of Logie. | gº CŞ. * * \ ºr 2 º’C ^\,” ºº: Y----- - - - - ~~~~–3 º &=S. % º §YZºS 6 *- 43.2°Cº W 㺠§ º Vox' ſaeeae ： ， ： ， ）： [IIVI ĶI III º VIII，0)： WITH THOMSON. IV. The Deil he could na scaith thee, Or aught that wad belang thee; He’d look into thy bonnie face, And say, “I canna wrang thee.” V. The powers aboon will tent thee, Misfortune sha’na steer thee; Thou'rt like themselves sae lovely, That ill they'll ne'er let near thee. VI. - Return again, fair Lesley, Return to Caledonie : That we may brag, we hae a lass There’s name again sae bonnie. 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, &c. No. VI. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. £igijſamu ſăarp. TUNE—“Katharine Ogie.” YE banks, and braes, and streams around The castle o’ Montgomery,l Green be your woods, and fair your fiowers, Your waters never drumliel There simmer first unfauld her robes, And there the langest tarry For there I took the last fareweel O' my sweet Highland Mary. II. How sweetly bloom'd the gay green birk, How rich the hawthorn’s blossom 1 As underneath their fragrant shade, I clasp'd her to my bosom The golden hours, on angel wings, Flew o'er me and my dearie; For dear to me as light and life, Was my sweet Highland Mary. III. Wi’ mony a vow, and lock’d embrace, Our parting was fu' tender; And, pledging aft to meet again, We tore oursels asunder; But Oh! fell death's untimely frost, That nipt my flower sae early Now green's the sod, and cauld's the clay, That wraps my Highland Mary !? * cº; *.*. 1 Coilsfield, the mansion of . Colonel Hugh Montgomery, afterwards Earl of Eglinton, where Highland Mary served in the capacity of dairy-maid. Coilsfield house is about six miles from Ayr, on the road to Mauchline, and is considered one of the finest and most beautifully situated mansions in the county. The sketch of Coilsfield given in this work, involves the finest part of the domain, on the immediate banks of the rivulet Faile, where, in all probability, the last farewell of Burns and his Argyleshire mistress took place. The house and estate belong to the Earl of Eglinton, grandson of the gentleman who pos- sessed them in Burns's time. Some antiquarian interest attaches to the name of Coilsfield. Unvarying tradition points to the place as called after that same King Coil, who is supposed to have left his name to this whole district of Ayrshire, as well as to the rivulet of Coyl, and the parish of Coylton. The early unscrupulous historians of Scot- land speak of Coil, or Coilus, as a king of the Britons, who, three hundred and twenty-five years before the Christian era, here fought a bloody battle with Fergus I. king of Scots, by, he gossips informed her father and mother that Mary was in J - whom he was overthrown and slain. In Bleau's Atlas, pub- lished in the middle of the seventeenth century, where the event is gravely related, it is mentioned that the plain on which the encounter took place retains the name of the unfortunate king, while Loch Fergus, in the neighbourhood, commemorates the site of the Scottish camp. This writer also adverts to the names of the rivulet and parish as monuments of the death of Coilus. On the other hand, George Chalmers scouts the whole Story, and professes not to believe that such a monarch as Coilus ever lived. It is very certain that the date assigned to his existence, being so long antecedent to the dawn of genuine history in our island, must be fabulous; but we are disposed to pause before dismissing him altogether from the page of his- tory. Some local circumstances appear to militate strongly against any such conclusion. A little rill which joins the Faile within the Coilsfield ground, still bears the name of the Bloody Burm, while a flat alluvial field, opposite its junction with the larger stream, is called the Dead-men's Holm. At a little dis- tance to the north of the house, near the farm—offices, there is a circular mound, enclosed by a hedge, and planted with oak and other trees: on the top of this eminence, in its centre, are two large stones, masses of basalt, which, according to tradi- tion, mark the spot where the remains of “old king Coil” were deposited. With the name of the man thus so fixed on the loca- lity, and so many traces of the sanguinary battle in which he is said to have fallen, with topography thus giving her voice So loudly in support of history, it could never have appeared to us reasonable altogether to disbelieve the traditionary tale of Coil. It is less so now than before, in consequence of sepul- chral urns having been found, so recently as 1837, at the sup- posed grave of the British king. 2 We have already given some particulars of Highland Mary —of her parting interview with the poet—and of the preserva- tion of her Bible. An article from the pen of Mr John Keir, writer in Glasgow, which originally appeared in the Scots Times newspaper, completes the detail. “The parents of Highland Mary lived in Greenock, and she crossed the Firth of Clyde to visit some relations in Cowal, pre- vious to her marriage. Her father was a mariner; had two sons, Archibald and Robert; and, besides Mary, a daughter named Anne, who married James Anderson, a stonemason. All these individuals are now dead: Mary was not long out- lived by her father and brothers: her mother died in great poverty in the year 1828. The representatives of Highland Mary, therefore, now consist of Anderson's children—two sons and two daughters. Mary it appears was not hurried to the grave immediately after her return from Cowal: she lived several weeks with her father, and every week received a letter from her lover. The circumstance of a girl in her humble con- dition receiving a letter weekly, excited the curiosity of the neighbours; the secret was carefully hunted out, and one of .N-IO sº - &=<= jY-SA BURNS’ CORRESPONDENCE IV. O pale, pale now those rosy lips, I aft ha'e kiss'd sae fondly! And clos'd for aye the sparkling glance That dwelt on me sae kindly! And mouldering now in silent dust, That heart that lo’ed me dearly But still within my bosom's core, Shall live my Highland Mary. 14TH Nov., 1792. MY DEAR SIR, I AGREE with you that the song, ‘Kath- erine Ogie,” is very poor stuff, and unworthy, altogether unworthy, of so beautiful an air. I tried to mend it, but the awkward sound Ogie occurring so often in the rhyme, spoils every the habit of receiving letters from a person named Burns, who was known to be a strange character, and ‘a great scoffer at women.” Mary was questioned on the subject, and admitted the correspondence, laughing heartily at the description of her lover, whose scoffing, she said, she was ready to trust to. After this, Mary was allowed to receive her letters openly : one of them, it appears, contained the song of ‘The Highland Lassie O ;’ for her mother got it by heart from the Poet's cor- respondence, and, in her declining years, soothed her grand- children with strains which recorded the charms of her favour- ite daughter. “It is to be regretted that none of these letters are now in existence. After Mary’s death, her father disliked all allusions to her or to her lover; and when Burns wrote a moving letter, requesting some memorial of her he loved so dearly, the stern old man neither answered it, nor allowed any one to speak about it in his presence. His grand-children can sing some scraps of the songs which he wrote in praise of their aunt: and these, save the Bible presented to her by the Poet, are all that the relatives of Highland Mary have to bear testimony of the love that was between her and Burns. “Before the “last farewell,” commemorated in the song of “Highland Mary,’ was taken, the lovers plighted mutual faith, and, exchanging Bibles, stood with a running stream between, and, lifting up its waters in their hands, vowed love while the woods of Montgomery grew and its waters ran. The spot where this took place is still pointed out. Mary’s Bible was of the commonest kind, and consisted of one volume only—that of Burns was elegantly bound, and consisted of two volumes. In the first volume he had written,-‘And ye shall not swear by my mame falsely—I am the Lord.” Lev. chap. xix. ver. 12. In the second,-‘Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oath.’ Matt. chap. v. ver, 33; and on a blank leaf of both volumes, “Robert Burns, Mossgiel.” By the death of Mary, this Bible came into the possession of her mother, who, about twelve years ago, gave it to her only surviving daughter, Mrs Anderson. The circumstance of its being in two volumes, seemed at one period to threaten its dis- memberment ; for, upwards of five years since, Mrs Anderson presented a volume to each of her two daughters; but on the approaching marriage of these two females sometime after- wards, her eldest Son, William Anderson, a mason in Renton, prevailed on each of his sisters to dispose of the volumes they had received to him ; and thus both volumes, once more united, now remain in the custody of the senior nephew of Highland Mary. The sacred verses we have quoted above, remain in the bold distinct hand-writing of the Poet; but his signature, on the opposite leaves, is almost wholly obliterated. In the first volume, a masonic emblem, drawn by Burns, below his signa- ture, is in complete preservation. Mr William Anderson is also possessed of a pretty large lock of his aunt, Highland Mary's hair, a portion of which he presented to us, as a relic of the Bard's first love. “We now come to another era in the history of this Bible. Mr Archibald, Schoolmaster in Largs, an admirer of Burns, and 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 much 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 bor- rowed 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 bon- net-lug; and do you, Sams ceremonie, make what use you choose of the productions. Adieu, &c. a votary of the Scottish muse, waited, it is said, on old Widow Campbell, some time before her death, for the purpose of pur- chasing the volumes. He learnt, however, that she was a pauper on the roll of the Kirk Session of Greenock, who, in consequence, were entitled to take possession of her little pro- perty as soon as death removed her from this world; but in the mean time, to secure a right to them, he is said to have bar- gained with her that he should become the possessor of the vol- umes when that event took place, at such a price as might be agreed upon between him and the Session. In February, 1829, Mr Archibald having heard that the Bible had found its way into the custody of one of the elders, presented a memorial to the Session :- “‘Your Memorialist will not presume to dictate to your Reverend Body what you may or ought to do with the Bible. He takes leave, however, to say, that if you do not see fit to retain them as public property, estimable to the people of Gree- nock, in consequence of the historical circumstances connected with these volumes, having been within their locality, he, the Memorialist, will be proud to be one of those who will gladly come forward to offer you a handsome sum of money for be- hoof of the poor, for the possession of the Sacred Pledges of Burns' purest affection. He has no doubt that many will com- pete with him in the generous strife of obtaining the books, and that, if you see fit in this way to raise it, a considerable sum may be realized for the necessities of the poor.” “On this memorial the Session pronounced the following judgment — “‘The Kirk Session of the Old Parish of Greenock, with their Heritors, being met—inter alia, the Kirk Treasurer laid before the meeting a letter from Mr Joseph J. Archibald, teacher at Largs, containing an offer of £10, for the effects (including furniture, books, &c. &c.) left by Widow Campbell, mother to Burns' Highland Mary, which effects became the property of the Kirk Session, in consequence of the said Widow Campbell being, for several years, a pauper on their roll. The Session agreed to resign their hypothec in said effects to and in favour of the said Mr Joseph J. Archibald, for the aforesaid sum of £10, and authorise their clerk to intimate this to him.” “Notwithstanding the grave and formal tenor of this reso- lution, we suspect that the Bible is the unquestionable pro- perty of its present possessor, and if the account we have received of his character and conduct approach the truth, he is well worthy of remaining their custodier in perpetuity.” Thus far Mr Kerr. In what way the Bible reached Canada we are not informed : of its subsequent history and final depo- sition in the monument at Ayr, we have already spoken. : 86 witH THOMSON. No. VII. MR. THOMSON TO BURNS. EDINBURGH, NOV., 1792. DEAR SIR, IWAS just going to write to you, that on meeting with your Nannie, I had fallen violently in love with her. I thank you, therefore, for send- ing the charming rustic to me, in the dress you wish her to appear before the public. She does you great credit, and will soon be admitted into the best company. - I regret that your song for the ‘Lea-rig' is so short; the air is easy, soon sung, and very pleas- ing; so that, if the singer stops at the end of two stanzas, it is a pleasure lost ere it is well pos- sessed. Although a dash of our native tongue and man- ners is doubtless peculiarly congenial and appro- priate to our melodies, yet I shall be able to pre- sent a considerable number of the very flowers of English song, well adapted to those melodies, which, in England at least, will be the means of recommending them to still greater attention than they have procured there. But you will observe, my plan is, that every air shall, in the first place, have verses wholly by Scottish poets; and that those of English writers shall follow as additional songs, for the choice of the singer. What you say of the ‘Ewe-bughts’ is just ; I admire it, and never meant to supplant it. All I requested was, that you would try your hand on some of the inferior stanzas, which are apparently no part of the original song: but this I do not urge, because the song is of sufficient length, though those inferior stanzas be omitted, as they will be by the singer of taste. You must not think I expect all the songs to be of superlative merit: that were an unreasonable expectation. 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 de'il 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 pomp- ous or mere burlesque verse ? Instead of the line, “And never made anither,’ I would 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 verse. 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 blithsome wee thing; Sae lang's I ha'e my wee thing, I'll think my lot divine. Tho' warld’s care we share o't, And may see meikle mair o’t: Wi’ her I'll blithly 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. Be 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 re-perusal 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. Your 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. NO. VIII. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. DUMFRIES, IST DEC. 1792. YoUR alterations of my “Nannie O’ are per- fectly right. So are those of “My wife's a wanton wee thing.’ Your alteration of the second stanza is a positive improvement. Now, my dear Sir, with the freedom which characterises our corres- pondence, I must not, cannot alter “Bonnie Les- 87 Q =2 gº / O (A &s BURNS’ CORRESPONDENCE 3. ley. the line a little uncouth, but I think the thought You are right, the word ‘Alexander, makes is pretty. Of Alexander, beyond all other heroes, it may be said in the sublime language of scrip- ture, that “he went forth conquering and to conquer.” * “For Nature made her what she is, And never made anither;' (such a person as she is.) This is, in my opinion, more poetical than ‘Ne'er made sic anither.” 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 cannot help it. In short, that species of stanza is the most difficult that I have ever tried. The ‘Lea-rig' is as follows:— Sº, făp aim #imly ſpearie, Q9. I. WHEN o'er the hill the eastern star, Tells bughtin'-time is near, my jo! And Owsen frae the furrow'd field, Return sae dowf and weary, O; Down by the burn, where scented birks Wi’ dew are hanging clear, my jo; I'll meet thee on the lea-rig, My aim kind dearie, O! II. In mirkest glen, at midnight hour, I’d rove and ne'er be eerie, O, If through that glen I gaed to thee, My ain kind dearie, O! Although the night were ne'er sae wild, And I were ne'er sae weary, O, I’d meet thee on the lea-rig, My ain kind dearie, O! III. The hunter lo’es the morning sun, To rouse the mountain deer, my jo; At noon the fisher seeks the glen, Along the burn to steer, my jo; Gi'e me the hour of gloaming grey, It maks my heart sae cheery, O, To meet thee on the lea-rig, My ain kind dearie, O! I am interrupted. Yours, &c. NO. IX. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. §uſly ºut ſºlorrig.” I. THERE's auld Rob Morris that wons in yon glen, He's the king o' guid fellows and wale of auld men; He has gowd in his coffers, he has owsen and kine, And ae bonnie lassie, his darling and mine. II. She's fresh as the morning, the fairest in May : She's sweet as the ev’ning amang the new hay: As blythe and as artless as the lambs on the lea, And dear to my heart as the light to my e'e. III. But Oh! she's an heiress, auld Robin'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 hide that will soon be my dead. IV. The day comes to me, but delight brings me name; 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. O had she but been of a lower degree, I then might ha'e hop’d she’d ha'e smil’d upon me! O, how past descriving had then been my bliss, As now my distraction no words can express! IBuncan CŞrap. 3 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. Maggie coost her head fu' high, Look’d asklent and unco skeigh, Gart poor Duncan stand abeigh; Ha, ha, the wooing o't. II. Duncan fleech'd, and Duncan pray’d, Ha, ha, the wooing o’t; Meg was deaf as Ailsa Craig,4 Ha, ha, the wooing o’t. 1 Mr Thomson decided on “Ne'er made sic amither.” The original reading has, however, been restored in the text. 2 “The two first lines are from an old ballad,-the rest is wholly original.”—CURRIE. 3 * This has nothing in common with the old licentious ballad of Duncan Gray, but the first line, and part of the third.—The rest is wholly original.”—CURRIE. See page 20, for an earlier song to the same tune, which the Poet sent to Johnson's Museum. 4. A well-known rock in the Firth of Clyde. WITH THOMSON. º Duncan sigh’d baith out and in, Grat his een baith bleert and blin', Spak’ o' lowpin’ o'er a linn; Ha, ha, the wooing o't. III, Time and chance are but a tide, Ha, ha, the wooing o't ; Slighted love is sair to bide, Ha, ha, the wooing o't. Shall I, like a fool, quoth he, For a haughty hizzie die Ż She may gae to—France for me! Ha, ha, the wooing o't. IV. How it comes let doctors tell, Ha, ha, the wooing o’t, Meg grew sick—as he grew hale, Ha, ha, the wooing o't. Something in her bosom wrings, For relief a sigh she brings; And O, her een, they spak’sic things! Ha, ha, the wooing o't. V. Duncan was a lad o' grace, Ha, ha, the wooing o’t; Maggie's was a piteous case, Ha, ha, the wooing o't. Duncan couldna be her death, Swelling pity smoor'd his wrath; Now they’re crouse and canty baith, Ha, ha, the wooing o't. 4th DEC., 1792. The foregoing I submit, my dear Sir, to your judgment. Acquit them or condemn them, as seemeth good in your sight. Duncan Gray is that kind of light-horse gallop of an air, which precludes sentiment. The ludicrous is its ruling feature. NO. X. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. QP 300rtiti) cauſt attu regtlegg Iobe." TUNE–“I had a Horse.” I. 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 2 Or why sae sweet a flower as love, Depend on Fortune's shining 7 \ Jean Lorimer of Kemmis-hall in Kirkmahoe, of whom we have already given an account, is said to have been the inspirer II. II. 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 III. Her een sae bonnie blue betray How she repays my passion; But prudence is her o’erword aye, She talks of rank and fashion. IV. O wha can prudence think upon, And sic a lassie by him : O wha can prudence think upon, And sae in love as I am ? V. How blest the humble cotter's fate 2 He woos his simple dearie; The sillie bogles, wealth and state, Can never make them eerie. 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 7 (Balla attrº THERE's braw, braw lads on Yarrow braes, That wander thro’ the blooming heather; But Yarrow braes, nor Ettrick shaws, Can match the lads o' Galla Water. II. But there is ane, a secret ane, Aboon them a' I lo’e him better; And I’ll be his, and he’ll be mine, The bonnie lad O’ Galla Water. III. Altho’ his daddie was nae laird, And tho’ I ha'e nae meikle tocher; Yet, rich in kindest, truest love, We'll tent our flocks by Galla Water. IV. It ne'er was wealth, it ne'er was wealth, That coft contentment, peace, or pleasure; The bands and bliss o' mutual love, O that’s the chiefest warld’s treasure! of these verses. “I have been informed, says Chambers, “that Burns wrote this song in consequence of hearing a gentleman, (now a respectable citizen of Edinburgh,) sing the old homely ditty, which gives name to the tune, with an effect, which made him regret that such pathetic music should be united to such unsentimental poetry. The meeting, I have been further in- formed, where this circumstance took place, was held in the Poet's favourite tavern, Johnnie Dowie's, in the Lawnmarket, Edinburgh; and there, at a subsequent meeting, the new song was also sung for the first time, by the same individual.” 2 “The wild-wood Indian's fate,” in the original MS. 3 The old version of Galla Water, improved by Burns, is given at p. 17, as it appeared in Johnson's Museum. M 89 BURNS’ CORRESPONDENCE 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, that escape men of much superior parts and en- dowments in other things. If you meet with my dear and much-valued Cunningham, greet him in my name, with the com- pliments of the season. Yours, &c. No. XI. MR. THOMSON TO BURNS. EDINBURGH, 20th JAN., 1793. YOU make me happy, my dear Sir, and thou- sands will be happy to see the charming songs you have sent me. Many merry returns of the season to you, and may you long continue, among the sons and daughters of Caledonia, to delight them and to honour yourself. The four last songs with which you favoured me, viz. “Auld Rob Morris,’ ‘Duncan Gray,’ ‘ Galla Water,’ and ‘Cauld Kail,” are admirable. Duncan is indeed a lad of grace, and his humour will endear him to every body. The distracted lover in Auld Rob,” and the happy shepherdess in ‘Galla Water,” exhibit an excellent contrast: they speak from genuine feel- ing, 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 singing, leaving none behind but mere gleanings, to which the publishers of Ommegatherwm 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 pre- senting the subscribers 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 write it. As a number of our songs have doubt- less been called forth by particular events, or by the charms of peerless damsels, there must be besides being a man of the world, and possessing an enthusiasm for music beyond most of his con- temporaries. 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 sim- ply 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 accom- paniments, &c. of Pleyel. To those of the comic and humorous class, I think accompaniments scarcely necessary; they are chiefly fitted for the conviviality of the festive board, and a tuneful voice, with a proper delivery of the words, ren- ders them perfect. Nevertheless, to these I pro- pose adding bass accompaniments, because then they are fitted either for singing, or for instru- mental performance, when 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 any thing of the kind. But for this last class of airs I will not attempt to find more than one set of VCI'SGS. - 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 pecu- liarity 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 ballad, called ‘The Lass of Lochryan,’ 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 in- cluded in our volume of comic songs? POSTSCRIPT, FROM THE HON. A. ERSKINE.2—Mr. many curious anecdotes relating to them. The late Mr Tytler of Woodhouselee, I believe, i knew more of this than any body, for he joined ſº to the pursuits of an antiquary, a taste for poetry, 1 ‘The Lass of Lochryan,’ is generally allowed to be one of our very finest ballads. 2 The Hon. Andrew Erskine was a younger brother of ‘the musical Earl of Kellie.' He was originally in the army, but his tastes and habits were decidedly of a literary character. He was one of the contributors to ‘Donaldson's Collection of Ori- ginal Poems by Scottish Gentlemen,' and the author in part of a curious and rare volume, entitled ‘Letters between the Hon. Andrew Erskine and James Boswell, Esq.” Edinburgh, 1763. These letters are partly in prose, and partly in verse. He also wrote one or two pieces for the Edinburgh stage, and was author of a satirical production, said to possess great merit, called ‘Town Eclogues.’ Constable at one time contemplated collecting and publishing his works. Mr Erskine was found | drowned in the Forth in the autumn of this year, 1793 (See Letter, No. XLVII.) It is said, that an unlucky run at play was the cause of his melancholy end. He figures among Kay's O ‘traits. o Q 239) portra Áe 4– O 90 _\\2×. 2-2.ÉS (Q) & * *-r-sº .* zº º-s, 2- “. . \ ×3 J ...?'ſ } WITH THOMSON. Thomson has been so obliging as to give me a perusal of your songs. “Highland Mary’ is most enchantingly pathetic, and “Duncan Gray’ possesses native genuine humour: “Spak o’lowpin o'er a linn,” is a line of itself that should make you im- mortal. I sometimes hear of you from our mutual friend Cunningham, who is a most excellent fel- low, 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 amo- rous: 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. No. XII. BURNS TO MR THOMSON. 26TH JAN., 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 his own mouth. I am such an enthusiast, that, in the course of my several peregrinations through Scotland, I made a pilgrimage to the individual spot from which every song took its rise; ‘Lochaber’ and the * Braes of 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 valu- able collection of Jacobite songs; but would it give no offence : In the mean time, do not you think that some of them, particularly ‘The Sow's Tail to Geordie,” as an air, with other words, might be well worth a place in your collection of lively songs 7 If it were possible to procure songs of merit, it would be proper to have one set of Scots words to every air, and that the set of words to which the notes ought to be set. There is a naïveté, a pas- toral simplicity, in a slight intermixture of Scots words and phraseology, which is more in unison (at least to my taste, and I will add to every genuine Caledonian taste) with the simple pathos, or rustic sprightliness of our native music, than any English verses whatever. The very name of Peter Pindar is an acquisi- -- tion to your work. His ‘Gregory’ is beautiful. I have tried to give you a set of stanzas in Scots, on the same subject, which are at your service. Not that I intend to enter the lists with Peter; that would be presumption indeed. My song, though much inferior in poetic merit, has, I think, more of the ballad simplicity in it. 3Lord Gregorp., I. O MIRK, mirk is the midnight hour, And loud the tempest’s roar; A waefu' wanderer seeks thy tow'r, Lord Gregory, ope thy door! II. An exile frae her father's ha”, And a for loving thee; At least some pity on me shaw, If love it may not be. III. Lord Gregory, mind'st thou not the grove, By bonnie Irwine side, Where first Iown'd that virgin-love I lang, lang had denied ? IV. 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. V. Hard is thy heart, Lord Gregory, And flinty is thy breast— Thou dart of heav'n that flashest by, O wilt thou give me rest! VI. Ye mustering thunders from above, Your willing victim see But spare, and pardon my false love, His wrangs to heaven and me! 1 That the reader may have an opportunity of comparing the ‘Lord Gregory' of Burns with that of Peter Pindar, we subjoin Dr Walcott's stanzas :— Ah ope, Lord Gregory, thy door . A midnight wanderer sighs; Hard rush the rains, the tempests roar, And lightnings cleave the skies. Who comes with woe at this drear night- A pilgrim of the gloom? If she whose love did once delight, My cot shall yield her room. Alas! thou heard'st a pilgrim mourn, That once was priz'd by thee: Think of the ring by yonder burn Thou gav'st to love and me. But should'st thou not poor Marian know, I'll turn my feet and part; And think the storms that round me blow Far kinder than thy heart. 9] BURNS’ CORRESPONDENCE a i \ ~ 12-f Sºx My most respectful compliments to the honour- able gentleman who favoured me with a postscript in your last. He shall hear from me and receive his MSS. soon. NO, XIII. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 20th MARCH, 1793. #Harp ſºlutiñon.] TUNe—“Bide ye yet.” I. O MARY, at thy window be, It is the wish'd, the trysted hour ! Those Smiles and glances let me see, That make the miser's treasure poor! How blithely wad I bide the stoure, A weary slave frae sun to sun; Could I the rich reward secure, The lovely Mary Morison. II. Yestreen, when, to the trembling string, The dance gaed thro’ the lighted ha’, To thee my fancy took its wing, I sat, but neither heard nor saw : Tho' this was fair, and that was braw, And yon the toast of a the town, I sigh’d, and said amang them a', “Ye are na Mary Morison.” III. O Mary, canst thou wreck his peace, Wha for thy sake wad gladly die? Or canst thou break that heart of his, Whase only faut is loving thee ? If love for love thou wilt na gi'e, At least be pity to me shown; A thought ungentle canna be The thought o' Mary Morison. MY DEAR SIR, The song prefixed is one of my juvenile works. I leave it in your hands. I do not think it very remarkable, either for its merits or demerits. It is impossible (at least I feel it so in my stinted powers) to be always original, entertaining, and witty. What is become of the list, &c. of your songs? I shall be out of all temper with you by-and-by. I have always looked upon myself as the prince 1 ‘Of all the productions of Burns', says Hazlitt, the ‘pathetic and serious love songs which he has left behind him, in the manner of the old ballads, are perhaps those which take the deepest and most lasting hold of the pmind. Such are the lines to “Mary Morison.”’’ The second stanza, in particular, of this fine lyric is strikingly beautiful and true to love's passion. 92 of indolent correspondents, and valued myself - ºf accordingly; and I will not, cannot bear rival. ship from you, nor any body else. NO, XIV. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. MARCH, 1793. &ſjäambering Cſáillie.” I. HERE awa, there awa, wandering Willie, Now tired with wandering, haud awa hame! Come to my bosom, my ae only dearie, And tell me thou bring'st me my Willie the same. II. Loud blew the cauld winter winds at our parting; It was na the blast brought the tear in my e'e: Now welcome the simmer, and welcome my Willie, The simmer to nature, my Willie to me. III. Ye hurricanes, rest in the cave o' your slumbers! O how your wild horrors a lover alarms Awaken, ye breezes, row gently ye billows, And waft my dear laddie ance mair to my arms. IV. 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' I leave it to you, my dear Sir, to determine whether the above, or the old ‘Thro' the lang muir,’ be the best. 2 A Song, preserved by Herd, seems to have been present to the mind of Burns, when he wrote these verses. He has, how- ever, thrown around it a pathos which will be sought for in vain in the old song :- Here awa, there awa, haud awa, Willie, Here awa, there awa, haud awa hame; Lang have I sought thee, dear have I bought thee, Now I have gotten my Willie again. Thro' the lang muir I have followed my Willie, Thro' the lang muir I have followed him hame; Whatever betide us, nought shall divide us, Love now rewards all my sorrow and pain. Here awa, there awa, haud awa, Willie, Here awa, there awa, haud awa hame; Come, love, believe me, naething can grieve me, Ilka thing pleases while Willie's at hame. Burns afterwards altered the words of his own version to fit them for the air: the altered version will be found in a nute in Letter No. XVII. O § CN **. º O) }= **-*=-“º-e º– WITH THOMSON. No. XV. BURNS TO MR THOMSON. Q9pen tſje Door to me, QPi). W ITH ALTERATIONS, I. OH, open the door, some pity to show, Oh, open the door to me, Oh!! Tho' thou hast been false, I’ll ever prove true, Oh, open the door to me, Oh! II. Cauld is the blast upon my pale cheek, But caulder thy love for me, Oh! The frost that freezes the life at my heart, Is nought to my pains frae thee, Oh! III. 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! IV. She has open'd the door, she has open'd it wide; She sees his pale corse on the plain, Oh! My true love! she cried, and sank down by his side, Never to rise again, Oh! I do not know whether this song be really mended. No. XVI. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. Jeggie.” TUNE–% Bonnie Dwhdee.” I. 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 of 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 her lover, And maidenly modesty fixes the chain. II. 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, Unseen is the lily, unheeded the rose. Love sits in her smile, a wizard ensnaring, Enthron’d in her een he delivers his law: And still to her charms she alone is a stranger!— Her modest demeanour's the jewel of a”. No. XVII. MR. THOMSON TO BURNS. EDINBURGH, 2ND 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 the 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 the work. Pleyel has lately sent me a number of the songs, with his symphonies 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 awa, Willie,” must undergo some alterations to suit the air. Mr Erskine and I have been conning it over; he 1 Original MS., “If love it may na be, Oh!' - Burns has more fully evolved this beautiful sentiment in ‘Mary Morison:"— “If love for love thou wilt na gi'e, At least be pity to me shown.' 2 Jessie Staig, daughter of provost Staig of Dumfries, was the heroine of this song. She married early in life, Major Miller, one of the sons of Mr Miller, of Dalswinton, and died ere time was afforded to unfold all the charms, mental as well as bodily, with which nature had endowed her. ‘The memory of beauty and gentleness are long passing away.' Allan Cunningham, from whom we derive these particulars, says she is still affec- tionately remembered in her native valley. 93 9, 2. - &º -. :- º–s BURNS’ CORRESPONDENCE º ir will suggest what is necessary to make them a fit W match. 1 & The gentleman I have mentioned, whose fine NO. XVIII. : taste you are no stranger to, is so well-pleased i both with the musical and poetical part of our BURNS TO MR THOMSON. 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. Qſìe poor amu jonest $ouger.” Tune—“The Mill, Mill, O.” I I. WANDERING WILLIE, - $ *. - WHEN wild war's deadly blast was blawn, And gentle peace returning, Wi’mony a sweet babe fatherless, And mony a widow mourning;” I left the lines and tented field, Where lang I’d been a lodger, My humble knapsack a my wealth, A poor and honest sodger. As ALTERED BY MR erskine AND MR Thomson. ‘Here awa', there awa', wandering Willie, Here awa', there awa', haud awa’ hame; Come to my bosom, my aim only dearie, Tell me thou bring'st me my Willie the same. “Winter-winds blew loud and cauld at our parting, Fears for my Willie brought tears in my e'e, Welcome now simmer, and welcome my Willie, As simmer to nature, so Willie to me. “Rest, ye wild storms, in the cave o' your slumbers, How your dread howling a lover alarms Blow soft, ye breezes roll gently, ye billows : And waft my dear laddie ance mair to my arms. “But oh, if he's faithless and minds na his Nannie, 2 “Burns, I have been informed,” says a clergyman of Dum- friesshire, in a letter to Mr George Thomson, “was one summer evening in an Inn at Brownhill, in Dumfriesshire, with a couple of friends, when a poor way-worn soldier passed the window;— of a sudden it struck the Poet to call him in, and get the recital of his adventures. After hearing which, he all at once fell into one of those fits of abstraction, not unusual to him. He was lifted to the region, where he had his garland and his singing- robes about him, and the result was, this admirable song.” The scene depicted in the song was in all respects real, though the incidents associated with it by the Poet were imaginary. At a point on the road from Ayr to Ochiltree, four or five miles from the former place, the traveller has only to turn off about a mile along a parish road to the right, in order to find him- self at the spot where the soldier is described as meeting his still faithful mistress. Coylton kirk and Kirkton are first passed, and them, about half a mile further up the little vale, we reach the trysting thorn and mill, as delineated in the accompanying engraving, a scene of simple and by no means striking ele- ments, yet pleasing, and a type to recall many other Scottish burnsides and mill sites,—‘fit scenes,' as Wordsworth has it, 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.” Our poet, with his usual judgment, adopted some of these alterations, and rejected others. The last edition is as fol- lows:— . • ‘Here awa', there awa', wandering Willie, Here awa', there awa', haud awa’ hame; Come to my bosom, my aim only dearie, Tell me thou bring'st me my Willie the same. “Winter-winds blew loud and cauld at our parting, Fears for my Willie brought tears in my ere; Welcome now simmer, and welcome my Willie, º g The simmer to nature, my Willie to me, “for childhood's opening bloom, - For sportive youth to stray in ; For manhood to enjoy his strength, And age to wear away in.' ‘Rest, 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. A verdant, gowan-besprent holm, through which the burn finds * a crooked way over its channelly bed,—“twa verdant braes,' as Ramsay has it, forming the basin of the glen, the old accus- tomed mill under the shoulder of one of these braes, a few elms and hedgerows, a few scattered cots, and the heathy mountains behind, from which the stream descends,- such are the com- ponent parts of this and a thousand other such spots in Low- ‘Several of the alterations seem to be of little importance in land Scotland-how dearly treasured in the remembrance of themselves, and were adopted, it may be presumed, for the sake many & manly heart all OVer the world ! The mill, in the pre- of suiting the words better to the music. The Homeric epithet sent case, bears the title of Mill Monach, or Mill Mannoch,- for the sea, dark-heaving, suggested by Mr Erskine, is in itself the Monk's Mill,—a circumstance which shows not only its being more beautiful, as well perhaps as more sublime, than wide- of at least as old date as the Reformation, but that it has existed roaring, which he has retained, but as it is only applicable to a $* the early days when Gaelic was the language of the dis- placid state of the sea, or at most to the swell left on its surface trict. It is creditable to the honest Swains who reside on the after the storm is over, it gives a picture of that element not so spot that, as yet, the tale of the Soldier's Return has not well adapted to the ideas of eternal separation, which the fair assumed the character of an actual circumstantial fact amongst mourner is supposed to imprecate. From the original song of them. “Here awa', Willie,” Burns has borrowed nothing but the second line and part of the first. The superior excellence of this beau- tiful poem will, it is hoped, justify the different editions of it which we have given."—CURRIe. “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 aim.” 3 Variation : “And eyes again with pleasure beam’d, : That had been blear'd with mourning.” ſ * } ) commended. ‘I cannot,’ says Burns, “alter the disputed lines The alteration is the work of Mr Thomson; it cannot be | ſ in “the Mill, Mill, O: ” what you think a defect, I esteem a Å \ positive beauty.’ º ſ 94 WITH THOMSON. - II. A leal, light heart was in my breast, My hand unstain’d 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. III. At length I reach'd the bonnie glen, Where early life I sported; I pass'd 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 turn’d me round to hide the flood That in my een was swelling. IV. Wi’ alter'd 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 serv'd my king and country lang, Take pity on a sodger. Sae wistfully she gaz'd on me, And lovelier was than ever; Quo’ she, A sodger ance I lo’ed, Forget him shall I never: Our humble cot, and hamely fare, Ye freely shall partake it, That gallant badge—the dear cockade— Ye're welcome for the sake o’t. She gaz'd-she redden’d like a rose— Syne pale like ony lily; She sank within my arms, and cried, Art thou my ain dear Willie : By him that made yon sun and sky, By whom true love 's regarded, I am the man; and thus may still True lovers be rewarded ! VII. The wars are o'er, and I’m come hame, And find thee still true-hearted; Tho' poor in gear, we’re rich in love, And mair, we’se ne'er be parted. Quo' she, My grandsire left me gowd, A mailen plenish’d fairly; And come, my faithfu' sodger lad, Thou'rt welcome to it dearly VIII. 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 sodger ne'er despise, Nor count him as a stranger; Remember he's his country's stay, In day and hour of danger. £Heg o' tije ſtiliſ[.] TUNE–“O bonnie lass, will you lie in a barrack.” I. O KEN ye what Meg o' the Mill has gotten ? An' ken ye what Meg o' the Mill has gotten ? She has gotten a coof wi' a claut o' siller, And broken the heart o' the barley Miller. II. The Miller was strappin, the Miller was ruddy; A heart like a lord and a hue like a lady; The laird was a widdiefu', bleerit knurl; She's left the guid-fellow and ta'en the churl. III. The Miller he hecht her a heart leal and loving; The Laird did address her wit matter mair moving, A fine pacing-horse wi' a clear chained bridle, A whip by her side, and a bonnie side-saddle. IV. 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 trne lover's parle, But, gi'e me my love, and a fig for the warlº NO. XIX. BURNS TO MR THOMSON. 7th APRIL, 1793. THANK you, my dear Sir, for your packet. You cannot imagine how much this business of com- posing for your publication has added to my en- joyments. 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’ll e'en canter it away till I come to the limit of my race, (God grant that I may take the right side of the winning-post () and then cheerfully looking back on the honest folks 1 Burns' version of “Meg of the Mill,’ for Johnson's Museum has been already given. See p. 67, (5 2 95 BURNS’ CORRESPONDENCE, with whom I have been happy, I shall say or sing, ‘Sae merry as we a hae been P and raising my last looks to the whole human race, the last words of the voice of “Coila,” shall be, ‘Good night, and joy be wi' you a' P So much for my last words; now for a few present remarks, as they have occur- red at random on looking over your list. The first lines of ‘The last time I came o'er the moor,’ and several other lines in it, are beautiful; but in my opinion—pardon me, revered shade of Ramsay !—the song is unworthy of the divine air. I shall try to make or mend. ‘For ever, fortune, Wilt thou prove,’ is a charming song, but “Logan burn and Logan braes,’ are sweetly susceptible of rural imagery: I’ll try that likewise, and, if I succeed, the other song may class among the English ones. I remember the two last lines of a verse in some of the old songs of “Logan Water’ (for I know a good many different ones) which I think pretty:— “Now my dear lad maun face his faes, Far, far frae me and Logan braes.” ‘My Patie is a lover gay,’ is unequal. ‘His mind is never muddy,” is a muddy expression indeed. “Then I'll resign and marry Pate, And syne my cockernony.” This is surely far unworthy of Ramsay, or your book. My song, “Rigs of Barley,’ to the same tune does not altogether please me; but if I can mend it, and thrash a few loose sentiments out of it, I will submit it to your consideration. ‘The lass o' Patie's Mill,’ is one of Ramsay's best songs; but there is one loose sentiment in it, which my much-valued friend Mr Erskine will take into his critical consideration. In Sir J. Sinclair's statisti- cal volumes, are two claims, one, I think, from Aberdeenshire, and the other from Ayrshire, for the honour of this song. The following anecdote, which I had from the present Sir William Cun- ningham of Robertland, who had it of the late John, Earl of Loudon, I can, on such authorities, believe:— - Allan Ramsay was residing at Loudon Castle with the then Earl, father to Earl John; and one forenoon, riding, or walking out together, his Lordship and Allan passed a sweet romantic spot on Irvine Water, still called “Patie's Mill,’ where a bonnielass was ‘tedding hay, bare-headed on the green.’ My Lord observed to Allan, that it would be a fine theme for a song. Ramsay took the hint, and lingering behind, he composed the first sketch of it, which he produced at dinner. * One day I heard Mary say,’ is a fine song; but for consistency's sake, alter the name “Adonis.” Was there ever such banns published, as a pur- pose of marriage between Adonis and Mary 7 I care on every hand,’ is much superior to “Poor- tith cauld.” The original song, ‘The Mill, Mill, O,’ though excellent, is, on account of delicacy, inadmissable; still I like the title, and think a Scottish song would suit the notes best; and let your chosen song, which is very pretty, follow as an English set. ‘The banks of 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 sung from the tree.” In the first place, the nightingale sings in a low bush, but never from a tree; and in the second place, there never was a nightingale seen, or heard, on the banks of the Dee, or any other river in Scot- land. Exotic rural 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 song. ‘John Anderson, my jo’—the song to this tune in John- Son’s Museum, is my composition, and I think it not my worst; if it suit you, take it and welcome. Your collection of sentimental and pathetic songs, is, in my opinion, very complete; but not so your comic ones. Where are ‘Tullochgorum,” “Lumps o’ puddin’,” “Tibbie Fowler,’ and several others, which, in my humble judgment, are well worthy of preservation? There is also one sentimental song of mine in the Museum, which never was known out of the immediate neighbourhood, until I got it taken down from a country girl's singing. It is called ‘Craigieburn Wood;’ and in the opi- nion 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 right in inserting the last five in your list, though they are certainly Irish. “Shep- 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 is not quite a lady's song. I enclose an altered, not amended copy for you, if you choose to set the tune to it, and let the Irish verses follow.2 1 ‘It will be found, in the course of this correspondence, that the bard produced a second stanza of “The Chevalier's Lament,” (to which he here alludes,)worthy of the first.”—CURRIE. 2 “Mr Thomson, it appears, did not approve of this song, even in its altered state. It does not appear in the correspondence; but it is probably one to be found in his MSS. beginning. ‘Yestreen I got a pint of wine, A place where body saw na; Yestreen lay on this breast of mine, The gowden locks of Anna." It is highly characteristic of our Bard, but the train of senti- ment does not correspond with the air to which he proposes it should be allied.”—CURRIE. The song has since been printed, . C 9. agree with you that my song, ‘There's nought but and will be found in the present collection, see p. 62, As ~<>, sº 6 sº 96 26% * Yº '3'->< − -- - - - ~~~~<>> r (C *N-_º. **) ſ tº: →Cºsſ BURNS CORRESPONDENCE would pronounce them silly. Do you know a fine air called “Jackie Hume’s Lament 3' I have a Song of considerable merit to that air. I’ll inclose 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. NO. XXII. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. APRIL, 1793. 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. 3 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 have often told you, I do not in a single instance wish you, out of compliment to me, to insert any thing of mine. One hint let me give you—whatever Mr Pleyel does, let him not alter one iota of the original Scottish airs; I mean in the song department; but let our national music preserve its native features. They are, I own, frequently irreducible to the more modern rules; but on that very eccentricity, perhaps, depends a great part of their effect. NO. XXIII. MR. THOMSON TO BURNS. EDINBURGH, 26TH APRIL, 1793. I HEARTILY thank you, my dear Sir, for your last two letters, and the songs which accompanied them. I am always both instructed and enter- tained by your observations; and the frankness with 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 ano- 1 The song alluded to is that given in No. XVIII., “O ken ye what Meg o' the mill has gotten ?' 2 The air here mentioned is that for which he wrote the bal- lad of “Bonnie Jean.’ See No. XXVII. 3 This song will be found in a subsequent part. ther 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 pre- cisely as they are. The poet, like the painter, must select what 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 ground- work of beauty in all the arts. I will gladly appropriate your most interesting new ballad, “When wild war's deadly blast,’ &c. to the ‘Mill, Mill, O,’ 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 such liberties as he pleases; but that has nothing to do with the songs. * * * P.S.—I wish you would do as you proposed with your ‘Rigs o' Barley.” If the loose senti. ments are thrashed out of it, I will find an air for it; but as to this there is no hurry. No. XXIV. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. JUNE, 1793. WHEN I tell you, my dear Sir, that a friend of mine, in whom I am much interested, has fallen a sacrifice to these accursed times, you will easily allow that it might unhinge me for doing any good among ballads. My own loss, as to pecu- niary matters, is trifling; but the total ruin of a much-loved friend, is a loss indeed. Pardon my seeming inattention to your last commands. I cannot alter the disputed lines in the ‘Mill, Mill, O.’4 What you think a defect, I esteem as a positive beauty: so you see how doctors differ. I shall now, with as much alacrity as I can mus- ter, go on with your commands. 4 * The lines were the third and fourth- “Wi" mony a sweet babe fatherless, And mony a widow mourning.” ‘As our poet had maintained a long silence, and the first num- ber of Mr Thomson's Musical Work was in the press, this gen- tleman Ventured, by Mr Erskine's advice, to substitute for them, in that publication, “And eyes again with pleasure beam'd That had been bleared with mourning.” Though better suited to the music, these lines are inferior to the original. This is the only alteration adopted by Mr Thomson, which Burns did not approve, or at least assent to.”—CURRIE. Cl 98 WITH THOMSON. You know Frazer, the hautboy-player in Edin- burgh—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 ‘The Quaker's Wife:’ and which I remember a grand-aunt of mine used to sing, by the name of ‘Liggeram Cosh, my bonnie wee lass.” Mr Frazer plays it slow, and with an expression that quite charms me. I be- came such an enthusiast about it, that I made a Song for it, which I here subjoin, and enclose Frazer's set of the tune. If they hit your fancy, they are at your service; if not, return me the tune, and I will put it in Johnson's Museum. I think the song is not in my worst manner. 33ſptije ja’e # 36een.] TUNE–“ Liggeram Cosh.” I. BLYTHE ha'e I been on yon hill, As the lambs before me; Careless ilka thought and free, As the breeze flew o'er me: Now nae langer sport and play, Mirth or sang can please me; Lesley is sae fair and coy, Care and anguish seize me. II. Heavy, heavy is the task, Hopeless love declaring: Trembling, I dow nought but glow'r, Sighing, dumb, despairing ! If she winna ease the thraws In my bosom swelling; Underneath the grass-green sod, Soon maun be my dwelling. I should wish to hear how this pleases you. No. XXV. BURNS TO MR THOMSON. 25th JUNE, 1793. HAVE you ever, my dear Sir, felt your bosom ready to burst with indignation on reading of those mighty villains who divide kingdom against king- dom, desolate provinces, and lay nations Waste, 1 The charms of Miss Lesley Baillie, the inspirer of this song, Burns has elsewhere celebrated, both in prose and verse. The impression of her beauty seems long to have remained imprinted on the Poet's heart. out of the wantonness of ambition, or often from still more ignoble passions ? In a mood of this kind to-day, I recollected the air of Logan Water;' and it occurred to me that its querulous melody probably had its origin from the plaintive indignation of some swelling, suffering heart, fired at the tyrannic strides of some public destroyer; and overwhelmed with private distress, the con- sequence of a country’s ruin. If I have done any thing at all like justice to my feelings, the follow- ing song, composed in three-quarters of an hour's meditation in my elbow chair, ought to have some merit:— £ogan 33raeg. TUNE–“Logan Water.” I. O LoGAN, sweetly didst thou glide, That day I was my Willie's bride And years sinsyne ha'e o'er us run, Like Logan to the simmer sun. But now thy flow'ry banks appear Like drumlie winter, dark and drear, While my dear lad maun face his faes, Far, far frae me and Logan braes.” II. 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. 2 These two lines are taken from a beautiful song by John Mayne, author of the “Siller Gun.” Mayne's song, which is po- pular all over Scotland, first appeared in the Star (London) Newspaper of May 23, 1789. It consisted originally of six dou- ble verses, but is now generally limited to the two opening stanzas, which are as follows: “By Logan streams that rim sae deep, Fu'aft wi' glee I’ve herded sheep: I've herded sheep, and gathered slaes, Wi’ my dear lad on Logan braes. But, wac's my heart thae days are game, And fu'o' grief I herd my lane : While my dear lad maun face his faes, Far, far frae me and Logan braes. “Nae mair at Logan kirk will he Atween the preachings meet wi' me— Meet wi' me, or, when it’s mirk, Convoy me hame frae Logan kirk. I weel may sing, thae days are game, Frae kirk and fair I come my lane : While my dear lad maun face his faes, Far, far frae me and Logan braes.” John Mayne was a native of Dumfries, but spent his early life in Glasgow, where he learnt the trade of Printer, under the celebrated Foulis. He afterwards removed to London, and became printer and part proprietor of the Star daily News- paper. He died at an advanced age, in March, 1836. © : 99 BURNS’ CORRESPONDENCE ~ y, S. r r rhie, & ill be found zºº. 3 The fragment which Burns has here eked out wi Jº. 100 ºº: Jºjº Jºº-> ©'. *...? 2. W}^ 4s :*:: * : : : : •,• *. ." III. Within yon milk-white hawthorn bush, Amang her nestlings sits the thrush; Her faithfu' mate will share her toil, Or wi' his song her cares beguile: But I, wit my sweet nurslings here, Nae mate to help, nae mate to cheer, Pass widow’d nights, and joyless days, While Willie's far frae Logan braes. IV. O was upon you, men o’ state, That brethren rouse to deadly hate As ye make mony a fond heart mourn, Sae may it on your heads return! How can your flinty hearts enjoy The widow's tears, the orphan's cry? But soon may peace bring happy days, And Willie hame to Logan braes! Do you know the following beautiful little frag- ment, in Witherspoon's collection of Scots songs? TUNE—“ Hughie Graham.” O gin my love were yon red rose, That grows upon the castle waſ: And I mysel” a drap o’ dew, Into her bonnie breast to fa’ſ Oh, there beyond expression blest, I’d feast on beauty a' the night; Seal’d on her silk-saft faulds to rest, Till fley'd awa by Phoebus' light. This thought is inexpressibly beautiful; and quite, so far as I know, original. It is too short for a song, else I would forswear you altogether unless you gave it a place. I have often tried to eke a stanza to it, but in vain. After balancing myself for a musing five minutes, on the hind-legs of my elbow-chair, I produced the following. The verses are far inferior to the foregoing, I frankly confess; but if worthy of insertion at all, they might be first in place:” as every poet, who knows any thing of his trade, will husband his best thoughts for a concluding stroke. O were my love yon lilac fair, Wi’ purple blossoms to the spring; And I, a bird to shelter there, When weary 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 youthful May its bloom renew’d.” 1 Original MS. “Ye mind ma, 'mid your cruel joys, The widow’s tears, the orphan's cries.” 2 We have given the song, according to this suggestion of Burms, at p. 69. NO. xxvi. MR THOMSON TO BURNS, MONDAY, 1st JULY, 1793. I AM extremely sorry, my good Sir, that any thing should happen to unhinge 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 ‘Quaker'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 off. 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 send- ing me; but thanks, my friend, are a poor return for what you have done: as I will be benefited by the publication, you must suffer me to inclose a small mark of my gratitude,” and to repeat it afterwards when I find it convenient. Do not return it, for, by Heaven, if you do, our corres- pondence is at an end; and though 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 apos- trophe 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. in Herd's collection. Other fragments have been transmitted by tradition; some of these are ludicrous, and some tender, harmonising with the ancient strain. A song consisting of six stanzas, of which those quoted by Burns form a part, is said to be still current in the North of Scotland. 4. A five pound bank note. WITH THOMSON. NO. XXVII. BURNS To MR THOMSON. 2d JULY, 1793. 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’ 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 place in your collection, please return it. The song you may keep, as I remember it. 360nnie Jean.] I. There was a lass, and she was fair, At kirk or market to be seen, When a’ the fairest maids were met, The fairest maid was bonnie Jean. II. And aye she wrought her mammie's wark, And aye she sang sae merrilie: The blithest bird upon the bush Had ne'er a lighter heart than she. - III. But hawks will rob the tender joys That bless the little lintwhite's nest; And frost will blight the fairest flowers, And love will break the soundest rest. IV. Young Robie was the brawest lad, The flower and pride of a the glen; And he had owsen, sheep, and kye, And wanton naigies nine or ten. V. He gaed wi' Jeanie to the tryste, He danc'd wi' Jeanie on the down; And lang ere witless Jeanie wist, Her heart was tint, her peace was stown. VI. As in the bosom o' the stream, The moon-beam dwells at dewy e'en; So trembling, pure, was tender love Within the breast o’ bonnie Jean.2 1 Miss Jean M*Murdo, daughter of John MºMurdo, Esq. of Drumlanrig, is said to have been the heroine of this beautiful ballad-song. See an account of the M*Murdo family in the note on Drumlanrig, p. 106, vol. i. 2 * In the original MS. the poet asks Mr Thomson if this stanza is not original?'—CURRIE. VII. 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. VIII. But did na Jeanie's heart loup light, And did na joy blink in her e'e, As Robie tauld a tale o’love Ae e'enin’ on the lily lea? IX. The sun was sinking in the west, The birds sang sweet in ilka grove; His cheek to hers he fondly prest, And whisper'd thus his tale o’love: X. O Jeanie fair, I lo'e thee dear; O canst thou think to fancy me! Or wilt thou leave thy mammie's cot, And learn to tent the farms wi' me? XI. At barn or byre thou shalt na drudge, Or naething else to trouble thee; 3 But stray amang the heather-bells, And tent the waving corn wit me. XII. Now what could artless Jeanie do? She had nae will to say him na: At length she blush’d 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 asterisks, so as ingenuity may find them out. The heroine of the foregoing is Miss M., daugh- ter to Mr M. of D., 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. No. XXVIII. 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 3 Original MS. “Thy handsome foot thou shalt na set In barn or byre to trouble thee." * * * ~~ £-º. tº -> §§ _O > 101 BURNS’ CORRESPONDENCE of it, I will indignantly spurn the by-past trans- action, and from that moment commence entire stranger to you! BURNS's character for gener- Osity of sentiment and independence of mind, will, I trust, long outlive any of his wants which the Cold unfeeling ore can supply; at least, I will take Care that such a character he shall deserve. Thank you for my copy of your publication. Never did my eyes behold, in any musical work, such elegance and correctness. Your preface, too, is admirably written; only your partiality to me has made you say too much: however, it will bind me down to double every effort in the future pro- gress of the work. The following are a few remarks on the songs in the list you sent me. I never copy what I write to you, so I may be often tautological, or perhaps contradictory. ‘The Flowers of the Forest” is charming as a poem, and should be, and must be, set to the notes; but, though out of your rule, the three stanzas, beginning, “I ha'e seen the smiling o' fortune beguiling,” are worthy of a place, were it but to immortalize the author of them, who is an old lady of my acquaintance, and at this moment living in Edin- burgh. She is a Mrs Cockburn; I forget of what place; but from Roxburghshire. What a charm- ing apostrophe is “O fickle fortune, why this cruel sporting, Why, why torment us—poor sons of a day !” The old ballad, ‘I wish I were where Helen lies,’ is silly to contemptibility.” My alteration Mr Pinker- of it in Johnson's is not much better. ton, in his, what he calls, ancient ballads, (many of them notorious, though beautiful enough, for- geries,) has the best set. It is full of his own in- terpolations,—but no matter. In my next I will suggest to your consideration a few songs which may have escaped your hurried notice. In the mean time, allow me to congratu- late you now, as a brother of the quill. You have committed your character and fame; which will now be tried, for ages to come, by the illus- 1 Mrs Catherine Cockburn was daughter to Ruther- ford, Esq., of Fairmalee in Selkirkshire. She died in 1794, at an advanced age. A turret in the old house of Fairmalee is still shown as the place where the poem was written. Mrs Cock- burn so successfully imitated the style of the old ballad in the poem here referred to, that Sir Walter Scott declares it required the most direct evidence to convince him it was a modern com- position. 2 “There is a copy of this ballad given in the account of the Parish of Kirkpatrick-Fleeming, (which contains the tomb of fair Helen Irvine,) in the Statistics of Sir John Sinclair, vol. xiii. p. 275, to which this character is certainly not appli- cable.”—CURRIE. Other critics have added their testimony to that of Currie as to the beauty of the ballad of ‘Fair Helen of Kirkconnell.” The story upon which the ballad is founded is thus related in the first edition of the Statistics of Scotland.—“In the burial-ground of Kirkconnell, are still to be seen the tombstones of Fair Helen, and her favourite lover Adam Fleeming. She was a daughter of the family of Kirkcommell, and fell a victim to the jealousy of a lover. Being courted by two young gentlemen at the same time, the one of whom thinking himself slighted, vowed to sacrifice the other to his resentment, when he again discovered him in her company. An opportunity soon presented itself, when the faithful pair, walking along the romantic banks of the Kirtle, were discovered from the opposite banks by the assassim. Helen perceiving him lurking among the bushes, and dreading the fatal resolution, rushed to her lover's bosom, to rescue him from the danger; and thus receiving the wound intended for another, sunk and expired in her favourite's arms. He imme- diately revenged her death, and slew the murderer. The inconsolable Adam Fleeming, now sinking under the pressure of grief, went abroad and served under the banners of Spain, against the infidels. The impression, however, was too strong to be obliterated. The image of woe attended him thither; and the pleasing remembrance of the tender scenes that were past, with the melancholy reflection, that they could mever return, harassed his soul, and deprived his mind of repose. He soon returned, and stretching himself on her grave, expired, and was buried by her side. Upon the tombstone are engraven a sword and cross, with “Hicjacet Adamus Fleeming.” The memory of this is preserved in an old Scots ballad, which relates the tragi- cal event, and which is said to have been written by Adams Fleeming, when in Spain.” The following is the modern version of this ballad, which is much abridged from the old, and which yet retains all the beauty and pathos of the original. The opening verse has been made use of by Gifford in his poem “To Amma.” ‘I wish I were where Anna lies : For I am sick of lingering here; And every hour affection cries, Go, and partake her narrow bier . ' FAIR HELEN OF KIRKCONNEL L. * I wish I were where Helen lies— Night and day on me she cries; O that I were where Helen lies, On fair Kirkconnell lea. “O Helen fair, beyond compare, I'll make a garland of thy hair, Shall bind my heart for evermair, Until the day I die. ‘Curs'd be the heart that thought the thought, And curs'd the hand that fir'd the shot, When in my arms burd Helen dropt, And died for sake o’ me. “O think na but my heart was sair When my love fell and spak' nae mair; I laid her down wi' meikle care, On fair Kirkconnell lea. “I laid her down, my sword did draw, Stern was our strife in Kirtle-shaw– I hew'd him down in pieces sma', For her that died for me. “O that I were where Helen lies, Night and day on me she cries, Out of my bed she bids me rise, “O come, my love, to me!' “O Helen fair O Helen chaste Were I with thee I would be blest, Where thou ly'st low, and tak'st thy rest On fair Kirkconnell lea. * I wish I were where Helen lies, Night and day on me she cries; I’m sick of all beneath the skies, Since my love died for me.” 102 9. S) =º: %3: {} 5 SS º– WITH THOMSON. trious jury of the SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF TASTE—all whom poesy can please, or music charm. Being a bard of nature, I have some pretensions to second sight; and I am warranted by the spirit to foretell and affirm, that your great-grand child will hold up your volumes, and say with honest pride, “This so much admired selection was the work of my ancestor.” No. XXIX. MR. THOMSON TO BURNS. EDIN., IST AUGUST, 1793. 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 you come to hear the songs sung and accompanied, you will be charmed with them. * The bonnie brucket Lassie,” certainly deserves better verses, and I hope you will match her. * Cauld 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’ll 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 Traquair,’ ‘Lord Gregory,’ and the like; for in the manner the latter were fre- quently 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 expression altogether, and instead of speaking 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 undoubt- edly grace my collection. No. XXX. BURNS TO MR THOMSON. AUGUST, 1793. MY DEAR THOMSON, IIIOLD the pen for your friend Clarke, 1 who at present is studying the music of the spheres at my elbow. The Georgium Sidus he thinks is rather out of tune; so until he rectify that matter, he cannot stoop to terrestrial affairs. 1 Stephen Clarke, teacher and composer of music. He super- gº intended the musical department of Johnson's Museum. 103 ($ He sends you six of the Rondeau subjects, and º if more are wanted, he says you shall have them. Confound your long stairs S. CLARKE. No. XXXI. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. AUGUST, 1793. YoUR objection, my dear Sir, to the passages in my song of “Logan Water,’ is right in one instance; but it is difficult to mend it : if I can I will. The other passage you object to does not appear in the same light to me. I have tried my hand on ‘Robin 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 any thing better to it. PHILLIS THE FAIR.2 TUNE–" Robin Adair.” I. WHILE larks with little wing Fann'd the pure air, Tasting the breathing spring, Forth I did fare; Gay the Sun's golden eye, Peep’d o'er the mountains high; Such thy morn! did I cry, Phillis the fair. II. In each bird's careless song, Glad did I share; While yon wild flowers among, Chance led me there : Sweet to the opening day, Rosebuds bent the dewy spray; Such thy bloom! did I say, Phillis the fair. III. 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. 2 A tribute to Miss Phillis MºMurdo, written at the request of Stephen Clarke. She was one of his pupils, and he enter- tained a penchant for her. She afterwards became Mrs Nor- man Lockhart of Carmwath, and died Sepenber 5th, 1825. BURNS’ CORRESPONDENCE 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 ſ 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. they were “first acquent.” The drawing would do honour to the pencil of Teniers." No. XXXIII. BURNS TO MR THOMSON. AUGUST, 1793. THAT Crinkum-crankum tune, ‘ Robin 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 hap- pened about three years ago. That struck my fancy, and I endeavoured to do the idea justice as follows:— No. XXXII. MR THOMSON TO BURNS. AUGUST, 1792. #}at # a (Tabe, MY GOOD SIR, TUNE–" Robin Adair.” I consider it one of the most agreeable cir- I C attending thi lication of mi : º cumstances attending this publication * | HAD I a cave on some wild, distant shore, that it has procured me so many of your much- º 3. * e Where the winds howl to the waves’ dashing roar: valued epistles. Pray make my acknowledg- - • There would I weep my woes, ments to St Stephen for the tunes; tell him I * o º - º There seek my last repose, admit the justness of his complaint on my stair- - e e - e. e º Till grief my eyes should close, case, conveyed in his laconic postscript to your 2 - 3. g tº Ne'er to wake more. jew d'esprit, which I perused more than once, II ithout discovering exactly whether your discus- e withou e Sºb y er y Falsest of womankind, canst thou declare, sion was music, astronomy, or politics; though a * º g e •º º º ..., | All thy fond–plighted vows—fleeting as air? sagacious friend, acquainted with the convivial • º © tº * To thy new lover hie, habits of the poet and the musician, offered me a Laugh o'er th • ***** bet of two to one, you were just drowning care j e . . p º• , together; that an empty bowl was the only thing º hy º . that would deeply affect you, and the only matter at peace is there: you could then study how to remedy I shall be glad to see you give ‘Robin 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 conclud- ing objectionable verses of ‘Down the burn, Davie,” so that this most exquisite song may no longer be excluded from good company. Mr Allan has made an inimitable drawing from your ‘John Anderson, my Jo,’ which I am to have By the way, I have met with a musical High- lander in Breadalbane’s Fencibles, which are quartered here, who assures me that he well re- members his mother's singing Gaelic songs to both * Robin Adair,’ and ‘Gramachree.” They cer- tainly 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 what, I shrewdly suspect to be the case, the wandering minstrels, 1 This praise of David Allan the painter, appears now extra- vagant and unmerited. He was the Wilkie of his day, but so 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 immeasurably has the latter distinguished, and now deeply to be lamented artist, surpassed him in the illustration of Scottish characters, that the productions of Allan appear to modern eyes tame, ineffective, and bizarre.—Allan was a native of Alloa, and born in 1744. He was for many years master and director of the academy established by the Board of Trustees at Edinburgh for manufactures and improvements. He illus- trated the Gentle Shepherd, and left a series of sketches designed for the poems of Burns. His death took place on the d 6th August, 1796, just a fortnight after the poet's own decease. looks at her with such glee, as to show that he fully recollects the pleasant days and nights when | clapping John's shoulders, while he smiles and 104 WITH THOMSON. harpers, and pipers, used to go frequently errant through the wilds both of Scotland and Ireland, and so some favourite airs might be common to both. A case in point—they have lately, in Ire- land, published an Irish air, as they say, called ‘Caun du delish.” The fact is, in a publication of Corri's, a great while ago, you will find the same air, called a Highland one, with a Gaelic song set to it. Its name there, I think, is ‘Oran Gaoil,” and a fine air it is, Do ask honest Allan, or the Rev. Gaelic parson, 1 about these matters. No. XXXIV. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. AUGUST, 1793. MY DEAR SIR, ‘LET me in this ae night,” 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 muse repeat,” &c. as the words appeared to me rather unworthy of so fine an air, and recollecting that it is on your list, I sat and raved under the shade of an old thorn, till I wrote one to suit the mea- sure. I may be wrong; but I think it not in my worst style. You must know, that in Ramsay’s Tea-table, where the modern song first appeared, the ancient name of the tune, Allan says, is “ Allan Water,” or ‘My love Annie's very 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:— 36p 3 IIan $tream. BY Allan-stream I chanc'd to rove, While Phoebus sank behind Benledi;” The winds were whispering thro’ the grove, The yellow corn was waving ready: I listen’d to a lover's sang, And thought on youthfu' pleasures many; And aye the wild-wood echoes rang— O dearly do I love thee, Annie! 3 II. O happy be the woodbine 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’m thine for ever!” While mony a kiss the seal imprest, The sacred vow, we ne'er should sever. III. The haunt o’ spring's the primrose brae, The simmer joys the flocks to follow: How cheery thro’ her shortening day Is autumn in her weeds o' yellow! 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. Should 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 verses in it than all the year else. God bless you! NO. XXXV. BURNS TO MR THOMSON. AUGUST, 1793. Is “Whistle and I’ll come to you, my lad,” one of your airs ? I admire 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. The set of the air which I had in my eye is in Johnson's Museum. [See p. 15.] Q9 mi)istle, and it’II colue to pou. I. O WHISTLE, and I’ll come to you, my lad, O whistle, and I’ll come to you, my lad; Tho' father and mother and a should gaemad, O whistle, and I’ll come to you, my lad.4 But warily tent, when you come to court me, And come na unless the back—yett be a-jee; Syne up the back-stile and let maebody see, And come as ye were na comin’ to me, And come as ye were na comin’ to me. 1 The Gaelic parson here referred to, was the Rev. Joseph Robertson Macgregor, the first minister of the first Gaelic chapel in Edinburgh, which was erected on the Castlehill in 1769. He died in 1801. He was of a free and social disposition, and much taken out to baptisms and marriages. A portrait and description of him will be found in Kay's Portraits, vol. I. 2 A mountain west of Strath-Allan, 3,009 feet high.-R. B. 3 Or, “O my love Annie's very bonnie.”—R. B. 4 MS. Variation :- * O whistle, and I'll come to thee, my jo, O whistle, and I’ll come to thee, my jo; Tho' father and mother and a' should say no, O whistle, and I'll come to thee, my jo. 105 O ==% (Ö BURNS’ CORRESPONDENCE II. At kirk, or at market, whene'er ye meet me, Gang by me as though ye car'd na a flie; But steal me a blink o' your bonnie black e'e, Yet look as ye were na lookin’ at me, Yet look as ye were na lookin' at me. III. Aye vow and protest that ye care na for me, And whyles ye may lightly my beauty a wee; But court na anither, though jokin’ ye be, For fear that she wyle your fancy frae me, For fear that she wyle your fancy frae me. O whistle, and I’ll come to you, my lad, O whistle, and I’ll come to you, my lad; Tho' father, and mither, anda'should gae mad, O whistle, and I’ll come to you, my lad. Another favourite air of mine is, “ The muckin’ o' Geordie's byre.’ When sung slow with ex- pression, I have wished that it had had better poetry: that, I have endeavoured to supply as follows:— Klugmit (Iſºflimbing ſ?itſ). I. 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 wit her can compare, Whaever has met wi' my Phillis, Has met wi' the queen o’ the fair. II, The daisy amus'd my fond fancy, So artless, so simple, so wild; Thou emblem, said I, o' my Phillis! For she is simplicity's child. III. The rose bud's the blush o' my charmer, Her sweet balmy lip when 'tis prest: How fair and how pure is the lily, But fairer and purer her breast. IV. Yon knot of gay flowers in the arbour, They ne'er wi' my Phillis can vie; Her breath is the breath o’ the woodbine, Its dew-drop o' diamond, her eye. V. Her voice is the song of the morning, That wakes thro’ the green-spreading grove, When Phoebus peeps over the mountains, On music, and pleasure, and love. VI. 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. 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. Mr Clarke begs you to give Miss Phillis a cor- ner in your book, as she is a particular flame of his. She is a Miss P. M.1 sister to “Bonnie Jean.” They are both pupils of his. You shall hear from me, the very first grist I get from my rhyming-mill. No. XXXVI. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. AUGUST, 1793. THAT tune, ‘Cauld Kail,” is such a favourite of yours, that I once more roved out yesterday for a gloamin-shot at the muses;2 when the muse that presides o'er the shores of Nith, or rather my old inspiring dearest nymph, Coila, whispered me the following. I have two reasons for thinking that it was my early, Sweet simple inspirer that was by my elbow, “smooth gliding without step,” and pouring the song on my glowing fancy. In the first place, since I left Coila's 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 occasional visits; secondly, the last stanza of this song I send you, is the very words that Coila taught me many years ago, and which I set to an old Scots reel in Johnson’s Mu- Sellſſl. (Tomte, àet me (Iake Oſijee. TUN e—“Cauld Kail.” I. COME, let me take thee to my breast, And pledge we ne'er shall sunder; And I shall spurn as vilest dust The 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. II. Thus in my arms, wi' a' thy charms, I clasp my countless treasure; I’ll seek nae mair o’ heaven to share, Than sic a moment's pleasure: I Phillis M*Murdo, see note at p. 103. 2 ‘Gloamin'—twilight, probably from glooming. A beautiful poetic word which ought to be adopted in England. A gloam- in’-shot, a twilight interview.”—CURR1e. 106 WITH THOMSON. And by thy een, sae bonnie blue, I swear I’m 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 last 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 Ramsay’s words, that a different song, though positively su- perior, would not be so well received. I am not fond of choruses to songs, so I have not made one for the foregoing. No. XXXVII. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. AUGUST, 1793. #Bainty Babie, 1 I. Now rosy May comes in wi' flowers, To deck her gay, green-spreading bowers; And now comes in my happy hours, To wander wi' my Davie. Meet me on the warlock knowe, Dainty Davie, dainty Davie; There I’ll spend the day wi' you, My ain dear dainty Davie. 1 This is merely an alteration of a song by Burns, which he sent to the Museum, but without the chorus, and which will be found at p. 27, beginning, • “When rosy May comes in wi' flowers.” ‘Dainty Davie,’ says Cunningham, ‘is the name of an old merry song, from which Burns has borrowed nothing save the title and the measure. It relates the adventure of David Wil- liamson, a preacher of the days of the Covenant: he was pur- sued by Dalzell's dragoons, and seeking refuge in the house of Cherrytrees, the devout lady put the man of God into a bed beside her daughter, to hide him from the men of Belial: the return which the reverend gentleman made for this is set forth very graphically in the old verses. The young lady sings— “Being pursued by a dragoon, Within my bed he was laid down, And weel I wat he was worth his room— My douce, my dainty Davie.” ‘The lady of Cherrytrees is not the only example of strong faithin the fair sex. Sir Robert Strange, the eminent engraver, fled in his youth from a field of battle, where he had fought in vain for his native princes, and, being hotly pursued, sought refuge in a gentleman's house, where a lady—beautiful and young—concealed him under her hooped petticoat. When the days of peace came and fortune smiled, the grateful rebel wooed his protectress and made her his wife: she was equally witty and lovely, and figured among the fashionables of London till the death of her husband, “The Nithsdale lady went to no such extremities in her affection—her name has not transpired—the name of one who had courage to keep a tryste on the “Warlock knowe” is Worthy of remembrance." II. The crystal waters round us fa', The merry birds are lovers a', The scented breezes round us blaw, A wandering wi' my Davie. III. When purple morning starts the hare, To steal upon her early fare, Then thro’ the dews I will repair, To meet my faithful Davie. IV. When day, expiring in the west, The curtain draws o' nature’s rest, I flee to his arms I lo’e best, And that's my ain dear Davie. Meet me on the warlock knowe, Bonnie Davie, dainty Davie; There I'll spend the day wi' you, My ain dear dainty 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. N.B. In the Museum they have drawled out the tune to twelve lines of poetry, which is damned nonsense. Four lines of song, and four of chorus, is the way. No. XXXVIII. 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.’ “Come, let me take thee to my breast,”—“Adown wind- ing 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 cave on Some wild distant shore,” is a striking and affect- ing composition. Our friend, to whose story it refers, read it with a swelling heart, I assure you. The union we are now forming, I think, 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 sen- sibility exist in our island. While the muse seems so propitious, I think it right to inclose a list of all the favours I have to I ask of her, no fewer than twenty and three I \ & K. 107 BURNS’ CORRESPONDENCE 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. No. XXXIX. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. SEPT. 1793. YOU may readily trust, my dear Sir, that any exertion in my power is heartily at your service. But one thing I must hint to you; the very name of Peter Pindar is of great service to your publi- cation, so get a verse from him now and then; though I have no objection, as well as I can, to bear the burden of the business. You know that my pretensions to musical taste are merely a few of nature's instincts, untaught and untutored by art. For this reason, many musical compositions, particularly where much of the merit lies in counterpoint, however they may transport and ravish the ears of 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, “Hey, tuttie taitie,’ may rank among this number; but well I know that, with Frazer's hautboy, it has often filled my eyes with tears. There is a tra- dition, which I have met with in many places in Scotland, that it was Robert Bruce's march at the battle of Bannockburn. This thought, in my yes- ternight's evening walk, warmed me to a pitch of enthusiasm on the theme of liberty and independ- ence," 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 fol- lowers on that eventful morning. 1 Currie altered this sentence, in order, it is presumed, to make it harmonize with Mr Syme's narrative regarding the composition of this Ode, wherein it is said that Burns made it during a storm of thunder and rain among the wilds of Glenken, in Galloway. (See Currie's Life.) In his edition of the Poet's works the passage stands thus:—‘This thought, in my soli- tary wanderings, warmed me to a pitch of enthusiasm on the theme of liberty, independence,’ &c. Allan Cunningham, in his Life of the Poet, refers to the alteration, and to the light which the original reading throws on the composition of the poem, but, strange to say, in the correspondence he allows the letter to remain in its altered state. In the ‘Essay on the Genius and Character of Burns,' by Professor Wilson, prefixed to the pre- sent edition, the point as to the period of the composition of the Ode is handled by the Professor with his usual wit and acumen. 33ruce's @bbregg to jig Ørnup at 33attituckburn, TUNE—“Hey, twttie taiti.e.” I. SCOTS, wha ha'e wi' Wallace bled, Scots, wham Bruce has aften led; Welcome to your gory bed, Or to victoriel II. Now’s the day, and now's the hour: See the front o’ battle lower; See approach proud Edward's power— Chains and slavery ! III. Wha will be a traitor—knave 2 Wha can fill a coward’s grave? Wha sae base as be a slave? Let him turn and flee IV. Wha for Scotland's king and law Freedom's sword will strongly draw, Freeman stand, or freeman fa’, Let him follow me! V. By oppression’s woes and pains! By your sons in servile chains! We will drain our dearest veins, But they shall be free! VI. Lay the proud usurpers low ! Tyrants fall in every foe! Liberty's in every blow !— Let us do, or die! So may God ever defend the cause of truth and liberty, as he did that day!—Amen. P. S. I showed the air to Urbani, who was highly pleased with it, and begged me to make soft verses for it; but I had no idea of giving myself any trouble on the subject, till the acci- dental recollection of that glorious struggle for freedom, associated with the glowing ideas of Some other struggles of the same nature, not quite So ancient, roused my rhyming mania. Clarke's set of the tune, with his bass, you will find in the Museum; though I am afraid that the air is not what will entitle it to a place in your elegant selection, 108 WITH THOMSON. -***- NO. XL. BURNS TO MR THOMSON. SEPT. I'793. I DARE say, my dear Sir, that you will begin to think my correspondence 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, that it is sure to run poor pil- garlic, the bedlam-jockey, quite beyond any use- ful point or post in the common race of man. 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 mint. If it suit you, well!—if not, 'tis also well! 36ejoſt, fije. £our. 1 TUNe—“Oran-gaoil.” I. BEHOLD the hour, the boat arrive; Thou goest, thou darling of my heart! Sever’d from thee can I survive? But fate has will’d, 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 mark’d her vanish’d sail.” II. 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’ll say, Where now my Nancy's path may be! While thro’ thy sweets she loves to stray, O tell me, does she muse on me! No. XLI. MR. THOMSON TO BURNS. EDINBURGH, 5TH SEPT. 1793. I BELIEVE it is generally allowed that the greatest modesty is the sure attendant of the greatest merit. While you are sending me verses 1 Clarinda is said to have been the inspirer of these verses:— they were written at a time when she contemplated going to the West Indies. S. ** CY S's sº- G) ºyº that even Shakspeare might be proud to own, you speak of them as if they were ordinary pro- ductions! Your heroic ode is to me the noblest composition of the kind in the Scottish language. I happened 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 suit- able air for it, and reprobated the idea of giving it a tune so totally devoid of interest or grandeur as ‘Hey, tuttie 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 worthy 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 spirit, 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 char- acterize 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 glorious victorie. 2d, Chaims—chains and slaverie. 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 ws do, or die. If you connect each line with its own verse, I do not think you will find that either the senti- ment 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.” Would not another word be preferable to “welcome?” In your next I will expect to be informed whe- ther you agree to what I have proposed. The little alterations I submit with the greatest defer- ence.” The beauty of the verses you have made for ‘Oran-gaoil” will ensure celebrity to the air. 109 2 The reader is referred to what is said by Professor Wilson, in his Essay, on the subject of Burns's Ode and Thomson's criticisms on it. The acute and lucid judgment which the Professor displays on this point, is only equalled by the exuber- ant and irresistible humour which he intermingles with the discussion, in a style peculiarly his own, and never to be imi- tated. s Sº G :3) º º s' BURNS’ CORRESPONDENCE No. XLII. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. SEPT, 1793. I HAVE received your list, my dear Sir, and here go my observations on it. 1 * Down the burn Davie.” I have this moment tried an alteration, leaving out the last half of the third stanza, and the first half of the last stanza, thus: As down the burn they took their way, And thro’ the flowery dale; His cheeks to hers he aft did lay, And love was aye the tale. With “Mary, when shall we return, Sic pleasure to renew 2° Quoth Mary, “Love, I like the burn, And aye shall follow you.”? “Thro’ the wood, laddie’—I am decidedly of opinion that both in this, and “There’ll never be peace till Jamie comes hame,” the second or high part of the tune being a repetition of the first part an octave higher, is only for instrumental music, and would be much better omitted in singing. * Cowden-knowes.’ Remember in your index that the song in pure English to this tune, begin- ning, “When summer comes, the swains on Tweed,” is the production of Crawford. Robert was his Christian name. ‘Laddie, lie near me,’ must lie by me for some time. I do not know the air; and until I am complete master of a tune, in my own singing (such as it is,) I can never compose for it. My way is: I consider the poetic sentiment corres- pondent to my idea of the musical expression; then choose my theme; begin one stanza; when that is composed, which is generally the most difficult part of the business, I walk out, sit down now and then, look out for objects in nature around me that are in unison and harmony with the cogitations of my fancy, and workings of my bosom; humming every now and then the air with the verses I have framed. When I feel my muse beginning to jade, I retire to the solitary 1 ‘Mr Thomson's list of songs for his publication. In his remarks the bard proceeds in order, and goes through the whole; but on many of them he merely signifies his approba- tion. All his remarks of any importance are presented to the reader.”—CURRIE. 2 * 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. fire-side of my study, and there commit my effu- sions to paper; swinging at intervals on the hind legs of my elbow-chair, by way of calling forth my own critical strictures, as my pen goes on. Seriously, this, at home, is almost invariably my way. What cursed egotism! * Gil Morice,” I am for leaving out. It is a plaguy length; the air itself is never sung; and its place can well be supplied by one or two songs for fine airs that are not in your list. For in- stance, ‘Cragieburn Wood, and ‘Roy's Wife.” The first, beside its intrinsic merit, has novelty; and the last has high merit as well as great cele- brity. I have the original words of a song for the last air, in the hand-writing of the lady who composed it; and they are superior to any edition of the song which the public has yet seen.3 “Highland-laddie.’ The old set will please a mere Scotch ear best; and the new an Italianized one. There is a third, and what Oswald calls the old ‘Highland-laddie,” which pleases me more than either of them. It is sometimes called * Ginglin Johnnie;’ it being the air of an old humorous tawdry song of that name. You will find it in the Museum, ‘ I ha'e been at Crookie- den,’ &c. I would advise you, in this musical quandary, to offer up your prayers to the muses for inspiring direction; and in the mean time, waiting for this direction, bestow a libation to Bacchus; and there is not a doubt but you will hit on a judicious choice. Probatum est. ‘Auld Sir Simon,' I must beg you to leave out, and put in its place ‘The Quaker's Wife.’ .* Blithe ha'e I been o'er the hill,” [see p. 99.] is one of the finest songs ever I made in my life, and, besides, is composed on a young lady, posi- tively the most beautiful, lovely woman in the world. As I purpose giving you the names and designations of all my heroines, to appear in some future edition of your work, perhaps half a century hence, you must certainly include ‘The bonniest lass in a’ the warld,” in your collection. ‘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 inclose you Frazer's set of this tune when he plays it slow; in fact, he makes it the language of despair. 4 I shall here 110 3 This song is given in No. LXVI. 4 “I had the pleasure of hearing Mr Frazer play “Fee him, Father,” in the exquisite style above described, at his benefit in the theatre-royal, Edinburgh, 1822. After having for many years occupied the station of hautbois player at the orchestri ~~~> R; ~ſ º * * wº 3. *> BURNS’ CORRESPONDENCE the head of them as the author, though it was the first time I had ever seen them. I thank you for admitting ‘Craigieburn Wood;’ 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 pro- pitious moment, I shall write a new ‘Craigie- burn Wood’ 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 whether I was rich or poor, I promised Chloris a copy of your songs. It wrings my honest pride to write you this: but an ungracious request is doubly so by a tedious apology. To make you some amends, as soon as I have extracted the necessary information out of them, I will return you Ritson's volumes. The lady is not a little proud that she is to make so distinguished a figure in your collection, and I am not a little proud that I have it in my power to please her so much. Lucky it is for your patience that my paper is done, for when I am in a scribbling humour, I know not when to give over. No. LXIV. MR. THOMSON TO BURNS. 15TH NOVEMBER, 1794. MIY GOOD SIR, SINCE receiving your last, I have had another interview with Mr Clarke, and a long consulta- tion. He thinks the ‘Caledonian Hunt’ is more Bacchanalian than amorous in its nature, and recommends it to you to match the air accord- ingly. Pray, did it ever occur to you how pecu- liarly well the Scottish airs are adapted for verses in the form of a dialogue? The first part of the air is generally 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 song thus performed makes an agree- able 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 uni- versal favourite. Your verses for “Rothemurche” are so sweetly | pastoral, and your serenade to Chloris, for ‘Deil t tak’ the wars,” so passionately tender, that I have sung myself into raptures with them. Your song for “My lodging is on the cold ground,’ is like- *2 wise a diamond of the first water: I am quite dazzled and delighted by it. Some of your Chlorises, I suppose, have flaxen hair, 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! ‘Farewell thou stream that winding flows,” I think excellent, but it is much too serious to come after ‘Nancy:’ at least it would seem an incon- gruity to provide the same air with merry Scot- tish and melancholy 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: I care not how long they be, for it is impossible that any thing 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. NO. LXV. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 19TH NOVEMBER, 1794. YOU See, my dear Sir, what a punctual corres- pondent 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 searcely ever off his back. For instance, this morning, though a keen blowing frost, in my walk before break- fast, I finished my duet, which you were pleased to praise so much. Whether I have uniformly succeeded, I will not say; but here it is for you, though it is not an hour old. QB Bijilip, #appp he tijat IBap. TUNE–% The Sow's Tail.” IIE. O PHILLY, happy be that day When roving through the gather'd hay, My youthfu' heart was stown away, And by thy charms, my Philly. SHE. O Willy, aye I bless the grove Where first Iown'd my maiden love, Whilst thou didst pledge the Powers above To be my ain dear Willy. 130 WITH THOMSON. H.E. 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. SHE. As on the brier the budding rose Still richer breathes and fairer blows, So in my tender bosom grows The love I bear my Willy. H.E. The milder sun and bluer sky, That crown my harvest cares wi' joy, Were ne'er sae welcome to my eye As is the sight o' Philly. SHE. The little swallow's wanton wing, Tho' wafting o'er the flowery spring, Did ne'er to me sic tidings bring, As meeting o' my Willy. HE. The bee that thro’ the sunny hour Sips nectar in the opening flower, Compar'd wi' my delight is poor, Upon the lips o' Philly. SHE. The woodbine in the dewy wect, When evening shades in silence meet, Is nocht sae fragrant or sae sweet As is a kiss o’ Willy. FIE. 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 Philly. SHE. What's a' the joys that gowd can gi'el I care na wealth a single flie; The lad I love's the lad for me, And that's my ain dear Willy. 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 Philly; 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 any thing except burlesque. The legion of Scottish poetasters of the day, whom your brother editor, Mr Ritson, ranks with me, as my coevals, have always mis- taken vulgarity for simplicity: whereas, simplicity is as much eloignée from vulgarity, on the one hand, as from affected point and puerile conceit on the other. I agree with you as to the air, “Craigieburn Wood,” that a chorus would in some degree spoil the effect; and shall certainly have none in my projected song to it. It is not, however, a case in point with ‘Rothemurche;’ there, as in ‘Roy’s Wife of Aldivalloch,’ a chorus goes to my taste well enough. As to the chorus going first, that is the case with ‘Roy’s Wife,’ as well as “Rothe- murche.” In fact, in the first part of both tunes, the rhythm is so peculiar and irregular, and on that irregularity depends so much of their beauty, that we must e'en take them with all their wild- ness, and humour the verse accordingly. Leaving out the starting note, in both tunes, has, I think, an effect that no regularity could counterbalance the want of. O Roy's Wife of Aldivalloch. O Lassie wi' the lint-white locks. Roy's Wife of Aldivalloch Lassie wi' the lint-white locks. Try, and compare with, { Does not the tameness of the prefixed syllable strike you? In the last case, with the true furor of genius, you strike at once into the wild origi- nality of the air; whereas, in the first insipid method, it is like the grating screw of the pins before the fiddle is brought into tune. This is my taste; if I am wrong, I beg. pardon of the cognoscenti. ‘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 hame,” is, for wit and humour, an unparalleled composition; and ‘Andrew and his cutty Gun,” is the work of a master. By the way, are you not quite vexed to think that those men of genius, for such they certainly were, who composed our fine Scottish lyrics, should be unknown It has given me many a heart-ache. Apropos to Bac- chanalian songs in Scottish ; I composed one yesterday, for an air I like much—“Lumps o' pudding.’ QTontented intº 31 iffle. TUNE—“Latimps o' pudding.” I. CoNTENTED wi' little, and cantie wi' mair, Whene’er I forgather wi' sorrow and care, I gi'e them a skelp, as they’re creepin’ alang, Wi’ a cog o' guid swats, and an auld Scottish sang. 131 BURNS’ CORRESPONDENCE II. I whyles claw the elbow o' troublesome thought; But man is a sodger, and life is a faught: My mirth and good humour are coin in my pouch, And my freedom's my lairdship nae monarch dare touch. III. A towmond o’ trouble, should that be my fa’, A night o' guid fellowship southers it a': When at the blithe end o’ our journey at last, Wha the de'il ever thinks o' the road he has past 2 IV. Blind chance, let her snapper and stoyte on her way; Be’t to me, be’t frae me, c'en let the jade gae : Come ease, or come travail; come pleasure or pain, My warst word is—“Welcome, and welcome again l’’ If you do not relish this air, I will send it to Johnson. NO, LXVI. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. SINCE yesterday's penmanship, I have framed a couple of English stanzas, by way of an English song to “Roy’s Wife.” You will allow me, that, in this instance, my English corresponds in senti- ment with the Scottish :— (Tam;t fijou Ieate me tijug, mp #atp.l TUNE –“ Roy's Wife.” I. Canst thou leave me thus, my Katy 2 Canst thou leave me thus, my Katy 2 Well 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 swain's reward— An aching, broken heart, my Katy' II. 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, Katy. Canst thou leave me thus, my Katy Canst thou leave me thus, my Katy? Well thou know'st my aching heart— And canst thou leave me thus for pity ? Well! I think this, to be done in two or three turns across my room, and with 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 being known to one another, to be the best friends on carth,) that I much suspect he has, in his plates, mistaken the figure of the stock and horn. I have, at last, gotten one; but it is a very rude instrument. It is composed of three parts; the stock, which is the hinder thigh-bone of a sheep, such as you see in a mutton ham; the horn, which is a common Highland cow's horn, cut off at the small end, until the aperture be large enough to admit the stock to be pushed up through the horn, until it be held by the thicker end of the thigh- bone; and lastly, an oaten reed exactly cut and notched like that which you see every shepherd boy have, when the corn-stems are green and full grown. The reed is not made fast in the bone, but is held by the lips, and plays loose in the ~ y, S. is Q}{\ſ, (~\ 132 5%) ~ ( ) \ § O) º jº 3––––––– º: sº 1 * To this address, in the character of a forsaken lover, a reply was found, on the part of the lady, among the MSS. of our bard, evidently in a female hand-writing. The temptation to give it to the public is irresistible; and if, in so doing, offence should be given to the fair authoress, the beauty of her verses must plead our excuse :- TUNE–“ Roy's Wife.” Stay, my Willie—yet believe me Stay, my Willie—yet believe me, For, ah thou know'st ma every pang Wad wring my bosom shouldst thou leave me. Tell me that thou yet art true, And a my wrongs shall be forgiven, And when this heart proves fause to thee, Yon sum shall cease its course in heaven. But to think I was betrayed, That falsehood e'er our loves should sunder To take the flow'ret to my breast, And find the guilful serpent under. Could I hope thou 'dst meer deceive, Celestial pleasures might I choose 'em, I’d slight, nor seek in other spheres That heaven I'd find within thy bosom. Stay, my Willie—yet believe me, Stay, my Willie—yet believe me, For, ah I thou know'st na every pang Wad wring my bosom shouldst thou leave me. * It may amuse the reader to be told, that on this occasion the gentleman and the lady have exchanged the dialects of their respective countries. The Scottish Bard makes his address in pure English; the reply on the part of the lady, in the Scottish dialect, is, if we mistake not, by a young and beautiful Eng- lishwoman.”—CURRIE. The accomplished lady who wrote the reply was Mrs Riddel, of Woodlee Park, already more than once mentioned in our Notes. See pages 128, Vol. i. and 64, Vol. ii. In a moment of excitement, the poet so far forgot himself, it is said, as to at- tempt to salute her, a freedom which she resented by an estrangement which lasted two years. WITH THOMSON. smaller end of the stock; while the stock, with the horn hanging on its larger end, is held by the hands in playing. The stock has six or seven ven- tiges on the upper side, and one back ventige, like the common flute. This of mine was made by a man from the braes of Athole, and is exactly what the shepherds were wont to use in that country. However, either it is not quite properly bored in the holes, or else we have not the art of blowing it rightly; for we can make little of it. If Mr Allan chooses, I will send him a sight of mine; as I look on myself to be a kind of brother brush with him. “Pride in poets is nae sin;” and I will say it, that I look on Mr Allan and Mr Burns to be the only genuine and real painters of Scottish costume in the world. NO, XLVII. MR. THOMSON TO BURNS. - 28TH NOW. I794. I ACKNOWLEDGE, my dear Sir, you are not only the most punctual, but the most delectable cor- respondent I ever met with. To attempt flatter- ing you never entered 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 me to the devil. On the contrary, however, 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 duet is a chef d’awvre. “Lumps o' pudding’ shall cer- tainly 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 are easily sung, and acceptable to every body. 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 Soldier's Return,” to be engraved for one of my frontispieces. The most interesting point of time appears to me, when she first recognises her ain dear Willie, “She gaz'd, she redden’d like a rose.” diately 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 me to thank you for your accurate description of the stock and horn, and for the very gratifying compliment you pay him in considering him worthy of standing in a niche 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 any thing but routing and roaring. A friend 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. No. LXVIII. BURNS TO MR THOMSON. DECEMBER, 1794. IT is, I assure you, the pride of my heart, to do any thing to forward, or add to the value of your book; and as I agree with you that the Jacobite song in the Museum, to ‘There’ll never be 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:— iſłłp Nannie's atma'. I TUNe—“There'll never be peace,” &c. I. Now in her green mantle blithe nature arrays, And listens the lambkins that bleat o'er the braes, While birds warble welcome in ilka green shaw; But to me it’s delightless—my Nannie's awa’ſ II. The snaw-drap 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’ſ 1 Clarinda is said to have been the inspirer of this song : the º, GY The three lines imme- name alone, perhaps, justifies the suggestion. ! 133 ſº & “T” BURNS’ CORRESPONDENCE III. Thoulav'rock that springsfraethe dews of the lawn, The shepherd to warn o’ the grey-breaking dawn, And thou mellow mavis that hails the night fa’, Give over for pity—my Nannie's awa’ſ IV. Come, autumn, sae pensive, in yellow and grey, And soothe me wi' tidings o’ nature's decay: The dark, dreary winter, and wild-driving snaw, Alane can delight me—now Nannie's awa. How does this please you? As to the point of time for the expression, in your proposed print from my ‘Sodger's Return,” it must certainly be at-“She gaz'd.” The interesting dubiety and suspense taking possession 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. NO. LXIX. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. JAN., 1795. I FEAR for my songs; however, a few may please, yet originality is a coy feature in composi- tion, and in a multiplicity of efforts in the same style, disappears altogether. For these three thousand years, we poetic folks have been describ- ing the spring, for instance; and as the spring continues the same, there must soon be a same- ness in the imagery, &c. of these said rhyming folks. A great critic (Aikin) on songs, says that love and wine are the exclusive themes for song- writing. The following is on neither subject, and consequently is no song; but will be allowed, I think, to be two or three pretty good prose thoughts inverted into rhyme:— iſfor a' (Tijat, and a' (Tijat. TUNE—“For a that, and a' that.” I. 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 gowd for a’ that. II. What tho’ on hamely fare we dine, Wear hoddin grey, and a' that ; Gi’e fools their silks, and knaves their wine, A man’s a man for a that For a’ that, and a' that, Their tinsel show, and a' that ; The honest man, though e'er sae poor, Is king o’ men for a that III. Ye see yon birkie, ca’d a lord, Wha struts, and stares, and a' that ; Tho' hundreds worship at his word, He’s but a coof for a’ that : For a’ that, and a that, His riband, star, and a that, The man of independent mind, He looks and laughs at a' that IV. A king can mak’ a belted knight," A marquis, duke, and a’ that ; But an honest man’s aboon his might, Guid faith he maunna fa’ that For a that, and a” that, Their dignities, and a’ that, The pith o' sense, and pride o’ worth, Are higher ranks than a’ that. V. Then let us pray that come it may— As come it will for a that— That sense and worth, o'er a’ the earth, May bear the gree, and a that For a’ that, and a that, It’s coming yet for a’ that, That man to man, the warld o'er, Shall brothers be for a’ that! I do not give you the foregoing song for your book, but merely by way of vive la bagatelle; for the piece is not really poetry. How will the following do for ‘Craigieburn wood : Craigieburn Jºãool. 2 I. 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. II. I see the flowers and spreading trees, I hear the wild birds singing; But what a weary wight can please, And care his bosom wringing 7 l MS. variation: A prince can mak’ a belted knight. 2 See the Poet's other version of this song, and a description of Craigieburn, at p. 36. 134 WITH THOMSON. III. Fain, fain would I my griefs impart, Yet darena for your anger; But secret love will break my heart, If I conceal it langer. IV. If thou refuse to pity me, If thou shalt love anither, When yon green leaves fade frae the tree, Around my grave they’ll wither. Farewell ! God bless you. NO. LXX. MR THOMSON TO BURNS. EDINBURGH, 30TH JAN. 1795. MY DEAR SIR, I THANK you heartily for ‘Nannie's awa’,” as well as for ‘Craigieburn,” which I think a very comely pair. Your observation on the difficulty of original writing in a number of efforts in the same style, strikes me very forcibly; 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 bagatelle song, ‘For a that,” shall undoubtedly be included in my list. NO. LXXI. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. FEBRUARY, 1795. HERE is another trial at your favourite air:— QB, #455te, art tijou gleeping pet. I TUNE—“Let me in this ae might.” I. O LASSIE, art thou sleeping yet, Or art thou wakin', I would wit? For love has bound me hand and foot, And I would fain be in, jo. O let me in this ae night, This ae, ae, ae night; For pity's sake this ae night, O rise and let me in, jo! 1 A song in Herd's collection supplied the poet with the materials of this lyric. He altered it, for the better, indeed, à) but the sentiment is substantially the same. 135 II. Thou hear'st the winter wind and weet, Nae star blinks thro’ the driving sleet: Tak’ pity on my weary feet, And shield me frae the rain, jo. III. The bitter blast that round me blaws Unheeded howls, unheeded fa’s; The cauldness o’ thy heart’s the cause Of a my grief and pain, jo. O let me in this ae night, This ae, ae, ae night; For pity’s sake this ae night, O rise and let me in, jo! HER ANSWER. I. O TELL name o’ wind and rain, Upbraid name wi' cauld disdain' Gae back the gait ye cam’ again, I winna let you in, jo. I tell you now this ae night, This ae, ae, ae night, And ance for a this ae night, I winna let you in, jo! II. The Snellest blast, at mirkest hours, That round the pathless wand’rer pours, Is nocht to what poor she endures, That’s trusted faithless man, jo. III. The sweetest flower that deck’d the mead, Now trodden like the vilest weed; Let simple maid the lesson read, The weird may be her ain, jo. IV. The bird that charm'd his summer-day, Is now the cruel fowler's prey; Let witless, trusting, woman say How aft her fate’s the same, jo. I tell you now this ae night, This ae, ae, ae night, And ance for a this ae night, I winna let you in, jo! I do not know whether it will do. LXXII. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. - ECCLEFECHAN, 7TEI FEB. 1795. MY DEAR THOMSON, YOU cannot have any idea of the predicament in which I write to you. In the course of my duty as Supervisor, (in which capacity I have () ~~~~<> though not equal to these, is very pleasing. 2 MS. variation :- ‘Jeanie, I'm thine wi' a passion sineerest.” s | 1 * The heroine of this song was Mrs Burns, who so charmed the Poet by singing it with taste and feeling, that he declared it to be one of his luckiest lyrics."—CUNNINGHAM. ; S 137 S G Nº. •S (rºy Q º Ç 9. * & -> BURNS’ CORRESPONDENCE 2. K | . NO. LXXVI. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 3% otm (true I at e ti) e $3 at ent g. ALTERED FROM AN OILD ENGLISH SONG. TUNE– “John Anderson, my jo.” I. HOW cruel are the parents Who riches only prize, And to the wealthy booby Poor woman sacrifice. Meanwhile the hapless daughter Has but a choice of strife; To shun a tyrant father's hate, Become a wretched wife, II. The ravening hawk pursuing, The trembling dove thus flies, To shun impelling ruin, A while her pinions tries; Till of escape despairing, No shelter or retreat, She trusts the ruthless falconer, And drops beneath his feet! fºlarſt pumber 130m p. TUNE–% De’īl, tak' the wan's.” I. 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 wond'ring gaze, And courtly grandeur bright The fancy may delight, But never, never can come near the heart. II. But did you see my dearest Chloris In simplicity's array; Lovely as yonder sweet opening flower is, Shrinking from the gaze of day ? O then, the heart alarming, And all resistless charming, In love's delightful fetters she chains the willing soul! Ambition would disown The world’s imperial crown, Even Avarice would deny His worshipp'd deity, chi-Hº • * * 2 -- * *~ 1. • A. º And feel thro’ ev’ry vein Love's raptures roll. J • 3. **/ G r 3.0 32. f S.-STO fººto (25 *- jºi= Jº (2–5, Ǻ 2 *...* > * 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 poetiz- ing, provided that the strait jacket of criticism don’t cure me. If you can in a post or two administer a little of the intoxicating portion of your applause, it will raise your humble servant's frenzy to any height you want. I am at this moment “holding high converse” with the Muses, and have not a word to throw away on such a prosaic dog as you are. No. LXXVII. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. MAY, 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 shown it to two or three judges of the first abili- ties here, and they all agree with me in classing it as a first rate production. My phiz is sae ken- speckle, 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 has hon- oured 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, rumblegairie urchin of mine, whom, from that propensity to witty wickedness, and manfu' mischief, which, even at twa days auld, I foresaw would form the striking features of his disposition, 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 nameless." 1 ‘The picture alluded to was painted from the “Cotter's Saturday Night:” it displays at once the talent and want of taste of the ingenious artist. The scene is a solemn one: but the serenity of the moment is disturbed by what some esteem as a beauty, namely, the attempt to cut the top of the cat's tail by the little merry urchin seated on the floor. The unity of the sentiment is destroyed ; it jars with the harmony of the rest of the picture as much as a smail does in crawling in the bosom of a new opened rose. This sense of propriety is required in such compositions: Burns was a great master in it; he introduced true love, domestic gladness, and love of country along with devotion in his noble poem of “The Cotter's Saturday Night,” but he never dreamed of throwing in any of his ludicrous or humorous touches—all is as much in keeping as in the best con- ceived picture."—CUNNINGHAM. Although no admirers of Allan's pictures, we do not think the objection here made to the boy and the cat of much force. Humour and pathos are ever nearly allied; witness Cervantes, Shakspeare, Scott. Even the “Cotter's Saturday Night' itself, notwithstanding what is said above, is not destitute of “humor- ous touches.' What a ludicrous, yet pleasing and natural, 8 WITH THOMSON. Give the inclosed epigram to my much-valued friendly partiality in speaking of me, in a manner introduced me—I mean a well-known military and literary character, Colonel Dirom. You do not tell me how you liked my two last songs. Are they condemned? *- No. LXXVIII. MR. THOMSON TO BURNS. - 13TH MAY, 1795. IT gives me great pleasure to find that you are 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 friend Cunningham, and tell him that on Wednes- day I go to visit a friend of his, to whom his after, is curious enough. I am acquainted with that person, who is a prodigy of learning and genius, and a pleasant fellow, though no saint. You really make me blush when you tell me you have not merited the drawing from me. I do not think I can ever repay you, or sufficiently esteem and respect you, for the liberal and kind manner in which you have entered into the spirit of my undertaking, which could not have been perfected without you. So I beg you would not make a fool of me again by speaking of obligation. I like your two last songs very much, and am happy to find you are in such a high fit of poetiz- ing. Long may it last! Clarke has made a fine pathetic air to Mallet's superlative ballad of ‘William and Margaret,” and is to give it to me, to be enrolled among the elect. NO. LXXIX. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. IN “Whistle and I’ll come to ye, my lad,” the iteration of that line is tiresome to my ear. Here goes what I think is an improvement: O whistle, and I’ll come to ye, my lad; O whistle, and I'll come to ye, my lad , Tho' father and mother, and a' should gae mad, Thy Jeanie will venture wi' ye, my lad. mingling up of worldly cares with more solemn matters, is, for example, conveyed in the lines— * The mother, wi' her needle and her shears, Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the mew :— The father mices a wi' admonition duet ' The whole picture of the goodwife, indeed— * Weel pleased to see her bairn's respected like the lave;’ and her garrulous account of the age of her cheese– ‘How 'twas a towmond auld, sin’ lint was in the bell,"— is eminently humorous. In fact, a fair dame, at whose shrine I, the Priest of the Nine, offer up the incense of Parnas- sus ; a dame whom the Graces have attired in witchcraft, and whom the Loves have armed with lightning; a fair one, herself the heroine of the song, insists on the amendment; and dispute her commands if you dare Qſìjià is no mp aim 3Laggie. TUNE—“ This is no my aim house.” I. O THIS is no my ain lassie, Fair tho’ the lassie be; O weel ken I my ain lassie, Kind love is in her e'e. I see a form, I see a face, Ye weel may wi' the fairest place: It wants, to me, the witching grace, The kind love that’s in her e'e. - II. She’s bonnie, blooming, straight, and tall, And lang has had my heart in thrall; And aye it charms my very saul, The kind love that’s in her e'e. III. A thief sae pawkie is my Jean, To steal a blink, by a unseen; But gleg as light are lovers’ een, When kind love is in the e'e. IV. It may escape the courtly sparks, It may escape the learned clerks; But weel the watching lover marks The kind love that’s in her ele. O this is no my ain lassie, Fair tho’ the lassie be; O weel ken I my ain lassie, Kind love is in her e'e. sº Do you know that you have roused the tor- pidity 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 inclosed sheet con- tains two songs for him, which please to present to my valued friend Cunningham. I inclose the sheet open, both for your inspec- tion, and that you may copy the song, “O bonnie was yon rosy brier.” I do not know whether I am right ; but that song pleases me, and as it is extremely probable that Clarke's newly roused celestial spark will be soon smothered in the fogs of indolence, if you like the song, it may go as Scottish verses to the air of “I wish my love was in a mire;’ and poor Erskine's English lines may follow. I inclose you a ‘For a that, and a that,’ which Ç } 39 & rº), 3 * * º # === - T- - - - - / J A. §§ 㺠{} º:3ſº S-' Nº.3 EURNS’ CORRESPONDENCE stir was never in print: it is a much superior song to * * l A mine. l I have been told that it was composed by a lady. § TO MR. CUNNINGHAM.2 TNoüy $pring jag claſſ fije Grobe in green. I Now spring has clad the grove in green, And strew’d the lea wi' flowers: The furrow’d, waving corn is seen Rejoice in fostering showers; While illra thing in nature join Their sorrows to forego, O why thus all alone are mine The weary steps of wo? - II. The trout within yon wimpling burn Glides swift, a silver dart, And safe beneath the 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 scorch'd my fountains dry. - III. The little flow'ret's peaceful lot, In yonder cliff that grows, Which, save the linnet's flight, I wot, Nae ruder visit knows, 1 We have no farther account of this piece, except in post- script to letter LXXX. 2 Alexander Cunningham of Edinburgh, a friend of the Poet. The story of Cunningham's unfaithful mistress, which formed the subject of the above song, ‘Now Spring has clad the grove in green.' as well as of the songs, “She's fair and fause," p. 53, and “Had I a cave on some wild distant shore, p. 104, made a great sensation at the time, and has been kept in remembrance by the verses of the Poet. “One evening, a very few years ago,” says Mr Chambers, in 1838, “a friend of mine, visiting a musical family who resided opposite St John's Chapel, in Prince’s-street, chanced to request one of the young ladies to sing “Had I a cave,’ &c. She was about to comply, when it was recollected that the heroine of the lay lived below, an aged widow, and might overhear it; for which reason the intention of singing the song was laid aside.” The ‘fair and fause Peggy in question, after ‘plighting her troth,’ with Cunningham, married the late Dr. Dewar, of Prince's Street, Edinburgh. At his death he left three | daughters and a son, who were all well provided for—the latter became an Advocate at the Scottish bar, but to the great mor- tification and disappointment of his widow, he left her only one hundred pounds per ann., which made her in a great ineasure dependant on her som, having been accustomed for many years to live in the first style. Here was something like retributive justice 1–Her second daughter was the celebrated + Jessie Dewar, the loveliest girl that at one period adorned the Scottish metropolis. A young Clerk in the Royal Bank, of the name of L , went almost out of his wits regarding her, and annoyed her exceedingly. Kay, the celebrated Carica- | turist, published an admirable likeness of the fair girl, with her Was mine; till love has o'er me past, And blighted a my bloom, And now beneath the with’ring blast My youth and joy consume. IV. The waken'd lav'rock warbling springs, And climbs the early sky, Winnowing blithe her dewy wings In morning's rosy eye: As little reckt I sorrow's power, Until the flowery snare O’ witching love, in luckless hour, Made me the thrall o' care. V. O had my fate been Greenland snows, Or Afric's burning zone, Wi’ man and nature leagu'd my foes, So Peggy ne'er I'd known The wretch whase doom is, “hope mae mair," What tongue his woes can tell ! Within whase bosom, save despair, Nae Rinder spirits dwell. O honnie maš von roºm 33rier. I. O BONNIE was yon rosy brier, That blooms sae far frae haunt o' man; And bonnie she, ah, and how dear! It shaded frae the e'enin’ Sun. merriment at the time, and the lovely young Jessie was no longer tormented by his addresses. She afterwards married the Hon. and Rev. Mr Tourner, and is now settled in London. The lady whom Burns has immortalized in these three songs, above alluded to, was the prototype of her lovely daughter. Every thing had been arranged for her marriage with Cun- ningham, who was devotedly attached to her; indeed, for a time it appears to have been reciprocated:— “But woman is but warld's gear.” Dr. Dewar, who had been paying her professional and friendly visits at the same time, made her many handsome presents; and, although her senior for many years, and not to be compared to his rival in personal appearance, or talents, he persuaded her to break off the match. Cunningham at that time not being in affluent circumstances, and the lady knowing that the Doctor had ‘wrouth o' gear,” she consented to marry him. This was a shock which poor Cunningham never got the better of, - “Till grief his eyes did close, Ne'er to weep more.” Such was the strength of his affection for the object of his blighted love that, long after she had jilted him, he has been seen stealthily, for many an evening in the gloaming, to tra- verse for hours the opposite side of the street where she resided —pause for a moment opposite her windows, and when he had caught a glimpse of her, burst into tears—then wend his way slowly home by the most lonely path—his handkerchief over his eyes, completely absorbed in grief. Time mollified his Asºº Q-Z (s %.§ ſº º W < § } | | tormentor following her, and vociferating, “If it were not for hopeless passion; and his friends, knowing his extreme sus- |) these d–d blankets, I would bave got her " " alluding to his ceptibility, always avoided the slightest allusion to the circum- | f mother having for many years been a retailer of flannels in stance. He died a few years since, beloved and respected by || the High Street, Edinburgh. This created a good deal of all who had the happiness of his acquaintance. gº < xſº 2.4% 140 ğ ,-SW - tº ſo sº sº $ its, 3) º & Jººz-º-º: "… ==_{º}(3*. }**, *, 2* / ºr -- . -* → ~~~~~~< § :=\; cºcº Śāś, ź, WITH THOMSON. ſ II. y Yon rosebuds in the morning dew, How pure amang the leaves sae green ; ; But purer was the lover's vow - They witness'd in their shade yestreen. - III. 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. IV. 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 under the name of Chloris:– (ſo (Tijlorig. *TIS friendship's pledge, my young, fair friend, Nor thou the gift refuse, Nor with unwilling ear attend The moralizing muse. [&c. See the poem at length, p. 134. v i.] Une bagatelle de l'amitié.-CoILA. - No. LXXX. MR. THOMSON TO BURNS. EDINBURGH, 3D AUGUST, 1795. MY DEAR SIR, THIS will be delivered to you by a Dr Brianton, who has read your works, and pants for the hon- our of your acquaintance. 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 imagination 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. l I am sorry you should be induced to alter, § “O whistle and I’ll come to ye, my lad,’ to the 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. I should be happy to see Mr Clarke produce a few airs to be joined to your verses. Every body regrets his writing so very little, as every body acknowledges his ability to write well. Pray was the resolution formed coolly before dinner, or was it at a midnight 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.—The lady’s ‘For a’ that and a that,” is sensible enough, but no more to be compared to yours than I to Hercules. No. LXXXI. BURNS TO MR. THOMISON. <ſſorlorn, mp #10be, no contfort near. TUNE—“Let me in this ae night." I. FORLORN, my love, no comfort near, Far, far from thee, I wander here; Far, far from thee, the fate severe At which I must repine, love. O wert thou, love, but near me; But near, near, near me; How kindly thou wouldst cheer me, And mingle sighs with mine, love. II. Around me scowls a wintry sky, That blasts each bud of hope and joy; And shelter, shade, nor home have I, Save in those arms of thine, love. III. Cold, alter'd friendship's cruel part, To poison fortune's ruthless dart— Let me not break thy faithful heart, And say that fate is mine, love. - IV. But dreary tho’ the moments fleet, O let me think we yet shall meet! That only ray of solace sweet Can on thy Chloris shine, love. O wert thou, love, but near me; But near, near, near me; How kindly thou wouldst cheer me, And mingle sighs with mine, love. How do you like the foregoing? I have writ- ten it within this hour: so much for the speed of my Pegasus, but what say you to his bottom * prosaic line, “Thy Jeanie will venture wi' ye, my X g 141 - N - sº) O_2, …Y ſº ~jº $273% § sº \ Ç Lºs --- ~~~~<>~-—--- º *: *.lº f- :£. &-s 2: º º ºn- -- - 1. ：： - ſaeuos * ：end waraeum， ， ， ， ， ， ， ， ， ， ， ， №ſſºſ WITH THOMSON. III. I mourn thro’ the gay, gaudy day, NO. XCI. `, As, hopeless, I muse on thy charms; But welcome the dream o” sweet slumber, BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. For then I am lockt in thy arms—Jessy! - | BROW, ON THE SOLWAY-FIRTII.4 12th JULY, 1796. IV. I guess by the dear angel smile, I guess by the love-rolling e'e; But why urge the tender confession 'Gainst fortune’s fell cruel decree—Jessyſ Here's a health to ane I lo'e dear, Here’s a health to ane I lo’e dear; Thou art sweet as the smile when fond lovers meet, And soft as their parting tear—Jessy!” AFTER all my boasted independence, curst necessity compels me to implore you for five pounds. . A cruel bitch of a haberdasher, to whom I owe an account, taking it into his head that I am dying, has commenced a process, and will infallibly put me into jail. Do, for God’s sake, send me that sum, and that by return of post. Forgive me this earnestness, but the horrors of a jail have made me half distracted. I do not ask all this gratuitously; for, upon returning health, | I hereby promise and engage to furnish you with five pounds worth of the neatest song-genius you | have seen. I tried my hand on “Rothemurche’ this morning. The measure is so difficult, that THIS will be delivered by a Mr Lewars,” a young it is impossible to infuse much genius into the I fellow of uncommon merit. As he will be a day lines; they are on the other side. Forgive, for- or two in town, you will have leisure, if you give, me! choose, to write me by him: and if you have a spare No. XC. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. 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. 3 I had rather be the author of five well-written songs, than of ten otherwise. I have great hopes that the genial influence of the approaching sum- mer will set me to rights, but as yet I cannot boast of returning health. I have now reason to believe that my complaint is a flying gout: a sad business! Do let me know how Cleghorn is, and remem- ber me to him. - This should have been delivered to you a month ago. I am still very poorly, but should like much to hear from you. 1 * In the letter to Mr Thomson, the three first stanzas only are given, and Mr Thomson supposed our Poet had never gone farther. Among his MSS. was, however, found the fourth stanza, which completes this exquisite song, the last finished offspring of his muse.’—CURRIe. 2 Mr Lewars was brother to Jessy, the subject of the above Song. 3 ‘It is needless to say, that this revisal Burns did not live to perform.”—CURRIE. | f 4 Brow is a hamlet in Annandale, consisting only of three or four cottages, situated on the shore of the Solway Firth, about ten miles east of Dumfries. In his last illness, Burns was advised to go there, to try the effects of sea-bathing. He seems to have been at Brow from the 4th or 5th of July, to the 18th. His health at first was slightly improved by bathing ; the pains in his limbs were relieved ; but this was immediately followed by a new attack of fever, and it was judged proper to take him back to Dumfries. A night or two before he 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) was afraid that the light might be too much 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 will not shine long for me !” He returned on the 18th to Dumfries, and on the 21st breathed his last. It has been thought that a pictorial sketch of even the humble rural watering-place where the above occurrences took place, might have some interest in the eyes of those who admire the genius of Burns, and take an interest in that melancholy tragedy which forms his life. The place is chiefly resorted to for a mineral well which springs in considerable force close beside the rivulet alluded to. In the accompanying print, this well is marked in the foreground, and the cottage which Burns occu- pied is the central one of three, which form nearly the whole village. Nothing of importance that we are aware of is remem- bered at Brow respecting the Ayrshire poet; but tradition con- nects a curious anecdote with the little knoll at the end of the house in which he dwelt. In the immediate neighbourhood of Brow, is Comlongan Castle, the ancient seat of the Murrays of Cockpool, and which afterwards passed by marriage into the possession of the Viscount of Stormont, now Earls of Mansfield. It is said that, on this knoll, more than a hundred years ago. David Lord Stormont took leave of his younger son William Murray, then about to proceed to England to push his fortune at the bar, telling him not to return till he had become chief justice of the King's bench—an honour which he actually did * attain. \ C \xºS 145 T & 62. \ 2- ...” asº *. A gº §g) S & D O)0 BURNS” :ſairefit ſhaft on ſbeton banks. TUNE–" Rothem wrohe.” I. FAIREST maid on Devon banks, Crystal Devon, winding Devon, Wilt thou lay that frown aside, And Smile as thou were wont to do 3 Full well thou know'st I love thee dear! Couldst thou to malice lend an ear? O, did not love exclaim, “ Forbear, Nor use a faithful lover so.” II. Then come, thou fairest of the fair, Those wanton Smiles, O let me share; And, by thy beauteous self I swear, No love but thine my heart shall know. Fairest maid on Devon banks, Crystal Devon, winding Devon, Wilt thou lay that frown aside, And Smile as thou were wont to do 21 NO. XCII. MR. THOMSON TO BURNS. 14th JULY, 1796. MY DEAR SIR, EVER since I received your melancholy letter, by Mrs Hyslop, I have been ruminating in what manner I could endeavour to alleviate your I ‘These verses, and the letter inclosing them, are written in a character that marks the very feeble state of Burns' bodily strength. Mr Syme is of opinion that he could not have been in any danger of a jail at Dumfries, where certainly he had many firm friends, nor under any such necessity of imploring aid from Edinburgh. But about this time his reason began to be at times unsettled, and the horrors of a jail perpetually launted his imagination. He died on the 21st of this month.” CURR1E. Allan Cunningham, on the contrary, asserts that, not only was Burns really in poverty, but, in the opening of 1796, his family were all but wanting bread. “Those who say he had good friends around him, seem not to know that he had a soul too proud to solicit help, and to forget that there are hearts in the world ready to burst before they beg.” CORRESPONDENCE. sufferings. Again and again I thought of a pecuniary offer, but the recollection of one of your letters on this subject, and the fear of offending your independent spirit, checked my resolution. I thank you heartily therefore for the frankness of your letter of the 12th, and with great pleasure inclose a draft for the very sum I proposed send- ing. Would 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 22 If too much trouble to you in the present state of your health, some literary friend might be found here, who would Select and arrange from your manuscripts, and take upon him the task of Editor. In the mean time, it could be advertised to be published by subscrip- tion. Do not shun this mode of obtaining the value of your labour: remember Pope published the Iliad by subscription. . Think of this, my dear Burns, and do not reckon me intrusive with my advice. You are too well convinced of the respect and friendship I bear you to impute any thing I say to an unworthy motive. Yours faith- fully. The verses to ‘ Rothemurche ' will answer finely. I am happy to see you can still tune your lyre. 2 Mr Thomson here hits on the true and most effectual mode of relieving the Poet's difficulties; and had the suggestion come in time, it was worth the small dowcewr which accompanied the letter a hundred times told. During Burns' life-time only three editions of his poems were published,—namely, the Kilmarnock edition (1786) of six hundred copies, the Edinburgh edition (1787) of three thousand copies, and another Edinburgh edition (1793) in two small volumes, but we do not know of how many copies. Surely this supply did not fill the market; but, supposing it did, or supposing that Creech claimed the copyright of what ap- peared in the first Edinburgh edition,--what was to prevent the publication of a new volume of poems? The Jolly Beggars, Tam o'Shanter, and numberlessinimitable lyrics, were all lying perdue in the Poet's desk, or had only been partially given to the public:—why the thought of issuing a collected edition of them did not occur to the author himself, or any of his friends but Thomson at the last how?', is matter of astonishment, and must ever be considered as the great blunder of his worldly career, which kept him in poverty and dependence, when comfort, may affluence, might have been at once attained, by the publica- tion of these immortal productions, which, beyond all question, would have been hailed with rapture in every corner of the empire. 146 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 26ຠ26$Èày26õōōōày26$?ày §§§ğ~~~~$ Sę289^ęģ9999^ę389° 26$?????à\ $º §§ 26 & \e § \e gº; §§§§§§§ \Pºś § §§§ \892 ��õõõĚàyś$ SS §§ k & t Q 'ºZ. 3 § GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. NO. I. TO WILLIAM BURNESS. 1 IRVINE, DEC. 27, 1781. HONOURED SIR, I HAVE purposely delayed writing in the hope that I should have the pleasure of seeing you on New-Year's-day; but work comes so hard upon us, that I do not choose to be absent on that account, as well as for some other little reasons, which I shall tell you at meeting. My health is nearly the same as when you were here, only my sleep is a little sounder, and on the whole I am rather better than otherwise, though I mend by very slow degrees. The weakness of my nerves has so debilitated my mind, that I dare neither review past wants, nor look forward into futurity; for the least anxiety or perturbation in my breast produces most unhappy effects on my whole frame. Sometimes, indeed, when for an hour or two my spirits are a little lightened, I glimmer a little into futurity; but my principal, and indeed my only pleasureable, employment is looking backwards and forwards in a moral and religious way; I am quite transported at the thought, that ere long, perhaps very soon, I shall bid an eter- nal adieu to all the pains, and uneasiness, and dis- quietudes of this weary life; for I assure you I am heartily tired of it; and if I do not very much deceive myself, I could contentedly and gladly resign it. “The soul, uneasy, and confined at home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come.” 2 It is for this reason I am more pleased with the 15th, 16th, and 17th verses of the 7th chapter of Revelation, than with any ten times as many verses in the whole Bible, and would not exchange the noble enthusiasm with which they inspire me for all that this world has to offer. As for this world, I despair of ever making a figure in it. I am not formed for the bustle of the busy, nor the flutter of the gay, I shall never again be capa- ble of entering into such scenes. Indeed, I am altogether unconcerned at the thoughts of this life. I foresee that poverty and obscurity proba- bly await me, and I am, in some measure, pre- pared, and daily preparing to meet them. I have but just time and paper to return you my grateful thanks for the lessons of virtue and piety you have given me, which were too much neglected at the time of giving them, but which I hope have been remembered ere it is yet too late. Present my dutiful respects to my mother, and my com- pliments to Mr and Mrs Muir; and with wishing you a merry New-Year's-day, I shall conclude. I am, honoured Sir, your dutiful son, ROBERT BURNESS. P. S. My meal is nearly out, but I am going to borrow till I get more. 1 * One of the most striking letters in the Collection, (Cro- mek's Reliques of Burns,) and, to us, one of the most interest- ing, is the earliest of the whole series; being addressed to his father in 1781, six or seven years before his name had been heard out of his own family. The author was then a common flax-dresser, and his father a poor peasant —yet there is not one trait of vulgarity, either in the thought or expression; but, on the contrary, a digmity and elevation of sentiment, which must have been considered as of good omen in a youth of much higher condition.”—JEFFREY. ‘This letter, written several years before the publication of his poems, when his name was as obscure as his condition was humble, displays the philosophic melancholy which so generally forms the poetical temperament, and that buoyant and ambi— tious spirit, which indicates a mind conscious of its strength. At Irvine, Burns at this time possessed a single room for his lodgings, rented perhaps at the rate of a shilling a-week. He passed his days in constant labour, as a flax-dresser, and his food consisted chiefly of oatmeal, sent to him from his father's family. The store of this humble though wholesome nutri- ment, it appears, was nearly exhausted, and he was about to borrow till he should obtain a supply. Yet even in this situa- tion his active imagination had formed to itself pictures of emi- mence and distinction. His despair of making a figure in the world, shows how ardently he wished for honourable fame; and his contempt of life, founded on this despair, is the genuine expression of a youthful and generous mind. In such a state of reflection and of suffering, the imagination of Burns matu- rally passed the dark boundaries of our earthly horizon, and rested on those beautiful creations of a better World, where there is neither thirst, nor hunger, nor Sorrow, and where hap- Cú RRI E. 2 * Hope springs eternal in the humam breast; Man never is, but always to be, blest : iness shall be in proportion to the capacity of happiness."— The soul, uneasy, and confined at home, pl prop pacity pp Rests and expatiates in a world to come.”—Pope. \ 149 5 & 3 ©ſº º: £3), š. - ~<>< --- º .” g 2 of all my letters to you. By uncommon, I mean their being written in such a hasty manner, which, to tell you the truth, has made me often afraid lest you should take me for some zealous bigot, who conversed with his mistress as he would con- verse with his minister. I don’t know how it is, my dear, for though, except your company, there is nothing on earth gives me so much pleasure as Writing to you, yet it never gives me those giddy raptures so much talked of among lovers. I have often thought, that if a well grounded affection be not really a part of virtue, ’tis something extremely akin to it. Whenever the thought of my E. warms my heart, every feeling of humanity, every prin- ciple of generosity kindles in my breast. It extinguishes every dirty spark of malice and envy which are but too apt to infest me. I grasp every creature in the arms of universal benevolence, and equally participate in the pleasures of the happy, and sympathise with the miseries of the unfortu- nate. I assure you, my dear, I often look up to the Divine Disposer of events with an eye of gra- titude for the blessing which I hope he intends to bestow on me in bestowing you. Isincerely wish that he may bless my endeavours to make your life as comfortable and happy as possible, both in Sweetening the rougher parts of my natural tem- per, and bettering the unkindly circumstances of my fortune. This, my dear, is a passion, at least in my view, worthy of a man, and I will add wor- thy of a Christian. The sordid earth-worm may profess love to a woman's person, while in reality his affection is centered in her pocket; and the slavish drudge may go a-wooing as he goes to the horse-market to choose one who is stout and firm, and, as we may say of an old horse, one who will be a good drudge and draw kindly. I disdain their dirty, puny ideas. I would be heartily out of humour with myself, if I thought I were capa- ble of having so poor a notion of the sex which was designed to crown the pleasures of society. Poor devils! I don’t envy them their happiness who have such notions. For my part I propose quite other pleasures with my dear partner.—R. B. NO. V. TO THE SAME. LOCHLEA, 1783. MY DEAR E., I Do not remember in the course of your acquaintance and mine, ever to have heard your opinion on the ordinary way of falling in love, and Robert Chambers thinks it probable that she was the sub- ject of the verses beginning, “From thee, Eliza, I must go." It may be remarked, that Burns figures in these his early ‘,” love-letters as a very sensible, discreet, and far from ardent amongst people in our station in life: I do not mean the persons who proceed in the way of bar- gain, but those whose affection is really placed on the person. Though I be, as you know very well, but a very awkward lover myself, yet as I have some oppor- tunities of observing the conduct of others who are much better skilled in the affair of courtship than I am, I often think it is owing to lucky chance more than to good management, that there are not more unhappy marriages than usually are. It is natural for a young fellow to like the acquaintance of the females, and customary for him to keep them company when occasion serves; some one of them is more agreeable to him than the rest; there is something, he knows not what, pleases him, he knows not how, in her company. This I take to be what is called love with the greater part of us; and I must own, my dear E., it is a hard game such a one as you have to play when you meet with such a lover. You cannot refuse but he is sincere, and yet though you use him ever so favourably, perhaps in a few months, or at farthest in a year or two, the same unac- countable fancy may make him as distractedly fond of another, whilst you are quite forgot. I am aware that perhaps the next time I have the pleasure of seeing you, you may bid me take my own lesson home, and tell me that the passion I have professed for you is perhaps one of those transient flashes I have been describing; but I hope, my dear E., you will do me the justice to believe me, when I assure you, that the love I have for you is founded on the sacred principles of virtue and honour, and by consequence so long as you continue possessed of those amiable quali- ties which first inspired my passion for you, so long must I continue to love you. Believe me, my dear, it is love like this alone which can render the marriage state happy. People may talk of flames and raptures as long as they please, and a warm fancy, with a flow of youthful spirits, may make them feel something like what they describe; but sure I am the nobler faculties of the mind, with kindred feelings of the heart, can only be the foundation of friendship, and it has always been my opinion, that the married life was only friendship in a more exalted degree. If you will be so good as to grant my wishes, and it should please Providence to spare us to the latest period of life, I can look forward and see that even then, though bent down with wrinkled age; even then, when all other worldly circumstances will be indifferent to me, I will regard my E. with the tenderest affection, and for this plain reason, because she is still possessed of those noble quali- | \, wooer. As he got older, he got less philosophical in matters of ties, improved to a much higher degree, which k - e * e ãº, the heart, first inspired my affection for her. : º, .) * º §º, 152 &27, ɺ, (3) × SS ºy C- - —--~~ GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. “O ! happy state when souls each other draw, Where love is liberty, and mature law.” I know were I to speak in such a style to many a girl, who thinks herself possessed of no small share of sense, she would think it ridiculous; but the language of the heart is, my dear E., the only courtship I shall ever use to you. When I look over what I have written, I am sensible it is vastly different from the ordinary style of courtship, but I shall make no apology— I know your good nature will excuse what your good sense may see amiss.-R. B. NO, WI. TO THE SAME, LOCHLEA, 1783. I HAVE often thought it a peculiarly unlucky circumstance in love, that though, in every other situation in life, telling the truth is not only the safest, but actually by far the easiest way of pro- ceeding, a lover is never under greater difficulty in acting, or more puzzled for expression, than when his passion is sincere, and his intentions are honourable. I do not think that it is very diffi- cult for a person of ordinary capacity to talk of love and fondness, which are not felt, and to make vows of constancy and fidelity, which are never intended to be performed, if he be villain enough to practise such detestible conduct: but to a man whose heart glows with the principles of integrity and truth, and who sincerely loves a woman of amiable person, uncommon refinement of senti- ment and purity of manners—to such a one, in such circumstances, I can assure you, my dear, from my own feelings at this present moment, courtship is a taskindeed. There is such a number of foreboding fears, and distrustful anxieties crowd into my mind when I am in your company, or when I sit down to write to you, that what to speak or what to write, I am altogether at a loss. There is one rule which I have hitherto prac- tised, and which I shall invariably keep with you, and that is, honestly to tell you the plain truth. There is something so mean and unmanly in the arts of dissimulation and falsehood, that I am sur- prised they can be acted by any one in so noble, so generous a passion, as virtuous love. No, my dear E., I shall never endeavour to gain your favour by such detestable practices. If you will be so good and so generous as to admit me for your partner, your companion, your bosom friend through life, there is nothing on this side of eter- nity shall give me greater transport; but I shall never think of purchasing your hand by any arts º unworthy of a man, and I will add, of a Christian. There is one thing, my dear, which I earnestly request of you, and it is this; that you would soon either put an end to my hopes by a peremp- tory refusal, or cure me of my fears by a generous Consent. * It would oblige me much if you would send me a line or two when convenient. I shall only add further, that, if a behaviour regulated (though perhaps but very imperfectly) by the rules of honour and virtue, if a heart devoted to love and esteem you, and an earnest endeavour to promote your happiness; if these are qualities you would wish in a friend, in a husband, I hope you shall ever find them in your real friend and sincere lover, R. B. No. VII. TO THE SAME. LOCHLEA, 1783. I OUGHT, in good manners, to have acknow- ledged the receipt of your letter before this time, but my heart was so shocked with the contents of it, that I can scarcely yet collect my thoughts so as to write you on the subject. I will not attempt to describe what I felt on receiving your letter. I read it over and over, again and again, and though it was in the politest language of refusal, still it was peremptory; “you were sorry you could not make me a return, but you wish me,” what, without you, I never can obtain, “you wish me all kind of happiness.” It would be weak and unmanly to say that without you I never can be happy; but sure I am, that sharing life with you would have given it a relish, that, wanting you, I Can never taste. Your uncommon personal advantages, and your superior good sense, do not so much strike me; these, possibly, may be met with in a few instances in others; but that amiable goodness, that tender feminine softness, that endearing sweetness of dis- position, with all the charming offspring of a warm feeling heart—these I never again expect to meet with, in such a degree, in this world. All these charming qualities, heightened by an education much beyond any thing I have ever met in any woman I ever dared to approach, have made an impression on my heart that I do not think the world can ever efface. My imagination has fondly flattered myself with a wish, I dare not say it ever reached a hope, that possibly I might one z 153 U GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. oHººtS G) day call you mine. I had formed the most delight- ful images, and my fancy fondly brooded over them; but now I am wretched for the loss of what I really had no right to expect. I must now think no more of you as a mistress; still I presume to ask to be admitted as a friend. As such I wish to be allowed to wait on you, and as I expect to remove in a few days a little further off, and you, I suppose, will soon leave this place, I wish to see or hear from you soon; and if an expression should perhaps escape me, rather too warm for friendship, I hope you will pardon it in, my dear Miss—(pardon me the dear expression for once) * * * * R. B. No. VIII. TO MR JAMES BURNESS, MONTROSE. LOCHLEA, 17th FEB., 1784. DEAR COUSIN, I would have returned you my thanks for your kind favour of the 13th of December sooner, had it not been that I waited to give you an account of that melancholy event, which, for some time past, we have from day to day expected. On the 13th current I lost the best of fathers. Though, to be sure, we have had long warning of the impending stroke; still the feelings of nature claim their part, and I cannot recollect the tender endearments and parental lessons of the best of friends and ablest of instructors, without feeling what perhaps the calmer dictates of reason would partly condemn. I hope my father's friends in your country will not let their connection in this place die with him. For my part I shall ever with pleasure—with pride, acknowledge my connection with those who were allied by the ties of blood and friendship to a man whose memory I shall ever honour and I'e Ver'e. I expect, therefore, my dear Sir, you will not neglect any opportunity of letting me hear from you, which will very much oblige, My dear Cousin, yours sincerely, R. B. NO. IX. TO MR JAMES BURNESS, MONTROSE. 1MOSSGIEL, AUGUST, 1784, WE have been surprised with one of the most extraordinary phenomena in the moral world which, I dare say, has happened in the course of this half century. We have had a party of Pres- 154 bytery relief, as they call themselves, for some st time in this country. A pretty thriving society of them has been in the burgh of Irvine for some years past, till about two years ago a Mrs Buchan from Glasgow came among them, and began to spread some fanatical notions of religion among them, and, in a short time, made many converts; and, among others, their preacher, Mr Whyte, who, upon that account, has been suspended and formally deposed by his brethren." He continued, however, to preach in private to his party, and was supported, both he, and their spiritual mother, as they affect to call old Buchan, by the contri- butions of the rest, several of whom were in good circumstances; till, in spring last, the populace rose and mobbed Mrs Buchan, and put her out of the town; on which, all her followers voluntarily quitted the place likewise, and with such preci- pitation, that many of them never shut their doors behind them ; one left a washing on the green, another a cow bellowing at the crib without food, or any body to mind her, and after several stages, they are fixed at present in the neighbourhood of Dumfries. Their tenets are a strange jumble of enthusiastic jargon; among others, she pretends to give them the Holy Ghost by breathing on them, which she does with postures and practices that are scandalously indecent; they have like- wise disposed of all their effects, and hold a com- munity of goods, and live nearly an idle life, carrying on a great farce of pretended devotion in barns and woods, where they lodge and lie all together, and hold likewise a community of women, as it is another of their tenets that they can com- mit no moral sin. I am personally acquainted with most of them, and I can assure you the above mentioned are facts. This, my dear Sir, is one of the many instances of the folly of leaving the guidance of sound reason and common sense in matters of religion. Whenever we neglect or despise these sacred monitors, the whimsical notions of a perturbated brain are taken for the immediate influences of the Deity, and the wildest fanaticism, and the most inconstant absurdities, will meet with abet- tors and converts. Nay, I have often thought, that the more out-of-the-way and ridiculous the fancies are, if once they are sanctified under the sacred name of religion, the unhappy mistaken votaries are the more firmly glued to them. R. B. 1 An interesting account of the Buchanites will be found in Chambers’ “Lives of Illustrious Scotsmen,” vol. 1, art. Buchan. Mrs Buchan was a native of Banffshire, and the wife of a tradesman at the Delf work, Glasgow. The nature of her fanaticism much resembled that of the more modern prophet- ess, Joanna Southcote. The poor insane creature believed she was to bring forth a Messiah; and after her death, her followers, like the Southcotians, cherished for years the notion that she would appear again. O A () º ~~~<> GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. NO. XVI. TO MR, ROBERT MUIR, IXILMAT&NOCK. MossGIEL, Friday Morning. MY FRIEND, MY BROTHER, WARM recollection of an absent friend presses so hard upon my heart, that I send him the pre- fixed bagatelle (the Calf), pleased with the thought that it will greet the man of my bosom, and be a kind of distant language of friendship. You will have heard that poor Armour has repaid me double. A very fine boy and a girl have awakened a thought and feelings that thrill, some with tender pressure and some with foreboding anguish, through my soul. The poem was nearly an extemporaneous pro- duction, on a wager with Mr Hamilton, that I would not produce a poem on the subject in a given time. If you think it worth while, read it to Charles and Mr W. Parker, and if they choose a copy of it, it is at their service, as they are men whose friendship I shall be proud to claim, both in this world and that which is to come. I believe all hopes of staying at home will be abortive; but more of this when, in the latter part of next week, you shall be troubled with a visit from, My dear Sir, Your most devoted, R. B. XVII. TO MR JOHN KENNEDY. MOSSGIEL, 20th APRIL, 1786. SIR, BY some neglect in Mr Hamilton, I did not hear of your kind request for a subscription paper till this day. I will not attempt any acknowledg- ment for this, nor the manner in which I see your name in Mr Hamilton's subscription list. Allow me only to say, Sir, I feel the weight of the debt. I have here, likewise, inclosed a small piece, the very latest of my productions. I am a good deal pleased with some sentiments myself, as they are just the native querulous feelings of a heart, which, as the elegantly melting Gray says, “melan- choly has marked for her own.” Our race comes on apace—that much expected scene of revelry and mirth—but to me it brings no joy equal to that meeting with which your * last flattered the expectation of, i Sir, your indebted humble servant, R. B. NO. XVIII. TO MR JOHN KENNEDY. MossGIEL, 17TH MAY, 1786. DEAR SIR, I HAVE sent you the above hasty copy as I pro- mised.” In about three weeks I shall probably set the press agoing. I am much hurried at pre- sent, otherwise your diligence so very friendly in my subscription should have a more lengthened acknowledgment. Dear Sir, . Your obliged servant, R. B. NO. XIX. TO MONS. JAMES SMITH, MIAU CHILINE. MossGIEL, Monday Morning, 1786. MY DEAR SIR, I WENT to Dr Douglas yesterday, fully resolved to take the opportunity of Captain Smith; but I found the Doctor with a Mr and Mrs White, both Jamaicans, and they have deranged my plans alto- gether. They assure him, that to send me from Savannah la Mar to Port Antonio will cost my master, Charles Douglas, upwards of fifty pounds; besides running the risk of throwing myself into a pleuritic fever in consequence of hard travelling in the sun. On these accounts, he refuses send- ing me with Smith; but a vessel sails from Green- ock the first of September, right for the place of my destination. The captain of her is an inti- mate friend of Mr Gavin Hamilton's, and as good a fellow as heart could wish: with him I am des— tined to go. Where I shall shelter, I know not, but I hope to weather the storm. Perish the drop of blood of mine that fears them! I know their worst, and am prepared to meet it:— “I’ll laugh, and sing, and shake my leg, As lang's I dow.” On Thursday morning, if you can muster as much self-denial as to be out of bed about seven o'clock, I shall see you as I ride through to Cum- nock. After all, Heaven bless the sex.' I feel there is still happiness for me among them:— “O woman, lovely woman Heaven designed you To temper man —we had been brutes without you !” 1 This was the ‘Mountain Daisy;' in the original MS. it is entitled, “The Gowan.” 157 R. B. 2 The Epistle to Rankin, it is believed, was the poem alluded to in this hurried note. º; GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. No. XX. TO MR, DAVID BRYO.E. 1 MOSSGIEL, JUNE 12, 1786. DEAR BRYCE, I RECEIVED your message by G. Paterson, and as I am not very throng at present, I just write to let you know that there is such a worthless, rhyming reprobate, as your humble servant, still in the land of the living, though I can scarcely say, in the place of hope. I have no news to tell you that will give me any pleasure to mention, or you to hear. Poor ill-advised, ungrateful Armour came home on Friday last.” You have heard all the particu- lars of that affair, and a black affair it is. What she thinks of her conduct now I don’t know ; one thing I do know—she has made me completely miserable. Never man loved, or rather adored a woman more than I did her ; and to confess the truth between you and me, I do still love her to distraction after all, although I won’t tell her so if I were to see her, which I don’t want to do. My poor dear unfortunate Jean how happy have I been in thy arms It is not the losing her that makes me so unhappy, but for her sake I feel most severely : I foresce she is in the road to, I am afraid, eternal ruin. May Almighty God forgive her ingratitude and perjury to me, as I from my very soul forgive her; and may his grace be with her and bless her in all her future life I can have no nearer idea of the place of eternal punishment than what I havefelt in my own breast on her account. I have tried often to forget her; I have run into all kinds of dissipa- tion and riots, mason-meetings, drinking-matches, and other mischief, to drive her out of my head, but all in vain. And now for a grand cure ; the ship is on her way home that is to take me out to Jamaica; and then, farewell, dear old Scotland; and farewell, dear ungrateful Jean for never, never will I see you more. You will have heard that I am going to com- mence poet in print; and to-morrow my works go to the press. I expect it will be a volume of about two hundred pages—it is just the last fool- ish action I intend to do; and then turn a wise man as fast as possible. Believe me to be, dear Bryce, Your friend and well-wisher, * R. B. I Shoemaker in Glasgow. 2 In May, 1786, Jean Armour went to reside with a relation of her mother's in Paisley. See the note to the song ‘Where Cart rins rowing to the sea,' page 52, and also to the poem at page 74, Vol. i. NO. XXI. TO MR, ROBERT AIKIN.3 AYRSHIRE, 1786. SIR, I was with Wilson, my printer, t'other day, and settled all our by-gone matters between us. After I had paid him all demands, I made him the offer of the second edition, on the hazard of being paid out of the first and readiest, which he declines. By his account, the paper of a thousand copies would cost about twenty-seven pounds, and the printing about fifteen or sixteen; he offers to agree to this for the printing, if I will advance for the paper, but this, you know, is out of my power; so farewell hopes of a second edition 'till I grow richer an epocha which, I think, will arrive at the payment of the British national debt.4 3 * This letter was evidently written under the distress of mind occasioned by our Poet's separation from Mrs Burns.”— CURRIE. 4 “John Wilson, printer of the first edition of Burns' Poems, on whom the Poet composed the satirical lines,— “Whoe'er thou art, O reader, know, That death has murder'd Johnnie : And here his body lies fu' low— For Saul, he ne'er had ony,”— in consequence, it is said, of his refusal to venture on a second edition without security, was, notwithstanding the penurious timidity ascribed to him by the offended Bard, a much esteemed and respectable individual. Burns was at the time on the eve of leaving Scotland, and his circumstances were altogether such as to inspire no great faith in his pecuniary resources: while the odium attached to his works, as immoral and heterodox, were reasons sufficiently weighty to influence any business man of common prudence. We therefore see no reason why Wil- son should be blamed, as he has frequently been, for his conduct toward Burns. He deserves no great credit for his discrimina- tion, however, having afterwards lost a considerable sum in the exercise of an ill-judged liberality on far less deserving authors, who, prompted by the success of Burns, were ambi- tious to follow in his wake. Wilson was a native of Kilmar- nock, where his father kept a small shop, though it might be considered large at that time, for the disposal of general mer- chandise, in the Fore Street, them the principal thoroughfare. There were two brothers in the bookselling trade, John and Peter. The latter was established in business in Ayr, and the former in Kilmarnock. Though careful and generally secure in their dealings, they were nevertheless active and enterpris- ing in disposition ; and to their united efforts the county is indebted for the first newspaperit possessed. “The Ayr Adver- tiser,” of which they were the original publishers, was begun in 1803. Though the only newspaper in a populous and exten- sive district, it was but indifferently patronised for some time, and, it is said, the projectors were more than once on the eve of abandoming it altogether. The speculation, however, ulti- mately became a paying one, insomuch that the Wilsons realized a handsome fortune; and the Advertiser still continues to be a profitable concern, though, as there are now two other jour- mals in Ayrshire, it no longer possesses a monopoly. On the death of his brother Peter, John Wilson removed from Kilmar- mock to Ayr, when the newspaper firm was changed to “Wil- son & Paul;” the Rev. Hamilton Paul having entered into partnership, and conducted the journal for some time. John Wilson died on the 6th May, 1821, leaving a widow but no children. He was of very small stature, but active and gen- teel in appearance.”—AYRSHIRE Contemporaries of BURNS. 158 There is scarcely any thing hurts me so much in being disappointed of my second edition, as not having it in my power to show my gratitude to Mr Ballantine, by publishing my poem of ‘The Brigs o’ Ayr.’ I would detest myself as a wretch, if I thought I were capable, in a very long life, of forgetting the honest, warm, and tender delicacy with which he enters into my interests. I am sometimes pleased with myself in my grateful sensations; but I believe, on the whole, I have very little merit in it, as my gratitude is not a vir- tue, the consequence of reflection; but sheerly the instinctive emotion of my heart, too inatten- tive to allow worldly maxims and views to settle into selfish habits. I have been feeling all the various rotations and movements within, respecting the excise. There are many things plead strongly against it; the uncertainty of getting soon into business; the con- sequences of my follies, which may perhaps make it impracticable for me to stay at home; and besides, I have for some time been pining under secret wretchedness, from causes which you pretty well know—the pang of disappointment, the sting of pride, with some wandering stabs of remorse, which never fail to settle on my vitals like vultures, when attention is not called away by the calls of society, or the vagaries of the muse. Even in the hour of social mirth, my gaiety is the madness of an intoxicated criminal under the hands of the executioner. All these reasons urge me to go abroad, and to all these reasons I have only one answer—the feelings of a father. This, in the present mood I am in, overbalances every thing that can be laid in the scale against it. You may perhaps think it an extravagant fancy, but it is a sentiment which strikes home to my very soul: though sceptical in some points of our current belief, yet, I think, I have every evidence for the reality of a life beyond the stinted bourne of our present existence: if so, then, how should I, in the presence of that tremendous Being, the Author of existence, how should I meet the reproaches of those who stand to me in the dear relation of children, whom I deserted in the smiling innocency of helpless infancy? O, thou great unknown Power!—thou almighty God! who hast lighted up reason in my breast, and blessed me with immortality!—I havefrequently wandered from that order and regularity necessary for the perfection of thy works, yet thou hast never left me nor forsaken me ! Since I wrote the foregoing sheet, I have seen something of the storm of mischief thickening over my folly-devoted head. Should you, my friends, my benefactors, be successful in your applications! (7 9 1 So early as this period, some of the Poet's friends were endeavouring to obtain for him an appointment in the Excise. for me, perhaps it may not be in my power in that way, to reap the fruit of your friendly efforts. What I have written in the preceding pages, is the settled tenor of my present resolution; but should inimical circumstances forbid me closing with your kind offer, or enjoying it only threaten to entail farther misery º To tell the truth, I have little reason for com- plaint; as the world, in general, has been kind to me fully up to my deserts. I was, for some time past, fast getting into the pining distrustful snarl of the misanthrope. I saw myself alone, unfit for the struggle of life, shrinking at every rising cloud in the chance-directed atmosphere of fortune, while, all defenceless, I looked about in vain for a cover. It never occurred to me, at least never with the force it deserved, that this world is a busy scene, and man, a creature destined for a progres- sive struggle: and that, however I might possess a warm heart and inoffensive manners (which last, by the bye, was rather more than I could well boast); still, more than these passive qualities, there are something to be done. When all my school-fellows and youthful compeers (those mis- guided few excepted who joined, to use a Gentoo phrase, the “hallachores” of the human race) were striking off with eager hope and earnest intent, in some one or other of the many paths of busy life, I was “standing idle in the market- place,” or only left the chase of the butterfly from flower to flower, to hunt fancy from whim to whim. * You see, Sir, that if to know one’s errors were a probability of mending them, I stand a fair chance; but, according to the reverend West- minister divines, though conviction must precede conversion, it is very far from always implying it. R. B. NO. XXII. TO JOHN BALLANTYNE, OF AYR. JUNE, 1786. HONOURED SIR, MY proposals came to hand last night, and, knowing that you would wish to have it in your power to do me a service as early as any body, I inclose you a half sheet of them. I must consult you, first opportunity, on the propriety of sending my quondam friend, Mr Aikin, a copy. If he is now reconciled to my character as an honest man, I would do it with all my soul; but I would not be beholden to the noblest being ever God QS, Xi Z2 159 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. created, if he imagined me to be a rascal. Apro- pos, old Mr Armour prevailed with him to muti- late that unlucky paper yesterday. Would you believe it ! though I had not a hope, nor even a wish, to make her mine after her conduct; yet, when he told me the names were all out of the paper, my heart died within me, and he cut my veins with the news. Perdition seize her false- hood.] R. B. NO. XXIII. TO JOHN RICHMOND, EDINBURGH. MOSSGIEL, 9th JULY, 1786. WITII the sincerest grief I read your letter. You are truly a son of misfortune. I shall be extremely anxious to hear from you how your health goes on; if it is any way re-establishing, or if Leith promises well: in short, how you feel in the inner man. No news worth any thing; only godly Bryan was in the inquisition yesterday, and half the countryside as witnesses against him. He still stands out steady and denying: but proof was led yesternight of circumstances highly suspicious; almost de facto; one of the servant girls made faith that she upon a time rashly entered into the house, to speak, in your cant, “ in the hour of cause.” I have waited on Armour since her return home; not from the least view of reconciliation, but merely to ask for her health, and to you I will confess it, from a foolish hankering fondness, very ill placed indeed. The mother forbade me the house, nor did Jean show that penitence that might have been expected. However, the priest, I am informed, will give me a certificate as a single man, if I comply with the rules of the church, which for that very reason I intend to do. I am going to put on sackcloth and ashes this day. . I am indulged so far as to appear in my own seat. Peccavi, pater, miserere mei. My book will be ready in a fortnight. If you have any subscribers, return them by Connell. The Lord stand with the righteous; amen, amen. R. B. NO. XXIV. TO MR DAVID BRYCE, SHOEMAKER, GLASGOW. MOSSGIEL, 17th July, 1786. I HAVE been so throng printing my Poems, that I could scarcely find as much time as to write to you. Poor Armour is come back again to Mauch- line, and I went to call for her, and her mother forbade me the house, nor did she herself express much sorrow for what she has done. I have already appeared publicly in church, and was in- dulged in the liberty of standing in my own seat. I do this to get a certificate as a bachelor, which Mr Auld has promised me. I am now fixed to go for the West Indies in October. Jean and her friends insisted much that she should stand along with me in the kirk, but the minister would not allow it, which bred a great trouble I assure you, and I am blamed as the cause of it, though I am sure I am innocent; but I am very much pleased, for all that, not to have had her company. I have no news to tell you that Iremember. I am really happy to hear of your welfare, and that you are so well in Glasgow. I must certainly see you before I leave the country. I shall expect to hear from you soon, and am, Dear Bryce, Yours, R. B. NO. XXV. SIR, YOURS this moment I unseal, And faith, I’m gay and hearty! To tell the truth, and shame the deil, I am as fou as Bartie : But Foorsday, Sir, my promise leal, Expect me o' your partie, If on a beastie I can speel, Or hurl in a cartie. Yours, 1 This refers to Jean Armour and the destruction of the “marriage-lines.” Aiken, to whom the Poet inscribed “the Cotter's Saturday Night,” saw the matter in a different light from Burns, and the consequence was a temporary estrange- Ille11 i. l60 RoBERT BURNs.” MAUCHL1Ne, Monday night, 10 o’clock. 2 The original MS. of the above characteristic note is pre- served in the Paisley Library. It is not known to whom it was addressed. Though given among the Epigrams, &c., it is repeated here, as illustrative of the Poet's fitful moods at this dark period of his history. -- º ºn (*:::: GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. No. XXVI. TO MR JOHN RICHMOND. OLD ROME FOREST, 30th JULY, 1786. MY DEAR RICHMOND, MY hour is now come—you and I will never meet in Britain more. I have orders, within three weeks at farthest, to repair aboard the Nancy, Captain Smith, from Clyde, to Jamacia, and to call at Antigua. This, except to our friend Smith, whom God long preserve, is a secret about Mauchline. Would you believe it 2 Armour has got a warrant to throw me in jail till I find security for an enormous sum." This they keep an entire secret, but I got it by a channel they little dream of ; and I am wandering from one friend's house to another, and, like a true son of the gospel, “ have no where to lay my head.” I know you will pour an execration on her head, but spare the poor, ill-advised girl, for my sake; though may all the furies that rend the injured, enraged lover's bosom, await her mother until her latest hour ! I write in a moment of rage, reflecting on my miserable situation—exiled, abandoned, forlorn. I can write no more—let me hear from you by the return of coach. I will write you ere I go. I am, dear Sir, Yours, here and hereafter, R. B. No. XXVII. TO MRS DUNLOP OF DUNLOP. 2 AYRSHIRE, JULY, 1786. MADAM, I AM truly sorrow I was not at home yester- day, when I was so much honoured with your order for my copies, and incomparably more by the handsome compliments you are pleased to pay Dunlop. my poetic abilities. there is not any class of mankind so feelingly alive to the titillations of applause as the sons of Parnassus: nor is it easy to conceive how the Robert acquired in Ayrshire or elsewhere, none seemed more agreeable to him than that of Mrs Dunlop of Dunlop. * * He was on the point of setting out for Edinburgh, before Mrs Dunlop had heard of him. About the time of his pub- lishing in Kilmarnock, she had been afflicted with a long and severe illness, which had reduced her mind to the most dis- tressing state of depression. In this situation, a copy of the poems was laid on her table by a friend, and, happening to open on the Cotter's Saturday Night, she read it over with the greatest pleasure and surprise: the Poet's description of the simple cottagers, operating on her mind like the charm of a powerful exorcist, expelling the demon ennui, and restoring her to her wonted inward harmony and satisfaction. Mrs Dunlop sent off an express to Mossgiel, distant fifteen or six- teen iniles, with a very obliging letter to my brother, desiring him to send half a dozen copies of his poems, if he had them to spare, and begging he would do her the pleasure of calling at Dunlop House as soon as convenient. This was the beginning of a correspondence which ended only with the Poet’s life. The last use he made of his pen was writing a short letter to this lady a few days before his death.” Dr Currie adds: “The friendship of Mrs Dunlop was of particular value to Burns. This lady, daughter and sole heir- ess to Sir Thomas Wallace of Craigie, and lineal descendant of the illustrious Wallace, the first of Scottish warriors, possesses the qualities of mind suited to her high lineage. Preserving, in the decline of life, the generous affections of youth, her admiration of the Poet was now converted into a sincere admiration of the man; which pursued him in after life through good and evil report; in poverty, in sickness, and in sorrow ; and which is continued to his infant family, now deprived of their parent.” These paragraphs, together with the numerous letters of the Poet to Mrs Dunlop, published by Dr Currie and Mr Cromek, place the relation which subsisted between them in a suffi- ciently clear light. Some particulars more expressly referring to her own personal history may here, however, be added. Frances Wallace, the only daughter and ultimately the heiress of Sir Thomas Wallace, Baronet, of Craigie, in Ayr- shire, was born about the year 1731, and at the age of seven- teen became the wife of John Dunlop, Esquire, of Dunlop, in the same county. The statement of Dr Currie respecting the descent of the family of Craigie from the immortal defender of Scottish independence is not, we believe, strictly correct, although no doubt is entertained that the race are descended from the father of the hero. The family of Dunlop is traced back to the year 1260, as the possessors of the estate in Cunning- ham, from which they take their name. Although Mrs Dunlop brought into her husband's family a very large fortune, together with the mansion of Craigie, beautifully situated on the Ayr, she was content to spend the whole of her married and dowager life, with the exception of occasional visits, in retirement at She there became the mother of five sons and five daughters, all of whom, except one, survived her. Her eldest son succeeded, under the name of Sir Thomas Wallace, to her paternal estate of Craigie, which, however, is not now the pro- perty of the family. Mr Dunlop settled his own estate upon the second son, James Dunlop, a Lieutenant-General in the army, and at one time representative of the Stewartry of Kirk- cudbright in parliament, whose son, John Dunlop of Dunlop, was in 1838 member for Ayrshire. Mrs Dunlop died, May 24, 1815, at the ripe age of eighty-four. Without the least tincture of the pretension and parade which too often distinguish literary ladies, Mrs Dunlop was a woman of highly cultivated understanding,-fond of books and extensively acquainted with them, and also disposed to be the kind and zealous friend of their authors. The fact that Burns's letters to her are decidedly more natural and every way pleas- ing than those addressed to other correspondents, is strikingly indicative of something much above all that is common in Mrs Dunlop. While she treated him with uniform affability and kindness, there was an unaffected dignity in her whole charac- ter, which seems to have at once exercised a salutary restraint § I am fully persuaded that º 1 Armour's object in obtaining the warrant was not to throw the distracted poet into jail, but to frighten him out of the country. 2 Speaking of his letters, Jeffrey says, (see Edinburgh Review, for Jan. 1809,) “Of his other letters, those addressed to Mrs Dunlop are, in our opinion, by far the best. He appears, froin first to last, to have stood somewhat in awe of this excel- lent lady, and to have been no less sensible of her sound judg- ment and strict sense of propriety, than of her steady and generous partiality.” Gilbert Burns in a letter to Dr Currie, written near the close of the last century, has given an account of the acquain- tance which subsisted for several years between this lady and the bard of Coila. “Of all the friendships,” he says, “which II. 16] X } Sºº- _º &J GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. heart of the poor bard dances with rapture, when those, whose character in life gives them a right to be polite judges, honour him with their appro- bation. Had you been thoroughly acquainted with me, Madam, you could not have touched my darling heart-chord more sweetly than by noticing my attempts to celebrate your illustrious ancestor, the Saviour of his country. “Great patriot hero! ill-requited chief!” The first book I met with in my early years, which I perused with pleasure, was, ‘The life of Hannibal; the next was, ‘The History of Sir William Wallace:’ for several of my earlier years I had few other authors; and many a solitary hour have I stole out, after the laborious vocations of the day, to shed a tear over their glorious, but unfortunate stories. In those boyish days I remember, in particular, being struck with that part of Wallace's story where these lines occur— “Syne to the Leglen wood, when it was late, To make a silent and a safe retreat.” I chose a fine summer Sunday, the only day my line of life allowed, and walked half a dozen of miles to pay my respects to the Leglen wood, with as much devout enthusiasm as ever pilgrim did to Loretto; and as I explored every den and dell where I could suppose my heroic countryman to have lodged, I recollect (for even then I was a rhymer) that my heart glowed with a wish to be able to make a song on him in some measure equal to his merits. R. B. over him, and raised his mind, when in communication with hers, to the exercise of its best powers. At the same time, there can be no doubt that the basis of their friendship was laid in their common possession of the generous affections to which Dr Currie alludes. The mind of Mrs Dunlop, overflowing with benevolent feelings, delighted in those fine emotions of the Ayrshire poet which found expression in the verses to a Mouse, the stanzas on a Winter Night, and the noble poem which first attracted her attention to him. Burns, on the other hand, glowed at finding, in the heretrix of ancient family and histori- cal honours, a heart as warm and philanthropic as his own. After the death of Burns, Mrs Dunlop paid a visit to Dr Currie at Liverpool, in order to consult with him respecting the publication of the Poet's works. Dr Currie had already perused a parcel of her letters to Burns, which he had found amongst the Poet's papers; and he expressed an anxious wish that she would allow of their publication, in connection with those of Burns to herself. But Mrs Dunlop entertained an unsurmountable repugnance to all public appearances, and notwithstanding Dr Currie's assurances of the value of her compositions, both on their own account, and as rendering Burns's letters the more intelligible, she positively refused to allow them to see the light. She concluded her interview with the learned editor, by half jestingly purchasing back her letters from him one by one, laying down a letter of Burns for each of her own, till she had obtained the whole; and she then returned satisfied to Dunlop. It is believed that these letters still exist; but her family feel that they would not be fulfilling her wishes, if they were to allow them to come before the world, No. XXVIII. TO MR JOHN KENNEDY. KILMARNOCK, AUGUST, 1786. MY DEAR SIR, YOUR truly facetious epistle of the 3d instant gave me much entertainment. I was only sorry I had not the pleasure of seeing you as I passed your way, but we shall bring up all our lee-way on Wednesday, the 16th current, when I hope to have it in my power to call on you, and take a kind, very probably a last adieu, before I go for Jamaica, and I expect orders to repair to Greenock every day.—I have at last made my public appearance, and am solemnly inaugurated into the numerous class. Could I have got a carrier, you should have had a score of vouchers for my authorship ; but now you have them, let them speak for themselves, Farewell, dear friend! may guid luck hit you, And mang her favourites admit you, If e'er Detraction shore to smit you, May name believe him, And ony de’il that thinks to get you, Good Lord, deceive him. R. B. No. XXIX. TO MR BURNESS, MONTROSE. MossGIEL, Tuesday noon, Sept. 26, 1786. MY DEAR SIR, I THIS moment receive yours—receive it with the honest hospitable warmth of a friend's welcome. Whatever comes from you wakens always up the better blood about my heart, which your kind little recollections of my parental friends carries as far as it will go. 'Tis there that man is blest! 'Tis there, my friend, man feels a conscious- ness of something within him above the trodden clod! The grateful reverence to the hoary (earth- ly) author of his being—the burning glow when he clasps the woman of his soul to his bosom— the tender yearnings of heart for the little angels to whom he has given existence—these nature has poured in milky streams about the human heart; and the man who never rouses them to action, by the inspiring influences of their proper objects, loses by far the most pleasurable part of his existence. ] 62 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. My departure is uncertain, but I do not think it will be till after harvest. I will be on very short allowance of time indeed, if I do not comply with your friendly invitation. When it will be, I don’t know, but if I can make my wish good, I will endeavour to drop you a line some time before. My best compliments to Mrs ; I should [be] equally mortified should I drop in when she is abroad; but of that I suppose there is little chance. What I have wrote, Heaven knows; I have not time to review it : so accept of it in the beaten way of friendship. With the ordinary phrase— perhaps rather more than the ordinary sincerity —I am, dear Sir, ever yours, R. B. No. XXX. TO DR. ARCHD. LAW RIE. MossGIEL, Nov. 13, 1786. DEAR SIR, I HAVE, along with this, sent the two volumes of Ossian, with the remaining volume of the songs. Ossian I am not in such a hurry about, but I wish the songs, with the volume of the Scotch Poets, returned, as soon as they can be conveniently dis- patched. If they are left at Mr Wilson's, the bookseller, Kilmarnock, they will easily reach me. My most respectable compliments to Mr and Mrs Lawrie, and a poet's warm wishes for their happi- ness;–to the young ladies, particularly the fair musician, whom I think much better qualified than ever David was, or could be, to charm an evil spirit out of Saul. Indeed, it needs not the feel- ings of a Poet to be interested in one of the sweet- est scenes of domestic peace and kindred love that ever I saw, as I think the peaceful unity of St Mar- garet's Hill can only be excelled by the harmo- nious concord of the Apocalypse. I am, dear Sir, yours sincerely, ROBERT BURNS, No. XXXI. TO MISS ALEXANDER.I MOSSGIEL, 18th Nov., 1786. MADAM, PoETS are such outré beings, so much the chil- latitude in the laws of propriety, than the sober sons of judgment and prudence. I mention this as an apology for the liberties that a nameless stranger has taken with you in the enclosed poem, which he begs leave to present you with. Whether it has poetical merit any way worthy of the theme, I am not the proper judge: but it is the best my abilities can produce : and what to a good heart will, perhaps, be a superior grace, it is equally sincere as fervent. The scenery was nearly taken from real life, though I dare say, Madam, you do not recollect it, as I believe you scarcely noticed the poetic reveur as he wandered by you. I had roved out as chance directed, in the favourite haunts of my muse, on the banks of the Ayr, to view nature in all the gaiety of the vernal year. The evening sun was flaming over the distant western hills: not a breath stirred the Crimson opening blossom, or the ver- dant spreading leaf. It was a golden moment for a poetic heart. I listened to the feathered war- blers, pouring their harmony on every hand, with a congenial kindred regard, and frequently turned out of my path, lest I should disturb their little songs, or frighten them to another station. Surely, said I to myself, he must be a wretch indeed, who, regardless of your harmonious endeavour to please him, can eye your delusive flights to discover your secret recesses, and to rob you of all the pro- perty nature gives you—your dearest comforts, your helpless nestlings. Even the hoary haw– thorn twig that shot across the way, what heart at such a time but must have been interested in its welfare, and wished it preserved from the rudely-browsing cattle, or the withering eastern blast : Such was the scene,—and such the hour, when in a corner of my prospect, I spied one of the fairest pieces of Nature's workmanship that ever crowned a poetic landscape, or met a poet’s eye, those visionary bards excepted, who hold com- merce with aerial beings! Had Calumny and Wil- lany taken my walk, they had at that moment sworn eternal peace with such an object. What an hour of inspiration for a poet! It would have raised plain dull historic prose into meta- phor and measure. The enclosed song was the work of my return home ; and perhaps it but poorly answers what might have been expected from such a scene. I have the honour to be, Madam, Your most obedient, and very humble servant, dren of wayward fancy and capricious whim, that R. B. t I believe the world generally allows them a larger l See the Note to the song of “The lass of Ballochmyle,' pages 13, and 14, where a full account is given of the occasion and \ result of this letter. ºs 163 § S$2^{- cº S GNºyºs &º ? C • - $o ) {T><>~~~ --~~~~<>~ C24 Gyre" - - - - *gººse- mºs ºººººººººººººººººººººº- ºn tº wºº Mºlº R S ^ | Row nºt oºgºnal ºn possession of Laº Mºwtº- wº-a-E Published by Blackie º Son Glasgºw. Đ º, i . 2. W K-A & Qū §§ t GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. merit, to tell the world how much I have the honour to be, e Your lordship's highly indebted, And ever grateful humble servant, R. B. NO. L. TO THE EARL OF BUCHAN.l EDINBURGH, FEB., 1787. MY LORD, THE honour your lordship has done me, by your notice and advice in yours of the 1st instant, Ishall ever gratefully remember: “Praise from thy lips 'tis mine with joy to boast, They best can give it who deserve it most.” Your lordship touches the darling chord of my heart, when you advise me to fire my muse at Scottish story, and Scottish scenes. I wish for nothing more than to make a leisurely pilgrimage through my native country; to sit and muse on those once hard-contended fields, where Caledo- nia, rejoicing, saw her bloody lion borne through broken ranks to victory and fame; and, catching the inspiration, to pour the deathless names in song. But, my lord, in the midst of these enthu- siastic reveries, a long-visaged, dry moral-looking phantom strides across my imagination, and pro- nounces these emphatic words: “I, Wisdom, dwell with Prudence. Friend, I do not come to open the ill-closed wounds of your follies and misfortunes, merely to give you pain; I wish through these wounds to imprint a lasting lesson on your heart. I will not mention how many of my salutary advices you have despised: I have given you line upon line, and precept upon precept; and while I was chalking out to you the straight way to wealth and character, with auda- cious effrontery you have zigzagged across the path, contemning me to my face : you know the consequences. It is not yet three months since home was so hot for you, that you were on the wing for the western shore of the Atlantic, not to make a fortune, but to hide your misfortune. “Now that your dear-loved Scotia puts it in your power to return to the situation of your forefathers, will you follow these will-o’-wisp meteors of fancy and whim, till they bring you once more to the brink of ruin 3 I grant that the 1 The Earl of Buchan was a well-known literateur himself, and a patron of literature so far as parsimonious habits would inmost ground you can occupy is but half a step from the veriest poverty; but still it is half a step from it. If all that I can urge be ineffectual, let her who seldom calls to you in vain, let the call of pride prevail with you. You know how you feel at the iron gripe of ruthless oppression; you know how you bear the galling sneer of contume- lious greatness. I hold you out the conveniences, the comforts of life, independence and character, on the one hand; I tender you servility, depend- ence, and wretchedness, on the other. I will not insult your understanding by bidding you make a choice.” This, my lord, is unanswerable. I must return to my humble station, and woo my rustic muse in my wonted way at the plough-tail. Still, my lord, while the drops of life warm my heart, gratitude to that dear-loved country in which I boast my birth, and gratitude to those of her distinguished sons, who have honoured me so much with their patronage and approbation, shall, while stealing through my humble shades, ever distend my bosom, and at times, as now, draw forth the swelling tear. R. B. NO. LI. TO GAVIN HAMILTON, ESQ. EDINBURGH, MARCH 8th, 1787. DEAR SIR : YOURS came safe, and I am, as usual, much in- debted to your goodness.-Poor Captain M.[ont- gomery] is cast. Yesterday it was tried whe- ther the husband could proceed against the un- fortunate lover without first divorcing his wife, and their Gravities on the Bench were unani- mously of opinion that Maxwell may prosecute for damages directly, and need not divorce his wife at all if he pleases; and Maxwell is immedi- ately, before the Lord Ordinary, to prove, what I dare say will not be denied, the Crim. Con.— then their Lordships will modify the damages, which I suppose will be pretty heavy, as their Wisdoms have expressed great abhorrence of my gallant Right Worshipful Brother's conduct. O, all ye powers of love unfortunate, and friend- less woe, pour the balm of sympathizing pity on the grief-torn, tender heart of the hapless Fair One ! - My two songs on Miss W. Alexander and Miss P. Kennedy were likewise tried yesterday by a jury of literati, and found defamatory libels against the fastidious powers of Poesy and Taste; and 173 24's permit him. He died in 1829, at an advanced age. G) 5\%. sº \ ~) W */ & ) *) 6 S & GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. the author forbidden to print them under pain of forfeiture of character. I cannot help almost shedding a tear to the memory of two songs that had cost me some pains, and that I valued a good deal, but I must submit. My most respectful compliments to Mrs Hamilton and Miss Kennedy.— My poor unfortunate Songs come again across my memory. D–n the pedant, frigid soul of Criticism for ever and ever! I am ever, Dear Sir, Your obliged ROBERT BURNS, No. LII. TO MR JAMES CANDLISH, STUDENT IN PHYSIC, GLASGOW COLLEGE. EDINBURGH, MARCH 21st, 1787. MY EVER DEAR OLD ACQUAINTANCE, I WAS equally surprised and pleased at your letter, though I dare say you will think by my delaying so long to write to you that I am so drowned in the intoxication of good fortune as to be indifferent to old, and once dear connexions. The truth is, I was determined to write a good letter, full of argument, amplification, erudition, and, as Bayes says, all that. I thought of it, and thought of it, and, by my soul, I could not ; and, lest you should mistake the cause of my silence, I just sit down to tell you so. Don’t give your- self credit, though, that the strength of your logic scares me: the truth is, I never mean to meet you on that ground at all. You have shown me one thing which was to be demonstrated: that strong pride of reasoning, with a little affectation of singularity, may mislead the best of hearts. I likewise, since you and I were first acquainted, in the pride of despising old women's stories, ven- tured in “the daring path Spinosa trod; ” but experience of the weakness, not the strength, of human powers, made me glad to grasp at revealed religion. I am still, in the Apostle Paul’s phrase, “The old man with his deeds,” as when we were sport- ing about the “Lady Thorn.” I shall be four weeks here yet at least; and so I shall expect to hear from you; welcome sense, welcome nonsense. I am, with the warmest sincerity, R. B. NO. LIII. TO ON FERGUSSON'S HEADSTONE. EDINBURGH, MARCH, 1787. MY DEAR SIR, You may think, and too justly, that I am a sel- fish, ungrateful fellow, having received so many repeated instances of kindness from you, and yet never putting pen to paper to say thank you; but if you knew what a devil of a life my conscience has led me on that account, your good heart would think yourself too much avenged. By the bye, there, is nothing in the whole frame of man which seems to be so unaccountable as that thing called conscience. Had the troublesome yelping cur powers efficient to prevent a mischief, he might be of use; but at the beginning of the business, his feeble efforts are to the workings of passion, as the infant frosts of an autumnal morning to the unclouded fervour of the rising Sun: and no sooner are the tumultuous doings of the wicked deed over, than, amidst the bitter native consequences of folly in the very vortex of our horrors, up starts conscience, and harrows us with the feelings of the damned. I have inclosed you, by way of expiation, some verse and prose, that, if they merit a place in your truly entertaining miscellany, you are welcome to. The prose extract is literally as Mr Sprott sent it me. x The inscription on the stone is as follows:— “HERE LIES ROBERT FERGUSSON, POET, “Born, September 5th, 1751—Died, 16th October, 1774. “No sculptured marble here, nor pompous lay, * No storied urn nor animated bust; ” This simple stone directs pale Scotia’s way To pour her sorrows o'er her poet’s dust.” On the other side of the stone is as follows:— “By special grant of the managers to Robert Burns, who erected this stone, this burial-place is to remain for ever sacred to the memory of Robert Fergusson.” Session-house within the kirk of Canongate, the twenty-second day of February, one thousand Seven hundred eighty-seven years. Sederunt of the Managers of the Kirk and Kirk Yard funds of Canongate. Which day, the treasurer to the said funds pro- duced a letter from Mr Robert Burns, of date the 174 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 6th current, which was read and appointed to be engrossed in their sederunt book, and of which letter the tenor follows: “To the honourable bailies of Canongate, Edinburgh, Gentlemen, I am sorry to be told that the remains of Robert Fergusson, the so justly celebrated poet, a man whose talents for ages to come will do honour to our Caledonian name, lie in your church-yard among the ignoble dead, unnoticed and unknown. “Some memorial to direct the steps of the lovers of Scottish song, when they wish to shed a tear over the “narrow house’ of the bard who is no more, is surely a tribute due to Fergusson’s memory: a tribute I wish to have the honour of paying. - o “I petition you then, gentlemen, to permit me to lay a simple stone over his revered ashes, to remain an unalienable property to his deathless fame. I have the honour to be, gentlemen, your very humble servant (sic subscribitwr) * ROBERT BURNS.” Therefore the said managers, in consideration of the laudable and disinterested motion of Mr Burns, and the propriety of his request, did, and hereby do, unanimously, grant power and liberty to the said Robert Burns to erect a head-stone at the grave of the said Robert Fergusson, and to keep up and preserve the same to his memory in all time coming. Extracted forth of the records of the managers, by WILLIAM SPROTT, Clerk. 1 1 From imattention in the mason employed to erect this monu- ment, the foundation soon gave way, and it was in danger of falling. When this was observed, Burns, as well as Fergusson, was them also numbered with the dead. Some members of the Esculapian Club, animated by that pious zeal for departed merit, which had before led them to prevent some other sepul- chral monuments from going to ruin, applied for liberty to repair this tribute from one Poet to the memory of another; and, permission being granted, they took that opportunity of affixing to it an additional inscription commemorating the genius of Burns. The poetical part of it is taken, almost ver- batim, from the Elegy written by Burns himself on Captain Matthew Henderson. Digmwº law.de virwm Musa vetat mori. Lo Genius, proudly, while to Fame she turns, Twines CURRIE’s laurels with the wreath of BURNs. Roscoe. TO THE MEMORY OF . ROBERT BURNS, THE AYRSHIRE BARD: WHO was Born AT Doonside, ON THE 25TH of JANUARY, 1759; AND DIED AT DUMFRIES, ON THE 22ND of JULY, 1796. O RoberT BURNS the Man, the Brother And art thou gone,—and gone for ever ! And hast thou cross'd that unknown river, Life's dreary bound ! Like thee, where shall we find another, The world around ! NO. LIV. TO MRS IDUNLOP. EDINBURGH, MARCH 22D, 1787. MADAM, I READ your letter with watery eyes. A little, very little, while ago, I had scarce a friend but the stubborn pride of my own bosom; now I am distinguished, patronized, befriended by you. Your friendly advices, I will not give them the cold name of criticisms, I receive with reverence. I have made some small alterations in what I before had printed. I have the advice of some very judicious friends among the literati here, but with them I sometimes find it necessary to claim the privilege of thinking for myself. The noble Earl of Glencairn, to whom I owe more than to any man, does me the honour of giving Ine his strictures: his hints, with respect to impropriety or indelicacy, I follow implicitly. You kindly interest yourself in my future views and prospects; there I can give you no light. It “Dark as was Chaos ere the infant Sun Was roll'd together, or had tried his beams Athwart the gloom profound.” The appellation of a Scottish bard is by far my highest pride; to continue to deserve it is my most exalted ambition. Scottish scenes and Scot- tish story are the themes I could wish to sing. I have no dearer aim than to have it in my power, unplagued with the routine of business, for which heaven knows I am unfit enough, to make leisurely pilgrimages through Caledonia; to sit on the fields of her battles; to wander on the romantic banks of her rivers; and to muse by the stately towers Or venerable ruins, once the honoured abodes of her heroes. But these are all Utopian thoughts: I have dal- lied long enough with life; ’tis time to be in earnest. I have a fond, an aged mother to care for: and some other bosom ties perhaps equally tender. Where the individual only suffers by the consequences of his own thoughtlessness, indo- lence, or folly, he may be excusable; nay, shining abilities, and some of the nobler virtues, may half sanctify a heedless character; but where God and nature have intrusted the welfare of others to his care; where the trust is sacred, and the ties are dear, that man must be far gone in selfishness, or 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 sweetest Poet's fate E’er lived on earth. º GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 9 & s: sºon - strangely lost to reflection, whom these connexions will not rouse to exertion. I guess that I shall clear between two and three hundred pounds by my authorship; with that sum I intend, so far as I may be said to have any intention, to return to my old acquaintance, the plough, and, if I can meet with a lease by which I can live, to commence farmer. I do not intend to give up poetry; being bred to labour, secures me independence, and the muses are my chief, sometimes have been my only enjoyment. If my practice second my resolution, I shall have prin- cipally at heart the serious business of life; but while following my plough, or building up my shocks, I shall cast a leisure glance to that dear, that only feature of my character, which gave me the notice of my country, and the patronage of a Wallace. Thus, honoured Madam, I have given you the bard, his situation, and his views, native as they are in his own bosom. R. B. NO. L.V. To MR WILLIAM DUNBAR. LAWN-MARKET, MONDAY MORNING, MARCH, 1787. DEAR SIR : IN justice to Spenser, I must acknowledge that there is scarcely a poet in the language could have been a more agreeable present to me; and in justice to you, allow me to say, Sir, that I have not met with a man in Edinburgh to whom I would so willingly have been indebted for the gift. The tattered rhymes I herewith present you, and the handsome volumes of Spenser for which I am so much indebted to your goodness, may perhaps be not in proportion to one another; but be that as it may, my gift, though far less valuable, is as sincere a mark of esteem as yours. The time is approaching when I shall return to my shades; and I am afraid my numerous Edin- burgh friendships are of so tender a construction that they will not bear carriage with me. Yours is one of the few that I could wish of a more robust constitution. It is indeed very probable that when I leave this city, we part never more to meet in this sublunary sphere; but I have a strong fancy that in some future eccentric planet, the comet of happier systems than any with which astronomy is yet acquainted, you and I, among the harum scarum sons of imagination and whim, with a hearty shake of a hand, a metaphor, and a laugh, shall recognise old acquaintance: Where wit may sparkle all its rays, Uncurst with caution’s fears; That pleasure, basking in the blaze, Rejoice for endless years. I have the honour to be, with the warmest sin- cerity, dear Sir, &c. R. B. No. LVI. TO MRS DUNLOP. EDINBURGH, 15TH APRIL, 1787. MADAM, THERE is an affectation of gratitude which I dislike. The periods of Johnson and the pauses of Sterne may hide a selfish heart. For my part, Madam, I trust I have too much pride for servility, and too little prudence for selfishness. I have this monient broken open your letter, but “Rude am I in speech, And therefore little can I grace my cause In speaking for myself—" so I shall not trouble you with any fine speeches and hunted figures. I shall just lay my hand on my heart and say, I hope I shall ever have the truest, the warmest sense of your goodness. I come abroad, in print, for certain on Wed- nesday. Your orders I shall punctually attend to; only, by the way, I must tell you that I was paid before for Dr Moore's and Miss Williams’ copies, through the medium of Commissioner Cochrane in this place, but that we can settle when I have the honour of waiting on you. Dr Smith 1 was just gone to London the morn- ing before I received your letter to him. R. B. NO. LVII. TO DR, MOORE. EDINBURGH, 23D APRIL, 1787. I RECEIVED the books, and sent the one you mentioned to Mrs Dunlop. I am ill skilled in beating the coverts of imagination for metaphors of gratitude. I thank you, Sir, for the honour you have done me; and to my latest hour will warmly remember it. To be highly pleased with your book, is what I have in common with the 1 Adam Smith, LL.D., the author of the ‘Wealth of Na- tions,’ &c. 176 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. world; but to regard these volumes as a mark of the author's friendly esteem, is a still more supreme gratification. I leave Edinburgh in the course of ten days or a fortnight, and, after a few pilgrimages over some of the classic ground of Caledonia, Cowden Knowes, Banks of Yarrow, Tweed, &c., I shall return to my rural shades, in all likelihood never more to quit them. I have formed my intimacies and friendships here, but I am afraid they are all of too tender a construction to bear carriage a hundred and fifty miles. To the rich, the great, the fashionable, the polite, I have no equivalent to offer; and I am afraid my meteor appearance will by no means entitle me to a settled corres- pondence with any of you, who are the permanent lights of genius and literature. º My most respectful compliments to Miss Wil- liams. If once this tangent flight of mine were over, and I were returned to my wonted leisurely motion in my old circle, I may probably endeavour to return her poetic compliment in kind. R. B. l 1 Dr Moore’s answer to the above was in the following terms: * CLIF FoRD-STREET, MAY 23, 1787. ‘DEAR SIR, “I HAD the pleasure of your letter by Mr Creech, and soon after he sent me the new edition of your poems. You seem to think it incumbent on you to send to each subscriber a number of copies proportionate to his subscription money, but you may depend upon it, few subscribers expect more than one copy, whatever they subscribed; I must inform you, however, that I took twelve copies for those subscribers, for whose money you were so accurate as to send me a receipt, and Lord Eglinton told me he had sent for six copies for himself, as he wished to give five of them as presents. “Some of the poems you have added in this last edition are very beautiful, particularly the “Winter Night,” the “Address to Edinburgh,” “Green grow the rashes,” and the two songs immediately following; the latter of which is exquisite. By the way, I imagine you have a peculiar talent for such com- positions, which you ought to indulge. No kind of poetry demands more delicacy or higher polishing. Horace is more admired on account of his Odes than all his other writings. But nothing now added is equal to your “Vision,” and “Cot- ter's Saturday Night.” In these are united fine imagery, natural and pathetic description, with sublimity of language and thought. It is evident that you already possess a great variety of expression and command of the English language; you ought therefore to deal more sparingly, for the future, in the provincial dialect—why should you, by using that, limit the number of your admirers to those who understand the Scottish, when you can extend it to all persons of taste who understand the English language? In my opinion, you should plan some larger work than any you have as yet attempted. I mean, reflect upon some proper subject, and arrange the plan in your mind, without beginning to execute any part of it till you have studied most of the best Fnglish poets, and read a little more of history.—The Greek and Roman stories you can read in some abridgment, and soon become master of the most brilliant facts, which must highly delight a poetical mind. You should also, and very soon may, become master of the heathen mythology, to which there are everlasting allusions in all the poets, and which in itself is charmingly fanciful. What will require to be studied with more attention, is modern history; that is, the history of France and Great Britain, from the beginning of Henry the Seventh's reign. I know very well you have a mind capable of attaining knowledge by a shorter process than is commonly used, and I am certain you are capable of making a better use of it, when attained, than is generally dome. II. NO. LVIII. TO MRS DUNLOP. EDINBURGH, 30TH APRIL, 1787. YOUR criticisms, Madam, I understand very well, and could have wished to have pleased you better. You are right in your guess that I am not very amenable to counsel. Poets, much my superiors, have so flattered those who possessed the adventitious qualities of wealth and power, that I am determined to flatter no created being, either in prose or verse. I set as little by princes, lords, clergy, critics, &c. as all these respective gentry do by my bard- ship. I know what I may expect from the world, by and bye—illiberal abuse, and perhaps con- temptuous neglect. I am happy, Madam, that some of my own favourite pieces are distinguished by your parti- cular approbation. For my “Dream,’ which has unfortunately incurred your loyal displeasure, I hope in four weeks, or less, to have the honour of appearing, at Dunlop, in its defence in person. R. B. No. LIX. TO THE REV. DR HUGH BLAIR. LAWN-MARKET, EDINBURGH, 3d MAY, 1787. REVEREND AND MUCH-RESPECTED SIR, I LEAVE Edinburgh to-morrow morning, but could not go without troubling you with half a line, sincerely to thank you for the kindness, “I beg you will not give yourself the trouble of writing to me when it is inconvenient, and make no apology when you do write for having postponed it—be assured of this, however, that I shall always be happy to hear from you. I think my friend Mr. told me that you had some poems in manuscript by you, of a satirical and humorous nature, (in which, by the way, I think you very strong,) which your prudent friends prevailed on you to omit; particularly one called “Somebody's Confes- sion; ” if you will intrust me with a sight of any of these, I will pawn my word to give no copies, and will be obliged to you for a perusal of them. “I understand you intend to take a farm, and make the useful and respectable business of husbandry your chief occupation : this I hope will not prevent your making occasional addresses to the nine ladies who have shown you such favour, one of whom visited you in the “auld clay biggin'.” Virgil, before you, proved to the world that there is nothing in the business of husbandry inimical to poetry: and I sincerely hope that you may afford an example of a good poet being a successful farmer. I fear it will not be in my power to visit Scotland this season ; when I do, I'll endeavour to find you out, for I heartily wish to see and converse with you. If ever your occasions call you to this place, I make no doubt of your paying me a visit, and you may depend on a very cordial welcome from this family. ‘I am, dear Sir, “Your friend and obedient servant, ‘J. MooR 8. 177 Z i GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. patronage, and friendship you have shown me. I often felt the embarrassment of my singular situ- ation; drawn forth from the veriest shades of life to the glare of remark; and honoured by the notice of those illustrious names of my country, whose works, while they are applauded to the end of time, will ever instruct and mend the heart. However the meteor-like novelty of my appearance in the world might attract notice, and honour me with the acquaintance of the perma- nent lights of genius and literature, those who are truly benefactors of the immortal nature of man, I knew very well that my utmost merit was far unequal to the task of preserving that charac- ter when once the novelty was over; I have made up my mind that abuse, or almost even neglect, will not surprise me in my quarters. I have sent you a proof impression of Beugo's work for me, done on Indian paper, as a trifling but sincere testimony with what heart-warm gra- tude I am, &c. 1 R. B. 1 Dr Blair responded to the above epistle in these terms:— ARGYLE-squaRE, EDINBURGH, 4th MAY, 1787. ‘DEAR SIR,--I was favoured this forenoon with your very obliging letter, together with an impression of your portrait, for which I return you my best thanks. The success you have met with I do not think was beyond your merits; and if I have had any smail hand in contributing to it, it gives me great plea- sure. I know no way in which literary persons who are advanced in years can do more service to the world, than in forwarding the efforts of rising genius, or bringing forth unknown merit from obscurity. I was the first person who brought out to the notice of the world the poems of Ossian; first, by the ‘Fragments of ancient Poetry,’ which I published, and afterwards, by my setting on foot the undertaking for col- lecting and publishing the “Works of Ossian ;’ and I have always considered this as a meritorious action of my life. ‘Your situation, as you say, was indeed very singular: and in being brought out, all at once, from the shades of deepest privacy to so great a share of public notice and observation, you had to stand a severe trial. I am happy that you have stood it so well; and as far as I have known or heard, though in the midst of many temptations, without reproach to your character and behaviour. ‘You are now, I presume, to retire to a more private walk of life; and I trust will conduct yourself there with industry, pru- dence, and honour. You have laid the foundation for just pub- lic esteem. In the midst of those employments which your situation will render proper, you will not, I hope, neglect to promote that esteem, by cultivating your genius, and attending to such productions of it as may raise your character still higher. At the same time, be not in too great a haste to come forward. Take time and leisure to improve and mature your talents. For on any second production you give the world, your fate, as a poet, will very much depend. There is no doubt a gloss of novelty which time wears off. And as you very properly hint yourself, you are not to be surprised, if in your rural retreat you do not find yourself surrounded with that glare of notice and applause which here shone upon you. No man can be a good poet without being somewhat of a philosopher. He must lay his account, that any one, who exposes himself to public observation, will occasionally meet with the attacks of illiberal censure, which it is always best to overlook and despise. He will be inclined sometimes to court retreat, and to disappear from public view. He will not affect to shine always; that he may at proper seasons come forth with more advantage and energy. He will not think himself neglected if he be not always praised. I have taken the liberty, you see, of NO. LX.2 TO JAMES JOHNSON. EDITOR OF THE SCOTS MUSICAL MUSEUM. LAWN-MARKET, Friday-moon, 3D MAY, 1787. DEAR SIR, I HAVE sent you a song never before known, for your collection; the air by Mr Gibbon, but I know not the author of the words, as I got it from Dr Blacklock. Farewell, my dear Sir! I wished to have seen you, but I have been dreadfully throng, as I march to-morrow.—Had my acquaintance with you been a little older, I would have asked the favour of your correspondence; as I have met with few people whose company and conversation gave me so much pleasure, because I have met with few whose sentiments are so congenial to my OWIl. - When Dunbar and you meet, tell him that I left Edinburgh with the idea of him hanging somewhere about my heart. Keep the original of this song till we meet again, whenever that may be. R. B. No. LXI. TO WILLIAM CREECH, Esq., EDINBURGEI. SELEIRK, 13TH MAY, 1787. My HONoURED FRIEND, THE enclosed I have just wrote, nearly extem- pore, in a solitary inn in Selkirk, after a misera- ble wet day's riding. I have been over most of East Lothian, Berwick, Roxburgh, and Selkirk- an old man to give advice and make reflexions, which your own good sense will, I dare say, render unnecessary. “As you mention your being just about to leave town, you are going, I should suppose, to Dumfries-shire, to look at some of Mr Miller's farms. I heartily wish the offers to be made you there may answer; as I am persuaded you will not easily find a more generous and better hearted proprietor to live under than Mr Miller. When you return, if you come this way, I will be happy to see you, and to know concerning your future plans of life. You will find me by the 22d of this month, not in my house in Argyle-square, but at a country house at Restalrig, about a mile east from Edinburgh, near the Mussel- burgh road. Wishing you all success and prosperity, I am, with real regard and esteem, “Dear Sir, ‘Yours sincerely, “HUGH BLAIR.’ 2 First published in Hogg and Motherwell's edition. 178 S.A. * ** NOQ §§ O)4 º F. s GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. shires; and next week I begin a tour through the north of England. Yesterday I dined with Lady Harriet, sister to my noble patron,' Quem Dew8 conservet! I would write till I would tire you as much with dull prose, as I daresay by this time you are with wretched verse, but I am jaded to death; so, with a grateful farewell, I have the honour to be, Good Sir, yours sincerely, º R. B. Auld chuckie-Reekie's 2 sair distrest, Down droops her ance weel burnish’d crest, Nae joy her bonnie buskit nest Can yield ava; Her darling bird that she lo’es best, Willie’s awa. 3 No. LXII. TO MR PATISON, BOOKSELLER, PAISLEY.4 BERRY-WELL, NEAR DUNSE, MAY 17, 1787. DEAR SIR, I AM sorry I was out of Edinburgh, making a slight pilgrimage to the classic scenes of this country, when I was favoured with yours of the 11th instant, enclosing an order of the Paisley Banking Company on the Royal Bank, for twenty- two pounds seven shillings sterling, payment in full, after carriage deducted, for ninety copies of my book I sent you. According to your motions, I see you will have left Scotland before this reaches you, otherwise I would send you ‘Holy Willie’ with all my heart. I was so hurried that I absolutely forgot several things I ought to have minded, among the rest sending books to Mr Cowan, but any order of yours will be answered at Creech's shop. You will please remember that non-subscribers pay six shillings, this is Creech's profit; but those who have subscribed, though their names have been neglected in the printed list, which is very incorrect, they are supplied at the subscription price. I was not at Glasgow, nor do I intend for London; and I think Mrs Fame is very idle to tell so many lies on a poor poet. 1 James, Earl of Glencairn. 2 Edinburgh. 3 See the rest of this poem, and a notice of Bailie Creech, the Poet's Edinburgh bookseller, at pages 88, 89, vol. i. 4 Reprinted from Hogg and Motherwell's edition. The ori- º ginal is in the possession of Charles Hutcheson, Esq., Glasgow. When you or Mr Cowan write for copies, if you should want any, direct to Mr Hill at Mr Creech's shop, and I write to Mr Hill by this post, to answer either of your orders. Hill is Mr Creech's first clerk, 5 and Creech himself is presently in London. I suppose I shall have the pleasure against your return to Paisley, of assuring you how much I am, Dear Sir, Your obliged humble servant, R. B., NO. LXIII. TO MR. W. NICOL,6 MASTER OF THE HIGH SCHOOL, EDINBURGH. CARLISLE, JUNE 1, 1787. KIND HONEST-HEARTED WILLIE, I’M sitten down here, after seven and forty miles ridin', e'en as forjesket and forniaw’d as a forfoughten cock, to gi'e you some notion o’ my land-lowper-like stravaguin sin’ the sorrowfu' hour that I sheuk hands and parted wi' auld Reekie. My auld, ga’d gleyde o” a meere has huchyall’d up hill and down brae, in Scotland and England, as teuch and birnie as a very devil wi' me.7 It's true, she's as poor's a sangmaker and as hard’s a kirk, and tipper-taipers when she taks the gate, first like a lady's gentlewoman in a minuwae, or a hen on a het girdle; but she's a yauld, pouthe- rie Girran for a that, and has a stomach like Willie Stalker's meere that wad haie disgeested tumbler wheels, for she'll whip me aff her five stimparts o' the best aits at a down-sittin’ and ne'er fash her thumb. When ance her ringbanes and Spavies, her crucks and cramps, are fairly soupl’d, she beets to, beets to, and aye the hind- most hour the tightest. I could wager her price to a thretty pennies, that for twa or three wooks ridin’ at fifty miles a-day, the de'il sticket o’ five gallopers acqueesh Clyde and Whithorn could cast saut on her tail. 5 Mr Peter Hill afterwards became bookseller on his ow-n account, and it was under him that the well-known Constable was initiated into the mysteries of ‘the trade.” Mr Hill died, at an advanced age, in 1836. As will be seen in future letters, he was honoured by Burns' correspondence. 6 Some account of this cronic of the Poet's will be found in the Life and elsewhere. He died in 1797. 7 This mare was the Poet's favourite, Jenny Geddes, named after the woman memorable in Scottish history as the first who displayed a physical force opposition to the introduction of episcopacy into Scotland, by flinging her stool at the dean of Edinburgh's head, in St Giles's church, July 23, 1637, when he commenced to read the liturgy, exclaiming at the same time, ‘Villaim! dost thou say the mass at my lug 2' 179 >{G) º T-3--- C/ jº GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. } f 3% Ö) of most modern Scotchmen.”—SlR WALTER Scott. I ha'e dander'd owre a' the kintra frae Dumbar to Selcraig, and ha'e forgather'd wi' mony a guid fallow, and mony a weelfar'd hizzie. I met wi' tWa dink quines in particlar, ane o’ them a sonsie fine, fodgel lass, baith braw and bonnie; the tither was a clean-shankit, straught, tight, weel- far'd Winch, as blythe’s a lintwhite on a flowerie thorn, and as sweet and modest’s a new blawn plumrose in a hazle shaw. They were baith bred to mainers by the beuk, and onie ane o’ them had as muckle Smeddum and rumblegumtion as the half o’ some presbytries that you and I baith ken. They play’d me sic a deevil o” a shavie that I daur say if my harigals were turned out, ye wad See twa nicks i' the heart o’ me like the mark o' a kail-whittle in a custock. I was gaum to write you a lang pystle, but, Gude forgi'e me, I gat mysel' sae moutouriously bitchify’d the day after kail-time that I can hardly stoiter but and ben. My best respecks to the guidwife and a’ our common friens, especiall Mr and Mrs Cruikshank, and the honest guidman o' Jock’s Lodge. I’ll be in Dumfries the morn, gif the beast be to the fore, and the branks bide hale. Gude be wi' you, Willie Amen. R. B. l. NO. LXIV. TO THE SAME. MAUCHLINE, JUNE 18, 1787. MY DEAR FRIEND, I AM now arrived safe in my native country, after a very agreeable jaunt, and have the plea- sure to find all my friends well. I breakfasted with your grey-headed, reverend friend, Mr Smith ; and was highly pleased both with the cordial welcome he gave me, and his most excel- lent appearance and sterling good sense. 1 ‘In English verse Burns falls beneath himself. This is the more remarkable, as the sublimer passages of his “Saturday night,” “Vision,” and other pieces of celebrity, always swell into the language of classic English poetry. But although in these flights he maturally, and almost unavoidably, assumed the dialect of Milton and Shakspeare, he never seems to have been completely at his ease when he had not the power of des- cending at pleasure into that which was familiar to his ear and to his habits. In the one case, his use of the English was voluntary, and for a short time, but when assumed as a primary and indispensable rule of composition, the comparative penury of chimes, and the want of a thousand emphatic words, which his habitual acquaintance with the Scottish supplied, rendered his expression confined and embarrassed. No man had ever more command of this ancient Doric dialect than Burns. He has left a curious testimony of his skill in a letter to Mr Nicol, an attempt to read a sentence of which would break the teeth 180 I have been with Mr Miller at Dalswinton, and am to meet him again in August. From my view of the lands, and his reception of my bardship, my hopes in that business are rather mended; but still they are but slender. I am quite charmed with Dumfries folks—Mr Burnside, the clergyman, in particular, is a man whom I shall ever gratefully remember; and his wife, Gude forgi'e me ! I had almost broke the tenth commandment on her account. Simplicity, elegance, good sense, sweetness of disposition, good humour, kind hospitality, are the constitu- ents of her manner and heart; in short—but if I say one word more about her, I shall be directly in love with her. I never, my friend, thought mankind very capa- ble of anything generous; but the stateliness of the patricians in Edinburgh, and the servility of my plebeian brethren (who perhaps formerly eyed me askance) since I returned home, have nearly put me out of conceit altogether with my species. I have bought a pocket Milton which I carry per- petually about with me, in order to study the sentiments—the dauntless magnanimity, the intre- pid, unyielding independence, the desperate daring, and noble defiance of hardship in that great per- Sonage, SATAN. 'Tis true, I have just now a little cash; but I am afraid the star that hitherto has shed its malignant, purpose-blasting rays full in my Zenith: that noxious planet so baneful in its influences to the rhyming tribe, I much dread it is not yet beneath the horizon.—Misfortune dodges the path of human life; the poetic mind finds itself miserably deranged in, and unfit for the walks of business; add to all, that thoughtless follies and hare-brained whims, like so many ignes fatwi, eternally diverging from the right line of sober discretion, sparkle with step bewitch- ing blaze in the idly-gazing eyes of the poor heed- less bard, till, pop, “ he falls like Lucifer, never to hope again.” God grant that this may be an unreal picture with respect to me! but should it not, I have very little dependence on mankind. I will close my letter with this tribute my heart bids me pay you—the many ties of acquaintance and friendship which I have, or think I have in life, I have felt along the lines, and, damn them, they are almost all of them of such frail contex- ture, that I am sure they would not stand the breath of the least adverse breeze of fortune; but from you, my ever dear Sir, I look with confi- dence for the Apostolic love that shall wait on me “through good report and bad report”—the love which Solomon emphatically says “ is strong as death.” My compliments to Mrs Nicol, and all the circle of our common friends. P. S. I shall be in Edinburgh about the latter end of July. ºn I lºº. Tº A -º-, -º- in ºn- ºr ºl- GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. | §º, NO. LXV. TO MR. JAMES CANDLISH. e [STUDENT, GLAsgow.] EDINBURGH, 1787. MY DEAR FRIEND, - IF once I were gone from this scene of hurry and dissipation, I promise myself the pleasure of that correspondence being renewed which has been so long broken. At present I have time for nothing. Dissipation and business engross every moment. I am engaged in assisting an honest Scotch enthusiast,” a friend of mine, who is an engraver, and has taken it into his head to publish a collection of all our songs set to music, of which the words and music are done by Scotsmen. This, you will easily guess, is an undertaking exactly to my taste. I have collected, begged, borrowed, and stolen, all the songs I could meet with. Pom- pey's Ghost, words and music, I beg from you immediately, to go into his second number: the first is already published. I shall show you the first number when I see you in Glasgow, which will be in a fortnight or less. Do be so kind as to send me the song in a day or two: you cannot imagine how much it will oblige me. Direct to me at Mr W. Cruikshank’s, St James's Square, New Town, Edinburgh. R. B. NO. LXVI. TO ROBERTAINSLIE, ESQ.2 ARROCHAR, 28TH JUNE, 1787. MY DEAR SIR, I write this on my tour through a country where savage streams tumble over savage moun- tains, thinly overspread with savage flocks, which 1 Johnson, the publisher of the Musical Museum. 2 The numerous letters written by Burns to this gentleman, and the fact of their having performed a tour in the south of Scotland together, entitle him to particular notice here. It is a circumstance which speaks loudly in behalf of Mr Ainslie, that he had just completed his twentieth year, and had not yet finished his apprenticeship, when he recommended himself to this remarkable friendship with a man several years his senior, and whose mind no one will deny to have been more mature for his age, than that of most of the children of Adam. This friendship was formed in Edinburgh, in the spring of 1787, and seems to have shot up with that tropical rapidity of growth which belongs to generous matures. Robert Ainslie was the eldest son of agentleman who resided at Berrywell, near Dunse, in the capacity of land-agent for Lord Douglas over his lordship's Berwickshire estates. The Poet has described the Ainslie family in the memoranda of his 181 sparingly support as savage inhabitants. My last stage was Inverary—to-morrow night’s stage Dumbarton. I ought sooner to have answered your kind letter, but you know I am a man of many sins. R. B. NO. LXVII. TO WILLIAM NICOL, Esq. AUCHTERTYRE, Monday, JUNE, 1787. MY DEAR SIR, I FIND myself very comfortable here, neither oppressed by ceremony, nor mortified by neglect. Lady Augusta is a most engaging woman, and very happy in her family, which makes one’s out- goings and incomings very agreeable. I called at Mr Ramsay’s of Auchtertyre as I came up the southern tour. Of Douglas and Whitelaw, the only two bro- thers of Mr Ainslie, the latter became the author of an elabo- rate work on the Materia Medica of India, for which he was knighted by the late King William IV. Mr Douglas Ainslie, now the only surviving member of the family, occupies the situation once held by his father. Miss Rachel Ainslie, the only sister of these gentlemen, and whose personal elegance obtained the commendations of the Ayrshire poet, is also dead. Robert Ainslie himself served his apprenticeship, as a writer to the signet, with Mr Samuel Mitchelson, in Carrubber's close, Edinburgh : the individual at whose house took place the haggis-scene introduced by Smollett into his Humphrey Clin- ker. His acquaintance with Burns was formed while still an apprentice, and led to their making an excursion together in Berwickshire and Teviotdale in May, 1787. Of this tour an account will be found in the life. In the course of the same year, while Burns continued to reside at Edinburgh, he had frequent meetings with Mr Ainslie; and after his departure from the capital, he wrote many confiding letters to his young friend, only some of which have been preserved. They also met once at Ellisland,-where the Poet gave him a written copy of his Tam o'Shanter, which Mr Ainslie afterwards pre- sented to Sir Walter Scott. Before this visit in 1789, Mr Ainslie had become a member of the society of writers to the signet, and commenced business in Edinburgh. He prosecuted this calling with success, and, by a lady named Cunningham, the daughter of a colonel of the Scots Brigade in the Dutch ser- vice, became the father of a numerous family, of whom two daughters alone survive. His death took place on the 11th April, 1838, in the 72d year of his age. Mr Ainslie had at all times of his life a taste for literature, and could write well, whether to a humorous or grave purpose. Of the former class of his compositions, some papers in the Edinburgh Magazine for 1824, on the reform of the Scottish judicatories, may be cited as a favourable specimen. Two little volumes, respec- tively entitled ‘A Father's Gift to his Children,” and • Reasons for the Hope that is in us,’ both embodying the evidences for Christianity, are the principal examples of his grave style. He was for many years an elder in the Old Church, St Giles's. His personal deportment was remarkable for an unfailing flow of benevolent feeling and good humour. His conversation was cheerful, full of whimsical and well-told anecdote, and altoge- ther untinctured by ill-mature or harshness. The accompany- ing portrait is a faithful representation of his features, as he appeared a few years before his death; but it would be diffi- cult, by this art, to convey an adequate impression of the play- ful and benignant Smile which usually sat upon those features, —the outward token of that delightfully tempered spirit which won the heart of Burns fifty years ago, and continued to attach to him most of the other eminent literary persons who succes- sively arose in Scotland during his time. GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. country, and am so delighted with him that I shall certainly accept of his invitation to spend a day or two with him as I return. I leave this place on Wednesday or Thursday. Make my kind compliments to Mr and Mrs Cruikshank and Mrs Nicol, if she is returned. I am ever, dear Sir, Your deeply indebted,—R. B. NO. LXVIII. TO WILLIAM CRUIKSHANK, I ST JAMES'S SQUARE, EDINBURGH. AUCHTERTYRE, Monday, JUNE, 1787. I HAVE nothing, my dear Sir, to write to you, but that I feel myself exceedingly comfortably situated in this good family: just notice enough to make me easy but not to embarrass me. I was storm-staid two days at the foot of the Ochill-hills, with Mr Tait of Herveyston and Mr Johnston of Alva, but was so well pleased that I shall certainly spend a day on the banks of the Devon as I return. I leave this place I suppose on Wednesday, and shall devote a day to Mr Ramsay at Auchtertyre, near Stirling: a man to whose worth I cannot do justice. My respectful kind compliments to Mrs Cruikshank, and my dear little Jeanie,” and if you see Mr Masterton, please remember me to him. I am ever, My dear Sir, &c.—R. B. NO. LXIX. TO MR. JAMES SMITH, AT MILLAR AND SMITH'S OFFICE, LINLITHGOW. MAUCHLINE, 11TH JUNE, 1787. MY DEAR SIR, I DATE this from Mauchline, where I arrived on Friday evening last. I slept at John Dow’s, and called for my daughter; Mr Hamilton and family; your mother, sister, and brother; my quondam Eliza, &c., all—all well. If any thing had been wanting to disgust me completely at 1 One of the masters of the High School, Edinburgh, with whom Burns lodged for a season while residing in the Scottish capital. We have had occasion, in previous notes, to allude to this friend. 2 The “Very Young Lady' to whom he addressed some verses, and of whom he sung, under the name of “The Rose-bud.’ l 8 Armour's family, their mean servile compliance would have done it. Give me a spirit like my favourite hero, Milton’s Satan: “Hail, horrors hail, Infernal world ! and thou, profoundest hell, Receive thy new possessor one who brings A mind not to be chang'd by place or time !” I cannot settle to my mind.—Farming—the only thing of which I know any thing, and Heaven above knows but little do I understand even of that, I cannot, dare not risk on farms as they are. If I do not fix, I will go for Jamaica. Should I stay, in an unsettled state at home, I would only dissipate my little fortune, and ruin What I intend shall compensate my little ones for the stigma I have brought on their names. I shall write you more at large soon; as this letter costs you no postage, if it be worth read- ing you cannot complain of your pennyworth. I am ever, My dear Sir, Yours, R. B. NO. LXX. TO THE SAME. JUNE 30TH, 1787. MY DEAR FRIEND, ON our return, at a Highland gentleman's hos- pitable mansion, we fell in with a merry party, and danced till the ladies left us, at three in the morning. Our dancing was none of the French or English insipid formal movements; the ladies sung Scotch songs like angels, at intervals; then we flew at Bab at the Bowster, Tullochgorum, Loch Erroch Side,3 &c., like midges sporting in the mottie sum, or craws prognosticating a storm in a hairst day.—When the dear lasses left us, we ranged round the bowl till the good-fellow Hour of six; except a few minutes that we went out to pay our devotions to the glorious lamp of day peering over the towering top of Benlomond. We all kneeled; our worthy landlord’s son held the bowl; each man a full glass in his hand; and I, as priest, repeated some rhyming nonsense, like Thomas-a-Rhymer’s prophecies I suppose.— After a small refreshment of the gifts of Somnus, we proceeded to spend the day on Lochlomond, 4 3 Scotch tunes. 4 This queen of the Scottish lakes, of which an engraving is given in the present work, is situated chiefly in the county of Dumbarton, a small portion only belonging to Stirlingshire, which forms the greater part of its eastern boundary. Placed at the southern extremity of the Grampian range, it is inclosed every where except towards the south by lofty hills, the chief of which, Benlomond, rises beside its east shore to the height 2 | ! 9. GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. and reached Dumbarton in the evening. We dined at another good fellow's house, and, con- sequently, pushed the bottle; when we went out to mount our horses, we found ourselves “No vera fou but gaylie yet.” My two friends and I rode soberly down the Loch side, till by came a Highlandman at the gallop, on a tolerably good horse, but which had never known the ornaments of iron or leather. We scorned to be out-gal- loped by a Highlandman, so off we started, whip and spur. My companions, though seemingly gaily mounted, fell sadly astern; but my old mare, Jenny Geddes, one of the Rosinante family, she strained past the Highlandman in spite of all his efforts with the hair halter: just as I was passing him, Donald wheeled his horse, as if to cross before me to mar my progress, when down came his horse, and threw his rider's breekless a—e in a clipt hedge: and down came Jenny Geddes over all, and my bardship between her and the Highlandman's horse. Jenny Geddes trode over me with such cautious reverence, that matters were not so bad as might well have been expected; so I came off with a few cuts and bruises, and a thorough resolution to be a pattern of sobriety for the future. - I have yet fixed on nothing with respect to the serious business of life. I am, just as usual, a rhyming, mason-making, raking, aimless, idle fellow. However, I shall somewhere have a farm soon. I was going to say, a wife too; but that must never be my blessed lot. I am but a younger son of the house of Parnassus, and like other younger sons of great families, I may in- trigue, if I choose to run all risks, but must not Imarry. I am afraid I have almost ruined one source, the principal one indeed, of my former happiness; that eternal propensity I always had to fall in love. My heart no more glows with feverish rapture. I have no paradisaical evening inter- views, stolen from the restless cares and prying inhabitants of this weary world. I have only This last is one of your distant acquaint- ances, has a fine figure, and elegant manners; and in the train of some great folks whom you know, has seen the politest quarters in Europe. I do like her a deal; but what piques me is her conduct at the commencement of our acquaint- ance. I frequently visited her when I was in —, and after passing regularly the inter- mediate degrees between the distant formal bow and the familiar grasp round the waist, I ven- tured, in my careless way, to talk of friendship in rather ambiguous terms; and after her return to , I wrote to her in the same style. four or five feet of water. fully placed mansions, but not nearly so many as might be expected in So lovely a region. The natural woods growing on the shores of the loch and its islands are enumerated by Garnett as chiefly oak, ash, birch, holly, mountain ash, hazel, aspen, alder, yew, hawthorn, and willow. The lake abounds in delicious trout, and the southern part is much frequented by salmon, though this fish is in general not fond of lakes; but the salmon here come up the Leven, cross part of the lake, and find their way up the river Endrick, of which this fish is remarkably fond. Circumstances have long been remarked, leading to the sup- position that the surface of Lochlomond is now, in its ordinary height, considerably above its former level. Across the river Falloch, at its efflux into the lake, there are stones fixed at regular distances, once evidently intended for enabling passen- gers to step from one side to the other, but now covered with Camden, in his Atlas Britannica, describes an island as existing in his day, between Camstradden and Inch Tavanagh, and named the island of Camstradden : he speaks of a house and orchard being upon it. No such island is now seen above the water, but in Camstradden Bay, in the situation described, there is visible, several feet below the water, a heap of stones, which is supposed to be the remains of the house mentioned by Camden. About five miles farther south, at a distance from the shore, there is a heap of stones in the like circumstances, said to be the ruins of a church, in proof of which a field is pointed out on the adjacent shore, called Ach-na-haglais, or the Church-field. These proofs of the rise of the lake were adduced long before geology had become a science; this science at once receives the fact as an additional illustration of one of its doctrines, and reflects light upon the fact. In all lakes, there is a tendency to shoal at the outlet, and in the long run to be altogether filled up, in consequence of the constant deposition of detritus from the neighbouring heights by means of the accessory streams. Unquestionably, from this cause, the Leven, at the point where it leaves the lake, is somewhat higher than it would be three centuries ago. Mr Lyell gives particulars respecting the similar filling up of the lake of Geneva, Lake Erie, the lake of Mareotis, and others. of 3240 feet above the ordinary level of its waters. The lake is about twenty-six miles long, and from eight to ten in breadth towards the south; but the northern moiety, confined between opposing hills, is for the most part only one mile in breadth. The superficies comprehends upwards of 20,000 acres. Fed at the north extremity by a small river flowing through Glen- falloch, it receives several mountain streams from the west, and on the east the well known Stirlingshire river Endrick. At the South point, its waters form the river Leven, so cele- brated by means of the beautiful ode of Smollett, a native of its banks. This natural drain of the lake has a channel of only about six miles, during which it descends about twenty feet: it joins the Clyde beneath the walls of Dumbarton Castle. Lochlomond contains ten islands, of considerable size, and more than that number of lesser isles, the greater number of both kinds being situated in the southern and more spacious part of the expanse. The depth of the lake is very various. In the southern part, it seldom exceeds twenty fathoms: north of Luss, where narrow and bounded closely by steep moun- tains, it is much greater. About a mile north from Tarbet, it is eighty-six fathoms, and a mile still farther north, opposite to Alt-gary, it is a hundred: from that point to the northern extremity, it gradually diminishes in depth. In point of picturesque beauty, Lochlomond is probably sur- passed by few lakes in Europe. From its lying partly within and partly without the Highland boundary, it comprehends almost every variety of landscape, from the softest to the most Savage and magnificent. In the southern and broader part, the wooded shores and islands, in association with the smooth expanse of water, afford a prospect of the richest beauty; while more to the north, the lofty mountains, precipitous and in some places maked of soil and vegetation, convey impressions of the utmost grandeur. Its various charms have been the admiration of travellers since ever fine landscape began to be admired in Scotland; and for some years past steamers daily, during the Summer months, convey tourists from the lower to the upper extremity. The road from Glasgow to Inverary, passing along the west shore as far as Tarbet, affords other means of inspecting the beauties of Lochlomond. The shores of the lower part of the lake give situations for some delight- | 83 <> —; .” º S º N & º, & M.” - § º NS) Q -> --- NSº-3 W f *- K 2 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE, Miss, construing my words farther I suppose than even I intended, flew off in a tangent of female dignity and reserve, like a mounting lark in an April morning; and wrote me an answer which measured me out very completely what an immense way I had to travel before I could reach the climate of her favour. But I am an old hawk at the sport, and wrote her such a cool, deliberate, prudent reply, as brought my bird from her aerial towerings, pop down at my foot, like Corporal Trim’s hat. As for the rest of my acts, and my wars, and all my wise sayings, and why my mare was called Jenny Geddes, they shall be recorded in a few weeks hence at Linlithgow, in the chronicles of your memory, by R. B. NO. LXXI. TO MR JOHN RICHMOND. MossGIEL, 7TH JULY, 1787. MY DEAR RICHMOND, I AM all impatience to hear of your fate since the old confounder of right and wrong has turned you out of place, by his journey to answer his indictment at the bar of the other world. He will find the practice of the court so different from the practice in which he has for so many years been thoroughly hackneyed, that his friends, if he had any connections truly of that kind, which I rather doubt, may well tremble for his sake. His chicane, his left-handed wisdom, which stood so firmly by him, to such good purpose, here, like other accomplices in robbery and plun- der, will, now the piratical business is blown, in all probability turn king's evidences, and then the devil's bagpiper will touch him off “Bundle and go!” If he has left you any legacy, I beg your par- don for all this; if not, I know you will swear to every word I said about him. I have lately been rambling over by Dumbar- ton and Inverary, and running a drunken race on the side of Loch Lomond with a wild Highland- man; I his horse, which had never known the ornaments of iron or leather, zigzagged across before my old spavin’d hunter, whose name is Jenny Geddes, and down came the Highlandman, horse and all, and down came Jenny and my bardship; so I have got such a skinful of bruises and wounds, that I shall be at least four weeks before I dare venture on my journey to Edin- burgh. 1 This frolic, with its disastrous result, is more fully described in the previous letter. Not one new thing under the sun has happened in Mauchline since you left it. I hope this will find you as comfortably situated as formerly, or, if heaven pleases, more so; but at all events, I trust you will let me know of course how matters stand with you, well or ill. 'Tis but poor conso- lation to tell the world when matters go wrong ; but you know very well your connection and mine stands on a different footing. I am ever, my dear friend, yours, R. B. NO. LXXII. TO ROBERT AINSLIE. MAUCHLINE, 23d JULY, 1787. MY DEAR AINSLIE, THERE is one thing for which I set great store by you as a friend, and it is this, that I have not a friend upon earth, besides yourself, to whom I can talk nonsense without forfeiting some degree of his esteem, Now, to one like me, who never cares for speaking any thing else but nonsense, such a friend as you is an invaluable treasure. I was never a rogue, but have been a fool all my life; and, in spite of all my endeavours, I see now plainly that I shall never be wise. Now it rejoices my heart to have met with such a fellow as you, who, though you are not just such a hopeless fool as I, yet I trust you will never listen so much to the temptations of the devil as to grow so very wise that you will in the least disrespect an honest fellow because he is a fool. In short, I have set you down as the staff of my old age, when the whole list of my friends will, after a decent share of pity, have forgot me. “Though in the morn come sturt and strife, Yet joy may come at noon ; And I hope to live a merry merry life When a’ thir days are done.” Write me soon, were it but a few lines just to tell me how that good sagacious man, your father, is, that kind dainty body, your mother,-that strapping chiel, your brother Douglas—and my friend Rachel, who is as far before Rachel of old as she was before her blear-eyed sister Leah. R. B. No. LXXIII. TO ROBERT AINSLIE, Esq. MAUCHLINE, JULY, 1787. MY DEAR SIR, MY life, since I saw you last, has been one con- tinued hurry; that savage hospitality which knocks a man down with strong liquors, is the devil. I have a sore warfare in this world: the 184 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. devil, the world, and the flesh, are three formid- able foes. The first I generally try to fly from ; the second, alas! generally flies from me; but the third is my plague, worse than the ten plagues of Egypt. ſº I have been looking over several farms in this country; one, in particular, in Nithsdale, pleased me so well, that if my offer to the proprietor is accepted, I shall commence farmer at Whitsun- day. If farming do not appear eligible, I shall have recourse to my other shift; but this to a friend. I set out for Edinburgh on Monday morning; how long I stay there is uncertain, but you will know so soon as I can inform you myself. How- ever, I determine poesy must be laid aside for some time; my mind has been vitiated with idle- ness, and it will take a good deal of effort to habituate it to the routine of business. I am, my dear Sir, Yours sincerely, R. B. No. LXXIV. TO DR MOORE. MAUCHLINE, 2D AUG., 1787. SIR, - FOR some months past I have been rambling over the country, but I am now confined with Some lingering complaints, originating, as I take it, in the stomach. To divert my spirits a little in this miserable fog of ennui, I have taken a whim to give you a history of myself. My name has made some little noise in this country; you have done me the honour to interest yourself very warmly in my behalf; and I think a faithful account of what character of a man I am, and how I came by that character, may perhaps amuse you in an idle moment. I will give you an honest narrative, though I know it will be often at my own expense; for I assure you, Sir, I have, like Solomon, whose character, excepting in the trifling affair of wis- dom, I sometimes think I resemble, I have, Isay, like him, turned my eyes to behold madness and folly, and like him, too, frequently shaken hands with their intoxicating friendship. After you have perused these pages, should you think them trifling and impertinent, I only beg leave to tell you, that the poor author wrote them under some twitching qualms of conscience, arising from a suspicion that he was doing what he ought not to do; a predi- cament he has more than once been in before. I * * * * * * I We here leave out the autobiography of the Poet, which he sent to Dr Moore with this letter, and which furnishes so much interesting data regarding his early life and education. It will come to be introduced with more propriety in the Memoir. II. G) 185 My most respectful compliments to Miss Wil- liams. Her very elegant and friendly letter I cannot answer at present, as my presence is requi- site in Edinburgh, and I set out to-morrow. R. B. No. LXXV. TO MR ROBERT AINSLIE, JUN. BERRYWELL, DUNSE.2 EDINBURGH, 23D AUGUST, 1787. ‘As I gaed up to Dunse, To warp a pickle yarn, Robin, silly body, He gat me wi' bairn.' FROM henceforth, My dear Sir, I am determined to set off with my letters like the periodical Writers, viz., prefix a kind of text, quoted from some classic of undoubted authority, such as the author of the immortal piece of which my text is a part. What I have to say on my text is exhausted in chatter I wrote you the other day, before I had the pleasure of receiving yours from Inverleithing; and sure never was anything more lucky, as I have but the time to write this, that Mr Nicol on the opposite side of the table takes to correct a proof sheet of a thesis. They are gabbling Latin so loud that I cannot hear what my own soul is saying in my own skull, so must just give you a matter-of-fact sentence or two, and end, if time permit, with a verse de re; generatione. To-morrow I leave Edinburgh in a chaise: Nicol thinks it more comfortable than horse-back, to which I say Amen; so Jenny Geddes goes home to Ayr-shire, to use a phrase of my mother's, ‘wi' her finger in her mouth.” Now for a modest verse of classical authority:— The cats like kitchen, The dogs like broo; The lasses like the lads weel, And th’ auld wives too. CHORUS. And we’re a noddin', Nid, nid, noddin', We’re a noddin’ fou at e'en.” If this does not please you, let me hear from you: if you write any time before the first of September, direct to Inverness, to be left at the post-office till called for; the next week at Aber- deen; the next at Edinburgh. 2 This epistle first appeared in a recent edition of Burns by Pickering of London. 2 A yed ‘Yº QºS28 Jºc,\;\ºxº~—- ****-** Gºss, (9): sº GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. X) (o) C' KY \tº & e ºr The sheet is done, and I shall just conclude by the setting sun the glorious prospect of the X| with assuring you that I am, and ever with pride windings of Forth through the rich carse of Stir- shall be, my dear Sir, yours, &c. ling, and skirting the equally rich carse of Falkirk. t ROBERT BURNS. The crops are very strong, but so very late that there is no harvest, except a ridge or two perhaps | in ten miles, all the way I have travelled from Edinburgh. NO, I, XXVI. I left Andrew Bruce and family all well. I will be at least three weeks in making my tour, as I TO MR, ROBERT MUIR. shall return by the coast, and have many people - -- to call for. STIRLING, 26TH AUGUST, 1787. 4. - the same peculiar taste. Its inferiority is the more remarkable, MY DEAR SIR, as the parts of Holyroodhouse and Linlithgow erected by the ... tº $ º same monarch, are very elegant. I INTENDED to have written you from Edin- The historical and antiquarian interest of Stirling Castle, burgh, and now write you, from Stirling to make great as it is, bears no proportion, in the eyes of most strangers, sº * Her I to Inver to the beauty of the views commanded from its battlements. àIl GYCUlSe. *** **** *Y WAY.” ”V*ś, seated on a lofty mass of basalt, in the centre of a wide plain, with a truly original, but very worthy man, a Mr with an ample river flowing beneath, and an amphiti.eatre of Nicol, one of the masters of the High-school in magnificent hills in the distance, Stirling Castle has an attrac- - N + e ~ • , , tion for the lovers of the picturesque, such as few places in Edinburgh. I left Auld Reekie yesterday *9"º- Scotland can boast of. Looking forth from the walls towards ing, and have passed, besides by-excursions, Lin- the north-west, the eye sweeping round from south to north, lithgow, Borrowstouness, Falkirk, and here am I commands in succession the rugged fells of Campsie, the grand 5 * : * > *** * * º “ ” 3. mass of Ben Lomond, Ben Ledi, Ben Voirlich, and Ben More, undoubtedly. This morning I knelt at the tomb | –beyond which it loses itself over the turbid Land-Sea of the *** •ol, sº bºn. •; on 2 Grampians, melting away into the faint blue distance. On the of Sir John the Gr aham, the g allant fr iend of the eastern battlements, with Demyat, and the other Ochils on the immortal Wallace; and two hours ago I said a left hand, we have the rich, alluvial vale of the Forth, marked fervent prayer for old Caledonia. Over the hole in with town and grange, and manor and tower, and leading the * y or or gor tº gº ºf tº * a blue whinstone, where Robert de Bruce fixed i. º j * till it dimly catches the remote out his royal standard on the banks of Bannock burn; About three miles almost directly south from Stirling stands and just now, from Stirling Castle, I I have seen the Field of B gunockburn. In the view given in this work of ` - • * - that celebrated spot, Stirling and its castle are seen on the ...} - middle-ground, near the left side of the picture. Beyond them I Stirling and its castle are of great, but unknown antiquity. | rise Demyat and the rest of the Ochils, beneath which runs The latter was an important fortress in the days of Bruce, when the Devon, a stream celebrated in two of the lyrics of Burns. it was besieged by Edward I. in person, and reduced with great | Some of the links of the Forth are seen in the middle-ground, difficulty. During the reigns of “the Jameses,” it was the near the centre of the picture; but it has been found impos- favourite seat of Scottish royalty. In a room which still exists, sible, at such a distance, to convey any adequate impression of James II., in 1452, stabbed the Earl of Douglas with his own the beauty of that singular river and its banks. The indus- hand, from rage at his refusing to give up a league which he trious villages of Bannockburn, Miltown, and St Ninians, are had formed against the government. James III. erected a nearer the position of the spectator, but concealed by some parliament-hall, and a chapel-royal, the former of which still high ground, which rises about a mile in front of the Gillies' Survives. James V. was reared in this castle, under the care | Hill. The spectator looks towards the north-east, and the of Sir David Lyndsey, and, in mature life, added to the former back-ground is occupied by the distant hills of Fife. building the palace above alluded to. Queen Mary also spent The battle of Bannockburn was fought (Monday, June 24, a portion of her youthful years in Stirling castle. Her son, 1314,) on the part of the low ground where the principal light James VI., who was baptized here, resided in the same palace, falls, in front of the Gillies' Hill. The Scottish army, thirty with his preceptor, Buchaman, during the whole of his minority. thousand in number, was drawn up in three divisions, in a Prince Henry was also born, baptized, and reared in Stirling direction from south-east to north-west, the right division being castle. X. placed on the skirts of the Gillies' Hill, with its right flank rest- The view of Stirling given in the present work is taken from ing on the natural defences of the rugged channel of the Ban- the south front of the palace of James V., so as to place a por- mock, while the centre occupied the low ground immediately tion of that building in the foreground, and include the more to the east of the Gillies' Hill, with a morass in front, and the conspicuous features of the town, and the beautiful scenery left division was placed on the eastern slope of Cockshot Hill, towards the east, through which the Forth pursues its devious seen in the print swelling a little into light. The Gillies (ser- way. - - vant lads) belonging to the army, fifteen thousand in number, The palace of James V., here judiciously fore-shortened, is a were placed behind the hill which still bears their name; and curious memorial of the taste of the age. The general style of on the Caldam Hill, in front of the army, the Scottish king had the architecture is heavy, and that of the decorative parts purely planted his standard in a mass of granite, still called, from that Whimsical and grotesque. All around the building there is a circumstance, the Bored Stone. Thus posted, as a cover for Series of oddly twisted buttresses or pilasters, bearing ungainly Stirling Castle, the army of Bruce received the attack of an statues, chiefly of mythological personages, with much fantastic English host, said to have been nearly a hundred thousand ornament besides. At least two of the images are not of the strong, commanded by Edward II. in person. The English character stated, and one of these is the royal founder himself, were at the very first thrown into difficulties by a series of a short, unprepossessing figure; another is an undressed female, small concealed pits which the Scotch had dug in their path; l usually recognised by the popular appellation of ‘the Modest and when hard fighting was making them waver, their over- . Maid,” and of whom it is related that she obtained this honour- throw was accomplished by the sudden appearance, over the i able and conspicuous situation in gratitude for her having once neighbouring hill, of a new and unexpected host, composed of | saved the royal family from being destroyed by a nocturnal the Gillies who had been stationed in the rear, but who, º º, rºling to i. º alarm in the condition in becoming impatient, had resolved to advance into the conflict. | \; ** * SIle IS . º . . There is not, as far as we are The result was the permanent assertion of the independence of º in &Ware, anywhere in Scotland, any specimen of architecture in Scotland. º, X] (J 186 | * º | My best compliments to Charles, our dear kins- man and fellow-saint; and Messrs W. and H. Parkers. I hope Hughocl is going on and pros- pering with God and Miss M'Causlin. If I could think on any thing sprightly, I should let you hear every other post; but, a dull, matter- of-fact business like this scrawl, the less and sel- domer one writes, the better. Among other matters-of-fact I shall add this, that I am and ever shall be, My dear Sir, Your obliged, R. B. No. LXXVII. TO GAVIN HAMILTON, ESQ. STIRLING, 28TH AUGUST, 1787. MY DEAR SIR, HERE am I on my way to Inverness. I have rambled over the rich, fertile carses of Falkirk and Stirling, and am delighted with their appear- ance: richly waving crops of wheat, barley, &c., but no harvest at all yet, except in one or two places, an old-wife's ridge. Yesterday morning I rode from this town up the meandering Devon's banks, to pay my respects to some Ayrshire folks at Harvieston. After breakfast, we made a party to go and see the famous Caudron-linn, a remark- able cascade in the Devon, about five miles above Harvieston; and after spending one of the most pleasant days I ever had in my life, I returned to Stirling in the evening.” They are a family Sir, 1 This is the Hughoc who figures in “Poor Maillie.” 2 A short excursion which Burns made in August, 1787, in company with Dr Adair (afterwards of Harrowgate), intro- duced him to the well-known series of natural curiosities which mark the course of the little river Dovan, or Devon (as it is more generally but incorrectly called), in Clackmananshire. To quote the narrative of Dr Adair. “From Stirling we went through the romantic and fertile vale of Devon to Harvieston, then inhabited by Mrs Hamilton, mother of Mr Gavin Hamilton, the Poet's Mauchline patron, with the younger part of whose family Burns had been previ- ously acquainted. He introduced me to the family, and there was formed my first acquaintance with Mrs Hamilton's eldest daughter, to whom I have been married for nine years. Thus was I indebted to Burns for a connection from which I have derived, and expect farther to derive, much happiness. During a residence of about ten days at Harvieston, we made excur- sions to visit various parts of the surrounding scenery, inferior to none in Scotland in beauty, sublimity, and romantic interest; particularly Castle Campbell, the ancient seat of the family of Argyle; the famous cataract of the Devon, called the Caldron Linn; and the Rumbling Bridge, a single broad arch, thrown by the devil, if tradition is to be trusted, across the river, at about the height of a hundred feet above its bed.” "The accompanying plate represents a portion of the scenes which Burns visited: it is that at the Rumbling Bridge—where, however, a new arch, with parapets, has for some years super- seded the narrow ledgeless footway which existed in the days GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. I-2– *----- ſº though I had not had any prior tie; though they had not been the brother and sisters of a certain generous friend of mine, I would never forget 187 of Burns. The following description of this scene is given by Dr Garnett in his Tour, 1800. - “At the distance of about six miles from Kinross we left the road, in order to see some waterfalls on the river Dovan. The first we visited was what is not improperly termed the Caldron Linn, about eight miles distant from Kinross. Here the Dovan, which we saw murmuring along its pebbly bed, suddenly enters a deep linn or gully, and there, finding itself confined, by its continual efforts against the sides, has worked out a cavity resembling a large caldron, in which the water has so much the appearance of boiling, that it is difficult to divest oneself of the idea that it is really in a state of violent ebullition. From this caldron, through a hole below the surface, the water slowly finds its way under the rock into another circular cavity, in which it is carried round and round, though with much less violent agitation. This second caldron is always covered with a foam or froth. From this boiler the water runs, in the same manner, by an opening in the rock beneath its surface, into another, which is larger than either of them, the diameter of it being twenty-two feet. The water in this cavity is not agi- tated as in the others, but is calm and placid. From this cavern the water rushes perpendicularly over the rock, into a deep and romantic glen, forming a fine cascade, particularly when viewed from the bottom of the glen, to which there is access by a zig- zag path. This cascade is forty-four feet in height, and the rocks which compose the linn are about twice as high, so that it appears as if the water had worn its way from the top to its present situation, which most probably has been the case. It falls in one unbroken sheet, without touching the rock, and the whiteness of the dashing water is finely opposed to the almost black colour of the rocks, which are formed of coarse grained basaltes. While we were contemplating this beautiful scene, the sun happened to shine upon it, and the spray, which arises from it to a considerable height, by refracting the rays of light, exhibited the appearances of a luminous vapour, in which the different prismatic colours were easily discernible. ‘A few years ago, the following curious circumstance hap— pened here. A pack of hounds were eagerly pursuing a fox ; the animal led them along the banks of the Dovan, till he came to the boiling caldron; there he crossed ; but the dogs, in attempting to follow him, and not being probably so well acquainted with the path, fell one after another into the caldron, and were dashed to pieces against the sides. This fact contri- buted not a little to confirm the reputation of reynard for cum- ning and sagacity, in the minds of the spectators. - “Leaving the Caldron Linn, we walked about a mile, or rather more, up the banks of the Dovan, and came to another linn, or ravine, over which an arch is thrown. The rocks on each side approach so near, that an arch of twenty-two feet span is sufficient to form a communication between the different banks of the river, but the depth from the bridge to the water is no less than eighty-six feet; and the want of a parapet pre- vents even the steadiest head from looking down this frightful chasm without a degree of terror. The water both above and below the bridge rushing from rock to rock, and forming a number of little falls, produces a constant rumbling kind of moise, which is much increased when the water is swollen by rains: on this account the common people call it the Rumbling Bridge. - “When this bridge is viewed from the river below, it is a very sublime object. The sides of the chasm are formed by bold irregular rocks, consisting of a kind of pudding-stone, which are in many places finely covered with brushwood : above the bridge the water is seen running along; in some places con- cealed from the eye by the jutting rocks and foliage, and in others appearing again. In short, the whole forms a very romantic scene. ‘About 200 yards above the Rumbling Bridge, we came to another fall, though but a small one, with a kind of caldron, in which the water has the appearance of boiling. In this cavity, the water is continually tossed round with great violence, con- stantly dashing against the sides of the rock; this produces a noise somewhat similar to that made by a mill, and on this account it is called by the common people the Devil's Mill, because it pays moregard to Sunday, but works every day alike.’ (Ojº. Sº egº) X-Xºc 7 - 1 O &\t } §§S w 3 AS- f * * *. - ^ - cº- tº 5 > * >~~~ WJ f ; ; N. : & 5 - * {-> *.2× . . .'; r º ޺ 6 º ,-, ** * | { ~~~~<> GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 2.5 º S...M ºf º them. I am told you have not seen them these I shall not be in Ayrshire for four weeks. t several years, so you can have very little idea of what these young folks are now. Your brother is as tall as you are, but slender rather than otherwise; and I have the satisfaction to inform you that he is getting the better of those con- sumptive symptoms which I suppose you know were threatening him. His make, and particularly his manner, resemble you, but he will still have a finer face. (I put in the word still, to please Mrs Hamilton.) Good sense, modesty, and at the same time a just idea of that respect that man owes to man, and has a right in his turn to exact, are striking features in his character; and, what with me is the Alpha and the Omega, he has a heart that might adorn the breast of a poet ! Grace has a good figure, and the look of health and cheerfulness, but nothing else remarkable in her person. I scarcely ever saw so striking a likeness as is between her and your little Beenie; the mouth and chin particularly. She is reserved at first; but as we grew better acquainted, I was delighted with the native frankness of her manner, and the sterling sense of her observation. Of Charlotte I cannot speak in common terms of admiration: she is not only beautiful but lovely. Her form is elegant; her features not regular, but they have the smile of sweetness and the settled complacency of good nature in the highest degree; and her complexion, now that she has happily recovered her wonted health, is equal to Miss Burnet's. After the exercises of our riding to the Falls, Charlotte was exactly Dr Donne's mistress:– “Her pure and eloquent blood Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought, That one would almost say her body thought.” Her eyes are fascinating; at once expressive of good sense, tenderness, and a noble mind, I do not give you all this account, my good Sir, to flatter you. I mean it to reproach you. Such relations the first peer in the realm might own with pride; then why do you not keep up more correspondence with these so amiable young folks? I had a thousand questions to answer about you. I had to describe the little ones with the minute- ness of anatomy. They were highly delighted when I told them that John I was so good a boy, and so fine a scholar, and that Willie was going on still very pretty: but I have it in commission to tell her from them that beauty is a poor silly bauble without she be good. Miss Chalmers I had left in Edinburgh, but I had the pleasure of meeting with Mrs Chalmers, only Lady Mackenzie being rather a little alarmingly ill of a sore throat somewhat marred our enjoyment. My ey most respectful compliments to Mrs Hamilton, Miss Kennedy, and Doctor Mackenzie. I shall || probably write him from some stage or other. I am ever, Sir, Yours most gratefully, R. B. NO. LXXVIII. TO MR WALKER, BLAIR OF ATHOLE. 2 INVERNESS, 5th SEPT., 1787. MY DEAR SIR, IIIAVE just time to write the foregoing,” and to tell you that it was (at least most part of it) the effusion of an half-hour I spent at Bruar. I do not mean it was extempore, for I have endeavoured to brush it up as well as Mr Nicol's chat and the jogging of the chaise would allow. It eases my heart a good deal, as rhyme is the coin with which a poet pays his debts of honour or gratitude. What I owe to the noble family of Athole, of the first kind, I shall ever proudly boast; what I owe of the last, so help me God in my hour of need! I shall never forget. The “little angel-band!” I declare I prayed for them very sincerely to-day at the Fall of Fyers. I shall never forget the fine family-piece I saw at Blair; the amiable, the truly noble duch- ess, with her smiling little seraph in her lap, at the head of the table: the lovely “olive plants,” as the Hebrew bard finely says, round the happy mother: the beautiful Mrs G–; the lovely, sweet Miss C., &c. I wish I had the powers of Guido to do them justice My Lord Duke's kind hos- pitality—markedly kind indeed. Mr Graham of Fintry’s charms of conversation—Sir W. Murray's friendship. In short, the recollection of all that polite, agreeable company raises an honest glow in my bosom. | | | % f | R. B. 2 Mr Josiah Walker was at this time tutor in the family of the duke of Athole. In 1815, he was nominated, through the interest of this family, Professor of Humanity (Latin) in the University of Glasgow. He died in 1831. He was author of a poem, entitled, “The Defence of Order,’ published about the beginning of the present century, which was severely handled in the Edinburgh Review,-and of a life of Burns, published in the Perth edition of the Poet's works, which is no less severely handled by Professor Wilson, in the Essay accompanying the present edition. 3 Viz. “The Humble Petition of Bruar Water.” \ ! { | 1 This is the “wee curlie Johnnie,” mentioned in the dedi- º Qation to Gavin Hamilton, Esq. S.G. 188 º, ZºS Qºşſº {i}\(^); \ •rº " … } 5'→ ~. ~~ ~~~~< 2. £jºiº-T - .e. ºgº -- - - GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. / No. LXXIX. To MR GILBERT BURNs. EDINBURGH, 17th SEPT., 1787. MY DEAR BROTHER, I ARRIVED here safe yesterday evening, after a tour of twenty-two days, and travelling near six hundred miles, windings included. My farthest stretch was about ten miles beyond Inverness. I went through the heart of the Highlands by Crieff, Taymouth, the famous seat of Lord Breadal- bane, down the Tay, among cascades and druidi- cal circles of stones, to Dunkeld, a seat of the Duke of Athole; thence across Tay, and up one of his tributary streams to Blair of Athole, another of the duke's seats, where I had the hon- our of spending nearly two days with his grace and family: thence many miles through a wild country among cliffs grey with eternal snows and gloomy savage glens, till I crossed Spey and went down the stream through Strathspey, so famous in Scottish music; Badenoch, &c. till I reached Grant Castle, where I spent half a day with Sir James Grant and family; and then crossed the country for Fort George, but called by the way at Cawdor, the ancient seat of Macbeth; there I saw the identical bed in which tradition says Ring Duncan was murdered; lastly, from Fort George to Inverness. I returned by the coast, through Nairn, Forres, and so on to Aberdeen, thence to Stonehive, where James Burness, from Montrose, met me by appointment. I spent two days among our rela- tions, and found our aunts, Jean and Isabel, still alive, and hale old women. John Cairn, though born the same year with our father, walks as vigorously as I can: they have had severalletters from his son in New York. William Brand is likewise a stout old fellow: but further particu- lars I delay till I see you, which will be in two or three weeks. The rest of my stages are not worth rehearsing; warm as I was for Ossian's country, where I had seen his very grave, what cared Ifor fishing towns or fertile carses 2 I slept at the famous Brodie of Brodie's one night, and dined at Gordon Castle next day, with the duke, duchess, and family. I am thinking to cause my old mare to meet me, by means of John Ronald, at Glasgow; but you shall hear farther from me before I leave Edinburgh. My duty and many compliments from the north to my mother; and my brotherly com- pliments to the rest. I have been trying for a berth for William, but I am not likely to be suc- cessful. Farewell. R. B. No. LXXX. TO MISS MARGARET CHALMERS.” SEPT. 26th, 1787. I SEND Charlotte the first number of the songs; I would not wait for the second number: I hate delays in little marks of friendship, as I hate dis. simulation in the language of the heart. I am determined to pay Charlotte a poetic compliment, if I could hit on some glorious old Scotch air, in number second.” You will see a small attempt on a shred of paper in the book; but though Dr Blacklock commended it very highly, I am not just satisfied with it myself. I intend to make it a description of some kind: the whining cant of love, except in real passion, and by a masterly hand, is to me as insufferable as the preaching cant of old Father Smeaton, whig-minister at Kilmaurs. Darts, flames, cupids, loves, graces, and all that farrago, are just a Mauchline a senseless rabble. I got an excellent poetic epistle yesternight from the old, venerable author of ‘ Tullochgorum,' ‘John of Badenyon,’ &c. I suppose you know he is a clergyman. It is by far the finest poetic compliment I ever got. I will send you a copy of it. I go on Thursday or Friday to Dumfries, to wait on Mr Miller about his farms.--Do tell that to Lady Mackenzie, that she may give me credit for a little wisdom. “I Wisdom dwell with Pru- dence.” What a blessed fire-side! How happy should I be to pass a winter evening under their venerable roof! and smoke a pipe of tobacco, or drink water-gruel with them! With solemn, lengthened, laughter-quashing gravity of phiz. What sage remarks on the good-for-nothing sons and daughters of indiscretion and folly! And what frugal lessons, as we straitened the fire-side circle, on the uses of the poker and tongs! Miss N. is very well, and begs to be remembered in the old way to you. I used all my eloquence, all the persuasive flourishes of the hand, and heart-melting modulation of periods in my power, to urge her out to Harvieston, but in vain. My &x. 1“The letters that passed between him and his brother Gilbert are among the most precious of the collection; for there, there could be no disguise. That the brothers had entire knowledge of, and confidence in each other, no one can doubt: and the plain, manly, affectionate language in which they both write is truly honourable to them, and to the parents that reared them.”—Lockhart. 2. Afterwards Mrs Lewis Hay. 3 Of the Scots Musical Museum, 9|X) G) 189 65 {Q Şo º * & 3 WS º Yº §->- >~~-> —s GN v.” i *. * NUC'ſ sº GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. c them, not only from English songs, but also from the modern efforts of song-wrights, in our native manner and language. The only remains of this enchantment, these spells of the imagination, rest with you. Our true brother, Ross of Lochlee, was likewise “ owre cannie”—a “wild warlock” —but now he sings among the “sons of the morn- ing.” I have often wished, and will certainly endea- vour, to form a kind of common acquaintance among all the genuine sons of Caledonian song. The world, busy in low prosaic pursuits, may over- look most of us; but “reverence thyself.” The world is not our peers, so we challenge the jury. We can lash that world, and find ourselves a very great source of amusement and happiness inde- pendent of that world. There is a work going on in Edinburgh, just now, which claims your best assistance. An engraver in this town has set about collecting and publishing all the Scotch songs, with the music, that can be found. Songs in the English language, if by Scotchmen, are admitted, but the music must all be Scotch. Drs Beattie and Black- lock are lending a hand, and the first musician in town presides over that department. I have been absolutely crazed about it, collecting old stanzas, and every information remaining respecting their origin, authors, &c. &c. This last is but a very goodness, his chief resource lay in the conversation of a few worthy friends, at the hours when they were allowed to visit him, and in the liberal supply of books which they had the means of procuring for him. These were his constant com- panions when all others were excluded ; and he has been often heard to say, that no six months of his life ever passed away with so little interruption to his studies as the term of his legal imprisonment. The activity of his mind seemed to increase in proportion to his want of bodily exercise: and though he amused himself now and them with some lighter productions of a poetical turn; yet the general bent of his thoughts lay towards more grave and serious subjects, and he even employed himself, with philosophic tranquillity, in writing a treatise on the Hebrew Shechimah. For many years, in consequence of the severity of the statutes against Episcopacy in Scotland, he was obliged either to officiate to his congregation in fours, or to take four within doors, and allow the rest to overhear him, as they best might, through the open doors and windows. Long before the close of his own professional career, his eldest son had become the bishop of his diocese, and a son of that gentleman had also taken holy orders. On one occasion, the three-grandfather, father, and son,-officiated together in the chapel at Longside. Mr Skinner lost his wife in 1799, and when his son some years after met a similar misfortune, it was proposed that the old man should withdraw from the scene of lis duties, and spend the remainder of his days with his son at Aberdeen. Accordingly, in June, 1807, he bade a tearful adieu to a flock over which he had presided for the greater part of a century, and which did not contain one individual whom he had not baptized. But the term of his life was approaching, and on the 16th of the same month he gently expired in his chair, after dining happily with three generations of his descen- dants. He was buried at Longside, where a handsome monument has been erected to him. His miscellaneous works, including a variety of poems and songs, in Scotch, English, and Latin, were soon after published. He was also the author of an Ecclesiastical History of Scotland, and of various theological works, one of which attracted the praise of Bishop Sherlock. 192 fragment business; but at the end of his second number—the first is already published—a small account will be given of the authors, particularly to preserve those of latter times. Your three songs, ‘Tullochgorum,” “John of Badenyon,’ and ‘Ewie wi' the crookit Horn,’ go in this second number. I was determined, before I got your letter, to write you, begging that you would let me know where the editions of these pieces may be found, as you would wish them to continue in future times: and if you would be so kind to this undertaking as send any songs, of your own or others, that you would think proper to publish, your name will be inserted among the other authors, “Nill ye, will ye.” One half of Scot- land already give your songs to other authors. Paper is done. I beg to hear from you; the sooner the better, as I leave Edinburgh in a fort- night or three weeks.-I am, With the warmest sincerity, Sir, Your obliged humble servant, R. B. 1 l Mr Skinner's answer to the above was as follows:– ‘LINSHART, November 14th, 1787. * SIR, ‘You R kind letter, without date, but of post-mark October 25th, came to hand only this day; and, to testify my punctu- ality to my poetic engagement, I sit down immediately to answer it in kind. ‘Your acknowledgment of my poor but just encomiums on your surprising genius, and your opinion of my rhyming excur- sions, are both, I think, by far too high. The difference between our two tracts of education and ways of life is entirely in your favour, and gives you the preference every manner of way. I know a classical education will not create a versifying taste, but it mightily improves and assists it ;—and though, where both these meet, there may sometimes be ground for approba- tion, yet where taste appears single, as it were, and neither cramped nor supported by acquisition, I will always sustain the justice of its prior claim to applause. A small portion of taste, this way, I have had almost from childhood, especially in the old Scottish dialect, and it is as old a thing as I remember, my fondness for “Christ's-kirk on the green,” which I had by heart ere I was twelve years of age, and which some years ago I attempted to turn into Latin verse. While I was young, I dabbled a good deal in these things: but on getting the black gown I gave it pretty much over, 'till my daughters grew up, who, being all good singers, plagued me for words to some of their favourite tunes, and so extorted these effusions, which have made a public appearance beyond my expectations, and contrary to my intentions, at the same time that I hope there is nothing to be found in them uncharacteristic, or unbecoming the cloth, which I would always wish to see respected. “As to the assistance you propose from me in the undertaking you are engaged in [his collection of Scottish songs], I am sorry I cannot give it so far as I could wish, and you, perhaps, expect. My daughters, who are my only intelligencers, are all foris familiate, and the old woman, their mother, has lost that taste. There are two from my own pen, which I might give you, if worth the while. One to the old Scottish tune of Dwºmbarton. drwms. The other, perhaps, you have met with, as your noble friend, the Duchess, has, I am told, heard of it. It was Squeezed out of me by a brother parson in her neighbourhood, to accommodate a new Highland reel for the Marquis's birth- day, to the stanza of ‘“Tune your fiddles, tune them sweetly,” &c. “If this last answer your purpose, you may have it from a brother of mine, Mr James Skinner, Writer, in Edinburgh, who I believe can give the music too. 9;s. •r & § \ ^{S C T-º---- ¥º J. A. w” 2.7% ºf a º & | gº& §= * GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. C) º Q_i XJ_o NO. LXXXIII. TO JAMES HOY, Esq., GORDON CASTLE. EDINBURGH, 30TH OCTOBER, 1787. SIR, I WILL defend my conduct in giving you this trouble, on the best of Christian principles— “Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them.”—I shall certainly, among my legacies, leave my latest curse to that unlucky predicament which hurried—tore me away from Castle Gordon. 1 May that obstinate Son of Latin prose [Nicol} be curst to Scotch mile periods, and damned to seven league paragraphs; while Declension and Conjugation, Gender, Num- ber, and Tense, under the ragged banners of Dissonance and Disarrangement, eternally rank against him in hostile array! Allow me, Sir, to strengthen the small claim I have to your acquaintance, by the following request. An engraver, James Johnson, in Edin- burgh, has, not from mercenary views, but from an honest Scotch enthusiasm, set about collecting all our native songs and setting them to music; particularly those that have never been set before. Clarke, the well-known musician, presides over the musical arrangement, and Drs Beattie and Blacklock, Mr Tytler of Woodhouselee, and your humble servant to the utmost of his small power, assist in collecting the old poetry, or sometimes for a fine air make a stanza when it has no words. The brats, too tedious to mention, claim a parental pang from my bardship. I suppose it will appear in Johnson's second number—the first was pub- lished before my acquaintance with him. My request is—‘Cauld Kail in Aberdeen is one intended for this number, and I beg a copy of his Grace of Gordon's words to it, which you were so kind as to repeat to me. You may be sure we won’t prefix the author’s name, except you like, though I look on it as no small merit to this work, that the names of so many of the authors of our old Scottish songs, names almost forgotten, will be inserted. I do not well know where to write to you—I rather write at you; but if you will be so obliging, immediately on receipt of this, as to write me a few lines, I shall perhaps pay you in kind, though not in quality. Johnson's terms are:— each number a handsome pocket volume, to con- sist at least of a hundred Scotch songs, with basses for the harpsichord, &c. The price to subscribers 58. ; to non-subscribers 68. He will have three numbers I conjecture. My direction for two or three weeks will be at Mr William Cruikshank’s, St James's-square, New- town, Edinburgh. I am, Sir, Yours to command, R. B3 “There is another humorous thing, I have heard said to be done by the Catholic priest, Geddes, and which hit my taste much. * “There was a wee wifiekie, was coming frae the fair, Had gotten a little drapikie, which bred her meikle care; It took upo' the wifie's heart, and she began to spue, And quo' the wee wifiekie, ‘I wish I binna fou,’” &c. ‘I have heard of another new composition, by a young ploughman of my acquaintance, that I am vastly pleased with, to the tune of The Humours of Glen, which I fear won't do, as the music, I am told, is of Irish original. I have mentioned these, such as they are, to show you my readiness to oblige you, and to contribute my mite, if I could, to the patriotic work you have in hand, and which I wish all success to. You have only to notify your mind, and what you want of the above shall be sent you. - “Meantime, while you are thus employed, do not sheath your own proper and piercing weapon. From what I have seen of yours already, I am inclined to hope for much good. One lesson of virtue and morality delivered in your amusing style, and from such as you, will operate more than dozens would do from such as me, who shall be told it is our employment, and be never more minded: whereas, from a pen like yours, as being one of the many, what comes will be admired. Admira- tion will produce regard, and regard will leave an impression, especially when easample goes along. ‘Now binna saying I'm ill-bred, Else, by my troth, I'll no be glad : For cadgers, ye have heard it said, And sic like fry, Maunaye be harland in their trade, And sae maun I. “Wishing you, from my poet-pen, all success, and in my other character, all happiness and heavenly direction, “I remain, with esteem, ‘Your sincere friend, ‘Jo HN SKINNER." I See note to p. 173, where a description of Gordon Castle is given, and also an account of the cause which hurried Burns from its hospitable roof. Of Mr Hoy, a sketch will be found in the note to the letter which follows this. 2 Mr Hoy replied to the above letter in the following terms: “Go RDON CASTLE, OCT. 31st, 1787. * SIR . “If you were not sensible of your fault as well as of your loss, in leaving this place so suddenly, I should condemn you to starve upon cauld kail for ae towmont at least ; and as for Dick Latine [Mr Nicol], your travelling companion, without banning him wi' a' the curses contained in your letter (which he'll no value a bawbee) I should give him nought but Stra' bogie castocks to chew for saac owks, or aye until he was as sensible of his error as you seem to be of yours. ‘Your song [Bonnie Castle Gordon] I shewed without pro- ducing the author; and it was judged by the Duchess to be the production of Dr Beattie. I sent a copy of it by her Grace's desire to a Mrs M'Pherson, in Badenoch, who sings Morag, and all other Gaelic songs, in great perfection. I have recorded it likewise, by Lady Charlotte's desire, in a book belonging to her Ladyship ; where it is in company with a great many other poems and verses, some of the writers of which are no less eminent for their political than for their poetical abilities. When the Duchess was informed that you were the author, She wished you had written the verses in Scotch, l 93 2 B |X|(N Sºº-sº- Gºtº Nºè Zºº GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE, A 8 J ºt | they will be, though a small, yet a very sincere f \,' LXXXIV. TO JAMES HOY, ESQ.. GORDON CASTLE.) EDIN., 6th NOVEMBER, 1787. DEAR SIR, I would have wrote you immediately on receipt of your kind letter, but a mixed impulse of gratitude and esteem whispered to me that I ought to send you something by way of return. When a poet owes anything, particularly when he is indebted for good offices, the payment that usually recurs to him—the only coin indeed in which he is probably conversant—is rhyme. Johnson sends the books by the fly, as directed, and begs me to inclose his most grateful thanks: my return I intended should have been one or two poetic bagatelles which the world have not seen, or, perhaps, for obvious reasons, cannot see. These I shall send you before I leave Edinburgh. They may make you laugh a little, which, on the whole, is no bad way of spending one's precious hours and still more precious breath: at any rate, mark of my respectful esteem for a gentleman whose farther acquaintance I should look upo as a peculiar obligation. - The duke's song, independent totally of his dukeship, charms me.” There is I know not what of wild happiness of thought and expression peculiarly beautiful in the old Scottish song style, of which his Grace, old venerable Skinner, the author of ‘Tullochgorum,’ &c., and the late Ross, at Lochlee, of true Scottish poetic memory, are the only modern instances that I recollect, since Ramsay with his contemporaries, and poor Bob Fergusson went to the world of deathless exist- ence and truly immortal song. The mob of man- kind, that many-headed beast, would laugh at so serious a speech about an old song; but, as Job says, “O that mine adversary had written a book!” Those who think that composing a Scotch song is a trifling business—let them try. I wish my Lord Duke would pay a proper attention to the Christian admonition—“ Hide not your candle under a bushel,” but “Let your light Shine before men.” I could name half a dozen ing-house. As the duke's engagements and occupations deprived him of sufficient leisure to peruse the numerous books of miscellaneous information which were continually appear- ing, it became Mr Hoy's business to devote his forenoons to reading them as they arrived; and then he was enabled, as they Sat tete a tete over their bottle of claret together after dinner, to fill the duke with all that was worth remembering, and his grace's memory was such, that it never afterwards lost what it thus received. ‘Mr Hoy's chief sciences were astronomy, entomology, and botany. To the first of these he adhered steadily to his dying day, and made almost daily observations on the heavenly bodies, and from his having undertaken the regulation of the clocks at Gordon castle and Fochabers, it was matter of notoriety that his was the only accurately kept time in the north of Scotland. “We need scarcely say that Mr Hoy was quite indifferent to fame; he equally despised riches, never seeking for more than might enable him to dispense some charities, and to afford him- self respectable clothes, of which he never had more than two suits at a time. When his kind and indulgent patron volun- tarily offered him an addition to his sixty-pound salary, he replied, “Keep it to yoursel', my lord duke, I'm no needin' mair; ye hae as muckle need o't as I hae.” When Burns was at Gordon castle he was particularly delighted with Hoy’s blunt manner, and perhaps the circumstance of his being a native of the Borders gave him an additional value in the Poet's estima- tion. Mr Hoy left orders in his will that his remains should be interred in the churchyard of the cathedral “near his auld frien’ Mr Duncan,” the Seceder minister, to whom he had listened so many years of his life, in defiance of the wind, rain, Snow, or sunshine that may have vainly assailed him during his hebdomadal rides to Elgin. “The old librarian followed his noble master to the grave, after the interval of a few short months, and we cannot take our leave of him better than in the well-known words of the innmortal dramatist : — “O good old man how well in thee appears The constant service of the antique world, When service sweat for duty, not for meed ''' “Any letter directed to me here will come to hand safely; and, if sent under the Duke's cover, it will likewise come free ; that is, as long as the Duke is in this country. ‘I am, Sir, yours sincerely, ‘JAMES Hoy." 1 Mr James Hoy was librarian to His Grace the Duke of Gordon, at Gordon Castle. The following sketch of his charac- ter is from the pen of Mr Robert Carruthers, editor of the Inver- ness Courier :— “The late Mr James Hoy, librarian to the duke of Gordom, was, in many respects, a singular and original character. In goodness of heart, and simplicity of manners, he was not unlike Dominie Sampson himself; and, during the long period of forty- six years, during which he was the inmate of a ducal mansion, he lost not a shade of his originality, or abated one jot of his stoical indifference to riches. The love of learning and of virtue which distinguished Mr Hoy, added to his simple and primitive habits, rendered him universally respected and noted in the neighbourhood of Gordon Castle ; and in the noble family in which he resided, he maintained all the same familiar footing that his celebrated prototype, whom we have named above, preserved at Ellangowan. Mr Hoy was born at Haining, in Selkirkshire, in the year 1747. His father was gardener to Pringle of Haining, or Clifton, afterwards Lord Ailmore, one of the lords of session, and his lordship's daughter, Miss Violet Pringle, observing young Hoy to be a steady sedate lad, had him educated, according to his parents' wishes, for the dissent- ing church, Lord Ailmore becoming blind, young Hoy was engaged to be his reader and companion. Even at this early period, he must have discovered considerable signs of scientific genius, for he had an offer to go to Ireland with Banks and Solander, as botanist, and to assist in other departments of science. “It was as a sort of literary companion, and as one able to scale the different heights and bearings round Gordon Castle, that Mr Hoy was recommended to the duke, and scarcely any other situation could have been so admirably calculated to pro- mote his own happiness; for, as his whole enjoyment was in books, so that which was his delight now became his duty. To him the charge of the duke's library was committed. It became the castle of which he was appointed governor, and he was never out of his garrison except at meal-times, or when called into the fields by his scientific pursuits; or on Sundays, when he never failed, let the weather be what it might, to mount his horse, to ride to Elgin to attend the Seceder meet- 2 Alexander, fourth duke of Gordon, wrote a set of words to the old tune of ‘Cauld Kail in Aberdeen.' Burns obtained a copy from Mr Hoy, and inserted it in the first volume of the Museum. See the Poet's Remarks on Scottish Song, at the end of the Correspondence. 194 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. <3 - -*-º-º-º-º-º-º-º: E-º dozen better: perhaps there are not half that scanty number whom Heaven has favoured with the tuneful, happy, and, I will say, glorious gift. . I am, dear Sir, Your obliged humble servant, R. B. NO. LXXXV. TO ROBERT AINSLIE, ESQ., EDINBURGH. EDINBURGH, SUNDAY MORNING, Nov. 23, 1787. I BEG, my dear Sir, you would not make any appointment to take us to Mr Ainslie's to-night. On looking over my engagements, constitution, present state of my health, some little vexatious soul concerns, &c., I find I can’t sup abroad to-night, I shall be in to-day till one o’clock if you have a leisure hour. You will think it romantic when I tell you, that I find the idea of your friendship almost necessary to my existence. You assume a proper length of face in my bitter hours of blue-devilism, and you laugh fully up to my highest wishes at my good things—I don’t know upon the whole, if you are one of the first fellows in God’s world, but you are so to me. I tell you this just now in the con- viction that some inequalities in my temper and manner may perhaps sometimes make you suspect that I am not so warmly as I ought to be your friend. R. B. No. LXXXVI. TO THE EARL OF GLEN CAIRN. EDINBURGH, 1787. MY LORD, I KNow your lordship will disapprove of my ideas in a request I am going to make to you; but I have weighed, long and seriously weighed, my situation, my hopes, and turn of mind, and am fully fixed to my scheme, if I can possibly effectu- ate it. I wish to get into the Excise: I am told that your lordship's interest will easily procure me the grant from the commissioners; and your lordship's patronage and goodness, which have already rescued me from obscurity, wretchedness, and exile, embolden me to ask that interest. You have likewise put it in my power to save the little dukes that I guess are a devilish deal worse tie of home that sheltered an aged mother, two employed; nay, I question if there are half a brothers, and three sisters from destruction. There, my lord, you have bound me over to the highest gratitude. My brother's farm is but a wretched lease, but I think he will probably weather out the remain- ing seven years of it; and after the assistance which I have given, and will give him, to keep the family together, I think, by my guess, I shall have rather better than two hundred pounds, and instead of seeking, what is almost impossible at present to find, a farm that I can certainly live by, with so small a stock, I shall lodge this sum in a banking-house, a sacred deposit, excepting only the calls of uncommon distress or necessitous old age. These, my lord, are my views: I have resolved from the maturest deliberation; and now I am fixed, I shall leave no stone unturned to carry my resolve into execution. Your lordship's pat- ronage is the strength of my hopes; nor have I yet applied to any body else. Indeed my heart sinks within me at the idea of applying to any other of the great who have honoured me with their countenance. I am ill-qualified to dog the heels of greatness with the impertinence of soli- citation, and tremble nearly as much at the thought of the cold promise as the cold denial; but to your lordship I have not only the honour, the comfort, but the pleasure of being Your lordship's much obliged And deeply indebted humble servant, R. B. NO. LXXXVII. TO JAMES DALRYMPLE, ESQ., 1 ORANGEFIELD. EDINBURGH, 1787. DEAR SIR, I SUPPOSE the devil is so elated with his suc- cess with you, that he is determined by a coup de maim to complete his purposes on you all at once, in making you a poet. I broke open the letter you sent me; hummed over the rhymes; and, as I saw they were extempore, said to myself, they were very well; but when I saw at the bottom a name that I shall ever value with grate- ful respect, “I gapit wide, but naething spak.” I was nearly as much struck as the friends of Job, of affliction-bearing memory, when they sat down 1 Mr Dalrymple was a gentleman who interested himself in the fortunes of Burns, and, as the above letter indicates, occasionally tried his own hand at verse-making. 195 pG) ~~~~<> > ...) ` º ; H | sº S- C º a *, * /* $29 *- *…* <) S-- CS 1 ... \'º & -: , -3, {5 \º § 4 Sº “ Sºº-º- GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. º with him seven days and seven nights, and spake esteem every one must have for you who knows Gº not a Word. I am naturally of a superstitious cast, and as soon as my wonder-scared imagination regained its consciousness, and resumed its functions, I cast about what this mania of yours might portend. My foreboding ideas had the wide stretch of possibility; and several events, great in their magnitude, and important in their consequences, occurred to my fancy. The downfall of the con- clave, or the crushing of the Cork rumps; a ducal coronet to Lord George Gordon, and the protes. tant interest; or St Peter's keys to * * * * *. You want to know how I come on. I am just in Statu quo, or, not to insult a gentleman with my Latin, in “auld use and wont.” The noble Earl of Glencairn took me by the hand to-day, and interested himself in my concerns, with a goodness like that benevolent Being whose image he so richly bears. He is a stronger proof of the immortality of the soul than any that philosophy ever produced. A mind like his can never die. Let the worshipful squire H. L., or the reverend Mass J. M. go into their primitive nothing. At best, they are but ill-digested lumps of chaos, only one of them strongly tinged with bituminous particles and sulphureous effluvia. But my noble patron, eternal as the heroic swell of magnanimity, and the generous throb of benevolence, shall look on with princely eye at “the war of elements, the wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds.” R. B. No. LXXXIX. TO MISS M.–N.1 SATURDAY NOON. No. 2. ST JAMES’s SQUARE, NEW TOWN, EDINBURGII. HERE have I sat, my dear Madam, in the stony altitude of perplexed study for fifteen vexatious minutes, my head askew, bending over the intended card; my fixed eye insensible to the very light of day poured around; my pendulous goose-feather, loaded with ink, hanging over the future letter, all for the important purpose of writing a complimentary card to accompany your trimket. you. As I leave town in three or four days, I can give myself the pleasure of calling on you only for a minute. Tuesday evening, some time about seven or after, I shall wait on you for your fare- well commands. The hinge of your box I put into the hands of the proper connoisseur. The broken glass, like- wise, went under review; but deliberative wisdom thought it would too much endanger the whole fabric. I am, dear Madam. With all sincerity of enthusiasm, Your very obedient servant, R. B. No. XC. TO MISS CHALMIERS.2 EDINBURGH, Nov. 21, 1787. I HAVE One vexatious fault to the kindly wel- come, well-filled sheet which I owe to your and Charlotte‘sº goodness—it contains too much sense, Sentiment, and good-spelling. It is impos- sible that even you two, whom I declare to my God I will give credit for any degree of excel- lence the sex are capable of attaining, it is impos- sible you can go on to correspond at that rate; so, like those who, Shenstone says, retire because they have made a good speech, I shall, after a few letters, hear no more of you. I insist that you shall write whatever comes first: what you see, what you read, what you hear, what you admire, what you dislike, trifles, bagatelles, non- Sense; or to fill up a corner, e^en put down a laugh at full length. Now none of your polite hints about flattery; I leave that to your lovers, if you have or shall have any; though, thank heaven, I have found at last two girls who can be luxuriantly happy in their own minds and with one another, without that commonly neces- sary appendage to female bliss—A LOVER. Charlotte and you are just two favourite rest- ing-places for my soul in her wanderings through the weary, thorny wilderness of this world. God knows, I am ill-fitted for the struggle: I glory in being a Poet, and I want to be thought a wise man—I would fondly be generous, and I wish to be rich. After all, I am afraid I am a lost sub- ject. “Some folk ha'e a hantle o’ fauts, and I’m but a ne'er-do-weel.” Compliment is such a miserable Greenland expression, lies at such a chilly polar distance from the torrid zone of my constitution, that I cannot for the very soul of me, use it to any per- son for whom I have the twentieth part of the } 1 Who this lady was is not with certainty ascertained. The 2. Afterwards Mrs Lewis Hay. See p. 24. 3. > above has been often printed among the ‘Letters to Clarinda.’ 3 Charlotte Hamilton. See p. 20. 2xº~. 196 Cº-º. (ºy 3.2.1;i`N(T)s N_&º-J- 2^\}^2-A. . . . . . --—--- *...?"® 6 ------- - - - - ------- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- ...~- - - - -,---- * ***Nº, JX GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. { Afternoon.—To close the melancholy reflec- tions at the end of last sheet, I shall just add a piece of devotion, commonly known in Carrick by the title of the “Wabster's grace:”— “Some say we're thieves, and e'en sae are we, Some say we lie, and e'en sae do we Gude forgi'e us, and I hope sae will he —Up and to your looms, lads.” R. B. No. XCI. TO THE SAME. EDINBURGH, DEC, 12, 1787. I AM here under the care of a surgeon, with a bruised limb extended on a cushion; and the tints of my mind vying with the livid horror pre- ceding a midnight thunder-storm. A drunken coachman was the cause of the first, and incom- parably the lightest evil; misfortune, bodily constitution, hell, and myself have formed a “quadruple alliance” to guarantee the other. I got my fall on Saturday, and am getting slowly better. I have taken tooth and nail to the Bible, and am got through the five books of Moses, and half way in Joshua. It is really a glorious book. I sent for my book-binder to-day, and ordered him to get me an octavo Bible in sheets, the best paper and print in town; and bind it with all the elegance of his craft. I would give my best song to my worst enemy —I mean the merit of making it—to have you and Charlotte by me. You are angelic creatures, and would pour oil and wine into my wounded spirit. I inclose you a proof copy of the “Banks of the Devon,” which present with my best wishes to Charlotte. The “Ochil-hills” you shall pro- bably have next week for yourself. None of your fine speeches! R. B. NO, XCII. TO THE SAME. EDINBURGH, I9TH DEC. 1787. I BEGIN this letter in answer to yours of the 17th current, which is not yet cold since I read it. The atmosphere of my soul is vastly clearer than when I wrote you last. For the first time, yesterday I crossed the room on crutches. It ! See p. 20. 2 See the Song at p. 24, beginning, “Where braving angry winter's storms.” -- - would do your heart good to see my bardship, not on my poetic, but on my oaken stilts; throw- ing my best leg with an air! and with as much hilarity in my gait and countenance, as a May frog leaping across the newly harrowed ridge, enjoying the fragrance of the refreshed earth, after the long expected shower! I can’t say I am altogether at my ease when I See any where in my path that meagre, squalid, famine-faced spectre, poverty; attended as he always is, by iron-fisted oppression, and leering contempt; but I have sturdily withstood his buffetings many a hard-laboured day already, and still my motto is-I DARE! My worst enemy is mot méme. I lie so miserably open to the inroads and incursions of a mischievous, light- armed, well-mounted banditti, under the banners of imagination, whim, caprice, and passion; and the heavy-armed veteran regulars of wisdom, prudence, and forethought move so very, very slow, that I am almost in a state of perpetual warfare, and, alas! frequent defeat. There are just two creatures I would envy: a horse in his wild state traversing the forests of Asia, or an oyster on some of the desert shores of Europe. The one has not a wish without enjoyment; the other has neither wish nor fear. 3 R. B. No. XCIII. TO CHARLES HAY, Esq.4 ENCLOSING WIERSES ON THE DEATH OF THE LORD PRESIDENT. SIR, DECEMBER, 1787. THE inclosed poem was written in consequence of your suggestion, last time I had the pleasure of seeing you. It cost me an hour or two of next morning's sleep, but did not please me; so it lay 3 * “Come, stubborn pride and unshrinking resolution, accom- pany me through this, to me, miserable world!” In such language did this powerful but untamed mind express the irritation of prolonged expectation and disappointed hope, which slight reflection might have pointed out as the common fate of mortality. Burns neither acknowledged adversity as the “tamer of the human breast,” nor knew the golden curb which discretion hangs upon passion. He even appears to have felt a gloomy pleasure in braving the encounter of evils which prudence might have avoided, and to have thought that there could be no pleasurable existence between the extremes of licentious frenzy and torpid sensuality. “There are only two creatures that I would envy: a horse in his wild state traversing the forests of Asia, or an oyster on some of the desert shores of Europe. The one has not a wish without enjoyment; the other has neither wish nor fear.” When such a sentiment is breathed by such a being, the lesson is awful: and if pride and ambition were capable of being taught, they might hence learn that a well regulated mind and controled passions are to be prized above all the glow of imagination, and all the splendour of genius.”—SIR WALTER Scott. 4 This gentleman was an advocate at the Scottish bar at the time Burns resided in Edinburgh, and a member of the club 197 «T, … (2 &s (ºNot- ºš= • *- *sº 2 99) GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE, iº by, an ill-digested effort, till the other day that I gave it a critic brush. These kind of subjects are much hackneyed; and, besides, the wailings of the rhyming tribe over the ashes of the great are cursedly suspi- cious, and out of all character for sincerity.— These ideas damped my muse's fire; however, I have done the best I could, and, at all events, it gives me an opportunity of declaring that I have the honour to be, Sur, Your obliged and humble servant, R. B. NO. XCIV. TO SIR JOHN WHITEFOORD, 1 SIR, EDINBURGH, DEC., 1787. MIR MACRENZIE, in Mauchline, my very warm and Worthy friend, has informed me how much you are pleased to interest yourself in my fate as a man, and (what to me is incomparably dearer) my fame as a poet. I have, Sir, in one or two instances, been patronized by those of your character in life, when I was introduced to their notice by * * * * * friends to them, and hon- oured acquaintances to me; but you are the first gentleman in the country whose benevolence and goodness of heart has interested himself for me, unsolicited and unknown. I am not master enough of the etiquette of these matters to know, nor did I stay to inquire, whether formal duty bade, or cold propriety disallowed, my thanking you in this manner, as I am convinced, from the light in which you kindly view me, that you will do me the justice to believe this letter is not the manoeuvre of the needy, sharping author, fasten. ing on those in upper life, who honour him with a little notice of him or his works. Indeed, the situation of poets is generally such, to a proverb, as may, in some measure, palliate that prostitu- tion of heart and talents they have at times been guilty of. I do not think prodigality is, by any means, a necessary concomitant of a poetic turn, but I believe a careless, indolent attention to economy, is almost inseparable from it; then there must be in the heart of every bard of Nature's making, a certain modest sensibility, mixed with a kind of pride, that will ever keep him out of the way of those windfalls of fortune which frequently light on hardy impudence and foot-licking servility. It is not easy to imagine a more helpless state than his whose poetic fancy unfits him for the world, and whose character as a scholar gives him some pretensions to the poli- tesse of life—yet is as poor as I am. For my part, I thank Heaven, my star has been kinder ; learning never elevated my ideas above the peasant’s shed, and I have an independent fortune at the plough-tail. I was surprised to hear that any one who pre- tended in the least to the manners of the gentle- man, should be so foolish, or worse, to stoop to traduce the morals of such a one as I am, and so unhumanly cruel, too, as to meddle with that late most unfortunate, unhappy part of my story. With a tear of gratitude, Ithank you, Sir, for the warmth with which you interposed in behalf of my conduct. I am, I acknowledge, too frequently the sport of whim, caprice, and passion, but reverence to God, and integrity to my fellow-creatures, I hope I shall ever preserve. I have no return, Sir, to make you for your goodness but one—a return which, I am persuaded, will not be unacceptable —the honest, warm wishes of a grateful heart for your happiness, and every one of that lovely flock, who stand to you in a filial relation. If ever calumny aim the poisoned shaft at them, may friendship be by to ward the blow ! R. B. NO. XCV. TO MISS HELEN MARIA WILLIAMS.2 ON READING THE POEM OF • THE SLAVE TRADE.” EDINBURGH, DEC. 1787. 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 called ‘The Crochallan Fencibles,” to which the Poet also belonged, and of which we have spoken in a former mote. He was ultimately raised to the bench with the title of Lord Newton. He died at Powrie in Forfarshire, on the 19th October, 1811, leaving behind him the character of an able lawyer, an upright judge, and at the same time a very con- vivial companion. 1 Sir John Whitefoord was proprietor of the estates of Whitefoord and Ballochmyle in Ayrshire, but, through the mismanagement of his predecessor, (who is said to have fur- nished Scott with the groundwork of his character of Sir Arthur Wardour in the Antiquary,) and the failure of the Ayr bank, he was obliged to dispose of these, and take up his resi- dence at Whitefoord. House in the Canongate of Edinburgh. (See the Song entitled, “The Braes of Ballochmyle' at p. 32, written on occasion of Miss Whitefoord leaving her family inheritance.) Sir John was one of the early patrons of Burns, and, what was better, a generous defender of his character, as the above letter shows. His manners were affable and gentle- manly. He died at Edinburgh in 1803. It may interest the lovers of English literature to know, that the Whitefoord celebrated by Goldsmith, in his poem of Retaliation, was uncle to Sir John. Merry Whitefoord, farewell . For thy sake, I admit That a Scot may have humour—I had almost said wit: This debt to thy memory I cannot refuse, Thou best natur'd man with the worst humour'd muse.” 2 Miss Williams had previously addressed a complimentary letter to the Poet, which, along with the above, first appeared in the Edinburgh Magazine for September, 1817. The poem of * Evan Banks, given at page 71, though sometimes attributed to Burns, was the production of Miss Williams. ** 198 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. _* º º f~} § & º being uncommonly beautiful, and where the ex- pression seems to be perplexed or faulty. The poem opens finely. There are none of these idle prefatory lines which one may skip over before one comes to the subject. Verses 9th and I0th in particular, “Where 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. Verse 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 altoge- ther 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 58th, but in verse 58th the connection seems ungrammatical :— “POWrers * Sº $ *: }: With no gradations mark'd 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 59th, 60th, 61st, and 62d : but let us try how the thread of connection runs:— “For this * % # # Žiš The deeds of mercy, that embrace A distant sphere, an alien race, Shall virtue's lips record, and claim The ſairest honours of thy name.” I beg pardon if I misapprehend the matter, but this appears to me the only imperfect passage in the poem. fine. The compliment to the Duke of Richmond is, I hope, as just as it is certainly elegant. The thought, The comparison of the sun-beam is “ Virtue * * * * * Sends from her unsullied source, The gems of thought their purest force,” is exceedingly beautiful. The idea, from verse 81st to the 85th, that the “blest decree” is like the beams of morning ushering in the glorious day of liberty, ought not to pass unnoticed or unapplauded. From verse 85th to verse 108th is an animated contrast between the unfeeling selfishness of the oppressor on the one hand and the misery of the captive on the other. Verse 88th might perhaps be amended thus: “Nor ever quit her narrow maze.” We are said to pass a bound, but we quit a maze. Verse 100th is exqui- sitely beautiful:— “They, whom wasted blessings tire.” Verse 110th is I doubt a clashing of metaphors; “to load a span,” is, I am afraid, an unwarrant- able expression. In verse 114th, “ Cast the universe in shade,” is a fine idea. From the 115th 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 oppression,-- “While she links her impious chain, And calculates the price of pain; Weighs agony in sordid scales, And marks if death or life prevails,"— is nobly executed. What a tender idea is in verse 180th ! Indeed that whole description 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 original 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 though the sailor's common characteristic is generosity, yet, in this case, he is Inot only an unconcerned witness, but, in some degree, an efficient agent in the business. Verse 224th is a nervous . . . . expressive—“The heart convulsive anguish breaks.” The descrip- tion of the captive wretch when 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 exceed- ingly fine. 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, I am only benighting myself. For this reason, I will not pretend to go through the Whole poem. Some few remaining beautiful lines, however, I cannot pass over. Verse 280th is the Strongest description of selfishness I ever saw. The comparison in verses 285th and 286th is new and fine; and the line, “Your arms to penury you lend,” is excellent. * y º Y º { .* wº : : CSv-/ 1 2. º 2 - 199 &^ 2\on 3. šGºTº- Sº GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. C) In verse 317th, “like” should certainly be “as” X or “so;” for instance— To cruelty's remorseless deeds: As (or, so) the blue lightning, when it springs With fury on its livid wings, Darts on the goal with rapid force, Nor heeds that ruin marks its course.” “His sway the hardened bosom leads W } 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 Winter, superior to your verses from the 347th to the 351st. Indeed, the last simile, beginning with “Fancy may dress,” &c., and end- ing 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. R. B. NO. XCVI. TO MR RICHARD BROWN, IRWINE. EDINBURGII, 30th DEC., 1787. MY DEAR SIR, I HAVE met with few things in life which have given me more pleasure than Fortune's kindness to you since those days in which we met in the vale of misery; as I can honestly say, that I never knew a man who more truly deserved it, or to whom my heart more truly wished it. I have been much indebted since that time to your story and sentiments for steeling my mind against evils, of which I have had a pretty decent share. My will-o’-wisp fate you know: do you recollect a Sunday we spent together in Eglinton woods? You told me, on my repeating some verses to you, that you wondered I could resist the temptation of sending verses of such merit to a magazine. It was from this remark I derived the idea of my own pieces, which encouraged me to endeavour at the character of a poet. I am happy to hear that you will be two or three months at home. As soon as a bruised limb will permit me, I shall return to Ayrshire, and we shall meet; “and faith, I hope we’ll not sit dumb, nor yet cast out!” I have much to tell you “of men, their man- ners, and their ways,” perhaps a little of the other sex. Apropos, I beg to be remembered to Mrs Brown. There I doubt not, my dear friend, but you have found substantial happiness. I expect to find you something of an altered but not a different man; the wild, bold, generous young fellow composed into the steady, affection- ate husband, and the fond careful parent. For me, I am just the same will-o’-wisp being I used to be. About the first and fourth quarters of the moon, I generally set in for the trade wind of wisdom; but about the full and change, I am the luckless victim of mad tornadoes, which blow me into chaos. Almighty love still reigns and revels in my bosom; and I am at this moment ready to hang myself for a young Edinburgh widow,” who has wit and wisdom more murderously fatal than the assassinating stiletto of the Sicilian banditti, or the poisoned arrow of the savage African. My highland dirk, that used to hang beside my crutches, I have gravely removed to a neighbour- ing closet, the key of which I cannot command in case of spring-tide paroxysms. You may guess of her wit by the following verses, which she sent me the other day:- “Talk not of love, it gives me pain, For love has been my foe; He bound me with an iron chain, And plunged me deep in woe “But friendship's pure and lasting joys, My heart was formed to prove, There welcome win and wear the prize, But never talk of love : “Your friendship much can make me blest— O why that bliss destroy P Why urge the odious one request, You know I must deny?” My best compliments to our friend Allan. Adieu" R. B. NO. XCVII. TO GAVIN HAMILTON. EDINBURGH, DEC., 1787. MY DEAR SIR, IT is indeed with the highest pleasure that I congratulate you on the return of days of ease and nights of pleasure, after the horrid hours of 1 This was the Irvine companion of whom Burns speaks in his autobiography to Dr Moore, as one possessed of a mind fraught with independence, magnanimity, and every manly virtue, and yet whose conversation, on the subject of the inter- course of the sexes, first corrupted his young feelings. Brown died some years ago at Greenock, where he was much respected. His later life was more prosperous, and less open to objection, than his early career. 2 Clarinda. See page 95, Vol. i. 200 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. o misery in which I saw you suffering existence when last in Ayrshire; I seldom pray for any- body, “I’m baith dead-sweer and wretched ill o’t;” but most fervently do I beseech the Power that directs the world, that you may live long and be happy, but live no longer than you are happy. It is needless for me to advise you to have a reve- rend care of your health. I know you will make it a point never at one time to drink more than a pint of wine (I mean an English pint), and that you will never be witness to more than one bowl of punch at a time, and that cold drams you will never more taste; and, above all things, I am con- vinced, that after drinking perhaps boiling punch, you will never mount your horse and gallop home in a chill late hour. Above all things, as I under. stand you are in the habits of intimacy with that Boanerges of gospel powers, Father Auld, be earnest with him that he will wrestle in prayer for you, that you may see the vanity of vanities in trusting to, or even practising the casual moral works of charity, humanity, generosity, and for- giveness of things, which you practised so flag- rantly that it was evident you delighted in them, invitation, and he is determined to accept of it. neglecting, or perhaps profanely despising, the wholesome doctrine of faith without works, the only author of salvation. A hymn of thanksgiv- ing would, in my opinion, be highly becoming ledge of his father's disposition, the whole affair from you at present, and in my zeal for your well- being, I earnestly press on you to be diligent in chanting over the two inclosed pieces of sacred poesy. My best compliments to Mrs Hamilton and Miss Kennedy.—Yours, &c. - - R. B. NO. , XCVIII. TO MISS CHALMERS. EDINBURGH, DEC., 1787. MY DEAR MADAM, I JUST now have read yours. The poetic com- pliments I pay cannot be misunderstood. They are neither of them so particular as to point you out to the world at large; and the circle of your acquaintances will allow all I have said. Besides, I have complimented you chiefly, almost solely, on your mental charms. Shall I be plain with you? I will; so look to it. Personal attractions, madam, you have much above par; wit, under- standing, and worth, you possess in the first class. This is a cursed flat way of telling you these truths, but let me hear no more of your sheepish and you may believe me, my dear madam, I would not run any risk of hurting you by any ill-judged compliment. I wish to show to the world the odds between a poet's friends and those of simple prosemen. More for your information, both the pieces go in. One of them, ‘Where braving angry winter's storms,’ is already set,_the tune is Neil Gow's Lamentation for Abercairny; the other is to be set to an old Highland air in Daniel Dow's collection of ancient Scots music; the name is Ha a Chaillich air mo Dheith.’ My treach- erous memory has forgot every circumstance about Les Incas, only I think you mentioned them as being in Creech's possession. I shall ask him about it. I am afraid the song of “Some- body’ will come too late—as I shall, for certain, leave town in a week for Ayrshire, and from that to Dumfries, but there my hopes are slender. I leave my direction in town, so any thing, wher- ever I am, will reach me. I saw yours to —; it is not too severe, nor did he take it amiss. On the contrary, like a whipt spaniel, he talks of being with you in the Christmas days. Mr — has given him the O selfishness he owns, in his sober moments, that from his own volatility of inclination, the cir- cumstances in which he is situated, and his know- is chimerical,—yet he will gratify an idle pen- chant at the enormous, cruel expense, of perhaps ruining the peace of the very woman for whom he professes the generous passion of love He is a gentleman in his mind and manners—tant pis? He is a volatile school-boy—the heir of a man's fortune who well knows the value of two times two - Perdition seize them and their fortunes, before they should make the amiable, the lovely—, the derided object of their purse-proud contempt! I am doubly happy to hear of Mrs —'s recovery, because I really thought all was over with her. There are days of pleasure yet await- ing her: “As I came in by Glenap, I met with an aged woman ; She bade me cheer up my heart, For the best o' my days was comin’.” l This day will decide my affairs with Creech. Things are, like myself, not what they ought to be; yet better than what they appear to be. “Heaven's Sovereign saves all beings but himself— That hideous sight—a naked human heart.” timidity. I know the world a little. I know A what they will sav of my poems: by second sight 1 This old rhyme, Lockhart tells us, was a great favourite \, WI): y y y p º y e 8 with the Poet. He is said to have often repeated it on his first \ C’ix}TS I suppose; for I am seldom out in my conjectures; journey to Edinburgh. Glenap is in the south of Ayrshire. C k o - WNX §§, II. 201 2 C {X: § 2-S O D_2~sºr, ºšo-S 2^{*.* 㺠º */ (N {../ - .* º s−2 -- tº ~~~~<> ~~~<>irº, - “... g. >i) S. ——ºf <& 9 tº 5&º: 3e GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. • * her since I have irrevocably called her mine, and I have a kind of whimsical wish to get her the first said present from an old and much valued friend of hers and mine, a trusty Trojan, on whose friendship I count myself possessed of as a life- rent lease. Look on this letter as a “beginning of sorrows;” I will write you till your eyes ache reading non- SCI1S62. Mrs Burns ('tis only her private designation) begs her best compliments to you. R. B. No. CXX. TO PROFESSOR. DUGALD STEWAR.T. SIR, MAUCHLINE, 3D MAY, 1788. I INCLOSE you one or two more of my baga- telles. If the fervent wishes of honest gratitude have any influence with that great, unknown Being who frames the chain of causes and events, prosperity and happiness will attend your visit to the continent, and return you safe to your native shore. Wherever I am, allow me, Sir, to claim it as my privilege to acquaint you with my progress in my trade of rhymes; as I am sure I could say it with truth, that, next to my little fame, and the having it in my power to make life more comfortable to those whom nature has made dear to me, I shall ever regard your countenance, your patronage, your friendly good offices, as the most valued consequence of my late success in life. R. B. NO. CXXI. TO MIRS DUNLOP. MAUCHLINE, 4TII MAY, 1788. MADAM, DRYDEN's Virgil has delighted me. I do not know whether the critics will agree with me, but the Georgics are to me by far the best of Virgil. It is indeed a species of writing entirely new to me; and has filled my head with a thousand fancies of cmulation : but, alas! when I read the Georgics, and then survey my own powers, ’tis like the idea of a Shetland pony, drawn up by the side of a thorough-bred hunter, to start for the plate. I own I am disappointed in the JEneid. Faultless correctness may please, and does highly please, the lettered critic: but to that awful character I have not the most distant pretensions. I do not know whether I do not hazard my pretensions to be a critic of any kind, when I say that I think Virgil, in many instances, a servile copier of Homer. If I had the Odyssey by me, I could parallel many passages where Virgil has evidently copied, but by no means improved, Homer. Nor can I think there is any thing of this owing to the translators; for, from every thing I have seen of Dryden, I think him, in genius and fluency of language, Pope's master. I have not perused Tasso enough to form an opinion: in some future letter, you shall have my ideas of him; though I am conscious my criticisms must be very inaccurate and imperfect, as there I have ever felt and lamented my want of learn- ing most. R. B. CXXII. TO MR, ROBERT AIN SLIE. MAUCILLINE, MAY 26TH, 1788. MY DEAR FRIEND, I AM two kind letters in your debt; but I have been from home, and horridly busy, buying and preparing for my farming business, over and above the plague of my Excise instructions, which this week will finish. As I flatter my wishes that I foresee many future years’ correspondence between us, ’tis foolish to talk of excusing dull epistles; a dull letter may be a very kind one. I have the plea- sure to tell you that I have been extremely for- tunate in all my buyings and bargainings hitherto; Mrs Burns not excepted; which title I now avow to the world. I am truly pleased with this last affair: it has indeed added to my anxieties for futurity, but it has given a stability to my mind and resolutions unknown before ; and the poor girl has the most sacred enthusiasm of attach- ment to me, and has not a wish but to gratify my every idea of her deportment. I am inter- rupted. Farewell! my dear Sir. R. B. NO. CXXIII. TO MRS DUNLOP. 27TH MAY, 1788. MADAM, - I HAVE been torturing my philosophy to no purpose, to account for that kind partiality of yours, which has followed me, in my return to the shade of life, with assiduous benevolence. Often did I regret, in the fleeting hours of my late will-o'-wisp appearance, that “here I had no continuing city;” and, but for the consolation of 210 ‘. Ø0 sº gºe =º which in Scotland is half-yearly. shire I have several variations of friendship's 21] 3.31% GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. *º Siºſ’ a few solid guineas, could almost lament the time foggy atmosphere native to my soul in the hour <1% that a momentary acquaintance with wealth and of care; consequently the dreary objects seem & splendour put me so much out of conceit with the larger than the life. Extreme sensibility, irritated sworn companions of my road through life— and prejudiced on the gloomy side by a series of || insignificance and poverty. misfortunes and disappointments, at that period There are few circumstances relating to the of my existence when the soul is laying in her unequal distribution of the good things of this cargo of ideas for the voyage of life, is, I believe, life that give me more vexation (I mean in what the principal cause of this unhappy frame of mind. I see around me) than the importance the opulent “The valiant, in himself, what can he suffer ? bestow on their trifling family affairs, compared Or what need he regard his single woes?” &c. with the very same things on the contracted | Your surmise, Madam, is just; I am indeed a scale of a cottage. Last afternoon I had the husband. 3: +: : >: honour to spend an hour or two at a good To jealousy or infidelity I am an equal stranger. woman's fire-side, where the planks that com- My preservative from the first is the most thorough posed the floor were decorated with a splendid consciousness of her sentiments of honour, and her carpet, and the gay table sparkled with silver attachment to me: my antidote against that last and china. "Tis now about term-day, and there is my long and deep-rooted affection for her. - has been a revolution among those creatures, 1 In housewife matters, of aptness to learn and who, though in appearance partakers, and equally activity to execute, she is eminently mistress: noble partakers, of the same nature with Madame, and during my absence in Nithsdale, she is regu- are from time to time—their nerves, their sinews, larly and constantly apprentice to my mother and their health, strength, wisdom, experience, genius, sisters in their dairy and other rural business. time, may a good part of their very thoughts— The muses must not be offended when I tell sold for months and years, not only to the neces- them, the concerns of my wife and family will, in sities, the conveniences, but the caprices of the my mind, always take the pas; but I assure important few. We talked of the insignificant them their ladyships will ever come next in place. creatures; nay, notwithstanding their general You are right that a bachelor state would have stupidity and rascality, did some of the poor insured me more friends; but, from a cause you devils the honour to commend them. But light will easily guess, conscious peace in the enjoyment be the turf upon his breast who taught, “Rever- of my own mind, and unmistrusting confidence in ence thyself!” We looked down on the unpol- approaching my God, would seldom have been of ished wretches, their impertinent wives and the number. clouterly brats, as the lordly bull does on the I found a once much-loved and still much-loved little dirty ant-hill, whose puny inhabitants he female, literally and truly cast out to the mercy crushes in the carelessness of his ramble, or tosses of the naked elements; but I enabled her to pur- in the air in the wantonness of his pride. chase a shelter;-there is no sporting with a fellow-creature's happiness or misery. The most placid good-nature and sweetness of No. CXXIV. disposition; a warm heart, gratefully devoted with all its powers to love me; vigorous health TO THE SAME, and sprightly cheerfulness, set off to the best AT MR DUNLOP's, HADDINGTON. advantage by a more than commonly handsome figure; these, I think, in a woman, may make a - ELLISLAND, 13TH JUNE 1788. good wife, though she should never have read a Nº. page but the scriptures of the old and New Tes. Still to my friend it turns with ceaseless pain, tament, nor have danced in a brighter assembly And drags, at each remove, a lengthen’d chain.” than a penny pay-wedding. GoLDSMITH, R. B. THIS is the second day, my honoured friend, that I have been on my farm. A solitary inmate NO. CXXV. of an old, Smoky Spence; far from every object I love, or by whom I am beloved; nor any TO MR, ROBERT AINSLIE. acquaintance older than yesterday, except Jenny ELLISLAND, JUNE 14th, 1788. Geddes, the old mare I ride on ; while uncouth THIS is now the third day, my dearest Sir, that t cares and novel plans hourly insult my awkward I have sojourned in these regions; and during ignorance and bashful inexperience. There is a these three days you have occupied more of my | 1 The Poet here alludes to the hiring-season of servants, thoughts than in three weeks preceding ; in Ayr- \ £º Ö-& º º tº: Sº R} ~’ § ...” § 2- gY º Ny- * 5 N f GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. compass: here it points invariably to the pole. My farm gives me a good many uncouth cares and anxieties, but I hate the language of com- plaint. Job, or some one of his friends, says well —“Why should a living man complain?” I have lately been much mortified with con- templating an unlucky imperfection in the very framing and construction of my soul; namely, a blundering inaccuracy of her olfactory organs in hitting the scent of craft or design in my fellow- creatures. I do not mean any compliment to my ingenuousness, or to hint that the defect is in con- sequence of the unsuspicious simplicity of con- scious truth and honour: I take it to be, in some way or other, an imperfection in the mental sight; or, metaphor apart, some modification of dulness. In two or three instances lately, I have been most shamefully out. I have all along, hitherto, in the warfare of life, been bred to arms among the light-horse, the picquet-guards of fancy; a kind of hussars and Highlanders of the brain; but I am firmly resolved to sell out of these giddy battalions, who have no ideas of a battle but fighting the foe, or of a siege but storming the town. Cost what it will, I am determined to buy in among the grave squadrons of heavy-armed thought, or the artillery corps of plodding contrivance. What books are you reading, or what is the subject of your thoughts, besides the great stu- dies of your profession ? You said something about religion in your last. I don’t exactly remember what it was, as the letter is in Ayrshire; but I thought it not only prettily said, but nobly thought. You will make a noble fellow if once you were married. I make no reservation of your being well married; you have so much sense and knowledge of human nature, that though you may not realize perhaps the ideas of romance, yet you will never be ill-married. Were it not for the terrors of my ticklish situa- tion respecting provisions for a family of children, I am decidedly of opinion, that the step I have taken is vastly for my happiness." As it is, I look to the Excise scheme as a certainty of mainte- nance ; a maintenance —luxury to what either Mrs Burns or I were born to. Adieu, R. B. NO. CXXXVI. TO ROBERT AINSLIE, Esq. MAUCHLINE, 23D JUNE, 1788. Mr Miers, profile painter in your town, has exe- cuted a profile of Dr Blacklock for me: do me the favour to call for it, and sit to him yourself sh for me, which put in the same size as the doctor’s. The account of both profiles will be fifteen shill- ings, which I have given to James Connel, our Mauchline carrier, to pay you when you give him the parcel. You must not, my friend, refuse to sit. The time is short; when I sat to Mr Miers, I am sure he did not exceed two minutes. I pro- pose hanging Lord Glencairn, the doctor, and you in trio over my new chimney-piece that is to be. Adieu.—R. B. NO. CXXVII. TO THE SAME. ELLISLAND, 30TH JUNE, 1788. MY DEAR SIR, I JUST now received your brief epistle; and, to take vengeance on your laziness, I have, you see, taken a long sheet of writing paper, and have begun at the top of the page, intending to scrib- ble on to the very last corner. I am vexed at that affair of the * * * *, but dare not enlarge on the subject until you send me your direction, as I suppose that will be altered on your late master and friend’s death.” I am concerned for the old fellow’s exit, only as I fear it may be to your disadvantage in any respect— for an old man's dying, except he may have been a very benevolent character, or in some particu- lar situation of life that the welfare of the poor or the helpless depended on him, I think it an event of the most trifling moment to the world. Man is naturally a kind, benevolent animal, but he is dropped into such a needy situation here, in this vexatious world, and has such a whore-son, hungry, growling, multiplying pack of necessities, appetites, passions, and desires about him, ready to devour him for want of other food; that in fact he must lay aside his cares for others that he may look properly to himself. You have been imposed upon in paying Mr Miers for the profile of a Mr H. I did not mention it in my letter to you, nor did I ever give Mr Miers any such order. I have no objection to lose the money, but I will not have any such profile in my possession. I desired the carrier to pay you, but as I men- | tioned only 15s. to him, I will rather enclose you a guinea-note. I have it not, indeed, to spare i e º here, as I am only a sojourner in a strange land | THIsletter, my dear Sir, is only a business scrap. '" this place; but in a day or two I return to Mauchline, and there I have the bank notes through the house like salt permits. 1 His marriage. 2 Mr Samuel Mitchelson, W. S., under whom Ainslie served, died on the 21st June, 1788. 2]2 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. *------------ There is a great degree of folly in talking unne- burgh." “Fair and lovely are thy works, Lord cessarily of one's private affairs. I have just now God Almighty! Who would not praise thee for been interrupted by one of my new neighbours, who has made himself absolutely contemptible in these thy gifts in thy goodness to the sons of men'" It needed not your fine taste to admire my eyes, by his silly, garrulous pruriency. I know them. I declare, one day I had the honour of it has been a fault of my own, too; but from this dining at Mr Baillie's, I was almost in the pre- moment I abjure it as I would the service of hell! Your poets, spendthrifts, and other fools of that kidney, pretend, forsooth, to crack their jokes on prudence; but 'tis a squalid vagabond glorying in his rags. Still, imprudence respecting money matters is much more pardonable than impru- dence respecting character. I have no objection to prefer prodigality to avarice, in some few instances; but I appeal to your observation, if you have not met, and often met, with the same disin- genuousness, the same hollow-hearted insincerity, and disintegritive depravity of principle, in the hackneyed victims of profusion, as in the unfeel- ing children of parsimony. I have every possible reverence for the much talked of world beyond the grave, and I wish that that which piety believes, and virtue deserves, may be all matter of fact. But in things belonging to, and terminating in this present scene of existence, man has serious and interesting business on hand. Whether a man shall shake hands with welcome in the distin- guished elevation of respect, or shrink from con- tempt in the abject corner of insignificance; whe- ther he shall wanton under the tropic of plenty, at least enjoy himself in the comfortable latitudes of easy convenience, or starve in the arctic circle of dreary poverty: whether he shall rise in the manly conscientiousness of a self-approving mind, or sink beneath a galling load of regret and remorse, —these are alternatives of the last moment. You see how I preach. You used occasionally to sermonize too; I wish you would, in charity, favour me with a sheet-full in your own way. I admire the close of a letter Lord Bolingbroke writes to Dean Swift :—“ Adieu, dear Swift with all thy faults, I love thee entirely: make an effort to love me with all mine !” Humble servant, and all that trumpery, is now such a prostituted busi- ness, that honest friendship, in her sincere way, must have recourse to her primitive, simple— farewell R. B. NO. CXXVIII. TO MR GEORGE LOCKHART, MERCHANT, GLASGOW. MAUCHLINE, 18th JULY, 1788. MY DEAR SIR, I AM just going for Nithsdale, else I would cer- tainly have transcribed some of my rhyming things for you. The Miss Baillies I have seen in Edin- dicament of the children of Israel, when they could not look on Moses’ face for the glory that shone in it when he decended from Mount Sinai. I did once write a poetic address from the Falls of Bruar to his grace of Athole, when I was in the Highlands. When you return to Scotland, let me know, and I will send such of my pieces as please myself best. I return to Mauchline in about ten days. My compliments to Mr Purden. but at present in haste, I am in truth, Yours, R. B. NO. CXXIX. TO MR PETER HILL. MY DEAR HILL, I SHALL say nothing to your mad present 2– you have so long and often been of important service to me, and I suppose you mean to go on conferring obligations until I shall not be able to lift up my face before you. In the meantime, as Sir Roger de Coverley, because it happened to be a cold day in which he made his will, ordered his servants great-coats for mourning, so, because I have been this week plagued with an indigestion, I have sent you by the carrier a fine old ewe- milk cheese. Indigestion is the devil: nay, 'tis the devil and all. It besets a man in every one of his senses. I lose my appetite at the sight of successful knavery, and sicken to loathing at the noise and nonsense of self-important folly. When the hollow-hearted wretch takes me by the hand, the feeling spoils my dinner; the proud man's wine so offends my palate that it chokes me in the gullet; and the pulverised, feathered, pert cox- comb, is so disgustful in my nostril that my stomach turns. If ever you have any of these disagreeable sensations, let me prescribe for you patience and a bit of my cheese. I know that you are no niggard of your good things among your friends, and some of them are in much need of a slice. There, in my eye, is our friend Smellie; a man positively of the first abilities and greatest strength of mind, as well as one of the best hearts and 1 See the song on Miss Lesley Baillie, and the note. 2 A present of books, 213 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. keenest wits that I have ever met with ; when you see him, as, alas ! he too is smarting at the pinch of distressful circumstances, aggravated by the sneer of contumelious greatness—a bit of my cheese alone will not cure him, but if you add a tankard of brown stout, and superadd a magnum of right Oporto, you will see his sorrows vanish like the morning mist before the summer sun. Candlish, the earliest friend, except my only brother, that I have on earth, and one of the worthiest fellows that ever any man called by the name of friend, if a luncheon of my cheese would help to rid him of some of his super-abundant modesty, you would do well to give it him. David," with his Cowrant, comes, too, across my recollection, and I beg you will help him largely from the said ewe-milk cheese, to enable him to digest those bedaubing paragraphs with which he is eternally larding the lean characters of certain great men in a certain great town. I grant you the periods are very well turned; so, a fresh egg is a very good thing, but when thrown at a man in a pillory, it does not at all improve his figure, not to mention the irreparable loss of the egg. My facetious friend Dunbar I would wish also to be a partaker: not to digest his spleen, for that he laughs off, but to digest his last night's wine at the last field-day of the Crochallan corps.2 Among our common friends I must not forget one of the dearest of them—Cunningham. The brutality, insolence, and selfishness of a world unworthy of having such a fellow as he is in it, I know sticks in his stomach, and if you can help him to anything that will make him a little easier on that score, it will be very obliging. As to honest John Somerville, he is such a con- tented, 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. Though I have mentioned so many men of law, I shall have nothing to do with them professedly —the faculty are beyond my prescription. As to their clients, that is another thing; God knows they have much to digest! The clergy I pass by: their profundity of eru- dition, and their liberality of sentiment; their total want of pride, and their detestation of hypoc- risy, are so proverbially notorious as to place them far, far above either my praise or censure. I was going to mention a man of worth, whom I have the honour to call friend, the Laird of Craigdarroch; but I have spoken to the landlord <--> 1 Mr David Ramsay, Printer of the Edinburgh Evening 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 Dumfries-shire 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, R. B. NO. CXXX. TO ROBERT GRAHAM, ESQ., OF FINTRAY. SIR, WHEN I had the honour of being introduced to you at Athole-house, I did not think so soon of asking a favour of you. When Lear, in Shak- speare, asked Old Kent, why he wished to be in his service, he answers, “Because you have that in your face which I would fain call master.” For some such reason, Sir, do I now solicit your patronage. You know, I dare say, of an applica- tion I lately made to your Board to be admitted an officer of Excise. I have, according to form, been examined by a supervisor, and to-day I gave in his certificate, with a request for an order for instructions. In this affair, if I succeed, I am afraid I shall but too much need a patronizing friend. Propriety of conduct as a man, and fidelity and attention as an officer, I dare engage for; but with any thing like business, except manual labour, I am totally unacquainted. I had intended to have closed my late appear- ance on the stage of life, in the character of a country farmer; but, after discharging some filial and fraternal claims, I find I could only fight for existence in that miserable manner, which I have lived to see throw a venerable parent into the jaws of a jail; whence death, the poor man’s last and often best friend, rescued him. I know, Sir, that to need your goodness, is to have a claim on it; may I, therefore, beg your patronage to forward me in this affair, till I be appointed to a division; where, by the help of rigid economy, I will try to support the independ- emce So dear to my soul, but which has been too often so distant from my situation. R. B. No. CXXXI. TO WILLIAM CRUICKSHANK, ELLISLAND, AUGUST, 1788. I HAVE not room, my dear friend, to answer all the particulars of your last kind letter. I shall Gowrant. tº Tx \S 2 A club of choice Spirits.—See Epigram on Smellie. be in Edinburgh on some business very soon; and 2% 214 ſº Çiğ S25 i = N* • *. - . ~~~~<> -* * *** ~." |- GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE, not think you have forgot me, Madam; and, for my part— “When thee, Jerusalem, I forget, Skill part from my right hand . " “My heart is not of that rock, nor my soul care- less as that sea.” I do not make my progress among mankind as a bowl does among its fellows —rolling through the crowd without bearing away any mark or impression, except where they hit in hostile collision. I am here, driven in with my harvest folks by bad weather; and as you and your sister once did me the honour of interesting yourselves much a l'egard de moi, I sit down to beg the continua- tion of your goodness. I can truly say that, all the exterior of life apart, I never saw two whose esteem flattered the nobler feelings of my soul— I will not say more, but so much, as Lady Mac- Renzie and Miss Chalmers. When I think of you— hearts the best, minds the noblest of human kind, unfortunate even in the shades of life—when I think I have met with you, and have lived more of real life with you in eight days than I can do with almost anybody I meet with in eight years —when I think on the improbability of meeting you in this world again—I could sit down and cry like a child ! If ever you honour me with a place in your esteem, I trust I can now plead more desert. I am secure against that crushing grip of iron poverty, which, alas ! is less or more fatal to the native worth and purity of, I fear, the noblest souls; and a late important step in my life has kindly taken me out of the way of these ungrate- ful iniquities, which, however overlooked in fash- ionable licence, or varnished in fashionable phrase, are indeed but lighter and deeper shades of VIL- I, ANY. Shortly after my last return to Ayrshire, I married “my Jean.” This was not in consequence of the attachment of romance, perhaps; but I had a long and much-loved fellow-creature’s happi- ness or misery in my determination, and I durst not trifle with so important a deposit. Nor have I any cause to repent it. If I have not got polite tattle, modish manners, and fashionable dress, I am not sickened and disgusted with the multiform curse of boarding-school affectation: and I have got the handsomest figure, the sweetest temper, the soundest constitution, and the kindest heart in the country. Mrs Burns believes, as firmly as her creed, that I am le plus bel esprit, et le plus honnéte homme in the universe; although she scarcely ever in her life, except the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, and the Psalms of David in metre, spent five minutes together on either prose or verse. I must except, also, from his last a certain late publication of Scots poems, 218 which she has perused very devoutly; and all the ballads in the country, as she has (O the partial lover ! you will cry) the finest “wood note wild” I ever heard. I am the more particular in this lady's character, as I know she will henceforth have the honour of a share of your best wishes. She is still at Mauchline, as I am building my house; for this hovel that I shelter in, while occa- sionally here, is pervious to every blast that blows, and every shower that falls; and I am only pre- served from being chilled to death by being suf- focated with smoke. I do not find my farm that pennyworth I was taught to expect, but I believe in time, it may be a saving bargain. You will be pleased to hear that I have laid aside idle éclat, and bind every day after my reapers. To save me from that horrid situation of at any time going down, in a loosing bargain of a farm, to misery, I have taken my Excise instructions, and have my commission in my pocket for any emergency of fortune. If I could set all before your view, whatever disrespect you, in common with the world, have for this business, I know you would approve of my idea. I will make no apology, dear Madam, for this egotistic detail; I know you and your sister will be interested in every circumstance of it. What signify the silly, idle gewgaws of wealth, or the ideal trumpery of greatness! When fellow-par- takers of the same nature fear the same God, have the same benevolence of heart, the same noble- ness of soul, the same detestation of every thing dishonest, and the same scorn at every thing unworthy—if they are not in the dependence of absolute beggary, in the name of common sense are they not EQUALS 2 And if the bias, the instinctive bias of their souls run the same way, why may they not be FRIENDS 7 When I may have an opportunity of sending you this, Heaven only knows. Shenstone says, “When one is confined idle within doors by bad weather, the best antidote against enºmwi is to read the letters of, or write to, one’s friends;” in that case then, if the weather continues thus, I may scrawl you half a quire. I very lately—to wit, since harvest began— wrote a poem, not in imitation, but in the manner of Pope's Moral Epistles. It is only a short essay, just to try the strength of my Muse's pinion in that way. I will send you a copy of it, when once I have heard from you. I have likewise been laying the foundation of some pretty large poetic works; how the superstructure will come on, I leave to that great maker and marrer of projects—TIME. Johnson's collection of Scots songs is going on in the third volume ; and, of consequence, finds me a consumpt for a great deal of idle metre. cº One of the most tolerable things £ #sy. =sº S-7) ./ 6 42 6. ^ gº GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. —— X-T ( \) Q Ö s I have done in that way is two stanzas I made to an air a musical gentleman of my acquaintance composed for the anniversary of his wedding-day, which happens on the seventh of November. Take it as follows:— The day returns—my bosom burns— The blissful day we twa did meet, &c. 1 I shall give over this letter for shame. If I should be seized with a scribbling fit, before this goes away, I shall make it another letter; and then you may allow your patience a week's respite between the two. I have not room for more than the old, kind, hearty farewell! To make some amends, mes chères Mesdames, for dragging you on to this second sheet; and to relieve a little the tiresomeness of my unstudied and uncorrectible prose, I shall transcribe you some of my late poetic bagatelles; though I have, these eight or ten months, done very little that way. One day, in a hermitage on the banks of Nith, belonging to a gentleman in my neighbour- hood, who is so good as give me a key at pleasure, I wrote as follows; supposing myself the seques- tered, venerable inhabitant of the lonely mansion. LINES WRITTEN IN FRIARS-CARSE HERMITA G E. Thou whom chance may hither lead, Be thou clad in russet weed. 2 R. B. NO. CXXXVII. TO MR MORISON, MAUCHILINE.3 ELLISLAND, SEPTEMBER 22D, 1788. MY DEAR SIR, NECESSITY obliges me to go into my new house even before it be plastered. I will inhabit the one end until the other is finished. About three weeks more, I think, will at farthest be my time, beyond which I cannot stay in this present house. If ever you wish to deserve the blessing of him that was ready to perish; if ever you were in a situation that a little kindness would have rescued you from many evils; if ever you hope to find rest in future states of untried being—get these matters of mine ready. My servant will be out in the beginning of next week for the clock. My compliments to Mrs Morison. I am, after all my tribulation, Dear Sir, yours, R. B. is just forty-six miles. J *. Qi,'s NO. CXXXVIII. TO MRS DUNLOP, OF DUNLOP. MAUCHLINE, 27TH SEPT., 1788. I HAVE received twins, dear Madam, more than once; but Scarcely ever with more pleasure than when I received yours of the 12th instant. To make myself understood; I had wrote to Mr Graham, inclosing my poem addressed to him, and the same post which favoured me with yours brought me an answer from him. It was dated the very day he had received mine; and I am quite at a loss to say whether it was most polite or kind. Your criticisms, my honoured benefactress, are truly the work of a friend.4 They are not the blasting depredations of a canker-toothed, cater- pillar critic; nor are they the fair statement of cold impartiality, balancing with unfeeling exacti- tude the pro and con of an author's merits; they are the judicious observations of animated friend- ship, selecting the beauties of the piece. I am just arrived from Nithsdale, and will be here a fortnight. I was on horseback this morning by three o’clock; for between my wife and my farm As I jogged on in the dark, I was taken with a poetic fit, as follows: MRS FERGU so N of CRAIG DARRoch's LAMIENTATION FOR THE DEATH OF HER SON } an uncommonly promising youth of eighteen or nineteen years of age. “Fate gave the word—the arrow sped, And pierced my darling's heart.' 5 You will not send me your poetic rambles, but, you see, I am no niggard of mine. I am sure 4 “Burns entertained no great respect for what may be styled technical criticism. He loved the man who judged of poetical compositions from the heart—but looked with an evil eye upon those who decided by the cold decisions of the head. This is evinced by the following anecdote. “At a private breakfast, in a literary circle at Edinburgh, to which he was invited, the conversation turned on the poetical merit and pathos of Gray's Elegy, a poem of which he was enthusiastically fond. A clergyman present, remarkable for his love of paradox, and for his eccentric notions on every sub- ject, distinguished himself by an injudicious and ill-timed attack on this exquisite poem, which Burns, with a generous warmth for the reputation of Gray, manfully defended. As this gentle- man's remarks were rather general than specifie, Burns urged him to bring forward the passages which he thought exception- able. He made several attempts to quote the poem, but always in a blundering, inaccurate manner. Burns bore all this for a considerable time with his usual good-nature and forbearance, till, at length, goaded by the fastidious criticisms and wretched quibblings of his opponent, he roused himself, and with an eye flashing contempt and indignation, and with great vehemence of gesticulation, he thus addressed the cold critic: “Sir,-I now perceive a man may be an excellent judge of poetry by square and rule, and after all be a d d blockhead ' " " —CRoadRK. 1 See p. 28. 2 See v. i. p. 96. 3 Morison was a cabinet-maker in Mauchline, and the letter refers to some household furniture which the poet had ordered. 5 See v. i. p. 99. º ..? Jº r § - § - º .* gº º C* 219 º &º (-; yº §§ <>.2× | .-> K} \ Ç | / -N >– A ºſC)0 J C iſ on whose critical decisions I can so fully depend? A poet as I am by trade, these decisions are to Ine of the last consequence. My late transient acquaintance among some of the mere rank and file of greatness, I resign with ease; but to the distinguished champions of genius and learning, I shall be ever ambitious of being known. The native genius and accurate discernment in Mr Stewart's critical strictures; the justness (iron justice, for he has no bowels of compassion for a poor poetic sinner) of Dr Gregory’s remarks, and the delicacy of Professor Dalzel's taste, I shall ever reverG. 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. NO. CL. TO BISHOP GEDDEs. ELLISLAND, 3D FEB., 1789. VENERABLE FATHER, As I am conscious that wherever I am, you do me the honour to interest yourself in my welfare, it gives me pleasure to inform you, that I am here at last, stationary in the serious business of life, and have now not only the retired leisure, but the hearty inclination, to attend to those great and important questions,—what I am? where I am 2 and for what I am destined? In that first concern, the conduct of the man, } t § i there was ever but one side on which I was habit- ually blameable, and there I have secured myself in the way pointed out by nature and nature's God. I was sensible that, to so helpless a creature as a poor poet, a wife and family were incum- brances, which a species of prudence would bid him shun; but when the alternative was, being at eternal warfare with myself, on account of habitual follies, to give them no worse name, which no general example, no licentious wit, no sophistical infidelity, would, to me, ever justify, I must have been a fool to have hesitated, and a madman to have made another choice. Besides, I had in ‘my Jean’ a long and much-loved fellow-creature’s happiness or misery among my hands, and who could trifle with such a deposite? 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, 1 Alexander Geddes was a Roman Catholic clergyman, who distinguished himself as a Biblical critic and miscellaneous 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 pro- fession; and though the salary be comparatively small, it is luxury to any thing 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 hon- oured friend, that my characteristical trade is not forgotten. I am, if possible, more than ever an enthusiast to the muses. I am determined to study man and nature, and in that view incessantly; and to try if the ripening and corrections of years can enable me to produce something worth preserving. You will see in your book, which I beg your pardon for detaining so long, that I have been tuning my lyre on the banks of Nith.” Some large poetic plans that are floating in my imagination, or partly put in execution, I shall impart to you when I have the pleasure of meeting with you; which, if you are then in Edinburgh, I shall have : about the beginning of March. i That acquaintance, worthy Sir, with which you were pleased to honour me, you must still allow me to challenge ; for with whatever unconcern I give up my transient connexion with the merely great, I cannot lose the patronizing notice of the learned and good, without the bitterest regret. - R. B. NO, CLI. TO MR. JAMES BURNESS. ELLISLAND, 9TH FEB., 1789. MY DEAR SIR, i 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, dissipa- tion, hurry, cares, change of country, entering on untried scenes of life, all combined, you will save me the trouble of a blushing apology. It could not be want of regard for a man for whom I had a high esteem before I knew him, an esteem which has much increased since I did know him; and this caveat entered, I shall plead guilty to any other indictment with which you shall please to charge me. After I parted from you, for many months my life was one continued scene of dissipation. Here at last I am become stationary, and have taken a farm and—a wife. The farm is beautifully situated on the Nith, a large river that runs by Dumfries, and falls into | 2 This was a copy of Burns's own poems, belonging to Bishop | Writer. He was born in Banff-shire in 1737, and died in Lon- Geddes, into which the poet had transferred some of his recent X| don in 1802. He was author of the well-known humorous productions. It is now in the possession of Mrs Hislop, Finsbury | \ Square, London. sº 227 & ^. º --—º-TXºchº & 2-sº “sſ S&Nº sº GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. the Solway frith. I have got 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 whole. My wife is my Jean, with whose story you are partly acquainted. I found that I had a much- loved fellow-creature's happiness or misery among my hands, and I durst not trifle with so sacred a deposite. Indeed I have not any reason to repent the step I have taken, as I have attached myself to a very good wife, and have shaken myself loose of every bad failing. I have found my book a very profitable busi- ness, 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 lley-day of my fame, a gen- tleman, whose name at least I daresay you know, as his estates lie somewhere near Dundec, Mr Graham of Fintry, one of the commissioners of Excise, offered me the commission of an excise- officer. I thought it prudent to accept the offer; and accordingly I took my instructions, and have my commission by me. Whether I may ever do duty, or be a penny the better for it, is what I do not know ; but I have the comfortable assur- ance, 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. No. CL.III. TO MRS DUNLOP. ELLISLAND, 4TH MARCH, 1789. HERE am I, my honoured friend, returned safe from the capital. To a man who has a home, however humble or remote—if that home is like mine, the scene of domestic comfort—the bustle of Edinburgh will soon be a business of sickening disgust. “ Vain pomp and glory of this world. I hate you !" When I must skull; into a corner, lest the rat- tling equipage of some gaping blockhead should mangle me in the mire, I am tempted to exclaim —“What merits has he had, or what demerits have I had, in some state of pre-existence, that he is ushered into this state of being with the sceptre of rule, and the key of riches in his puny fist, and I am kicked into the world, the sport of folly or the victim of pride 7” - I have read somewhere of a monarch, (in Spain I think it was,) who was so out of humour with the Ptolomean system of astronomy, that he said, had he been of the Creator’s council, he could have saved him a great deal of labour and absurdity. I will not defend this blasphemous speech; but often, as I have glided with humble stealth through the pomp of Princes’ Street, it has suggested itself to me, as an improvement on the present human figure, that a man, in proportion to his ; own conceit of his consequence in the world, could have pushed out the longitude of his common size, as a snail pushes out his horns, or as we draw out | 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, Johm, comes to Ime I expect in summer. stout young fellows, and promise to do well. His only daughter, Fanny, has been with me ever since her father’s death, and I purpose keeping her in my family till she be quite woman grown, and fit for better service. She is one of the cleverest girls, and has one of the most amiable dispositions I have ever seen." All friends in this country and Ayr are well. Remember me to all friends in the north. My wife joins me in compliments to Mrs B. and family. I am ever, my dear cousin, yours, sincerely, R. B. 1 * Fanny Burns, the Poet's relation, merited all the com- mendations he has here bestowed. I remember her while she lived at Ellisland, and better still as the wife of Adam Armour, the brother of bonnie Jean ; she went with her husband to Mauchline, and lived long and respectably. Her son is now with his paternal uncle, pursuing successfully the honourable calling of a London merchant.”—CUNNING HAM. 228 - (C) ºx YX- ‘. . O) c \ They are both remarkably a perspective. This trifling alteration, not to mention the prodigious saving it would be in the tear and wear of the neck and limb-sinews of Imany of his majesty’s liege-subjects, in the way 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 making way to a great man, and that too within a second of the precise spherical angle of reverence, or an inch of the particular point of respectful distance, which the important creature itself requires; as a measuring glance at its towering altitude would determine the affair like instinct. - You are right, Madam, in your idea of poor Mylne's poem, which he has addressed to me. The piece has a good deal of merit, but it has one great fault—it is by far too long. Besides, my success has encouraged such a shoal of ill-spawned monsters to crawl into public notice, under the title of Scottish Poets, that the very term Scottish 3- A × -j-. ., 2^. - w × -> *. -- • *** ( º GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. Poetry borders on the burlesque. When I write to Mr Carfrae, I shall advise him rather to try one of his deceased friend's English pieces. I am prodigiously hurried with my own matters, else I recting 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 this epistle with a few lines done by a friend of mine. * * * you them, that, as you have seen the orginal, you may guess whether one or two alterations I have ventured to make in them, be any real improve- ment. “Like the fair plant that from our touch withdraws, Shrink, mildly fearful, even from applause, Be all a mother's fondest hope can dream, And all you are, my charming * * * *, seem. Straight as the fox-glove, ere her bells disclose, Mild as the maiden-blushing hawthorn blows, Fair as the fairest of each lovely kind, Your form shall be the image of your mind ; Your manners shall so true your soul express, That all shall long to know the worth they guess; Congenial hearts shall greet with kindred love, And even sick'ning envy must approve.” I R. B. NO. CLIV. TO THE REV. P. CARFRAE. I789. REV. SIR, I Do not recollect to have 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 Mr Mylne has done me, greatly enhanced in its value by the Cndearing, though melancholy circumstances, of its being the last production of his muse, deserved a better return. I have, as you hint, thought of sending a copy of the poem to some periodical publication; but, on second thoughts, I am afraid that, in the pre- sent case, it would be an improper step. My suc- cess, perhaps as much accidental as merited, has brought an inundation of nonsense under the name of Scottish poetry. Subscription-bills for Scottish poems, have so dunned, and daily do dun the public, that the very name is in danger of friends my assistance in either selecting or cor- | | | | would have requested a perusal of all Mylne's poetic performances, and would have offered his ſ contempt. For these reasons, if publishing any of Mr Mylne's poems in a magazine, &c., be at all prudent, in my opinion it certainly should not be a Scottish poem. The profits of the labours of a man of genius, 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 honour of ranking myself,) always keep in eye his respectability as a man and as a poet, and take * I give no measure, that, before the world knows any thing about him, would risk his name and charac. ter 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 would publish in two or three English and Scottish public papers, any one of his English poems which should, by private judges, be thought the most excellent, and mention it, at the same time, as one of the productions of a Lothian farmer, of respectable character, lately deceased, whose poems his friends had it in idea to publish soon by subscription, for the sake of his numerous 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 cffectual manner, to those tender connexions, whose right it is, the pecuniary reward of those merits. 2 R. B. 2 The above letter was in answer to the following which the Rev. Peter Carfrae addressed to Burns, regarding some MS. poems left by a Mr Mylne. We believe Mylne's pieces were never published. ‘2d JAN., 1789. * SIR, “If you have lately seen Mrs Dunlop of Dunlop, you have certainly heard of the author of the verses which accompany this letter. He was a man highly respectable for every accom- plishment and virtue which adorns the character of a man or a Christian. To a great degree of literature, of taste, and poetic genius, was added an invincible modesty of temper, which pre- vented, in some measure, his figuring in life, and confined the perfect knowledge of his character and talents to the sumall 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 who have any regard for virtue or genius. There is a woe pronounced in Scripture against the person whom all men speak well of ; if ever that woe fell upon the head of mortal man, it fell upon him. He has left behind him a considerable number of compositions, chiefly poetical, sufficient, I imagine, to make a large octavo volume. In particular, two complete and regu- lar tragedies, a farce of three acts, and some smaller poems on different subjects. It falls to my share, who have lived in the most intimate and uninterrupted friendship 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 melan- choly dispensation which we still bemoan. The verses them- selves I will not pretend to criticise when writing to agentleman whom I consider as entirely qualified to judge of their merit. < \ 1 * These beautiful lines, we have reason to believe, are the They are the only verses he seems to have attempted in the & f production of the lady to whom this letter is addressed.”— Scottish style; and I hesitate not to say, in general, that they () «» l CURRie. will bring no dishonour on the Scottish muse; and allow ºne j. j-> Q(X) G) 229 Qº O 2- Ş *N ſº C}^ ~~ Fº. (~\ Žº,\{C's : i))/sºč, S$–7&: :- -ºš(ºj’ (c)(X3XTSk----- ~~~&ºes *: pyroº * Gººs º, GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. No. CLV. TO DR, MOORE. ELLISLAND, 23d MARCH, 1789. SIR, THE gentleman who will deliver you this is a MrNielson, aworthy clergyman in my neighbour- hood, 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 assis- tance, and where you can effectually serve him. Mr Nielson is on his way for France, to wait on his Grace of Queensberry, on some little business of a good deal of importance to him, and he wishes for your instructions respecting the most eligible mode of travelling, &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 recommendation to you, and that to have it in your power to serve such a character, gives you much pleasure. The inclosed ode is a compliment to the memory of the late Mrs Oswald of Auchencruive.2 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 parti- cular part of her conduct, which roused my poetic wrath, she was much less blameable. In January last, on my road to Ayrshire, I put up at Bailie Whigham's, in Sanquhar, the only tolerable inn in the place. The frost was keen, and the grim evening and howling wind were ushering in a night of snow and drift. My horse and I were both much fatigued with the labours of the day, and just as my friend the Bailie and I were bidd- ing defiance to the storm, over a smoking bowl, in wheels the funeral pageantry of the late great Mrs Oswald, and poor I was forced to brave all the horrors of the tempestuous night, and jade my horse, my young favourite horse, whom I had just christened Pegasus, twelve miles farther on, through the wildest moors and hills of Ayrshire, to New Cumnock, the next inn. The powers of poesy and prose sink under me, when I would describe what I felt. Suffice it to say, that when a good fire at New Cumnock had so far recovered my frozen sinews, I sat down and wrote the inclosed ode. I was at Edinburgh lately, and settled finally with Mr Creech; and I must own, that, at last, he has been amicable and fair with me, 3 to add, that, if it is your opinion they are not unworthy 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. CARFFA E.” 1 The Rev. Edward Nielson, minister of Kirkbean, in Dum- friesshire, according to Allan Cunningham, a jovial, as well as eloquent and learned, clergyman. 2 See page 100. v. i. R. B. 3 Dr Moore's answer to the above letter was as follows: * CLIFFORD-STREET, 10th JUNE, 1789. ‘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 what appears in the poems you have published. You ought carefully to preserve all your occasional productions, to correct and improve them at your leisure; and when you can select as many of these as will 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 would be, that, in your future productions, you should abandon the Scottish stanza and dialect, and adopt the measure and language of modern English poetry. “The stanza which you use in imitation of “Christ's Kirk on the Green,” with the tiresome repetition of “that day,” is fatiguing to English ears, and I should think not very agree- able to Scottish. “All the fine satire and humour of your “Holy Fair,” is lost on the English; yet, without more trouble to yourself, you could have conveyed the whole to them. The same is true of some of your other poems. In your Epistle to J. S , the stanzas from that beginning with this lime, “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 2 * 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 every proper attention to the study and practice of husbandry, in which 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 for- mer, like a prudent wife, must not show ill humour, although You retain a sneaking kindness to this agreeable gipsy, and pay her occasional visits, which in no manner alienates your heart from your lawful spouse, but tends, on the contrary, to promote her interest. ‘I desired Mr Caddel to write to Mr Creech to send you a copy of Zeluco. 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. “I beg you will offer my best wishes to my very good friend, Mrs Hamilton, who, I understand, is your neighbour. If she is as happy as I wish her, she is happy enough. Make my com- pliments also to Mrs Burns; and believe me to be, with sincere esteem, ‘Dear Sir, yours, &c." : 230 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. ** NO, CLVI. weary feet:—not those Parnassian crags, bleak * and barren, where the hungry worshippers of X, TO MR WILLIAM BURNS, I fame are, breathless, clambering, hanging between heaven and hell; but those glittering cliffs of ISLE, MARCH 25TH, 1789. Potosi, where the all-sufficient, all-powerful I HAVE stolen from my corn-sowing this minute deity, wealth, holds his immediate court of joys . to write a line to accompany your shirt and hat, and pleasures; where the sunny exposure of for I can no more. Your sister Nannie arrived plenty, and the hot walls of profusion, produce yesternight, and begs to be remembered to you. those blissful fruits of luxury, exotics in this Write me every opportunity—never mind post- World, and natives of paradise!—Thou withered age. My head, too, is as addle as an egg this sibyl, my sage conductress, usher me into thy morning, with dining abroad yesterday. I re- refulgent, adored presence!—The power, splen- ceived yours by the mason. Forgive me this did and potent as he now is, was once the puling foolish-looking scrawl of an epistle. nursling of thy faithful care and tender arms! I am ever, Call me thy son, thy cousin, thy kinsman, or My dear William, favourite, and adjure the god by the scenes of Yours, his infant years, no longer to repulse me as a R. B. stranger, or an alien, but to favour me with his peculiar countenance and protection! He daily P. S.—If you are not then gone from Long- || bestows his greatest kindness on the undeserving town, I’ll write you a long letter by this day and the worthless, assure him that I bring ample se’nnight. If you should not succeed in your | documents of meritorious demerits! Pledge your- tramps, don’t be dejected, nor take any rash step | self for me, that, for the glorious cause of lucre, —return to us in that case, and we will court | I will do any thing, be any thing—but the horse- Fortune's better humour. Remember this, I leech of private oppression, or the vulture of charge you. public robbery! R. B. But to descend from heroics. NO. CLVII. li I want 3. shakspeare: I want likewise an Eng- ish dictionary, --Johnson's, I suppose, is best. i TO MR PETER HILL, 2 In these and all my prose commissions, the cheap- - est is always the best for me. There is a small ELLISLAND, 2D APRIL, 1789. debt of honour that I owe Mr Robert Cleghorn, I will make no excuse, my dear Bibliopolus, in Saughton Mills, my worthy friend, and your (God forgive me for murdering language!) that I well-wisher. Please give him, and urge him to have sat down to write you on this vile paper. take it, the first time you see him, ten shillings It is economy, Sir; it is that cardinal virtue, worth of any thing you have to sell, and place it prudence; so I beg you will sit down, and either to my account. compose or borrow a panegyric. If you are The library scheme that I mentioned to you is going to borrow, apply to * * * * to compose, already begun under the direction of Captain or rather to compound, something very clever Riddel. There is another in emulation of it, going on my remarkable frugality; that I write to one on at Closeburn, under the auspices of Mr Mon- of my most esteemed friends on this wretched teith of Closeburn, which will be on a greater paper, which was originally intended for the scale than ours. Captain Riddel gave his infant venal fist of some drunken exciseman, to take | Society a great many of his old books, else I had dirty notes in a miserable vault of an ale-cellar. written you on that subject; but, one of these O Frugality thou mother of ten thousand days, I shall trouble you with a commission for blessings, –thou cook of fat beef and dainty “The Monkland Friendly Society,”—a copy of greens!—thou manufacturer of warm Shetland ‘The Spectator,’ ‘Mirror,’ and ‘Lounger,’ ‘Man hose, and comfortable surtouts!—thou old house- of Feeling,’ ‘Man of the World, ‘Guthrie's Geo- wife, darning thy decayed stockings with thy graphical Grammar,' with some religious pieces, ancient spectacles on thy aged nose!—lead me, will likely be our first order. hand me in thy clutching palsied fist, up those When I grow richer, I will write to you on heights, and through those thickets, hitherto gilt-post, to make amends for this sheet. At inaccessible and impervious to my anxious, present every guinea has a five guinea errand with, 1 A younger brother of the Poet's. The original letter used My dear Sir, ...'....." Your faithful, poor, but honest * , } 2 See Note at p. 179. 231 tº - ...dº º & G) º, (J Tºgº, GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. NO. CLVIII, TO MRS DUNLOP. ELLISLAND, 4TH APRIL, 1789. 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 Right 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:— How wisdom and folly meet, mix, and unite, &c. 1 On the 20th current I hope to have the honour of assuring you, in person, how sincerely I am, R. B. NO. CLIX, TO MRS MIMURDO, DRUMLANRIG.2 ELLISLAND, 2D MAY, 1789. MADAM, I HAVE finished the piece which had the happy fortune to be honoured with your approbation;” and never did little Miss with more sparkling pleasure show her applauded sampler to partial Mamma, than I now send my poem to you and Mr MºMurdo, if he is returned to Drumlanrig, You cannot easily imagine what thin-skinned animals—what sensitive plants poor poets are. How do we shrink into the imbittered corner of self-abasement, when neglected or condemned by those to whom we look up! and how do we, in erect importance, add another cubit to our stature on being noticed and applauded by those whom we honour and respect' My late visit to Drum- lanrig has, I can tell you, Madam, given me a balloon waft up Parnassus, where on my fancied elevation I regard my poetic self with no small degree of complacency. Surely with all their sins, the rhyming tribe are not ungrateful crea- tures.—I recollect your goodness to your humble guest—I see Mr MºMurdo adding to the polite- mess of the gentleman, the kindness of a friend, and my heart swells as it would burst, with warm emotions and ardent wishes! It may be it is not gratitude—it may be a mixed sensation. That strange, shifting, doubling animal MAN is so gene- rally, at best, but a negative, often a worthless creature, that we cannot see real goodness and native worth without feeling the bosom glow with sympathetic approbation. With every sentiment of grateful respect, I have the honour to be, Madam, Your obliged and grateful humble servant, R. B. CLX. TO MR ALEX. CUNNINGHAM. ELLISLAND, 4TH MAY, 1789. MY DEAR 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 friend- ship 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 encourage- ment 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, &c. 4 Let me know how you like my poem. I am doubtful whether it would not be an improve- ment to keep out the last stanza but one altogether. Cruikshank is a glorious production of the author of man. You, he, and the noble Colonel5 of the Crochallan Fencibles are to me “Dear as the ruddy drops which warm my heart” I have got a good mind to make verses on you all, to the tune of ‘Three guid fellows ayont the I See page 100. v. i. 2 An account of the M*Murdo family has been given in a previous Note. See page 106. v. i. 3 Said to be a song on Miss Jean M*Murdo. See p. 101. But we rather think it must have been some other piece, as in 1793, glen.” R. B. three or four years later than the above letter, when Burns £ent the song to Thomson, he speaks of having “just finished' it. 4 See page 101. V. i. 5 William Dunbar, W. S. ~ 232 T CATS, (Q), O # >7– .e.-- -------- ºr a GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE, NO. CLXI. TO MR SAMUEL BROWN. 1 MossGIEL, 4th MAY, 1789. DEAR UNCLE, THIS, I hope, will find you and your conjugal yoke-fellow in your good old way. I am impatient to know if the Ailsa fowling be commenced for this season yet, as I want three or four stones of feathers, and I hope you will bespeak them for me. It would be a vain attempt for me to enumerate the various transactions I have been engaged in since I saw you last, but this know, I am engaged in a smuggling trade, and God knows if ever any poor man experienced better returns, two for one; but as freight and delivery have turned out so dear, I am thinking of taking out a license and beginning in fair trade. I have taken a farm on the borders of the Nith, and in imitation of the old patriarchs, get men-servants and maid-servants, and flocks and herds, and beget sons and daughters. Your obedient Nephew, R. B. NO, CLXII. TO RICHARD BROWN. 2 MAUCHLINE, 21st MAY, I789. MY DEAR FRIEND, I WAS in the country by accident, and hearing of your safe arrival, I could not resist the tempta- tion of wishing you joy on your return,-wishing you would write to me before you sail again, wish- ing you would always set me down as your bosom friend,-wishing you long life and prosperity, and that every good thing may attend you, wishing Mrs Brown and your little ones as free of the evils of this world as is consistent with humanity, wishing you and she were to make two at the ensuing lying-in, with which Mrs B. threatens very soon to favour me, wishing I had longer time to write to you at present; and, finally, Wishing that if there is to be another state of ex- istence, 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. Yours, No. CLXIII. TO MR JAMES HAMILTON. 3 ELLISLAND, 26th MAY, 1789. DEAR SIR, I SEND you by John Glover, carrier, the above account for Mr Turnbull, as I suppose you know his address. I would fain offer, my dear Sir, a word of sympathy 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 ease; but, as ONE observes who was very seldom mistaken in the theory of life, “The heart knoweth its own sorrows, and a Stranger intermeddleth not there with.” Among some distressful emergencies that I have experienced in life, I ever laid this down as my foundation of comfort—That he who has lived the life of an homest man, has by no means lived in vain / With every wish for your welfare and future success, I am, my dear Sir, Sincerely yours, R. B. NO. CLXIV. TO WILLIAM CREECH, ESQ. ELLISLAND, 30th MAY, 1789. SIR, I HAD intended to have troubled you with a long letter, but at present the delightful sensa- tions of an omnipotent tooth-ache so engross all my inner man, as to put it out of my power even to write nonsense. However, as in duty bound, I approach my bookseller with an offering in my hand—a few poetic clinches, and a song:-to expect any other kind of offering from the Rhym- ing Tribe would be to know them much less than you do. I do not pretend that there is much merit in these morceaua, but I have two reasons for sending 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 jaw bones; 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 R. B. l Brother to the Poet's mother. It is to be observed, that the nephew writes to the uncle in a very frank style. Old Samuel must have been no square-toes. 2 The Richard Brown of Irvine, noticed in a previous note. 3 Hamilton was a grocer in Glasgow, and, from the above letter, would seem at the time to have been suffering under Some heavy misfortunes in business, &Y. I O 233 2 G. Se: Sºº ( O) g \º --~~<>. Sºc, SºYº sº. =ºo) ::s “ſº ..]},\ \. GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. ; ! ! 2% Sºo * * * ! ſ : . . . . . 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 homest tear of elegiac gratitude 1 Grant my requestas 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 R. B. NO, CLXV. TO MR. M'AULEY, OF DUMBARTON. ELLISLAND, 4TH 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 kind- ness 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 acquain- tance, Mr Kennedy, that you are, in immortal Allan's language, ‘Hale, and weel, and living;’ and that your charming family are well, and pro- mising to be an amiable and respectable addition to the company of performers, whom the Great Manager of the Drama of Man is bringing into action for the succeeding age. With respect to my welfare, a subject in which you once warmly and effectively interested your- self, I am here in my old way, holding my plough, marking the growth of my corn, or the health of Imy dairy; and at times sauntering by the delight- ful 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 gypsies 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 presby- terian, 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 heritage,” &c., in which last Mrs Burns, who by the bye has a glorious “wood- note wild” at either old song or psalmody, joins me with the pathos of Handel's Messiah. R. B. NO, CLXVI. TO MR ROBERT AINSI/IE. ELLISLAND, 8TH JUNE, 1789. MY DEAR FRIEND, I AM perfectly ashamed of myself when I look at the date of your last. It is not that I forget the friend of my heart and the companion of my peregrinations; but I have been condemned to drudgery beyond sufferance, though not, thank God, beyond redemption. I have had a collec- tion of poems by a lady put into my hands to pre- pare them for the press; which horrid task, 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 me, and the very first dreadful article was of itself too much for me. 13th. I have not had a moment to spare from incessant toil since the 8th. Life, my dear Sir, is a serious matter. You know by experience that a man's individual self is a good deal, but believe me, a wife and family of children, whenever you have the honour to be a husband and a father, will show you that your present and most anxious hours of solitude are spent on trifles. The welfare of those who are very dear to us, whose only sup- port, hope, and stay we are—this, to a generous mind, is another sort of more important object of care than any concerns whatever which centre merely in the individual. On the other hand, let no young, unmarried, rake-helly dog among you, make a song of his pretended liberty and freedom from care. If the relations we stand in to king, country, kindred, and friends, be any thing but the visionary fancies of dreaming metaphysicians; if religion, virtue, magnanimity, generosity, human- ity and justice, be aught but empty sounds; then the man who may be said to live only for others, for the beloved, honourable female, whose tender faithful embrace endears life, and for the helpless little innocents who are to be the men and Women, the worshippers of his God, the subjects of his O 234 \ , , (2) () Čᚺ-Fs *SV GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. CSIX\_º ‘ king, and the support, nay the very vital existence for one year, and your name bears the prefatory ºf of his COUNTRY, in the ensuing age;—compare such a man with any fellow whatever, who, whether he bustle and push in business among labourers, clerks, statesmen, or whether he roar and rant, and drink and sing in taverns—a fellow over whose grave no one will breathe a single heigh-ho, except from the cobweb-tie of what is called good fellowship—who has no view nor aim but what terminates in himself;-if there be any grovelling earth-born wretch of our species, a renegado to common sense, who would fain believe that the noble creature man is no better than a sort of fungus, generated out of nothing, nobody knows how, and soon dissipating in nothing, nobody knows where; such a stupid beast, such a crawling reptile, might balance the foregoing unexaggerated comparison, but no one else would have the patience. Forgive me, my dear Sir, for this long silence. To make yow amends, I shall send you soon, and more encouraging still, without any postage, one or two rhymes of my later manufacture. R. B. NO. CLXVII. TO MR. MºMURDO. ELLISLAND, 19TH JUNE, 1789. SIR, A POET and a beggar are, in so many points of view, alike, that one might take them for the same individual character under different designa- tions; were it not that though, with a trifling poetic license, most poets may be styled beggars, yet the converse of the proposition does not hold, that every beggar is a poet. In one particular, however, they remarkably agree: if you help either the one or the other to a mug of ale, or the picking of a bone, they will very willingly repay you with a song. This occurs to me at present, as I have just despatched a well-lined rib of John Kirkpatrick's Highlander; a bargain for which I am indebted to you, in the style of our ballad printers, “Five excellent new songs.” The inclosed 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, which I have by me, shall do themselves the honour to wait on your after leisure: peti- tioners 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 a petty borough; 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 and happy years with Mrs MºMurdo, and your family; two blessings, by the bye, to which your rank does not, by any means, 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, R. B. No. CLXVIII. TO MRS DUNLOP. ELLISLAND, 21st JUNE, 1789. DEAR MADAM, WILL you take the effusions, the miserable effusions of low spirits, just as they flow from their bitter springs 2 I know not of any particular cause for this worst of all my foes besetting me; but for some time my soul has been beclouded with a thickening atmosphere of evil imaginations and gloomy presages. MONDAY EVENING. I have just heard Mr Kirkpatrick preach a sermon. He is a man famous for his benevolence, and I revere him; but from such ideas of my Creator, good Lord, deliver me! Religion, my honoured friend, is surely a simple business, as it equally concerns the ignorant and the learned, the poor and the rich. That there is an incompre- hensible Great Being, to whom I owe my exis- tence, and that he must be intimately acquainted With the operations and progress of the internal machinery, and consequent outward deportment of this creature which he has made; these are, I think, self-evident propositions. That there is a real and eternal distinction between virtue and vice, and consequently, that I am an accountable creature; that from the seeming nature of the human mind, as well as from the evident imper- fection, nay, positive injustice, in the administra- tion of affairs, both in the natural and moral worlds, there must be a retributive scene of exis- tence beyond the grave; must, I think, be allowed by every one who will give himself a moment’s reflection. I will go farther, and affirm, that from the sublimity, excellence, and purity of his doc- trine and precepts, unparalleled by all the aggre- gated wisdom and learning of many preceding ö) you do them the favour to preside in their council ages, though, to appearance, he himself was the 235 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. obscurest and most illiterate of our species; there- fore Jesus Christ was from God. Whatever mitigates the woes, or increases the happiness of others, this is my criterion of good- ness; and whatever injures society at large, or any individual in it, this is my measure of iniquity. What think you, madam, of my creed? I trust that I have said nothing that will lessen me in the eye of one, whose good opinion I value almost next to the approbation of my own mind. R. B. NO, CLXIX. TO MR 1789. MY DEAR SIR, THE hurry of a farmer in this particular season, and the indolence of a poet at all times and sea- sons, 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 proprietors of the paper have also done well, is what I much doubt. The * * * *, so far as I was a reader, exhibited such a brilliancy of point, such an elegance of paragraph, and such a variety of intelligence, that I can hardly conceive it possible to continue a daily paper in the same degree of cxcellence: 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 * * * * my letter to the magistrates of the Canongate, Edinburgh, begging their permission to place a tomb-stone 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 trust there is; and if there be a good God pre- siding over all nature, which I am sure there is; thou art 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 conse- quence of steady dulness, and those thoughtless, though often destructive follies, which are the unavoidable aberrations of frail human nature, will be thrown into equal oblivion as if they had never been Adieu, my dear Sir So soon as your present views and schemes are concentered in an aim, I shall be glad to hear from you; as your welfare and happiness is by no means a subject indiffer- ent to Yours, R. B. No. CI, XX. TO HELEN MARIA WILLIAMS. ELLISLAND, 1789. MADAM, * OF the many problems in the nature of that wonderful creature, man, this is one of the most extraordinary, that he shall go on from day to day, from week to week, from month to month, or perhaps from year to year, suffering a hundredtimes more in an hour from the impotent consciousness of neglecting what he ought to do, than the very doing of it would cost him. I am deeply indebted to you, first for a most elegant poetic compliment; then for a polite, obliging letter; and, lastly, for your excellent poem on the Slave-Trade; and yet, wretch that I am though the debts were debts of honour, and the creditor a lady, I have put off and put off even the very acknowledgment of the obligation, until you must indeed be the very angel I take you for, if you can forgive me. Your poem I have read with the highest plea- sure. I have a way whenever I read a book, I mean a book in our own trade, Madam, a poetic one, and when it is my own property, that I take a pencil and mark at the ends of verses, or note on margins and odd paper, little criticisms of appro- bation or disapprobation as I peruse along. I will make no apology for presenting you with a few unconnected thoughts that occurred to me in my repeated perusals of your poem. I want to show you that I have honesty enough to tell you what I take to be truths, even when they are not quite On the side of approbation; and I do it in the firm faith that you have equal greatness of mind to hear them with pleasure. I had lately the honour of a letter from Dr. Moore, where he tells me that he has sent me some books; they are not yet come to hand, but I hear they are on the way. Wishing you all success in your progress in the path of fame; and that you may equally escape the danger of stumbling through incautious speed, or losing ground through loitering neglect. 1 R. B. 1 The following was the reply of Miss Williams to the above letter. * 7th AUGUST, 1789. * DeAR SIR, I do not lose a moment in returning you my sincere acknow- ledgments for your letter, and your criticism on my poem, which is a very flattering proof that you have read it with atten- 㺠-- §::::: -: -” ( º º As 7 - f' GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 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 family by whom you are well known and much esteemed, and where perhaps I may have an opportunity of seeing you, I shall, in hopes of your future friendship, take the liberty to transcribe them. Fair fa’ the homest rustic Swain, The pride o' a' our Scottish plain: Thou gies us joy to hear thy strain, And notes sae Sweet : Old Ramsay's shade revived again In thee we greet. Loved Thalia, that delighted muse, Seem'd lang shut up as a recluse; To all she did her aid refuse Since Allan's day, Till Burns arose, then did she choose To grace his lay. To hearthy sang all ranks desire, Sae weel you strike the dormant lyre; Apollo with poetic fire Thy breast does warm, And critics silently admire Thy art to charm. Caesar and Luâth weel can speak, 'Tis pity ever their gabs should steek, But into human nature keek, And knots unravel: To hear their lectures once a-week, Nine miles I’d travel. Thy dedication to G. H., An' unco bonnie hamespun speech, Wi’ winsome glee the heart can teach A better lesson, Than servile bards who fan and fleech Like beggar's messan. When slighted love becomes your theme, And woman's faithless vows you blame, With so much pathos you exclaim, In your Lament; But glanced by the most rigid dame, She would relent. The daisy, too, ye sing wi' skill, And weel ye praise the whiskey gill: In vain I blunt my feckless quill Your fame to raise; While Echo Sounds from ilka hill To Burns's praise. Did Addison or Pope but hear, Or Sam, that critic most severe, A ploughboy sing with throat sae clear, They in a rage . a' in pieces tear, And curse your page. Their works would Sure Milton's eloquence were faint The beauties of your verse to paint: My rude unpolish'd strokes but taint Their brilliancy; Th' attempt would doubtless vex a saint, - And weel may thee. The task I'll drop—with heart sincere To Heaven present my humble pray’r, That all the blessings mortals share May be by turns Dispensed by an indulgent care, To Robert Burns ! Sir - I hope you will pardon my boldness in this : my hand trembles while I write to you, conscious of my unworthiness of what I would most earnestly solicit, viz. your favour and friendship; yet, hoping you will show yourself possessed of as much generosity and good nature as will prevent your expos- ing what may justly be found liable to censure in this measure, I shall take the liberty to subscribe myself, Sir, Your most obedient humble servant, JANET LITTLE. P.S.—If you would condescend to honour me with a few lines from your hand, I would take it as a particular favour; and direct to me at Loudoun House, near Galston. It is more than probable that Burns replied in terms compli- mentary to the Poetess; for not long after, Janet undertook a journey to Dumfries-shire, partly to see her relatives, but chiefly for the purpose of obtaining a personal interview with the author of the ‘Mountain Daisy,” at his farm of Ellisland. Burns was away on one of his Excise excursions when Janet arrived; but she had not been long waiting his return, when he was announced with the unpleasant intelligence that his horse had fallen, and the Poet's arm was broken. Janet gave vent to her feelings on the occasion by recording the occur- rence in the following verses: ON A VISIT TO MR BURNS, Is’t true 2 or does some magic spell My wond'ring eyes beguile? Is this the place where deigns to dwell The honour of our isle? The charming Burns, the Muses' care, Of all her sons the pride; This pleasure oft I’ve sought to share, But been as oft denied. Oft have my thoughts, at midnight hour, To him excursions made ; This bliss in dreams was premature, And with my slumbers fled. 'Tis real now, no vision here Bequeaths a poignant dart; I'll view the poet ever dear Whose lays have charm'd my heart. Hark! now he comes, a dire alarm Re-echoes through his hall; Pegasus kneel'd, his rider's arm Was broken by a fall. The doleful tidings to my ears Were in harsh notes convey'd; His lovely wife stood drown'd in tears, While thus I pond'ring said: “No cheering draught, with ills unmix’d, Can mortals taste below : All human fate by Heav'n is fix’d, Alternate joy and woe." With beating breast I view'd the Bard; All trembling did him greet: With sighs bewail'd his fate so hard, Whose notes were ever sweet, Flattered by the encouragement of her friends, and the local fame acquired by her stray productions, the Loudoum Milkmaid was at length induced to think of submitting her works to the public. Prospectuses were accordingly printed, and she had the gratification of finding the subscription lists speedily swelled | by many of the most illustrious and respectable names, not only in the district, but throughout the country generally. Thus | * 238 . > * .” C’) Q * £º + ) 34% a): ..) gº O) o GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. at fine-drawn letter-writing; and, except when prompted by friendship or gratitude, or, which happens extremely rarely, inspired by the Muse (l know not her name) that presides over episto- lary 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 composi- tion that should equal the Iliad. Religion, my dear friend, is the true comfort! A strong persuasion in a future state of existence; a proposition so obviously probable, that, setting revelation aside, every nation and people, so far as investigation has reached, for at least near four thousand years, have, in some mode or other, firmly believed it. In vain would we reason and pretend to doubt. | I have myself done so to a very daring pitch; but, when Ireflected that I was opposing the most ardent wishes, and the most darling hopes of good men, and flying in the face of all human belief, in all ages, I was shocked at my own conduct. I know not whether I have ever sent you the following lines, or if you have ever seen them; but it is one of my favourite quotations, which I keep constantly by me in my progress through life, in the language of the book of Job. ‘Against the day of battle and of war’— spoken of religion: ‘'Tis this, my friend, that streaks our morning bright, 'Tis this that gilds the horror of our night. When wealth forsakes us, and when friends are few ; When friends are faithless, or when foes pursue; 'Tis this that wards the blow, or stills the smart, Disarms affliction, or repels his dart; Within the breast bids purest raptures rise, Bids Smiling conscience spread her cloudless skies.’ I have been busy with Zeluco. The Doctor is so obliging as to request my opinion of it; and I have been revolving in my mind some kind of criticisms on novel-writing, but it is a depth beyond my research. I shall, however, digest my thoughts on the subject as well as I can. Zelwco is a most sterling performance. Farewell! A Dieu, le bon Diew, je vows com- memole! No. CLXXIII. TO CAPTAIN RIDDEL, CARSE. ELLISLAND, 16th OCT., 1789. SIR, - BIG with the idea of this important day at Friars carse, l 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 Scandina- vians, darting athwart the startled heavens, rapid as the ragged lightning, and horrid as those con- vulsions of nature that bury nations. The elements, however, seem to take the mat- ter very quietly: they did not even usher in this morning with triple suns and a shower of blood, symbolical of the three potent heroes, and the mighty claret-shed of the day.—For me, as Thom- son in his Winter says of the storm—I shall “Hear astonished, and astonished sing” patronized, “The Poetical Works of Janet Little, the Scottish Milkmaid,” appeared in 1792, from the press of John and Peter Wilson of Ayr. The volume, a thin 8vo, pp. 207, is inscribed to the Right Hon. Flora Countess of Loudoun (the late Countess Dowager,) then in her twelfth year, and under the guardian- ship of the Countess of Dumfries. The casual reader might probably glance over the poems of Janet Little without discovering any thing attractive; but there are many of the pieces not destitute of merit, while all are unexceptionable in point of morality, and bear evidence of a cultivated, well-regulated mind. More fortunate, and deservedly so, than her contemporary David Sillar, Janet is understood to have cleared about fifty pounds by her publica- tion. The subsequent history of the “Scottish Milkmaid” furnishes few incidents for biographical detail. After the departure of Mrs Hendrie from Loudoun, she became the wife of John Richmond, an elderly man, who had long been employed about the Castle as a labourer, but still continued in the management of the dairy. She had no children herself; but to those of her husband by a former marriage, she is said to have been parti- cularly kind and attentive. She died on the 15th March, 1813. In figure, Janet greatly belied her name; for she was a very tall masculine woman, with dark hair, and features somewhat coarse. A person who knew her intimately, remarks that -“She was no bad representation of some of Sir Walter Scott's gigantic heroines, but without their impudence.” On the con- trary, she was remarkable for modesty of demeanour, and entirely free from the egotism of authorship. Though she delighted to embody her thoughts, or record any local or pass- ing event in verse, she hardly ever alluded to her productions, even in the company of those with whom she was most inti- mate. She was greatly beloved in the neighbourhood, and en- joyed a high character for piety and rectitude of conduct. 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 loun is he . Wha last beside his chair shall fa’ He is the king amang us three. 1 This alludes to the contest for ‘The Whistle." See the poem and mote at p. 119, v. i. In the preface to the poem, Burns says the contest took place on the 16th October, 1790. This is exactly a year later than the date of the above letter. If there be no mistake in the dates, the conflict therefore must have been postponed. 239 Q. wº #: F-r-, ſº N--5 / 4- ` &M. § *23 J (J 122 W *AN-9 Q GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. To leave the heights of Parnassus, and come to the humble vale of prose.—I have some misgiv- ings that I take too much upon me, when Irequest you to get your guest, Sir Robert Lawrie, to frank the two inclosed covers for me, the one of them, to Sir William Cunningham, of Robertland, Bart. at Kilmarnock,-the other, to Mr Allan Master- ton, Writing-Master, Edinburgh. The first has a kindred claim on Sir Robert, as being a brother Baronet, and likewise a keen Foxite; the other is one of the worthiest men in the world, and a man of real genius; so, allow me to say, he has a fraternal claim on you. I want them franked for to-morrow, as I cannot get them to the post to— night. I shall send a servant again for them in the evening. Wishing that your head may be crowned with laurels to-night, and free from . aches to-morrow, I have the honour to be, Sir, Your deeply indebted humble Servant, R. B. NO. CLXXIV. TO CAPTAIN RIDDEL. ELLISLAND, 1789. SIR, I WISH from my inmost soul it were in my power to give you a more substantial gratification and return 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 transcribe into your book, were equal to the grateful respect and high esteem I bear for the gentleman to whom I present them, 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, R. B. NO. CLXXV. TO MR, ROBERT AINSLIE. ELLISLAND, 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 Edin- burgh.-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 Ian now appointed to an Excise division, in the mid- dle of which my house and farm lie. In this I was extremely lucky. Without ever having been an expectant, as they call their journeymen excis- men, 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, gauger, will sound in your ears. I too have seen the day when my auditory nerves would have felt very delicately on this subject; but a wife and children are things which have a wonderful power in blunting these kind of sensa- tions. Fifty pounds a year for life, and a provi- sion for widows and orphans, you will allow is no bad settlement for a poet. For the ignominy of the profession, I have the encouragement which I Once heard a recruiting serjeant give to a nume- rous, if not a respectable audience, in the streets of Kilmarnock-º' 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 for preferment.” You need not doubt that I find several very unpleasant and disagreeable circumstances in my business; but I am tired with and disgusted at the language of complaint against the evils of life. Human existence in the most favourable situations does not abound with pleasures, and has its incon- veniences and ills; capricious foolish man mistakes these inconveniences and ills as if they were the peculiar property of his particular situation; and hence that eternal fickleness, that love of change, which has ruined, and daily does ruin many a fine fellow, as well as many a blockhead, and is almost, without exception, a constant source of disappoint- ment and misery. I long to hear from you how you go on—not so much in business as in life. Are you pretty well satisfied with your own exertions, and toler- ably 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. 240 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE, NO, CLXXVI. TO MR. RICHARD BROWN. ELLISLAND, 4th NOVEMBER, 1789. I have been so hurried, my ever dear friend, that though I got both your letters, I have not been able to command an hour to answer them as I wished; and even now, you are to look on this as merely confessing debt, and craving days. Few things could have given me so much plea- sure as the news that you were once more safe and sound on terra firma, and happy in that place where happiness is alone to be found, in the fire- side circle. May the benevolent Director of all things peculiarly bless you in all those endearing connections consequent on the tender and vener- able names of husband and father! I have indeed been extremely lucky in getting an additional income of £50 a-year, while, at the same time, the appointment will not cost me above £10 or £12 per annum of expenses more than I must have inevitably incurred. The worst circumstance is, that the Excise division which I have got is so extensive, no less than ten parishes to ride over; and it abounds besides with so much business, that I can scarcely steal a spare moment. How- ever, labour endears rest, and both together are absolutely necessary for the proper enjoyment of human existence. I cannot meet you any where. No less than an order from the board of Excise, at Edinburgh, is necessary before I can have so much time as to meet you in Ayrshire. But do you come, and see me. We must have a social day, and perhaps lengthen it out for half the night, before you go again to sea. You are the earliest friend I now have on earth, my brothers excepted; and is not that an endearing circum- stance 7 When you and I first met, we were at the green period of human life. The twig would easily take a bent, but would as easily return to its former state. You and I not only took a mutual bent, but, by the melancholy, though strong influence of being both of the family of the unfortunate, we were entwined with one another in our growth towards advanced age; and blasted be the sacrilegious hand that shall attempt to undo the union! You and I must have one bumper to my favourite toast, “May the com- panions of our youth be the friends of our old age!” Come and see me one year; I shall see you at Port-Glasgow the next, and if we can cqutrive to have a gossiping between our two běd-fellows, it will be so much additional plea- sure. Mrs Burns joins me in kind compliments to you and Mrs Brown. Adieu! I am ever, my dear Sir, yours, R. B. 24l NO, CLXXVII. TO R. GRAHAM, ESQ. OF FINTRAY. 9TH DECEMBER, 1789. SIR, I HAVE a good while had a wish to trouble you with a letter, and had certainly done it long ere now—but for a humiliating something that throws cold water on the resolution, as if one should say, “You have found Mr Graham a very powerful and kind friend indeed, and that interest he is so kindly taking in your concerns, you ought by every thing in your power to keep alive and cherish.” Now, though since God has thought proper to make one powerful and another help- less, the connection of obliger and obliged is all fair; and though my being under your patronage is to me highly honourable, yet, Sir, allow me to flatter myself, that, as a poet and an honest man, you first interested yourself in my welfare, and principally as such, still you permit me to ap- proach 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 greatly inimical to my correspondence with the Muses. Their visits to me, indeed, and I believe to most of their acquaintance, like the visits of good angels, are short and far between: but I meet them now and then as I jog through the hills of Nithsdale, just as I used to do on the banks of Ayr. I take the liberty to inclose you a few bagatelles, all of them the productions of my leisure thoughts in my excise rides. If you know or have ever seen Captain Grose, the antiquarian, you will enter into any humour that is in the verses on him. | Perhaps you have seen them before, as I sent them to a London Newspaper. Though I dare say you have none of the solemn-league-and-covenant fire, which shone so conspicuous in Lord George Gordon, and the Kilmarnock weavers, yet I think you must have heard of Dr M'Gill, one of the clergy- men of Ayr, and his heretical book. God help him, poor man! Though he is one of the wor- thiest, as well as one of the ablest of the whole priesthood of the Kirk of Scotland, in every sense of that ambiguous term, yet the poor Doctor and his numerous family are in imminent danger of being thrown out to the mercy of the winter-winds. The inclosed ballad on that busi- 1 In the letter the Poet inclosed his verses on Grose, The Kirk's Alarm, and an election ballad. 2 H Q) GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. e-h Q_ixº~ sº T) Q §º- ness 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 string of boroughs. I do not believe there will be such a hard run match in the whole general election. I am too little a man to have any political attachments; I am deeply indebted to, and have the warmest veneration for, individuals of both parties; but a man who has it in his power to be the father of a country, and who * * * * *, is a character that one cannot speak of with patience. Sir J. J. does “what man can do,” but yet I doubt his fate. R. B. NO. CLXXVIII, TO MRS DUNLOP. ELLISLAND, 13TH DEC., 1789. MANY thanks, dear Madam, for your sheet-full 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 head- ache, 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. What is man?—To-day, in the luxuriance of health, exulting in the enjoyment of existence; in a few days, perhaps in a few hours, loaded with conscious painful being, count- ing the tardy pace of the lingering moments by the repercussions of anguish, and refusing or denied a comforter. Day follows might, and night comes after day, only to curse him with life which gives him no pleasure; and yet the awful, dark termination of that life, is something at which he recoils. “Tell us, ye dead; will none of you in pity Disclose the secret What 'tis you are, and we must shortly be 2 —'tis no matter: A little time will make us learn’d as you are.” Can it be possible, that when I resign this frail, feverish being, I shall still find myself in con- scious existence? When the last gasp of agony has announced that I am no more to those that knew me, and the few who loved me; when the cold, stiffened, unconscious, ghastly corse is re- signed into the earth, to be the prey of unsightly reptiles, and to become in time a trodden clod, shall I be yet warm in life, seeing and seen, enjoying and enjoyed? Ye venerable sages, and holy flamens, is there probability in your conjec- tures, truth in your stories, of another world beyond death; or are they all alike, baseless visions, and fabricated fables 2 If there is ano- ther life, it must be only for the just, the bene- volent, the amiable, and the humane; what a flattering idea, then, is a world to come! Would to God I as firmly believed it, as I ardently wish it! There I should meet an aged parent, now at rest from the many buffetings of an evil world, against which he so long and so bravely struggled. There should I meet the friend, the disinterested friend of my early life; the man who rejoiced to see me, because he loved me and could serve me. —Muir, thy weaknesses were the aberrations of human nature, but thy heart glowed with every thing generous, manly, and noble; and if ever emanation from the All-good Being animated a human form, it was thine!—There should I, with speechless agony of rapture, again recognise my lost, my ever dear Mary ! whose bosom was fraught with truth, honour, constancy, and love. “My Mary, dear departed shade Where is thy place of heavenly rest? Seest thou thy lover lowly laid P Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast 2" Jesus Christ, thou amiablest of characters! I trust thou art no impostor, and that thy revela- tion of blissful scenes of existence beyond death and the grave, is not one of the many impositions which time after time have been palmed on cre- dulous mankind. I trust that in thee “shall all the families of the earth be blessed,” by being yet connected together in a better world, where every tie that bound heart to heart, in this state of existence, shall be, far beyond our present conceptions, more endearing. I am a good deal inclined to think with those who maintain, that what are called nervous affec- tions are in fact diseases of the mind. I cannot reason, I cannot think; and but to you I would not venture to write any thing above an order to a cobbler. You have felt too much of the ills of life not to sympathise with a diseased wretch, who has impaired more than half of any faculties he possessed. Your goodness will excuse this distracted scrawl, which the writer dare scarcely read, and which he would throw into the fire, were he able to write any thing better, or indeed any thing at all. # Rumour told me something of a son of yours, who was returned from the East or West Indies. If you have gotten news from James or Anthony, it was cruel in you not to let me know ; as I promise you, on the sincerity of a man, who is 242 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. weary of one world, and anxious about another, that scarce any thing could give me so much pleasure as to hear of any good thing befalling my honoured friend. If you have a minute’s leisure, take up your pen in pity to le pawvre miserable R. B. No. CLXXIX. TO LADY W. M. CONSTABLE. 1 ELLISLAND, 16TH DEC., 1789. MY LADY, IN vain have I from day to day expected to hear from Mrs Young, as she promised me at Dalswinton that she would do me the honour to introduce me at Tinwald; and it was impossible, not from your Ladyship's accessibility, but from my own feelings, that I could go alone. Lately, indeed, Mr Maxwell of Carruchen, in his usual goodness, offered to accompany me, when an unlucky indisposition on my part hindered my embracing the opportunity. To court the notice or the tables of the great, except where I some- times have had a little matter to ask of them, or more often the pleasanter task of witnessing my gratitude to them, is what I never have done, and I trust never shall do. But with your Lady- ship, 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 illus- trious honours and vast properties to hazard in the contest, though they left their humble cottages only to add so many units more to the unnoted crowd that followed their leaders, yet what they could they did, and what they had they lost: with unshaken firmness and unconcealed political attachments, they shook hands with Ruin for what they esteemed the cause of their king and their country. This language and the inclosed verses” are for your Ladyship's eye alone. Poets are not very famous for their prudence; but as I can do nothing for a cause which is now nearly no more, I do not wish to hurt myself. I have the honour to be, My Lady, Your Ladyship's obliged And obedient humble servant, R. B. NO. CLXXX. TO PROVOST MAXWELL, OF LOCHEMABEN. ELLISLAND, 20thI DEC., 1789. DEAR PROvosT, 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 begun 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 con- cluded, I have nothing to do but to pray heaven to help me on to another. Shall I write you on politics or religion, two master subjects for your sayers of nothing? Of the first I dare say 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 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 subject sparkling with all the jewels that wit can find in the mines of genius; and preg- nant with all the stores of learning from Moses and Confucius to Franklin and Priestley—in short may it please your Lordship, I intend to write * * * * 3 If at any time you expect a field-day in your town,” a day when dukes, earls, and knights pay their court to weavers, tailors, and cobblers, I should like to know of it two or three days before hand. 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 Jeffrey,” or any of his amiable family, I beg you will give them my best com- pliments. R. B. 1 Lady Winifred Maxwell Constable, a descendant of the forfeited Earl of Nithsdale. This nobleman was implicated in the Rebellion of 1715, but his life was saved through the heroic conduct of his Countess, whose ingenuity and presence of mind enabled him to effect his escape from the Tower of London. The above letter first appeared in Lockhart's Life of Burns. 2 Viz. the Verses to William Tytler, author of the Defence of Mary Queen of Scots, given at p. 93, v.i. 3 Here the Poet inserted a song which can only be sung at times when the punch bowl has done its duty, and wild wit is set free. 4 The Poet alludes here to a contested election. 5 Minister of Lochmaben, father of the blue-eyed lass, upon whom Burns wrote the fine song given at page 35, beginning —‘I gaed a waefu' gate yestreen.’ 243 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. distance, or of death. Each member, at his º X. NO. CLXXXI. paid five shillings; and at each of their meetings, TO SIR JOHN SINCLAIR..] 1790. SIR, THE following circumstance has I believe been omitted in the statistical account, transmitted to you, of the parish of Dumscore, 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 ration- ality. Impressed with this idea, a gentleman in this parish, Robert Riddel, 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 artizan, 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 1 This letter appeared in the third volume of the first edi- tion of the Statistical Account of Scotland. It was inclosed to Sir John by Mr Riddel himself in the following letter, also printed there :— ‘SIR John, * I inclose 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 he was so good (at my desire) as to set on foot, in the barony of Monkland, or Friar's 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-peo- ple, and work-people. Mr Burns was so good as to take the whole charge of this small concern. He was treasurer, libra- rian, and consor, to this little society, who will long have a grateful sense of his public spirit and exertions for their improvement and information. * I have the honour to be, Sir John, ‘Yours most sincerely, “Rob ERT RIDDEL.” 2 The clergyman, it is said, omitted to notice this library scheme for the diffusion of useful information, because it included some books of which he could not approve. In few quarters, it must be confessed, have the clergy shown much 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 pur- chase, was always decided by the majority. At every meeting, all the books, under certain fines and forfeitures, by way of penalty, were to be produced; and the members had their choice of the volumes in rotation. He whose name stood for that night, 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 the last. At next meeting he who had been first on the list at the preceding meeting, was last at this; he who 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 which was formed under Mr Riddel's patronage, what with benefactions of books from him, and what with their own purchases, they had 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 Sermons,’ ‘Ro- bertson's History of Scotland,” “Hume's History of the Stuarts,’ ‘The Spectator,’ ‘Idler,” “Adven- turer,” “Mirror,” “Lounger,’ ‘Observer,’ ‘Man of Feeling,’ ‘Man of the World,” “ Chrysal,’ ‘Don Quixote,” “Joseph Andrews,’ &c. A peasant who can read, and enjoy such books, is certainly a much superior being to his neighbour, who per- haps 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. NO. CLXXXII. TO CHARLES SHARPE, ESQ. OF HODDAM,3 Under a fictitious Sigmature, enclosing a Ballad. 1790. IT is true, Sir, you are a gentleman of rank and fortune, and I am a poor devil: you are a feather in the cap of society, and I am a very hobnail in his 3. %. ~ x } | { º, Sºto º ~~: Tº :=sz * *-*. \º * . M. ><>.T. 3 In Dumfries-shire. Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esq., distinguished for his poetical and This gentleman was father of Charles antiquarian lore. ſ 244 sympathy with schemes of this sort. GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. shoes; yet I have the honour to belong to the same family with you, and on that score I now address you. You will perhaps suspect that I am going to claim affinity with the ancient and honour- able house of Kirkpatrick. No, no, Sir ; I cannot indeed be properly said to belong to any house, or even any province or kingdom ; as my mother, who for many years was spouse to a marching regiment, gave me into this bad world, aboard the packet-boat, somewhere between Donaghadee and Portpatrick. By our common family, I mean, Sir, the family of the Muses. I am a fiddler and a poet; and you, I am told, play an exquisite violin, and have a standard taste in the belles lettres. The other day, a brother catgut gave me a charming Scotch air of your composition. If I was pleased with the tune, I was in raptures with the title you have given it; and, taking up the idea, I have spun it into the three stanzas inclosed. Will you allow me, Sir, to present you them, as the dearest offering that a misbegotten son of poverty and rhyme has to give 2 I have a longing to take you by the hand and unburden my heart by saying, “Sir, I honour you as a man who supports the dignity of human nature, amid an age when frivolity and avarice have, between them, debased us below the brutes that perish !” But, alas, Sir! to me you are unapproachable. It is true the Muses baptized me in Castalian streams; but the thoughtless gipsies forgot to give me a name. As the sex have served many a good fel- low, the Nine have given me a great deal of plea- sure; but, bewitching jades 1 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 galli- gaskins to keep together their many-coloured fragments. As to the affair of shoes, I have given that up. My pilgrimage in my ballad-trade, from town to town, and on your stony-hearted turn- pikes too, are what not even the hide of Job’s behemoth could bear. The coat on my back is no more: I shall not speak evil of the dead. It would be equally unhandsome and ungrateful to find fault with my old surtout, which so kindly supplies and conceals the want of that coat. My hat indeed is a great favourite; and though I got it literally for an old song, I would not exchange it for the best beaver in Britain. I was, during several years, a kind of fac-totum servant to a country clergyman, where I picked up a good many scraps of learning, particularly in some branches of the mathematics. Whenever I feel 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 doc- trine of the Conic Sections. However, Sir, don’t let me mislead you, as if I would interest your pity. Fortune has so much forsaken me, that she has taught me to live with- out 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 hack- Ineyed metaphor, I value the several actors in the great drama of life, simply as they act their parts. I can look on a worthless fellow of a duke with unqualified contempt, and can regard an honest scavenger with sincere respect. As you, Sir, go through your rôle with such distinguished merit, permit me to make one in the chorus of universal applause, and assure you that with the highest respect, I have the honour to be, &c. NO. CLXXXIII. TO MR GILBERT BURNS. ELLISLAND, 11th JANUARY, 1790. DEAR BROTHER, I MEAN to take advantage of the frank, though I have not in my present frame of mind much appetite for exertion in writing. My nerves are in a damned state. I feel that horrid hypochon- dria pervading every atom of both body and soul. This farm has undone my enjoyment of myself. It is a ruinous affair on all hands. But let it go to hell! I'll fight it out and be off with it. We have gotten a set of very decent players here just now. I have seen them an evening or two. David Campbell in Ayr, wrote to me by the mana- ger of the company, a Mr Sutherland, who is a man of apparent worth. On New-year-day evening I gave him the following prologue, which he spouted to his audience with applause:— No song nor dance I bring from yon great city, That queens it o'er our taste—the more's the pity : Tho' by the bye, abroad why will you roam 2 Good sense and taste are natives here at home.] I can no more.—If once I was clear of this damned farm, I should respire more at ease. R. B. 1 See Prologue at page 114, vol. i. - gº to rest myself on my way, I take my seat S 245 lºſe= *. w ===s=sº GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. NO. CLXXXIV. TO MR WILLIAM DUNBAR, W. S. ELLISLAND, I-4TH JAN., 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 nothing worse, step in between us and bar the onjoyment of a mutual correspondence? We are not shapen out of the common, heavy, methodical clod, the elemental stuff of the plodding selfish race, the sons of Arithmetic and Prudence; our feelings and hearts are not benumbed and poisoned by the cursed influence of riches, which, whatever blessing they may be in other respects, are no friends to the nobler qualities of the heart: in the name of random sensibility, then, let never the moon change on our silence any more. I have had a tract of bad health 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 450 per annum, nor have I yet felt any of these mortifying circumstances in it that I was led to fear. Feb. 2d.—I have not for sheer hurry of busi- ness been able to spare five minutes to finish my letter. Besides my farm business, I ride on my Excise matters at least 200 miles every week.- I have not by any means given up the Muses.— You will sce in the 3d vol. of Johnson’s Scots songs that I have contributed my mite there. But, my dear Sir, little ones that look up to you for paternal protection, are an important charge. I have already two fine healthy stout little fellows, and I wish to throw some light upon them. I have a thousand reveries and schemes about them, and their future destiny. Not that I am an Utopian projector in these things. I am resolved never to breed up a son of mine to any of the learned professions. I know the value of independence; and since I cannot give my sons an independent fortune, I shall give them an independent line of life. What a chaos of hurry, chance, and changes is this world, when one sits soberly down to reflect on it! To a father, who himself knows the world, the thought that he shall have sons to usher into it, must fill him with dread; but if he have daughters, the prospect in a thoughtful moment is apt to shock him. I hope Mrs Fordyce and the two young ladies are well. Do let me forget that they are nieces of yours, and let me say that I never saw a more interesting, sweeter pair of sisters in my life. I am the fool of my feelings and attachments. I often take up a volume of my Spenser to realize you to my imagination, and think over the social scenes we have had together. 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 health, &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, R. B. NO, CLXXXV. TO MRS DUNLOP. ELLISLAND, 25TH JANUARY, 1790. IT has been owing to unremitting hurry of busi- ness that I have not written to you, Madam, long ere now. My health is greatly better, and I now begin once more to share in satisfaction and enjoyment with the rest of my fellow-creatures. Many thanks, my much esteemed friend, for your kind letters; but why will you make me run the risk of being contemptible and mercenary in my own eyes? When I pique myself on my inde- pendent spirit, I hope it is neither poètic licence, nor poetic rant: and I am so flattered with the honour you have done me, in making me your compeer in friendship and friendly correspondence, that I cannot without pain, and a degree of mor- tification, be reminded of the real inequality between our situations. Most sincerely do I rejoice with you, dear Madam, in the good news of Anthony. Not only your anxiety about his fate, but my own esteem for such a noble, warm-hearted, manly young fellow, in the little I had of his acquaintance, has interested me deeply in his fortunes. Falconer, the unfortunate author of the “Ship- wreck,” which you so much admire, is no more. After witnessing the dreadful catastrophe he so feelingly describes in his poem, and after weather- ing many hard gales of fortune, he went to the bottom with the Aurora frigate! I forget what part of Scotland had the honour of giving him birth; but he was the son of obscurity and misfortune." He was one of those I William Falconer, author of ‘The Shipwreck, a poem,” was born in Edinburgh about the year 1730. His father was a 246 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. daring adventurous spirits, which Scotland, beyond any other country, is remarkable for producing. Little does the fond mother think, as she hangs delighted over the sweet little leech at her bosom, where the poor fellow may hereafter wander, and what may be his fate. I remember a stanza in an old Scottish ballad, which, notwithstanding its rude simplicity, speaks feelingly to the heart:— ‘Little did my mother think, That day she cradled me, What land I was to travel in, Or what death I should die ' ' 1 Old Scottish songs are, you know, a favourite study and pursuit of mine, and now I am on that subject, allow me to give you two stanzas of another old simple ballad, which I am sure will please you. The catastrophe of the piece is a poor ruined female, lamenting her fate. She con- cludes with this pathetic wish :— “O that my father had ne'er on me smil'd : O that my mother had ne'er to me sung O that my cradle had never been rock'd ; But that I had died when I was young ‘O that the grave it were my bed; My blankets were my winding sheet; The clocks and the worms my bedfellows a' ; And O sae sound as I should sleep !' I do not remember in all my reading to have met with any thing more truly the language of barber and wig-maker, in a well-known street called the Netherbow, where he ultimately became insolvent. When very young, he was entered as an apprentice on board a mer- chant vessel belonging to Leith. He afterwards became servant to Mr Campbell, the author of Lexiphames, who was purser of the ship to which he belonged, and who, finding in him an apti- tude for knowledge, kindly undertook to give him some instruc- tions in person. He subsequently became second mate in the Britannia, a vessel in the Levant trade, which, on her passage from Alexandria to Venice, was shipwrecked off Cape Colonna, on the coast of Greece Only three of the crew were saved, and Falconer was of the number. The event furnished him with the material of a poem, by which it is probable his name will be for ever remembered. The poet was at this time about eighteen years of age. In 1751, when two or three years older, he is found residing in his native city, where he published his first known work, a poem, “Sacred to the Memory of his Royal Highness, Frederick, Prince of Wales.” He is said to have fol- lowed up this effort by several minor pieces, which he trans– mitted to the Gentleman’s Magazine. “His poem, “The Shipwreck,” was published in 1762, being dedicated to Edward, duke of York, brother of George III. This composition displays a degree of polish, and an array of classical allusions, which could only have been acquired by extensive reading. By his dedication, the poet gained the notice and patronage of the duke of York, who was himself a seaman. Almost immediately after the poem was published, his royal highness induced Falconer to leave the merchant service, and procured him the rank of a midshipman in Sir Edward Hawke's ship, the Royal George. In gratitude, Falconer wrote an “Ode on the duke of York's second departure from England as rear-admiral.” In 1763, the war being brought to a close, Falconer's ship was paid off-long before he had completed that period of service which could have entitled him to promotion. He then exchanged the military for the civil department of the naval service, and became purser of the Glory frigate of 32 guns. Soon aſter this period, Falconer married a Miss Hicks, daughter of the Surgeon of Sheerness Yard, and endeavoured to support himself by literature. He compiled a “Universal Marine Dic- tionary,” which, from its usefulness as a book of reference, soon became generally used in the navy. Like most other literary Scotsmen of that period, he was a zealous partizan of the Bute administration, and endeavoured to defend it against the attacks of its jealous and illiberal enemies. For this purpose, he pub- lished a satire, called “The Demagogue,” which was more particularly aimed at lord Chatham, Wilkes, and Churchill. In 1769, the poet had removed to London, and resided for some time in the former buildings of Somerset house. From this place he dated the last edition of the Shipwreck published in his own life-time. He afterwards received an appointment to the pursership of the Aurora frigate, which was ordered to carry out to India, Messrs Vansittart, Serofton, and Forde, as supervisors of the affairs of the company. He was also pro- mised the office of private secretary to those gentlemen, a situ- ation from which his friends conceived hopes that he might eventually obtain lasting advantages. It had been otherwise ordered. The Aurora sailed from England on the 30th of Sep- tember, 1769, and, after touching at the Cape, was lost during the remainder of the passage, in a manner which left no trace by which the cause of the calamity could be discovered. It was conjectured that the vessel took fire at sea; but the more pro- bable supposition is that she foundered in the Mozambique channel. The widow of Falconer (who eventually died at Bath,) resided for some years afterwards in his apartments at Somerset house, partly supported by Mr Miller, the bookseller who, in consideration of the rapid sale of the Marine Dictionary, generously bestowed upon her sums not stipulated for in his contract with the author. * “In person,” says Mr Clarke, “Falconer was about five feet seven inches in height; of a thin light make, with a dark weather-beaten complexion, and rather what is termed hard- featured, being considerably marked with the small pox ; his hair was of a brownish hue. was blunt, awkward, and forbidding ; but he spoke with great fluency; and his simple yet impressive diction was couched in words which reminded his hearers of the terseness of Swift. Though he possessed a warm and friendly disposition, he was fond of controversy, and inclined to satire. His observation was keen and rapid ; his criticisms on any inaccuracy of lan- guage or expression, were frequently severe; yet this severity was always intended to create mirth, and not by any means to show his own superiority, or to give the smallest offence. In his natural temper, he was cheerful, and frequently used to amuse his messmates by composing acrostics on their favourites, in which he particularly excelled. As a professional man, he was a thorough seaman; and, like most of that profession, was kind, generous, and benevolent.” – Lives of Eminent Scotsmen. 1 This verse occurs in the pathetic old ballad called ‘the Queen's Maries,' or “Mary Hamilton.’ Queen Mary, as tradi- tion says, and history in some measure confirms, had four per- sonal attendants, all namesakes of her own, all of the same age, and all distinguished for their beauty. One of these, Mary Hamilton, was executed for child-murder—-and upon this cir- cumstance the ballad is founded. Some of the concluding verses are very affecting :- “O when she gaed up through the Netherbow Port, She Jaucht loud laughters three : But when she cam to the gallows fit, The tear blinded her e'e. “Cast aff, cast aff my goun,” she said, “But let my petticoat be ; And tye a napkin o'er my face, That the gallows I mayna see. “Yestreen, the queen she had four Maries : The nieht she has but three : There was Mary Seton, and Mary Beatouri, And Mary Carmichael, and me ! “Ye mariners, ye mariners, When ye sail ower the sea, Let neither my father nor mother wit I hung on the gallows tree “Oh, little did my mother think, That day she cradled me, What lands I was to travel in, In point of address, his manner What death I was to dee!” gºs 247 ©º cº sº º- ==gº 2- * - - 3-5-S **) . Tº /*) 0 >=ºs & > i ** sº K? ...’, 2\ºs sy.” 2\o SS. Ç) (\ jºyº” (G)0 \ K GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. misery, than the exclamation in the last line. Misery is like love; to speak its language truly, the author must have felt it. I am every day expecting the doctor to give your little godson' the small-pox. They are rife in the country, and I tremble for his fate. By the way, I cannot help congratulating you on his looks and spirit. Every person who sees him, acknowledges him to be the finest, handsomest child he has ever seen. I am myself delighted with the manly swell of his little chest, and a cer- tain miniature dignity in the carriage of his head, and the glance of his fine black eye, which pro- mise the undaunted gallantry of an independent mind. I thought to have sent you some rhymes, but time forbids. I promise you poetry until you are tired of it, next time I have the honour of assur- ing you how truly I am, &c. R. B. NO. CLXXXVI. TO MR PETER HILL, B O OR SELLER, EDINBU R G H. ELLISLAND, 2D FEB., 1790. No! I will not say one word about apologies or excuses for not writing—I am a poor, rascally gauger, condemned to gallop at least 200 miles every week to inspect dirty ponds and yeasty barrels, and where can I find time to write to, or importance to interest, any body ? The upbraid- ings of my conscience, may the upbraidings of my wife, have persecuted me on your account these two or three months past. I wish to God I was a great man, that my correspondence might throw light upon you, to let the world see what you really are: and then I would make your fortune, without putting my hand in my pocket for you, which, like all other great men, I suppose I would avoid as much as possible. What are you doing, and how are you doing? Have you lately seen any of my few friends? What has become of the BOROUGH REFORM, or how is the fate of my poor namesake Mademoiselle Burns decided ?? O man! l Francis, the poet’s second son. 2 Among the Epigrams, will be found one “On Miss Burns,” running thus : — “Cease, ye prudes, your envious railing ; Lovely Burns has charms—confess: True it is, she has one failing— Had a woman ever less P’ The lady in question was a ‘fair but frail' one in Edinburgh at this time, distinguished among the sisterhood for her beauty and accomplishments. She represented herself as a native of Durham, in England, where her father had once been a wealthy 248 but for thee and thy selfish appetites, and dis- honest artifices, that beauteous form, and that once innocent and still ingenuous mind, might have shone conspicuous and lovely in the faithful wife, and the affectionate mother; and shall the unfor- tunate sacrifice to thy pleasures have no claim on thy humanity! I saw lately, in a review, some extracts from a new poem, called the ‘Village Curate;” send it me. I want likewise a cheap copy of ‘The World.” Mr Armstrong, the young poet, who does me the honour to mention me so kindly in his works, please give him my best thanks for the copy of his book.-I shall write him, my first leisure hour. I like his poetry much, but I think his style in prose quite astonishing. Your book came safe, and I am going to trouble you with farther commissions. I call it troubling you—because I want only BOOKS ; the cheapest way, the best ; so you may have to hunt for them in the evening auctions. I want Smollett's Works, for the sake of his incomparable humour. I have already Roderick Random, and Humphrey Clinker. —Peregrine Pickle, Launcelot Greaves, and Fer- dinand Count Fathom I still want; but as I said, the veriest ordinary copies will serve me. I am nice only in the appearance of my poets. I for- get the price.of Cowper's Poems, but, I believe, merchant, and her superior education and personal demeanour. at least betokened an acquaintance with the better class of society. Burns was supposed to be an assumed name, but whether it was chosen in compliment to the Scottish poet or not, we cannot say. If so, the compliment, though of a some- what equivocal kind and not greatly to be coveted, was at any rate indicative of the widely-spread reputation of the poet's I\{l Iſle. In the above letter, the inquiry made about the fate of Miss Burns, regards a case of hers which came before the Police court at Edinburgh, and which excited at the time unusual sensation. On a complaint of some of her neighbours, Bailie Creech, the sitting magistrate, and, as will be recollected, the poet's pub- lisher, sentenced her to be banished forth of the city, under the penalty, in case of return, of being drummed through the streets, besides confinement in the house of correction for six months. Against this severe sentence, Miss Burns entered an appeal to the Court of Session, by presenting a bill of suspension, which was sustained, as no riot or disturbance in her house was proved against her. The decision of the Court of Session was a source of great annoyance to Bailie Creech, and many squibs were circulated on the occasion, calculated to increase his magis- terial indignation. Among others, the following announce- ment appeared in a London journal : “We understand, that Bailie Creech, of literary celebrity in Edinburgh, is about to lead the beautiful and accomplished Miss Burns to the hymeneal altar." An action of damages was threatened against the editor unless he would immediately give a complete contradiction to this statement. The counter-statement appeared, but certainly did not mend the matter. It was as follows: “In a former number, we noticed the intended marriage between Bailie Creech of Edinburgh, and the beautiful Miss Burns of the same place. We have now the authority of that gentleman to say, that the proposed marriage is not to take place, matters having been otherwise arranged, to the mutual satisfaction of both parties and their respective friends !' Miss Burns died of a decline, at Rosslyn, where she had gone for change of air, in 1792. A stone in the churchyard there records the place of her interment. Figures of her are to be found among Kay's Portraits. f' ... sº {_y º, , . " (2-- 3–2. Yº º Yº) () S--~, " …” Y--------- N 3 S. v. J.” & .2°S, <>--—--- --~~ - <>~~~~ * , 0. I must have them. I saw the other day pro- posals for a publication, entitled, ‘Banks's new and complete Christian's Family Bible,” printed for C. Cooke, Paternoster-row, London. He promises, at least, to give in the work, I think it is three hundred and odd engravings, to which he has put the names of the first artists in London.—You will know the character of the performance, as some numbers of it are published: and if it is really what it pretends to be, set me down as a subscriber, and send me the published numbers. Let me hear from you, your first leisure minute, and trust me you shall in future have no reason to complain of my silence. The dazzling per- plexity of novelty will dissipate and leave me to pursue my course in the quiet path of methodical routine. R. B. NO, CLXXXVII. TO MR. W. NICOL. ELLISLAND, FEB. 9TH, 1790. MY DEAR SIR, THAT damned mare of yours is dead. I would freely have given her price to have saved her; she has vexed me beyond description. Indebted as I was to your goodness beyond what I can ever repay, I eagerly grasped at your offer to have the mare with me. That I might at least show my readiness in wishing to be grateful, I took every care of her in my power. She was never crossed for riding above half a score of times by me or in my keeping. I drew her in the plough, one of three, for one poor week. I refused fifty-five shillings for her, which was the highest bode I could squeeze for her. I fed her up and had her in fine order for Dumfries fair; when four or five days before the fair, she was seized with an unac- countable disorder in the sinews, or somewhere in the bones of the neck; with a weakness or total want of power in her fillets, and in short the whole vertebrae of her spine seemed to be diseased and unhinged, and in eight-and-forty hours, in spite of the two best farriers in the country, she died and be damned to her | The farriers said that she had been quite strained in the fillets beyond cure before you had bought her; and that the poor devil, though she might keep a little flesh, had been jaded and quite worn out with fatigue and oppression. While she was with me, she was under my own eye, and I assure you, my much valued friend, 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 unfor- tunate business. There is little new in this country. Our thea- trical company, of which you must have heard, leave us this week. Their merit and character are indeed very great, both on the stage and in private life; not a worthless creature among them ; and their encouragement has been accord- ingly. Their usual run is from eighteen to twenty- five pounds a night: seldom less than the one, and the house will hold no more than the other. There have been repeated instances of sending away six, and eight, and ten pounds a night for want of room. A new theatre is to be built by subscription; the first stone is to be laid on Friday first to come. Three hundred guineas have been raised by thirty subscribers, and thirty more might have been got if wanted. The manager, Mr Sutherland, was introduced to me by a friend from Ayr; and a worthier or cleverer fellow I have rarely met with. Some of our clergy have slipt in by stealth now and then; but they have got up a farce of their own. You must have heard how the Rev. Mr Lawson of Kirkmahoe, seconded by the Rev. Mr Kirkpatrick of Dun- score, and the rest of that faction, have accused, in formal process, the unfortunate and Rev. Mr Heron of Kirkgunzeon, that, in ordaining Mr Nielson to the cure of souls in Kirkbean, he, the said Heron, feloniously and treasonably bound the said Nielson to the confession of faith, so far as it was agreeable to reason and the word of God! Mrs B. begs to be remembered most gratefully to you. Little Bobby and Frank are charmingly well and healthy. I am jaded to death with fatigue. For these two or three months, on an average, I have not ridden less than two hundred miles per week. I have done little in the poetic way. I have given Mr Sutherland two Prolo- gues; one of which was delivered last week. I have likewise strung four or five barbarous stanzas, to the tune of Chevy Chase, by way of Elegy on your poor unfortunate mare, begin- ning (the name she got here was Peg Nicholson) “Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare, As ever trod on airn: But now she's floating down the Nith, And past the mouth o' Cairn.” I 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. NO, CLXXXVIII. TO MR ALEX. CUNNINGHAMI. ELLISLAND, I8TH FEB., 1790. I BEG your pardon, my dear and much valued friend, for writing to you on this very unfashion- able, unsightly sheet— “My poverty but not my will consents,” 1 See page 116, vol. i. ^—--~~ à @$3.63 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. °5 Nºgº th |X) II. 249 2 I S/Tºº } }T ~ (N agº T-3- - _- Ö'Q Sº? Sf - - sº d sº \, sº GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 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 ple- beian foolscap pages, like the widow of a man of fashion, whom that unpolite scoundrel, Necessity, has driven from Burgundy and Pineapple, to a dish of Bohea, with the scandal-bearing help-mate of a village-priest; or a glass of whiskey-toddy, with a ruby-nosed yoke-fellow of a foot-padding exciseman—I make a vow to inclose this sheet- full of epistolary fragments in that my only scrap of gilt paper. I am indeed your unworthy debtor for three friendly letters. I ought to have written to you long ere now, but it is a literal fact, I have scarcely a spare moment. It is not that I will not write to you: Miss Burnet is not more dear to her guardian angel, nor his grace the Duke of Queens- berry to the powers of darkness, than my friend Cunningham to me. It is not that I cannot write to you; should you doubt it, take the following fragment, which was intended for you some time ago, and be convinced that I can antithesize senti- ment, and circumvolute periods, as well as any coiner of phrase in the regions of philology. DECEMBER, 1789. MY DEAR CUNNINGHAM, WHERE are you ? And what are you doing : Can you be that son of levity, who takes up a friendship as he takes up a fashion; or are you, like some other of the worthiest fellows in the world, the victim of indolence, laden with fetters of ever- increasing weight? What strange beings we are Since we have a portion of conscious existence, equally capable of enjoying pleasure, happiness, and rapture, or of suffering pain, wretchedness, and misery, it is surely worthy of an inquiry, whether there be not such a thing as a science of life; whether method, economy, and fertility of expedients, be not applicable to enjoyment; and whether there be not a want of dexterity in pleasure, which renders our little scantling of happiness still less; and a profuseness, an intoxication in bliss, which leads to satiety, disgust, and self-abhorrence. There is not a doubt but that health, talents, character, decent competency, respectable friends, are real substantial blessings; and yet do we not daily see those who enjoy many or all of these good things contrive, notwithstanding, to be as unhappy as others to whose lot few of them have fallen ? I believe one great source of this mis- take or misconduct is owing to a certain stimulus, with us called ambition, which goads us up the hill of life, not as we ascend other eminences, for the laudable curiosity of viewing an extended landscape, but rather for the dishonest pride of looking down on others of our fellow-creatures, seemingly diminutive in humbler stations, &c. &c. SUNDAY, 14TH FEBRUARY, 1790. GOD help me ! I am now obliged to join “Night to day, and Sunday to the week.” If there be any truth in the orthodox faith of these churches, I am damned past redemption, and what is worse, damned to all eternity. I am deeply read in Boston's Four-fold State, Marshal on Sanctification, Guthrie's Trial of a Saving Interest, &c.; but “there is no balm in Gilead, there is no physician there,” for me; so I shall e’en turn Arminian, and trust to “Sincere though imperfect obedience.” TUESDAY, 16th. LUCKILY for me, I was prevented from the discussion of the knotty point at which I had just made a full stop. All my fears and cares are of this world: if there is another, an honest man has nothing to fear from it. I hate a man that wishes to be a deist; but I fear, every fair, unprejudiced inquirer must in some degree be a sceptic. It is not that there are any very staggering arguments against theimmortality of man; but, like electricity, phlogiston, &c., the subject is so involved in dark- ness, that we want data to go upon. One thing frightens me much: that we are to live for ever, seems too good news to be true. That we are to enter into a new scene of existence, where, exempt from want and pain, we shall enjoy ourselves and our friends without satiety or separation—how much should I be indebted to any one who could fully assure me that this was certain My time is once more expired. I will write to Mr Cleghorn soon. God bless him and his con- cerns ! And may all the powers that preside over conviviality and friendship, be present with all their kindest influence, when the bearer of this, Mr Syme, and you meet ! I wish I could also make one. Finally, brethren, farewell! Whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are gentle, whatso- ever things are charitable, whatsoever things are kind, think on these things, and think on R. B. No. CLXXXIX. TO MR HILL. ELLISLAND, 2D MARCH, 1790. AT a late meeting of the Monkland Friendly Society, it was resolved to augment their library by the following books, which you are to send us 250 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. as soon as possible:– The Mirror,” The Lounger,’ ‘Man of Feeling,’ ‘Man of the World,' (these, for my own sake, I wish to have by the first carrier); ‘Knox's History of the Reformation;’ ‘ Rae’s His- tory of the Rebellion in 1715;’ any good ‘History of the Rebellion in 1745;’ ‘A Display of the Secession Act and Testimony, by Mr Gib;’ * Hervey's Meditations;’ ‘Beveridge's Thoughts;’ and another copy of “Watson's Body of Divinity.” I wrote to Mr A. Masterton three or four months ago, to pay some money he owed me into your hands, and lately I wrote to you to the same pur- pose, but I have heard from neither one nor other of you. In addition to the books I commissioned in my last, I want very much, “An Index to the Excise Laws, or an abridgment of all the statutes now in force, relative to the Excise, by Jellinger Symons;” I want three copies of this book: if it is now to be had, cheap or dear, get it for me. An honest country neighbour of mine wants, too, a Family Bible, the larger the better, but second-handed, for he does not choose to give above ten shillings for the book. I want likewise for myself, as you can pick them up, second-handed or cheap, copies of Otway's Dramatic Works, Ben Jonson's, Dry- den’s, Congreve's, Wycherley's, Vanbrugh's, Cib- ber's, or any Dramatic Works of the more modern, Macklin, Garrick, Foote, Colman, or Sheridan. A good copy too of Molière, in French, I much want. Any other good dramatic authors in that language I want also; but comic authors chiefly, though I should wish to have Racine, Corneille, and Voltaire too. I am in no hurry for all, or any of these, but if you accidentally meet with them very cheap, get them for me. And now, to quit the dry walk of business, how do you do, my dear friend? and how is Mrs Hill ? I trust, if now and then not so elegantly handsome, at least as amiable, and sings as divinely as ever. My good wife too has a charming “wood-note wild;” now could we four I am out of all patience with this vile world, for one thing. Mankind are by nature benevolent creatures, except in a few scoundrelly instances. I do not think that avarice of the good things we chance to have is born with us : but we are placed here amid so much nakedness, and hunger, and poverty, and want, that we are under a cursed necessity of studying selfishness, in order that we may ExIST : Still there are, in every age, a few souls, that all the wants and woes of life cannot debase to selfishness, or even to the necessary alloy of caution and prudence. If ever I am in danger of vanity, it is when I contemplate myself on this side of my disposition and character. God knows I am no saint; I have a whole host of follies and sins to answer for; but if I could, and I believe I do it as far as I can, I would wipe away all tears from all eyes. Adieu ! R. B. NO. CLXC. TO MRS DUNLOP. ELLISLAND, 10th APRIL, 1790. I HAVE just now, my ever honoured friend, enjoyed a very high luxury, in reading a paper of the Lounger. You know my national prejudices, I had often read and admired the Spectator, Adventurer, Rambler, and World; but still with a certain regret, that they were so thoroughly and entirely English. Alas ! have I often said to myself, what are all the boasted advantages which my country reaps from the union, that can coun- terbalance the annihilation of her independence, and even her very name ! I often repeat that couplet of my favourite poet, Goldsmith— & 4 States of native liberty possest, Tho' very poor, may yet be very blest.” Nothing can reconcile me to the common terms, “English ambassador,” “English court,” &c. And I am out of all patience to see that equivocal character, Hastings, impeached by “the Commons of England.” Tell me, my friend, is this weak prejudice? I believe in my conscience such ideas as “my country; her independence; her honour; the illustrious names that mark the history of my native land; ” &c.—I believe these, among your men of the world, men who, in fact, guide for the most part and govern our world, are looked on as so many modifications of wrong-headedness. They 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 impro- per; and their measure of conduct is, not what they OUGHT, but what they DARE. For the truth of this I shall not ransack the history of nations, but appeal to one of the ablest judges of men that ever lived—the celebrated earl of Chesterfield. In fact, a man who could thoroughly control his vices whenever they interfered with his interests, and who could completely put on the appearance of every virtue as often as it suited his purposes, is, on the Stanhopian plan, the perfect man; a man to lead nations. But are great abilities, complete without a flaw, and polished without a blemish, the standard of human excellence 2 This is certainly the staunch opinion of men of the world; but I call on honour, virtue, and worth, to give the Stygian doctrine a loud negative However, this must be allowed, that, if you 251 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. º § * { Q. s.ºx\o ł | ,’N Y ; \ Jº) ‘. VCN º abstract from man the idea of an existence beyond the grave, then, the true measure of human con- duct is, proper and improper: virtue and vice, as dispositions of the heart, are, in that case, of scarcely the same import and value to the world at large, as harmony and discord in the modifica- tions of sound; and a delicate sense of honour, like a nice ear for music, though it may some- times give the possessor an ecstacy unknown to the coarser organs of the herd, yet, considering the harsh gratings, and inharmonic jars, in this ill- tuned state of being, it is odds but the individual would be as happy, and certainly would be as much respected by the true judges of society as it would then stand, without either a good ear or a good heart. You must know I have just met with the Mirror and Lounger for the first time, and I am quite in raptures with them; I should be glad to have your opinion of some of the papers. The one I have just read, Lounger, No. 61, has cost me more honest tears than any thing I have read for a long time. Mackenzie has been called the Addison of the Scots, and, in my opinion, Addison would not be hurt at the comparison. If he has not Addi- son’s exquisite humour, he as certainly out-does 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 kind- ness, generosity and benevolence; in short, more of all that ennobles the soul to herself, or endears her to others—than from the simple affecting tale of poor Harley? Still, with all my admiration of Mackenzie’s writings, I do not know if they are the fittest reading for a young man who is about to set out, as the phrase is, to make his way into life. Do 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 purity, a tenderness, a dignity, an elegance of soul, which are of no use, nay, in some degree, absolutely disqualifying for the truly important business of making a man's way into life 2 If I am not much mistaken, my gallant young friend, A******, is very much under these disqualifica- tions; and for the young females of a family I could mention, well may they excite parental soli- citude, for I, a common acquaintance, or as my vanity will have it, an humble friend, have often trembled for a turn of mind which may render them eminently happy—or peculiarly miserable ! I have been manufacturing some verses lately; to transcribe any thing that may show how much I have the honour to be, Madam, Yours, &c. R. B. NO. CXCI. TO COLLECTOR, MITCHELL. ELLISLAND, 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 rather, that my poor jackass- skeleton of a horse has let me down; for the miserable devil has been on his knees half a score of times within the last twenty miles, telling me in his 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 has so many great men to espouse his cause, that I shall not be surprised if I am not committed to the strong hold of the lawto-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 R. B. NO. CXCII. TO DR MOORE. ExCISE-OFFICE, DUMFRIES, 14TH JULY, 1790. SIR, CoMING into town this morning, to attend my duty in this office, it being collection-day, I met with a gentleman who tells me he is on his way to London; so I take the opportunity of writing to you, as franking is at present under a tempo- rary 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 * * * * | 2 ſ but as I have got the most hurried season of as miscellaneous as a newspaper, as short as a | % 9. Excise business over, I hope to have more leisure hungry grace-before-meat, or as long as a law- (Ö - º 252 O &- º (3) & ººzºº isºzºit T ~~~~–3×CŞ-2 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. * cº ſ ) º John's billet-doux, or as unsightly a scrawl as Betty Byre-Mucker's answer to it; I hope, con- sidering circumstances, you will forgive it; and as it will put you to no expense of postage, I shall have the less reflection about it. I am sadly ungrateful in not returning you my thanks for your most valuable present, Zeluco. In fact, you are in some degree blameable for my neglect. You were pleased to express a wish for my opinion of the work, which so flattered me, that nothing less could serve my over-weening fancy, than a formal criticism on the book. In fact, I have gravely planned a comparative view of you, Fielding, Richardson, and Smollett, in your different qualities and merits as novel- writers. This, I own, betrays my ridiculous vanity, and I may probably never bring the busi- ness to bear; but I am fond of the spirit young Elihu shows in the book of Job—“And I said, I will also declare my opinion.” I have quite dis- figured my copy of the book with my annotations. I never take it up without at the same time tak- ing my pencil, and marking with asterisms, paren- theses, &c. wherever I meet with an original thought, a nervous remark on life and manners, a remarkable well-turned period, or a character sketched with uncommon precision. Though I should hardly think of fairly writing out my “Comparative View,” I shall certainly trouble you with my remarks, such as they are. I have just received from my gentleman that horrid summons in the book of Revelation— “That time shall be no more l’’ The little collection of sonnets have some charming poetry in them. If indeed I am indebted to the fair author for the book, and not, as I rather suspect, to a celebrated author of the other sex, I should certainly have written to the lady, with my grateful acknowledgments, and my own 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. R. B. 1 A copy of Charlotte Smith's Sonnets had been sent him. This lady was born in 1749, and married, at a very early age, a West India merchant, whose imprudence, aggravated (if we are to believe the allusions of his wife in her fictitious narra- tives) by legal chicanery, ultimately dissipated the whole of a once handsome property, and consigned its former possessor to a prison. In this melancholy situation, his wife dedicated her talents to the support of her husband and family. Her prin- cipal novels are her Romance of Real Life; Emmeline; Des- mond ; Marchmont; Ethelinda; Old Manor House; Celestina; &c. Much of the latter part of her life was passed in Nor- mandy. She died in England in 1806. Besides the works already mentioned, Mrs Smith wrote several pleasing volumes for young persons, and two volumes of Sonnets. o CY #, V-Yº) paper in the Douglas cause; as ill spelt as country NO. CXCIII. TO MR MURDOCH,2 TEACHER OF FRENCH, LONDON. ELLISLAND, JULY 16th, 1790. MY DEAR SIR, I RECEIVED a letter from you a long time ago, but unfortunately, as it was in the time of my peregrinations and journeying through Scotland, I mislaid or lost it, and by consequence your direction along with it. Luckily my good star brought me acquainted with Mr Kennedy, who, I understand, is an acquaintance of yours: and by his means and mediation I hope to replace that link which my unfortunate negligence had so unluckily broke in the chain of our correspon- dence. I was the more vexed at the vile acci- dent, as my brother William, a journeyman sad- dler, has been for some time in London; and wished above all things for your direction, that he might have paid his respects to his father's friend. His last address he sent me was, “ Wm. Burns, at Mr Barber’s, saddler, No. 181, Strand.” I wrote #}\{C}s 2 * This letter,’ says Cromek, in his Reliques, “was communi- cated to the Editor by a gentleman, to whose liberal advice and information he is much indebted, Mr John Murdoch, the tutor of the poet; accompanied by the following interesting note. * LoN DON, H.ART-STREET, BlooxISBURY, 28th DEC., 1807. * DEAR SIR,-The following letter, which I lately found among my papers, I copy for your perusal, partly because it is Burns's ; partly because it makes honourable mention of my rational Christian friend, his father; and likewise because it is rather flattering to myself. I glory in no one thing so much as an intimacy with good men:—the friendship of others reflects no honour. When I recollect the pleasure, (and I hope benefit,) I received from the conversation of William Burns, 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 ExUBERANT BENEFICENce of THE GREAT CREATo R. But to the letter:— [Here follows the letter relative to young Wm. Burns.] “I promised myself a deal of happiness in the conversation of my dear young friend ; but my promises of this nature gene- rally prove fallacious. Two visits were the utmost that I 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 due to 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 children. They are sooner fit to be reasoned with than is generally thought. Strong and indelible impres- sions are to be made before the mind be agitated and ruffled by the numerous train of distracting cares and unruly 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 them 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 forgetfulness. • JOHN MURDOCH." º 9 ~~~~<>< . ... O J ¥º º ~- X.->3.9 * 5\º) & | *i. TS fº) º (D ~<> S-C ºxº º | º d GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 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 card where and when he will find you, and the poor fellow will joyfully wait on you, as one of the few surviving friends of the man whose name, and Christian name too, he has the honour to bear. The next letter I write you shall be a long one. I have much to tell you of “hair-breadth 'scapes in th’ imminent deadly breach,” with all the eventful history of a life, the early years of which owed so much to your kind tutorage; but this at an hour of leisure. My kindest compli- ments to Mrs Murdoch and family. I am ever, my dear Sir, Your obliged friend, R. B. 1 NO. CXCIV. TO MR. M*MURDO. ELLISLAND, 2d AUGUST, 1790. SIR, Now that you are over with the sirens of Flat- tery, the harpies of Corruption, and the furies of Ambition, these infernal deities, that on all sides, and in all parties, preside over the villanous busi- ness 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, R. B. CXCV. TO MRS DUNLOP. 8th AUGUST, 1790. DEAR MADAM, AFTER a long day’s toil, plague, and care, I sit down to write you. Ask me not why I have delayed it so long’ It was owing to hurry, indo- lence, and fifty other things; in short, to any thing —but forgetfulness of la plus aimable de son sease. By the bye, 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 inti- mate acquaintance of yours, has given my feelings a wound that I perceive will gangrene dange- rously ere it cure.” He has wounded my pride R. B. NO. CXCVI. TO MR ALEX. CUNNINGHAM. ELLISLAND, 8th AUGUST, 1790. FORGIVE me, my once dear, and ever dear, friend, my seeming negligence. You cannot sit down and fancy the busy life I lead. 1 To the above letter, Mr Murdoch returned the following 3IlSWe]" . - “HART-STREET, BLOOMSBURY SQUARE, * LoNDON, SEPTEMBER 14th, 1790. “MY DEAR FRIEND, ‘You Rs of the 16th of July, I received on the 26th, in the afternoon, per favour of my friend Mr Kennedy, and at the same time was informed that your brother was ill. Being engaged in business till late that evening, I set out next morn- ing to see him, and had thought of three or four medical gen- tlemen of my acquaintance, to one or other of whom I might apply for advice, provided it should be necessary. But when I went to Mr Barber's, to my great astonishment and heart- felt grief I found that my young friend had, on Saturday, bid an everlasting farewell to all sublunary things.-It was about a fortnight before that he had found me out, by Mr Stevenson's accidentally calling at my shop to buy something. We had only one interview, and that was highly entertaining to me in several respects. He mentioned some instruction I had given him when very young, to which he said he owed, in a great measure, the philanthropy he possessed. He also took notice of my exhorting you all, when I wrote, about eight years ago, to the man who, of all mankind that I ever knew, stood highest in my esteem, ‘not to let go your integrity.’ You may easily conceive that such conversation was both pleasing and encou- raging to me: I anticipated a deal of rational happiness from future conversations. Vain are our expectations and hopes. They are so almost always—perhaps (nay, certainly) for our good. Were it not for disappointed hopes, we could hardly spend a thought on another state of existence, or be in any degree reconciled to the quitting of this. I know of no one Source of consolation to those who have lost young relatives equal to that of their being of a good disposition, and of a pro- mising character. % }: % % % 3% X: “Be assured, my dear friend, that I cordially sympathize with you all, and particularly with Mrs Wm. Burness, who is undoubtedly one of the most tender and affectionate mothers that ever lived. Remember me to her in the most friendly manner, when you see her, or write. Please present my best compliments to Mrs R. Burns, and to your brother and sisters. There is no occasion for me to exhort you to filial duty; and to use your united endeavours in rendering the evening of life as comfortable as possible to a mother who has dedicated so great a part of it in promoting your temporal and spiritual welfare. ‘Your letter to Dr Moore I delivered at his house, and shall most likely know your opinion of Zelwco, the first time I meet with him. I wish and hope for a long letter. Be particular about your mother's health. I hope she is too much a chris- tian to be afflicted above measure, or to sorrow as those who lave no hope. ‘One of the most pleasing hopes I have is to visit you all; but I am commonly disappointed in what I most ardently wish ſor. ‘I am, dear Sir, yours sincerely, * JOHN MURDOCH.” 2 In this letter, the Poet enclosed his Elegy on the Death of Captain Matthew Henderson. See page 117, vol. i. 3 Who the ‘friend' was, or what the circumstances of the case were, is now unknown. 254 I laid down my goose feather to beat my brains for an apt simile, and had some thought of a country grannum at a family christening; a bride on the market day before her marriage; or a tavern-keeper at an election dinner; but the resemblance that hits my fancy best is, that blackguard miscreant, Satan, who roams about like a roaring lion, seeking, searching whom he may devour. However, tossed about as I am, if I choose (and who would not choose) to bind down with the crampets of attention the brazen foundation of integrity, I may rear up the super- structure of Independence, and from its daring turrets bid defiance to the storms of fate. And is not this a “ consummation devoutly to be wished 7” “Thy spirit, Independence, let me share; Lord of the lion-heart, and eagle-eye Thy steps I follow with my bosom bare, Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky!” Are not these noble verses? They are the introduction of Smollett's Ode to Independence: if you have not seen the poem, I will send it to you.-How wretched is the man that hangs on by the favours of the great! To shrink from every dignity of man, at the approach of a lordly piece of self-consequence, who, amid all his tinsel glitter, and stately hauteur, is but a creature formed as thou art—and perhaps not so well formed as thou art—came into the world a puling infant as thou didst, and must go out of it as all men must, a naked corse. * * * ! R. B. NO. CXCVII. TO DR ANDERSON. 2 1790. 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 homour to ask my assistance in your proposed publication, alas, Sir! you might as well think to 1 ‘The preceding letter to Mrs Dunlop explains the feelings under which this was written. The strain of indignant invee- tive goes on some time longer in the style which our bard was too apt to indulge, and of which the reader has already seen so much.”—CURR1e. 2. “This fragment, first published by Cromek, is placed by him and subsequent editors under 1794, and by Mr Cunningham is supposed to be addressed to Dr Robert Anderson, the editor of the British Poets. We have little doubt that the gentleman addressed was Dr James Anderson, a well-known agricultural and miscellaneous writer, and the editor of a weekly miscellany entitled “The Bee.” This publication was commenced in Edin- burgh, December, 1790, and concluded in January, 1794, when it formed eighteen volumes. The above letter by Burns, from the allusion it makes to his extreme occupation by business, as well as from the bitterness of its tone, seems to have been written in the latter part of 1790, immediately after the Poet had commenced exciseman; it was an answer, probably, to an application for aid in the conduct of “The Bee,” them about to be started. For these reasons, the present editor has shifted its place in the Poet's correspondence.”—CHAMBERs. cate's wig, or humility under the Geneva band. I am a miserable hurried devil, worn to the mar- row 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, tho’ damn'd, I would abhor.” —and except a couplet or two of honest execra- tion ¥: 3& 3: * * 3k 3: R. B. NO. CXCVIII. TO CRAUFORD TAIT, ESQ., EDINBURGH. ELLISLAND, 15TH OCTOBER, 1790, DEAR SIR, * ALLOW me to introduce to your acquaintance the bearer Mr Wm. Duncan, a friend of mine, whom I have long known and long loved. His father, whose only son he is, has a decent little pro- perty in Ayrshire, and has bred the young man to the law, in which department he comes up an adventurer to your good town. I shall give you my friend's character in two words: as to his head, he has talents enough, and more than enough for common life; as to his heart, when nature had kneaded the kindly clay that composes it, she said, “I can no more.” That this is evident will appear by the following Poetical Epistle of Dr Blacklock to the Poet:— ED INBURGH, SEPT. lst, 1790. “How does my dear friend, much I languish to hear, His fortune, relations, 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. Amon 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 this from himself I inclose 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 Muses will claim, A sacrifice due to amusement and fame, The Bee, which sucks honey from ev’ry gay bloom, With some rays of your genius her work may illume, Whilst the flow'r whence her honey spontaneously flows, As fragrantly smells, and as vigorously grows. “Now with kind gratulations 'tis time to conclude, And add, your promotion is here understood ; Thus free from the servile employ of excise, Sir, We hope, soon to hear you commence supervisor: You then, more at leisure, and free from control, May indulge the strong passion that reigns in your soul: 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, Tho' still I remain your affectionate friend, THOMAS BLACKLock.” 255 Cy J () Q. ~~~<> * v- -- O }\ ~~~<> \lº $. -: \ > Sg.Nº 14)NC) - - - - ------ - - ----- - - - - 5&T->~~~~ GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. Earl of Glencairn; the patron from whom all my fame and fortune took its rise. Independent of my grateful attachment to him, which was indeed so strong that it pervaded my very soul, and was entwined with the thread of my existence: so soon as the prince's friends had got in, (and every dog you know has his day,) my getting forward in the excise would have been an easier business than otherwise it will be. Though this was a consummation devoutly to be wished, yet, thank Heaven, I can live and rhyme as I am; and as to my boys, poor little fellows if I cannot place them on as high an elevation in life as I could wish, I shall, if I am favoured so much by the Disposer of events as to see that period, fix them on as broad and independent a basis as possible. Among the many wise adages which have been treasured up by our Scottish ancestors, this is one of the best, Better be the head o’ the commonalty, than the tail o’ the gentry. But I am got on a subject which, however inter- esting 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 sin- cerely I have the honour to be, Yours, &c. R. B. Written on the blank leaf of a book, which I presented to a very young lady, whom I had for- merly characterised under the denomination of The Rose bud. 1 NO. CCVI. TO A. F. TYTLER, ESQ., (LORD WOODHOUSELEE.) ELLISLAND, 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 1 See the ‘Lines to Miss Cruikshank, a very young Lady,’ p. 66, vo! i. 2 The following is the letter to which the above is a reply: “DeAR SIR,--Mr Hill yesterday put into my hands a sheet of ‘Grose's Antiquities,' containing a poem of yours, entitled, ‘Tam o' Shanter,’ a tale. The very high pleasure I have received from the perusal of this admirable piece, I feel, demands the warinest acknowledgments. 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 with you after the recent porusal of your tale, which is, that I feel I owe you a debt, which, if undischarged, would reproach me with ingratitude. I have seldom in my life tasted of higher 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 maine down to posterity 260 the muses entirely new to him, where conse. quently 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 thrilled along the heart-strings of a poor poet. However, Providence, to keep up the proper proportion of evil with the good, which it seems is necessary in this sublunary 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 right arm. As this is the first service my arm has done me since its disaster, I find myself unable to do more than just in general terms thank you for this additional instance of your patronage and friendship. As to the faults you detected in the piece, they 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 be remedied. Your approbation, Sir, has given me such additional spirits to persevere in this species of poetic com- position, that I am already revolving two or three with high reputation. In the introductory part, where you paint the character of your hero, and exhibit him at the ale- house ingle, with his tippling cronies, you have delineated nature with a humour and naivete, that would 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 shaw'd the dead in their last dresses; And by some devilish cantrip slight, Each in his 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 aim son of life bereft ; The grey hairs yet stack to the heft." “Amo 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 limes 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 cir- cumstances of pure horror. The initiation of the young witch is most happily described—the effect of her charms exhibited in the dance of Satan himself—the apostrophe-‘Ah, little thought thy reverend grannie ' -–the transport of Tam, who forgets his situation, and enters completely 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 conclu- sion of the story, is not commensurate to the interest which is excited by the descriptive and characteristic painting of the preceding parts.-The preparation is fine, but the 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 composi.iom 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 naïvete of expression, you have a bolder and more vigorous inmagination.” 0 \O ~~~~ *- 2-S----> > -ſ; ( (cº-S; C 'o (% } e v. f. <--> & & SC) (c s: -- *Å -* - * V s § \\ s sº Ş sº Pºs. * * * §s * , sº GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE, as paradoxical. That the martial clangor of a trumpet had something in it vastly more grand, heroic, and sublime, than the twingle twangle of a Jews—harp : that the delicate flexure of a rose- twig, when the half-blown flower is heavy with the tears of the dawn, was infinitely more beau- tiful and elegant than the upright stub of a bur- dock; and that from something innate and inde- pendent of all associations of ideas;–these I had set down as irrefragable, orthodox truths, until perusing your book shook my faith.--In short, Sir, except Euclid's Elements of Geometry, which I made a shift to unravel by my father's fireside, in the winter evenings of the first season I held the plough, I never read a book which gave me such a quantum of information, and added so much to my stock of ideas, as your “Essays on the Principles of Taste.” One thing, Sir, you must forgive my mentioning as an uncommon merit of the work—I mean the language. To clothe abstract philosophy in elegance of style, sounds something like a contradiction in terms; but you have convinced me that they are quite compa- tible. 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. NO. CCIX. TO THE REV. G. B.A.I.R.D. 1 ELLISLAND, 1791. REVEREND SIR, WHY did you, my dear Sir, write to me in such a hesitating style on the business of poor Bruce 2 Don’t I know, and have I not felt, the many ills, 1 This letter was in answer to the following one from Prin- cipal Baird :— * Los Don, 8TH Feb., 1791. * SIR, ‘I TRouble you with this letter to inform you that I am in hopes of being able very soon to bring to the press a new edi- tion (long since talked of) of Michael Bruce's Poems. The profits of the edition are to go to his mother—a woman of eighty years of age – poor and helpless. The poems are to be published by subscription ; and it may be possible, I think, to make out a 2s. 6d. or 3s. volume, with the assistance of a few hitherto unpublished verses, which I have got from the mother of the poet. “But the design I have in view in writing to you is not merely to inform you of these facts; it is to solicit the aid of your name and pen in support of the scheme. The reputation of Bruce is already high with every reader of classical taste, and I shall be anxious to guard against tarnishing his character, by allowing any new poems to appear that may lower it. For this purpose the MSS. I am in possession of, have been sub- mitted to the revision of sotne whose critical talents I can trust to, and I mean still to submit them to others. the peculiar ills that poetic flesh is heir to ? You shall have your choice of all the unpublished poems I have ; and had your letter had my direc- tion so as to have reached me sooner, (it only came to my hand this moment,) I should have directly put you out of suspense on the subject. I only ask, that some prefatory advertisement in the book, as well as the subscription bills, may bear, that the publication is solely for the benefit of Bruce's mother. I would not put it in the power of ignorance to surmise, or malice to insi- nuate, that I clubbed a share in the work from mercenary motives. Nor need you give me cre- dit for any remarkable generosity in my part of the business. I have such a host of peccadilloes, failings, follies, and backslidings, (any body but myself might perhaps give some of them a worse appellation,) that by way of some balance, however trifling, in the account, I am fain to do any good that occurs in my very limited power to a fellow creature, just for the selfish purpose of clearing a little the vista of retrospection. R. B. NO. CCX. TO MR. ALEX. CUNNINGHAM. ELLISLAND, 12TH 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 ‘May I beg to know, therefore, if you will take the trouble of perusing the MSS.—of giving your opinion, and suggesting What curtailments, alterations, or amendments, occur to you as advisable 2–And will you allow us to let it be known, that a few lines by you will be added to the volume 2 ‘I know the extent of this request. It is bold to make it. But I have this consolation, that though you see it proper to refuse it, you will not blame me for having made it; you will see my apology in the motive. * May I just add, that Michael Bruce is one in whose com- pany, from his past appearance, you would not, I am convinced, blush to be found ; and as I would submit every line of his that should now be published, to your own criticisms, you would be assured that nothing derogatory either to him or you, would be admitted in that appearance he may make in future. ‘You have already paid an honourable tribute to kindred genius in Fergusson—I fondly hope that the mother of Bruce will experience your patronage. ‘I wish to have the subscription paper circulated by the 14th of March, Bruce's birth-day; which I understand some friends in Scotland talk this year of observing—at that time it will be resolved, I imagine, to place a plain humble stone over his grave. This, at least, I trust you will agree to do—to furnish, in a few couplets, an inscription for it. ‘On these points may I solicit an answer as early as possible; a short delay might disappoint us in procuring that relief to the mother, which is the object of the whole. ‘You will be pleased to address for me under cover to the Duke of Athole, London. * G. B.’ 262 Asº Kº N24 Q.1%) .2 \ sº & o'ſ }\99 sº---~~ GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. author will ever view his own works. I believe, in general, novelty has something in it that in- ebriates the fancy, and not unfrequently dissipates and fumes away like other intoxication, and leaves the poor patient, as usual, with an aching heart. A striking instance of this might be adduced, in the revolution of many a hymeneal honeymoon. But lest I sink into stupid prose, and so sacrilegi- ously intrude on the office of my parish priest, I shall fill up the page in my own way, and give you another song of my late composition, which will appear perhaps in Johnson's work, as well as the former. You must know a beautiful Jacobite air, “There’ll never be peace ’till Jamie comes hame.’ When political combustion ceases to be the object of princes and patriots, it then, you know, becomes the lawful prey of historians and poets. “By yon castle wa’ at the close of the day, I heard a man sing, tho' his head it was grey; And as he was singing, the tears fast down came — There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame.”! If you like the air, and if the stanzas hit your fancy, you cannot imagine, my dear friend, how much you would oblige me, if, by the charms of your delightful voice, you would give my honest effusion to “the memory of joys that are past,” to the few friends whom you indulge in that pleasure. But I have scribbled on till I hear the clock has intimated the near approach of “That hour, o' might's black arch the key-stane.” So good night to you ! Sound be your sleep, and delectable your dreams! - Apropos, how do you like this thought in a ballad I have just now on the tapis 2 “I look to the west when I gae to rest, That happy my dreams and my slumbers may be: Far, far in the west is he I lo'e best, The lad that is dear to my babie and me!” Good night once more, and God bless you ! R. B. NO, CCXI. TO MR ALEXANDER DALZEL,” FACTOR, FINDLAYSTON. ELLISLAND, 19TH MARCH, 1791. MY DEAR SIR, I HAVE taken the liberty to frank this letter to you, as it incloses 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. Not that this is my own opinion; but the author, by i 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 Imelancholy event. God lºnows what I have suffered, at the loss of my best friend, my first and dearest patron and bene- factor; 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 mother 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 see 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 2 It will oblige me beyond expression. R. B. No. CCXII. TO MRS GRAHAM, OF FINTRAY. ELLISLAND, 1791. MADAM, WHETHER it is that the story of our Mary Queen of Scots has a peculiar effect on the feel- ings of a poet, or whether I have in the inclosed ballad 3 succeeded beyond my usual poetic success, I know not; but it has pleased me beyond any effort of my muse for a good while past; on that account I inclose 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 what, in the wsual 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 with- out 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 any thing injuri- ous to the honest fame of the former. Whatever may be my failings—for failings are a part of human Q 1 See page 38. 2 Mr Dalzel was factor to Lord Glencairn, and this letter chiefly relates to the death of that nobleman. 3 See page 124, vol. i. 263 ~–2-ºxº GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. nature—may they ever be those of a generous heart, and an independent mind! It is no fault of mine that I was born to dependence; nor is it Mr Graham's chiefest praise that he can com- mand influence; but it is his 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. NO, CCXIII. TO MRS DUNLOP. ELLISLAND, 11TH APRIL, 1791. I AM once more able, my honoured friend, to return you, with my own hand, thanks for the many instances of your friendship, and particularly for your kind anxiety in this last disaster that my evil genius had in store for me. However, life is chequered—joy and sorrow—for on Saturday morning last, Mrs Burns made me a present of a fine boy; rather stouter, but not so handsome as your godson was at his time of life. Indeed I look on your little namesake to be my chef d’aeuvre in that species of manufacture, as I look on Tam o' Shanter to be my standard performance in the poetical line. 'Tis true, both the one and the other discover a spice of roguish waggery, that might perhaps be as well spared; but then they also show, in my opinion, a force of genius, and a finishing polish, that I despair of ever excelling. Mrs Burns is getting stout again, and laid as lustily about her to-day at breakfast, as a reaper from the corn-ridge.] That is the peculiar privilege and blessing of our hale, sprightly damsels, that are bred among the hay and heather. We can- not hope for that highly polished mind, that charming delicacy of soul, which is found among the female world in the more elevated stations of life, and which is certainly by far the most bewitching charm in the famous cestus of Venus. 2 It is indeed such an inestimable treasure, that where it can be had in its native heavenly purity, unstained by some one or other of the many shades of affectation, and unalloyed by some one or other of the many species of caprice, I declare to Heaven, I should think it cheaply purchased at the expense of every other earthly good! But as this angelic creature is, I am afraid, extremely rare in any station and rank of life, and totally denied to such an humble one as mine, we meaner mortals must put up with the next rank of female excellence— as fine a figure and face we can produce as any rank of life whatever; rustic, native grace; unaffected modesty and unsullied purity; nature's mother-wit, and the rudiments of taste; a simpli- city of soul, unsuspicious of, because unacquainted with, the crooked ways of a selfish, interested, disingenuous world; and the dearest charm of all the rest, a yielding sweetness of disposition, and a generous warmth of heart, grateful for love on our part, and ardently glowing with a more than equal return; these, with a healthy frame, a sound, vigorous constitution, which your higher ranks can scarcely ever hope to enjoy, are the charms of lovely woman in my humble walk of life. This is the greatest effort my broken arm has yet made. Do let me hear, by first post, how cher petit Monsieur comes on with his small-pox. May Almighty goodness preserve and restore him! R. B. NO, CCXIV. TO —. ELLISLAND, 1791. 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 matri- culate in the herald's office, I intend that my sup- porters shall be two sloths, my crest a slow-worm, and the motto, “De’il 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;3 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. No. CCXV. TO —.4 ELLISLAND, 1791. THOU eunuch of language: thou Englishman, who never was south the Tweed: thou servile echo of fashionable barbarisms: thou quack, vend- º'ſ, SS1 2. - ‘A’ ºf X, \ , Y & tº ºx (C/ ſ? G tº-> /* | * *...* 2° -- Yºº-rº – ~->~} ºv. º % \} 1 The birth took place only two days before. The child was named William Nicol, after the teacher in Edinburgh—he with the ‘inknee’d soul,” as Burns described him. 2 Homer's description of the Cestus of Venus is thus versified by Pope :- “In this was every art and every charm, To win the wisest, and the coldest warm ; Fond love, the gentle vow, the gay desire, The kind deceit, the still-reviving fire; Persuasive speech, and more persuasive sighs, Silence that spoke, and eloquence of eyes.” 3 Viz. The Lament of Mary Queen of Scots. 4 This strange letter is supposed to have been addressed to some one who had taken him to task about his rhymes and grammar. () gºſº 3.º & SC޺ & 2: º 3. & * & Y º ; º GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. º: fy} on the Gretna-green of caprice: thou cobler, botching the flimsy socks of bombast oratory: thou blacksmith, hammering the rivets of absurdity: thou butcher, embruing thy hands in the bowels of Orthography: thou arch-heretic in pronuncia- tion: thou pitch-pipe of affected emphasis: thou carpenter, mortising the awkward joints of jarring sentences: thou squeaking dissonance of cadence: thou pimp of gender: thou Lyon Herald to silly etymology: thou antipode of grammar: thou exe- cutioner 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 fatwus, misleading the steps of benighted ignorance: thou pickle- herring in the puppet-show of nonsense: thou faithful recorder of barbarous idiom: thou perse- cutor of syllabication: thou baleful meteor, fore- telling and facilitating the rapid approach of Nox and Erebus. R. B. NO, CCXVI. TO MR ALEX. CUNNINGHAM. 11TII JUNE, 1791. LET me interest you, my dear Cunningham, in behalf of the gentleman who waits on you with this. He is a Mr Clarke, of Moffat, principal schoolmaster there, and is at present suffering severely under the persecution of one or two powerful individuals of his employers. He is accused of harshness to boys that were placed under his care. God help the teacher, if a man of sensibility and genius, and such is my friend Clarke, when a booby father presents him with his booby son, and insists on lighting up the rays of science, in a fellow's head whose skull is imper- vious and inaccessible by any other way than a positive fracture with a cudgel: a fellow whom, in fact, it savours of impiety to attempt making a scholar of, as he has been marked a blockhead in the book of fate, at the Almighty fiat of his Creator. - The patrons of Moffat-school are, the ministers, magistrates, and town-council of Edinburgh, and as the business comes now before them, let me beg my dearest friend to do every thing in his power to serve the interests of a man of genius and worth, and a man whom I particularly respect and esteem. You know some good fellows among the magistracy and council, but particularly you marriage-maker between vowels and consonants, 265 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 his- torian of Charles V. I tell him through the medium of his nephew's influence, that Mr Clarke is a gentleman who will not disgrace even his patronage. I know the merits of the cause tho- roughly, and say it, that my friend is falling a sacrifice to prejudiced ignorance. God help the children of dependence! Hated and persecuted by their enemies, and too often, alas! almost unexceptionably, received by their friends with disrespect and reproach, under the thin disguise of cold civility and humiliating advice. O! to be a sturdy savage, stalking in the pride of his independence, amid the solitary wilds of his deserts, rather than in civilized life, helplessly to tremble for a subsistence, precarious as the Caprice of a fellow-creature! Every man has his virtues, and no man is without his failings; and curse on that privileged plain-dealing of friendship, which, in the hour of my calamity, cannot reach forth the helping hand, without, at the same time, pointing out those failings, and apportioning them their share in procuring my present distress. My friends, for such the world calls ye, and such ye think yourselves to be, pass by my virtues if you please, but do, also, spare my follies: the first will witness in my breast for themselves, and the last will give pain enough to the ingenuous mind without you. And since deviating more or less from the paths of propriety and rectitude must be incident to human nature, do thou, Fortune, put it in my power, always from myself, and of myself, to bear the consequence of those errors! I do not want to be independent that I may sin, but I want to be independent in my sinning. To return in this rambling letter to the subject I set out with, let me recommend my friend, Mr Clarke, to your acquaintance and good offices; his worth entitles him to the one, and his grati- tude will merit the other. I long much to hear from you. Adieu! - R. P. NO. CCXVII. TO THE EARL OF BUCHAN. ELLISLAND, 1791. MIY LORD, * LANGUAGE sinks under the ardour of my feel- ings when I would thank your lordship for the honour you have done me in inviting me to make one at the coronation of the bust of Thomson. 2 | i e | 1 Mr Cunningham was nephew to Dr Robertson. | 2 The invitation was couched in the following terms: 2 L ğ. fr r 24”. ¥º (3 3) Q --------- -- - - - - - ------ –26.4% Tº jº ^º &T C* -- Ež º º sº Sºº Q? Y\ \- © &\}; ing the nostrums of cmpirical elocution: thou Z-S II. GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. } ; % and will, they hope, be executed in the manner proposed.” 2 % 1 See Address to the Shade of Thomson, page 125, vol. i. C) fº/, §3) 2 --~ 2: Nº S.2ſº 3- G -2s º º, \,” 23. º/ <2/" &_2 O C \º , , , ºr * 32-2–~ J -}^- --" ~~ jº ------ In my first enthusiasm in reading the card you did me the honour to write me, I overlooked every obstacle, and determined to go; but I fear it will not be in my power. A week or two's absence, in the very middle of my harvest, is what I much doubt I dare not venture on. I once already made a pilgrimage wºo the whole course of the Tweed, and fondly would I take the same delightful journey down the windings of that delightful stream. Your lordship hints at an ode for the occasion: but who would write after Collins? I read over his verses to the memory of Thomson, and despaired.—I got indeed to the length of three or four stanzas, in the way of address to the shade of the bard, on crowning his bust. I shall trouble your lordship with the subjoined copy of them, 1 which, I am afraid, will be but too con- vincing a proof how unequal I am to the task. However, it affords me an opportunity of approach- ing your lordship, and declaring how sincerely and gratefully I have the honour to be, &c. R. B. NO. CCXVIII. TO MR. THOMAS SLOAN. ELLISLAND, SEPT. IsT, 1791. MY DEAR SLOAN, SUSPENSE is worse than disappointment; for that reason I hurry to tell you that I just now learn that Mr Ballantine does not choose to inter- fere 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 ad- dress. However you know equally well, my hurried life, indolent temper, and strength of attachment. It must be a longer period than the longest life ‘DRYBURGH ABBey, JUNE 17th, 1791. ‘LoRD BUCHAN has the pleasure to invite Mr Burns to make one at the coronation of the bust of Thomson, on Ednam Hill, on the 22nd of September; for which day perhaps his muse may inspire an ode suited to the occasion. Suppose Mr Burns should, leaving the Nith, go across the country, and meet the Tweed at the nearest point from 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 Dryburgh. There the Commendator will give him a hearty welcome, and try to light his lamp at the pure flame of native genius, upon the altar of Caledonian virtue. This poetical perambulation of the Tweed is a thought of the late Sir Gilbert Elliot, and of Lord Minto, followed out by his accomplished grandson, the present Sir Gilbert, who having been with Lord Buchan lately, the project was renewed, 66 “in the world's hale and undegenerate days,” that will make me forget so dear a friend as Mr Sloan. I am prodigal enough at times, but I will not part with such a treasure as that. I can easily enter into the embarras of your present situation. You know my favourite quota- tion from Young— --- “On Reason build Resolve : That column of true majesty in man.”— And that other favourite one from Thomson's Alfred— “What proves the hero truly GREAT, Is, never, never to despair.” Or, shall I quote you an author of your acquain- tance 2 — “Whether DoING, SUFFERING, or ForbeariNG, You may do miracles by—Persevering.” I have nothing new to tell you. The few friends we have are going on in the old way. I sold my crop on this day se’enight, and sold it very well. A guinea an acre, on an average, above value. But such a scene of drunkenness was hardly ever seen in this country. After the roup was over, about thirty people engaged in a battle, every man for his own hand, and fought it out for three hours. Nor was the scene much better in the house. No fighting, indeed, but folks lying drunk on the floor, and decanting, until both my dogs got so drunk by attending them, that they could not stand. You will easily guess how I enjoyed the scene; as I was no farther over than you used to see me. Mrs B. and family have been in Ayrshire these many weeks. Farewell! and God bless you, my dear friend! R. B. No. CCXIX. TO COLONEL FULLARTON,2 OF FULLARTON. ELLISLAND, OCTOBER 3D, 1791. SIR, I HAVE just this moment got the frank, and next minute must send it to post, else I proposed to have sent you two or three other bagatelles that might have amused a vacant hour, about as well as “Six excellent new songs,” or the “Aber- deen prognostications for the year to come.” I shall probably trouble you soon with another 2 Colonel Fullarton, it will be remembered, is honourably mentioned in ‘The Vision.” This letter was addressed to him When resident in England. It first appeared in the Paisley Magazine, 1828. GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. packet, about the gloomy month of November, when the people of England hang and drown themselves—any thing 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 adven- titious advantages of princely connections, and princely fortunes, must yet, like the caterpillar, labour a whole life-time before they reach the wished-for height, there to roost a stupid chry- salis, 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 remembered to him. I have the honour to be, Your highly obliged and most devoted humble servant, R. B. NO, CCXX. TO LADY E. CUNNINGHAM. 2 MY LADY, I WOULD, as usual, have availed myself of the privilege your goodness has allowed me, of send- ing you any thing I compose in my poetical way; but as I had resolved, so soon as the shock of my irreparable loss would allow me, to pay a tribute to my late benefactor, I determined to make that the first piece I should do myself the honour of sending you. Had the wing of my fancy been equal to the ardour of my heart, the inclosed had been much more worthy your perusal: as it is, I beg leave to lay it at your ladyship's feet.8 As all the world knows my obligations to the late Earl of Glencairn, I would wish to show as openly, that my heart glows, and 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 lordship's memory, were not the “mockery of woe.” Nor shall my grati- tude perish with me !—If, among my children, I shall have a son that has a heart, he shall hand it l Meaning, belonging to the same county, Ayrshire. 2 Sister of the Earl of Glencairn. married in August, 1804. 3 Lament for James Earl of Glencairn. Her ladyship died un- See p. 126, vol. i. down to his child as a family honour, and a family debt, that my dearest existence I owe to the noble house of Glencairn I was about to say, my lady, that if you think the poem may venture to see the light, I would, in some way or other, give it to the world. R. B. NO. CCXXI. TO MR. A.INSLIE. ELLISLAND, 1791. MY DEAR AINSLIE, CAN you minister to a mind diseased ? can you, amid the horrors of penitence, regret, remorse, head-ache, nausea, and all the rest of the damned hounds of hell, that beset a poor wretch who has been guilty of the sin of drunkenness—can you speak peace to a troubled soul ? Miserable perdu that I am, I have tried every thing that used to amuse me, but in vain: here must I sit, a monument of the vengeance laid up in store for the wicked, slowly counting every chick of the clock as it slowly, slowly, numbers Over these lazy scoundrels of hours, who, damn them, are ranked up before me, every one at his neighbour's backside, and everyone with a burthen of anguish on his back, to pour on my devoted head—and there is none to pity me. My wife scolds me, my business torments me, and my sins come staring me in the face, every one telling a more bitter tale than his fellow.—When I tell you even " " " has lost its power to please, you will guess something of my hell within, and all around me.—I began Elibanks and Elibraes, but the stanzas fell unenjoyed and unfinished from my listless tongue: at last I luckily thought of read- ing 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 exis- tence. Well—I begin to breathe a little, since I began to write to you. How are you, and what are you doing 3 How goes Law 2 Apropos, for connexion's sake, do not address to me super- visor, for that is an honour I cannot pretend to— I am on the list, as we call it, for a supervisor, and will be called out by and bye to act as one; but at present, I am a simple gauger, tho’ tºother day I got an appointment to an excise division of £25 per ammum better than the rest. My present income, down money, is £70 per annum. I have one or two good fellows here whom you would be glad to know. R. B. alſº O.) ~~< .* * Nº. § *º *s -* º 9& Č C - - ©! * #. $2' V. …” Ås i; } *** z \- Q) GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. (, Ç: sº - -, -— XT ty r) NO, CCXXII. TO MISS DAVIES. 1 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 sin- ners; I mean a torpitude of the moral powers, that may be called a lethargy of conscience. —In vain Remorse rears her horrent crest, and rouses all her snakes: beneath the deadly-fixed eye and leaden hand of Indolence, their wildest ire is charmed into the torpor of the bat, slumbering out the rigours of winter in the chink of a ruined wall. Nothing less, Madam, could have made me so long neglect your obliging commands. Indeed, l “Those who remember the pleasing society which, in the year 1791, Dumfries afforded, cannot have forgotten “the charming lovely Davies’’ of the lyrics of Burns. Her maiden name was Deborah, and she was the youngest daughter of Dr Davies of Tenby in Pembroke-shire; between her and the Riddels of Friars Carse there were ties of blood or friendship, and her eldest sister, Harriet, was married to Captain Adam Gordon, of the noble family of Kenmure. Her education was Superior to that of most young ladies of her station of life; she was equally agreeable and witty; her company was much courted in Nithsdale, and others than Burns respected her talents in poetic composition. She was then in her twentieth year, and so little and so handsome, that some one, who desired to compliment her, welcomed her to the Vale of Nith as one of the Graces in miniature. It was the destiny of Miss Davies to become acquainted with Captain Delany, a pleasant and sightly man, who made himself acceptable to her by sympathizing in her pursuits, and by writing Verses to her, calling her his “Stella,” an ominous name, which might have brought the memory of Swift's un- happy 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 regiment was called abroad—he went with it; she heard from him once and no more, and was left to mourn the change of affection—to droop and die. He perished in battle or by a foreign climate, soon after the death of the young lady of whose love he was unworthy. 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, “Next to thyself, 'tis all on earth Thy Stella dear doth hold, The glass is clouded with my breath, And as my bosom cold : That bosom which so oft has glowed With love and friendship's name, Where you the seed of love first sowed That kindled into flame. w “You there neglected let it burn; It seized the vital part, And left my bosom as an urn To hold a broken heart. I once had thought I should have been A tender happy wife, And past my future days serene With thee, my James, through life.” The information contained in this note was obligingly com- municated by H. P. Davies, Esq., nephew of the lady."—CUN- NING HAMI. 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 down- right mockery of these ardent feelings; ’tis like an impertinent jest to a dying friend. Gracious Heaven why this disparity between our wishes and our powers ? Why is the most generous wish to make others blest, impotent and ineffectual—as the idle breeze that crosses the pathless desert Ž In my walks of life I have met with a few people to whom how gladly would I have said—“Go, be happy I know that your hearts have been wounded by the scorn of the proud, whom accident has placed above you—or worse still, in whose hands are, perhaps, placed many of the comforts of your life. But there ! ascend that rock, Independence, and look justly down on their littleness of soul. Make the worthless tremble under your indignation, and the foolish sink before your contempt; and largely impart that happiness to others which, I am certain, will give yourselves so much pleasure to bestow.” Why, dear Madam, must I wake from this delightful reverie, and find it all a dream : Why, amid my generous enthusiasm, must I find myself poor and powerless, incapable of wiping one tear from the eye of pity, or of adding one comfort to the friend I love —Out upon the world ! say I, that its affairs are administered so ill ! They talk of reform;-good Heaven what a reform would I make among the sons, and even the daughters of men —Down, immediately, should go fools from the high places where misbegotten chance has perked them up, and through life should they skulk, ever haunted by their native insignificance, as the body marches accompanied by its shadow. —As for a much more formidable class, the knaves, I am at a loss what to do with them: had I a world, there should not be a knave in it. But the hand that could give, I would liberally fill: and I would pour delight on the heart that could kindly forgive, and generously love. Still the inequalities of life are, among men, comparatively tolerable—but there is a delicacy, a tenderness, accompanying every view in which we can place lovely Woman, that are grated and shocked at the rude, capricious distinctions of Fortune. Womanisthe blood-royaloflife: letthere be slight degrees of precedency among them—but let them be ALL sacred—Whether this last senti- ment be right or wrong, I am not accountable: it is an original component feature of my mind. R. B. º & º > I had one apology—the bagatelle was not worth Te § GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. NO. CCXXIII. TO MRS DUNLOP. ELLISLAND, 177H DEC., 1791. MANY thanks to you, Madam, for your good newsrespecting the little floweret and the mother- plant. I hope my poetic prayers have been heard, and will be answered up to the warmest sincerity of their fullest extent; and then Mrs Henri will find her little darling the representative of his late parent, in every thing but his abridged existence. I have just finished the following song, which, to a lady, the descendant of Wallace, and many heroes of his truly illustrious line—and herself the mother of several soldiers, needs neither pre- face nor apology. “SCENE–a field of battle—time of the day, even- ing; the wounded and dying of the victorious army are supposed to join in the following SONG OF DEATH. Farewell, thou fair day, thou green earth, and ye skies, Now gay with the bright setting sun; Farewell, loves and friendships, ye dear, tender ties— Our race of existence is run '' I The circumstance that gave rise to the fore- going 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 Diew je vows commende. R. B. NO, CCXXIV. TO MR WILLIAM SMELLIE, PRINTER.2 DUMFRIES, 22D JAN., 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 taskſ 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 fore. ground of lis picture, while men of sense and honesty are too often thrown in the dimmest shades. Mrs Riddel, 3 who will take this letter to town with her, and send it to you, is a charac- ter 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 lady- poetesses of the day. She is a great admirer of your book; 4 and, hearing me say that I was acquainted with you, she begged to be known to you, as she is just going to pay her first visit to our Caledonian capital. I told her that her best way was, to desire her near relation, and your intimate friend, Craigdarroch, to have you at his house while she was there; and lest you might think of a lively West Indian girl of eighteen,” as girls of eighteen too often deserve to be thought of, I should take care to remove that prejudice. To be impartial, however, in appreciating the lady's merits, she has one unlucky failing: a fail- ing which you will easily discover, as she seems rather pleased with indulging in it; and a failing that you will easily pardon, as it is a sin which very much besets yourself;-where she dislikes, or despises, she is apt to make no more a secret of it, than where she esteems and respects. I will not present you with the unmeaning compliments of the season, but I will send you my warmest wishes and most ardent prayers, that ForTUNE may never throw your SUBSIS- TENCE to the mercy of a RNAVE, or set your CHARACTER on the judgment of a FOOL ; but that, upright and erect, you may walk to an honest grave, where men of letters shall say, “PIere lies a man who did honour to science,” and men of worth shall say, “Here lies a man who did honour to human nature.” R. B. NO. CCXXV. TO MR PETER HILL, BOOKSELLER, EDINBURGH. . DUMFRIES, FEB. 5TH, 1792. MY DEAR FRIEND, I SEND you by the bearer, (Mr Clark, a par- ticular friend of mine), six pounds and a shilling, which you will dispose of as follows:–Five 3 Mrs Riddel of Woodleigh Park, near Dumfries. We have already in more than one note had occasion to allude to this lady. See p. 128, v.i. 132, v.ii. &c. She must mot be confounded with Mrs Riddel of Friars Carse. : 1 See page 50. 4 Viz. The Philosophy of Natural History. ſ 2 See Epigram and Note, p. 141, vol. i. 5 Mrs Riddel was a native of the West Indies. 2-tº-S 269 Sº () \O R, ºr; 2-SO) Sº SY's § {−9 Tºkº–--- >~~~~ S-33 s “sº * W r ( £), ** GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. pounds ten shillings, per account, I owe Mr R. Burn, architect, for erecting the stone over the grave of poor Fergusson. He was two years in erecting it, after I had commissioned him for it; and I have been two years in paying him, after he sent me his account; so he and I are quits. He had the hardiesse to ask me interest on the sum ; but, considering that the money was due by one Poet for putting a tomb-stone over the grave of another, he may, with grateful surprise, thank Heaven that ever he saw a farthing of it. With the remainder of the money pay yourself for the “Office of a Messenger,’ that I bought of you; and send me by Mr Clark a note of its price. Send me, likewise, the fifth volume of the ‘Observer, by Mr Clark; and if any money remain let it stand to account. My best compliments to Mrs Hill. I sent you a maukim by last week's fly, which I hope you received. Yours most sincerely, R. B.] No. CCXXVI. TO MR WILLIAM NICOL. 2 20TH 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, wrong-headed, round- headed slave, indebted to thy super-eminent goodness, that from the luminous path of thy own right-lined rectitude, thou lookest benignly down on an erring wretch, of whom the zig-zag wanderings defy all the powers of calculation, from the simple calculation of units, up to the hidden mysteries of fluxions ! May one feeble ray of that light of wisdom which darts from thy sensorium, straight as the arrow of heaven, and Bright as the meteor of inspiration, may it be my portion, so that I may be less unworthy of the face and favour of that father of proverbs and master of maxims, that antipode of folly, and magnet among the sages, the wise and witty Willie Nicol Amen | Amen Yea, so be it! For me ! I am 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 pesti- 1 The original of this letter was in the possession of the late George H. King, Esq., Glasgow, who died in January, 1840. 2 This ironical rhapsody was in answer to a letter from Nicol containing some good advice, which Burns thought did not come well off his hands. ferous dungeon, to the cloudless glory of a sum- mer sun! Sorely sighing in bitterness of soul, I say, when shall my name be the quotation of the wise, and my countenance be the delight of the godly, like the illustrious lord of Laggan's many hills 23 As for him, his works are perfect: never did the pen of calumny blur the fair page of his reputation, nor the bolt of hatred fly at his dwelling. Thou mirror of purity, when shall the elfine lamp of my glimmerous understanding, purged from sensual appetites and gross desires, shine like the constellation of thy intellectual powers. —As for thee, thy thoughts are pure, and thy lips are holy. Never did the unhallowed breath of the powers of darkness, and the pleasures of darkness, pollute the sacred flame of thy sky- descended and heaven-bound desires: never did the vapours of impurity stain the unclouded serene of thy cerulean imagination. O that like thine were the tenor of my life, like thine the tenor of my conversation!—then should no friend fear for my strength, no enemy rejoice in my weakness . Then should I lie down and rise up, and none to make me afraid.—May thy pity and thy prayer be exercised for, O thou lamp of wis- dom and mirror of morality! thy devoted slave, R. B. NO. CCXXVII, TO FRANCIS GROSE, ESQ. F.S.A.4 DUMFRIES, 1792. 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 enjoys the luxury of unencumbered freedom and undisturbed privacy, is not perhaps recommendation enough :—but when I inform you that Mr Stewart's principal characteristic is 3 Nicol possessed a small estate on the river Nith, called Laggan, to which he retreated during his school vacations, and where the orgies celebrated in “Willie brew’d a peck o' Maut' were held. See p. 34. 4 We have already given a biographical notice of Grose, p. 113, v.i. In the introduction to his “Antiquities of Scotland,” he acknowledges his obligations to Burns in the following para- graph, some of the terms of which will scarcely fail to amuse the modern reader:— “To my ingenious friend, Mr Robert Burns, I have been seriously obligated ; he was not only at the pains of making out what was most worthy of notice in Ayr-shire, the country honoured by his birth, but he also wrote, expressly for this work, the pretty tale annexed to Alloway Church." This “pretty tale” being “Tam o'Shanter!” 22 270 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. | your favourite feature; that sterling independ- ence of mind, which, though every man's right, so few men have the courage to claim, and fewer still the magnanimity to support:-When I tell you, that unseduced by splendour, and undis- gusted by wretchedness, he appreciates the merits of the various actors in the great drama of life, 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 house, Catrine, is within less than a mile of Sorn Castle, which you proposed visiting ; or if you could transmit him the inclosed, he would with the greatest pleasure meet you any where in the neighbourhood. promise. Should your time and spirits permit 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 great admirer, And very humble servant, R. B. NO. CCXXVIII. TO THE SAME. I DUMFRIES, 1792. AMONG the many witch stories I have heard, relating to Alloway kirk, I distinctly remember only two or three. I write to Ayrshire to inform Mr Stewart that I have acquitted myself of my from Carrick, and consequently whose way lay ously drunk at the smithy, I will not pretend to %2 determine; but so it was, that he ventured to go up to, may into the very kirk. As luck would have it, his temerity came off unpunished. The members of the infernal junto were all out on some midnight business or other, and he saw nothing but a kind of kettle or caldron, depend- ing from the roof, over the fire, simmering some heads of unchristened children, limbs of executed malefactors, &c., for the business of the night.— ſ 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. l Another story, which I can prove to be equally authentic, was as follows: On a market day in the town of Ayr, a farmer by the very gate of Alloway kirk-yard, in order to cross the river Doon at the old bridge, which is about two or three hundred yards farther on than the said gate, had been detained by his busi- ness, till by the time he reached Alloway it was the wizard hour, between night and morning. Though he was terrified with a blaze streaming from the kirk, yet as it is a well-known fact that to turn back on these occasions is running by far the greatest risk of mischief, he prudently advanced on his road. When he had reached the gate of the kirk-yard, he was surprised and entertained, through the ribs and arches of an old gothic win- dow, which still faces the highway, to see a dance Upon a stormy night, amid whistling squalls of wind, and bitter blasts of hail; in short, on such a night as the devil would choose to take the air in; a farmer or farmer's servant was plodding and plashing homeward with his plough-irons on his shoulder, having been getting some repairs on i t his acquaintance and neighbourhood. How the | of witches merrily footing it round their old sooty blackguard master, who was keeping them all alive with the power of his bag-pipe. The farmer, stopping his horse to observe them a little, could plainly descry the faces of many old women of them at a neighbouring smithy. His way lay by | gentleman was dressed tradition does not say: the kirk of Alloway, and being rather on the but that the ladies were all in their smocks: and anxious look-out in approaching a place so well 9* of them happening unluckily to have a smock known to be a favourite haunt of the devil and the which was considerably too short to answer all devil's friends and emissaries, he was struck the purpose of that piece of dress, our farmer WàS aghast by discovering, through the horrors of the $9 tickled, that he involuntarily burst ºut with a storm and stormy night, a light, which on his loud laugh, “Weel luppen, Maggy wi the short nearer approach plainly showed itself to proceed sark 1" and recollecting himself, instantly spurred from the haunted edifice, whether he had been his horse to the top of his speed. I need not fortified from above on his devout supplication, mention the universally known fact, that no. dia- as is customary with people when they suspect bolical power can pursue you bey ond the middle the immediate presence of Satan; or whether, of a running stream. Lucky it was for the poor according to another custom, he had got courage- farmer that the river Doon was so near, for not- withstanding 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 1 This was first published in the “Censura Literaria,” a work edited by the late Sir Egerton Brydges. It was found among Grose's papers, and communicated by Mr Gilchrist of Stamford. of the stream, the pursuing, vengeful hags were 271 23% --~~~Sº SS JS §&== º GY () 30° gº &^ § § º GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. W § | so close at his heels, that one of them actually sprung to seize him; but it was too late, nothing was on her side of the stream but the horse’s tail, which immediately gave way at her infernal grip, as if blasted by a stroke of lightning; but the farmer was beyond her reach. However, the unsightly, tail-less, condition of the vigorous steed was, to the last hour of the noble creature's life, an awful warning to the Carrick farmers, not to stay too late in Ayr markets. The last relation I shall give, though equally true, is not so well identified as the two former, with regard to the scene; but as the best authori- ties give it for Alloway, I shall relate it. On a Summer's evening, about the time nature puts on her sables to mourn the expiry of the cheerful day, a shepherd boy, belonging to a farmer in the immediate neighbourhood of Alloway kirk, had just folded his charge, and was return- ing 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 Rag- wort, he or she got astride of it, and called out, “ up horsie!” on which the Ragwort flew off, like Pegasus, through the air with its rider. The foolish boy likewise pulled his Ragwort, and cried with the rest, “ up horsie!” and, strange to tell, away he flew with the company. The first stage g | at which the cavalcade stopt, was a merchant's wine cellar in Bourdeaux, where, without saying by your leave, they quaffed away at the best the cellar could afford, until the morning, foe to the imps and works of darkness, threatened to throw light on the matter, and frightened them from their carousals. The poor shepherd lad, being equally a stranger to the scene and the liquor, heedlessly got himself drunk; and when the rest took horse, he fell asleep, and was found so next day by some of the people belonging to the merchant. Somebody that understood Scotch, asking him what he was, he said such-a-one's herd in Alloway, and by some means or other getting home again, he lived long to tell the world the wondrous tale. R. B. NO. CCXXIX. TO MR. J. CLARKE, EDINBURGH. JULY 16th, 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 respect- able family, 1 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 conscious 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 slumb’rous repose, in the arms of his dearly beloved elbow-chair, where the frowsy, but potent power of indolence, circumfuses 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 hap- piest of mortals. R. B. NO. CCXXX. TO MRS DUNLOP. ANNAN WATER FOOT, 22D AUGUST, 1792. Do not blame me for it, Madam—my own con- science, hackneyed and weather-beaten as it is, in watching and reproving my vagaries, follies, indo- lence, &c., has continued to punish me sufficiently. Do you think it possible, my dear and honoured friend, that I could be so lost to gratitude for many favours, to esteem for much worth, and to the honest, kind, pleasurable tie of now old acquaintance, and I hope and am sure of progres- sive, increasing friendship—as for a single day, not to think of you—to ask the Fates what they are doing and about to do with my much loved friend and her wide scattered connexions, and to beg of them to be as kind to you and yours as they possibly can 7 Apropos! (though how it is apropos, I have not leisure to explain,) Do you know that I am almost in love with an acquaintance of yours?—Almost said I–I am in love, souce! over head and ears, deep as the most unfathomable abyss of the bound- less ocean; but the word Love, owing to the intermingledoms of the good and the bad, the pure and the impure, in this world, being rather an equivocal term for expressing one’s sentiments and sensations, I must do justice to the sacred purity of my attachment. Know, then, that the heart-struck awe; the distant humble approach; the delight we should have in gazing upon and listening to a Messenger of Heaven, appearing in all the unspotted purity of his celestial home, 1 The M*Murdos of Drumlanrig. See Note at p. 106, v. i. -> -->4 272 § a 2 among the coarse, polluted, far inferior sons of £) Q T-3--— O)4 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. men, to deliver to them tidings that make their hearts swim in joy, and their imaginations soar in transport—such, so delighting and so pure, were the emotions of my soul on meeting the other day with Miss Lesley Baillie, your neighbour, at M Mr B. with his two daughters, accom- panied by Mr H. of G., passing through Dumfries a few days ago, on their way to England, did me the honour of calling on me; on which I took my horse, (though God knows I could ill spare the time,) and accompanied them fourteen or fifteen miles, and dined and spent the day with them. ‘Twas about nine, I think, when I left them, and, riding home, I composed the following ballad, of which you will probably think you have a dear bargain, as it will cost you another groat of postage. You must know that there is an old ballad begin- ning with— “My bonnie Lizzie Baillie I'll rowe thee in my plaidie,” &c. So I parodied it as follows, which is literally the first copy, “unanointed, unanneal’d,” as Hamlet says:— “O saw ye bonnie Lesley As she gaed o'er the border 2 She's game, like Alexander, To spread her conquests farther.” &c. 1 So much for ballads. I regret that you are gone to the east country, as I am to be in Ayrshire in about a fortnight. This world of ours, not- withstanding it has many good things in it, yet it has ever had this curse, that two or three people, who would be the happier the oftener they met together, are, almost without exception, always so placed as never to meet but once or twice a-year, which, considering the few years of a man’s life, is a very great “evil under the sun,” which I do not recollect that Solomon has mentioned in his catalogue of the miseries of man. I hope and believe that there is a state of existence beyond the grave, where the worthy of this life will renew their former intimacies, with this endearing addi- tion, that “we meet to part no more!” “Tell us, ye dead, Will none of you in pity disclose the secret What 'tis you are, and we must shortly be . " A thousand times have I made this apostrophe to the departed sons of men, but not one of them has ever thought fit to answer the question. “O that some courteous ghost would blab it out !” but it cannot be ; you and I, my friend, must make the experiment by ourselves, and for our- selves. 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 making us happier men, that I should take every care that your little godson, and every little creature that shall call me father, shall be taught them. So ends this heterogeneous letter, written at this wild place of the world, in the intervals of my labour of discharging a vessel of rum from Antigua. R. B. No. CCXXXI. TO MR, ALEX. CUNNINGHAM. DUMFRIES, 10TH SEPT., 1792. . NO ! I will not attempt an apology.—Amid all my hurry of business, grinding the faces of the publican and the sinner on the merciless wheels of the Excise; making ballads, and then drink- ing, and singing them ; and, over and above all, the correcting the press-work of two different publications; still, still I might have stolen five minutes to dedicate to one of the first of my friends and fellow-creatures. I might have done, as I do at present, snatched an hour near “witch- ing time of night,” and scrawled a page or two. I might have congratulated my friend on his marriage; or I might have thanked the Cale- donian archers for the honour they have done me, (though, to do myself justice, I intended to have done both in rhyme, else I had done both long ere now.) Well, then, here is to your good health ! for you must know, I have set a nipper- kin of toddy by me, just by way of spell, to keep away the meikle horned Deil, or any of his sub- altern 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 2”—O, thou spirit! whatever thou art, or wherever thou makest thyself visible ! be thou a bogle by the eerie side of an auld thorn, in the dreary glen through which the herd callan maun bicker in his gloamin route frae the fauld !—Be thou a brownie, set, at dead of night, to thy task by the blazing ingle, or in the solitary barn, where the repercussions of thy iron flail half affright thyself, as thou performest the work of twenty of the sons of men, ere the cock-crowing summon thee to thy ample cog of substantial brose. Be thou a kelpie, haunting the ford or ferry, in the starless night, mixing thy laughing yell with the howling of the storm and the roaring of the flood, as thou viewest the perils and miseries of man on the foundering horse, or in the tumbling boat — Or, lastly, be thou a ghost, paying thy nocturnal visits to the hoary ruins of decayed grandeur; or - performing thy mystic rites in the shadow of the 2% %(~, p 1 See page 84. CZ 273 2 M ==º S㺠jº, Nºb !. \º 4- o $º > \ - * . - - * z_2| Q) Q i\ them merciful: but still your children of sanctity ſ º e e 24's move among their fellow-creatures with a nostril- 1 See p. 84. Gº G º 274 ſ' ºl C 3.9 º' (o), $2% º yº. &== ... Cºo? 90 & º- * - - J GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE, time-worn church, while the moon looks, without a cloud, on the silent, ghastly dwellings of the dead around thee; or taking thy stand by the bedside of the villaim, or the murderer, portray- ing on his dreaming fancy, pictures, dreadful as the horrors of unveiled hell, and terrible as the wrath of incensed Deity!—Come, thou spirit, but not in these horrid forms; come with the milder, gentle, easy inspirations, which thou breathest round the wig of a prating advocate, or the téte of a tea-sipping gossip, while their tongues run at the light-horse gallop of clishmaclaver for ever and ever—come and assist a poor devil who is quite jaded in the attempt to share half an idea among half a hundred words; to fill up four quarto pages, while he has not got one single sentence of recollection, information, or remark worth putting pen to paper for. I feel, I feel the presence of supernatural assis- tance circled in the embrace of my elbow-chair, my breast labours, like the bloated Sybil on her three-footed stool, and like her, too, labours with Nonsense.—Nonsense, auspicious name ! Tutor, friend, and finger-post in the mystic mazes of law; the cadaverous paths of physic; and par- ticularly in the sightless soarings of SCHOOL DIVINITY, who, leaving Common Sense con- founded at his strength of pinion; Reason deli- rious with eyeing his giddy flight; and Truth creeping back into the bottom of her well, curs- ing the hour that ever she offered her scorned alliance to the wizard power of Theologic Vision raves abroad on all the winds. “On earth discord! a gloomy heaven above, opening her jealous gates to the nineteen thousandth part of the tithe of mankind l and below, an inescapable and inexorable hell, expanding its leviathan jaws for the vast residue of mortals | | |’—O doctrine ! comfortable and healing to the weary, wounded soul of man Ye sons and daughters of afflic- tion, ye pawvres miserables, to whom day brings no pleasure, and night yields no rest, be com- forted “”Tis but one to nineteen hundred thousand that your situation will mend in this world;” so, alas, the experience of the poor and the needy too often affirms: and ’tis nineteen hundred thousand to one, by the dogmas of * * * * * * * *, that you will be damned eter- nally in the world to come ! But of all Nonsense, Religious Nonsense is the most nonsensical; so enough, and more than enough of it. Only, by the bye, will you, or can you tell me, my dear Cunningham, why a sectarian turn of mind has always a tendency to narrow and illiberalize the heart 2 They are orderly : they may be just ; nay, I have known snuffing putrescence, and a foot-spurning filth,<- in short, with a conceited dignity that your titled * * * * * * * *, or any other of your Scottish lordlings of seven centuries standing, display when they accidentally mix among the many- aproned sons of mechanical life. I remember, in my plough-boy days, I could not conceive it possible that a noble lord could be a fool, or a godly man could be a knave.—How ignorant are plough-boys!—Nay, I have since discovered that a godly woman may be a * * * * *!—But hold— Here's tºye again—this rum is generous Antigua, so a very unfit menstruum for scandal. Apropos, how do you like, I mean really like, the married life Ah, my friend! matrimony is quite a different thing from what your love-sick youths and sighing girls take it to be But mar- riage, 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, (em passant, you know I am no Latinist, is not conjugal derived from jugum, a yoke 2) Well then, the scale of good wifeship I divide into ten parts.-Goodnature, four; Good Sense, two ; Wit, one; Personal Charms, viz. a sweet face, eloquent eyes, fine limbs, graceful carriage, (I would add a fine waist too, but that is so soon spoilt, you know,) all these, one; as for the other qualities belonging to, or attending on, a wife, such as Fortune, Connexions, Education, (I mean education extraordinary) Family blood, &c., divide the two remaining degrees among them as you please; only, remember that all these minor pro- perties must be expressed by fractions, for there is not any one of them, in the aforesaid scale, entitled to the dignity of an integer. As for the rest of my fancies and reveries— how I lately met with Miss Lesley Baillie, the most beautiful, elegant woman in the world— how I accompanied her and her father's family fifteen miles on their journey, out of pure devo- tion, to admire the loveliness of the works of God, in such an unequalled display of them— low, in galloping home at night, I made a ballad on her, of which these two stanzas make a part— Thou, bonnie Lesley, art a queen, Thy subjects we before thee; Thou, bonnie Lesley, art divine, The hearts o' men adore thee, The very Deil he could na scathe Whatever wad belang thee! He'd look into thy bonnie face And say, ‘I canna wrang thee'— 1 behold all these things are written in the chroni- cles of my imagination, and shall be read by GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 22 thee, my dear friend, and by thy beloved spouse, my other dear friend, at a more convenient SČaSO]]. Now, to thee, and to thy before-designed bosom- companion, be given the precious things brought forth by the sun, and the precious things brought forth by the moon, and the benignest influences of the stars, and the living streams which flow from the fountains of life, and by the tree of life, for ever and ever! Amen! R. B. No. CCXXXII. TO MRS DUNI,OP. DUMFRIES, 24TH SEPTEMBER, 1792. I HAVE this moment, my dear Madam, yours of the twenty-third. All your other kind reproaches, your news, &c., are out of my head when I read and think on Mrs H–’s situation." Good God! a heart-wounded helpless young woman— in a strange, foreign land, and that land convulsed with every horror that can harrow the human feelings—sick—looking, longing for a comforter, but finding none—a mother's feelings, too:-but it is too much : he who wounded (he only can) may he heal! I wish the farmer great joy of his new acquisi- tion to his family. * * * * * * I cannot say that I give him joy of his life as a farmer. ‘Tis, as a farmer paying a dear, unconscionable rent, a cursed life! As a laird farming his own property; sowing his corn in hope; and reaping it, in spite of brittle weather, in gladness; knowing that none can say unto him, “what doest thou?”—fattening his herds; shearing his flocks; rejoicing at Christ- mas; and begetting sons and daughters, until he be the venerated, grey-haired leader of a little tribe—’tis a heavenly life! but devil take the life of reaping the fruits that another must eat. Well, your kind wishes will be gratified, as to seeing me when I make my Ayrshire visit. I can- not leave Mrs Burns, until her nine months’ race is run, which may perhaps be in three or four weeks. She, too, seems determined to make me the patriarchal leader of a band. However, if Heaven will be so obliging as to let me have them in the proportion of three boys to one girl, I shall be so much the more pleased. I hope, if I am spared with them, to show a set of boys that will do honour to my cares and name; but I am not equal to the task of rearing girls. Besides, I am too poor; a girl should always have a fortune. Apropos, your little godson is thriving charm- 1 See note to the poem “On the Birth of a Posthumous Child,’ page 34, vol. i. ingly, 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. 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. NO. CCXXXIII. TO MRS DUNLOP.2 I HAD been from home, and did not receive your letter until my return the other day. What shall I say to comfort you, my much-valued, much-afflicted friend! I can but grieve with you; consolation I have none to offer, except that which religion holds out to the children of afflic- tion—children of affliction!—how just the expres- sion! and like every other family they have mat- ters 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 occur- Ten Ce. Alas, Madam! who would wish for many years? What is it but to drag existence until our joys gradually expire, and leave us in a night of misery: like the gloom which blots out the stars, one by one, from the face of night, and leaves us, with- out a ray of comfort in the howling waste I am interrupted, and must leave off. You shall soon hear from me again. R. B. NO, CCXXXIV. TO CAPTAIN JOHNSTON,3 EDITOR OF THE EDINBURGH GAZETEER. DUMFRIES, Nov. 13TH, 1792, SIR, I HAVE just read your prospectus of the Edin- burgh Gazetteer. If you go on in your paper with the same spirit, it will, beyond all compari- 2 Supposed to have been written on the death of Mrs Henri, her daughter. 3 In the spring of 1793, the Gazetteer having incurred the dis- pleasure of the government of the day, Captain Johnston was apprehended and imprisoned. During his imprisonment the paper was conducted by a gentleman of the name of Scott, whose labours did not long escape the lynx-eyes of the official underlings. He, too, was apprehended and held to bail. He foresaw his fate; forfeited his bail, and escaped to America. The Gazetteer was then discontinued. 275 {2 \O --~~-><>< asſº S-9 saxº ©!& /. & - º {º # , ... re Q) § .* GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 2 (3) 276 f ( ) º C) ; \ºs (29-32T→C –– ~~~~<><>–~~~~ d GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE, Mr Corbet can be of little service to me at present; at least I should be shy of applying. I cannot possibly be settled as a supervisor, for several years. I must wait the rotation of the list, and there are twenty names before mine,—I might indeed get a job of officiating, where a settled supervisor was ill, or aged; but that hauls me from my family, as I could not remove them on such an uncertainty. Besides, some envious, malicious devil has raised a little demur on my political principles, and I wish to let that matter settle before I offer myself too much in the eye of my supervisors. I have set, henceforth, a seal on my lips, as to these unlucky politics; but to you, I must breathe my sentiments. In this, as in every thing else, I shall show the undisguised emotions of my soul. War I deprecate: misery and ruin to thousands are in the blast that announces the destructive demon. R. B. NO, CCXXXVIII. TO THE SAME. 1 5TH JAN., 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 sheet, the political blast that threatened my welfare is over- blown. I have corresponded with Commissioner Graham, for the board had made me the subject of their animadversions; and now I have the pleasure of informing you that all is set to rights in that quarter. Now, as to these informers, may the devil be let loose to but, hold! I was praying most fervently in my last sheet, and I must not so soon fall a swearing in this. Alas! how little do the wantonly or idly offi- cious think what mischief they do by their mali- cious insinuations, indirect impertinence, or thoughtless blabbings | What a difference there is in intrinsic worth, candour, benevolence, gener- osity, 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 Dun- lop, their generous hearts—their uncontaminated dignified minds—their informed and polished understandings—what a contrast, when compared —if such comparing were not downright sacrilege —with the soul of the miscreant who can deliber- ately plot the destruction of an honest man that 1 This letter is dated 5th Jan., 1792, in Currie's edition, and placed accordingly; but, from its tenor, there can be little doubt that it belongs to a year later, and that its real date is 5th Jan., 1793, ever offended him, and with a grin of satisfaction see the unfortunate being, his faithful wife, and prattling innocents, turned over to beggary and ruin! Your cup, my dear Madam, arrived safe. I had two worthy fellows dining with me the other day, when I, with great formality, produced my whigmaleerie cup, and told them that it had been a family-piece among the descendants of William Wallace. This roused such an enthusiasm that they insisted on bumpering the punch round in it; and, by and bye, never did your great ances- tor lay a Swthron more completely to rest than for a time did your cup my two friends. Apro- pos, this is the season of wishing. May God bless you, my dear friend, and bless me, the humblest and sincerest of your friends, by granting you yet many returns of the season 1 May all good things attend you and yours wherever they are scattered over the earth! R. B. NO, CCXXXIX. TO MR ALEX. 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. Thankheaven, I feel my spirits buoying upwards with the renovating year. Now I shall in good earnest take up Thomson's songs. I dare say he thinks I have used him unkindly, and I must own with too much appearance of truth. 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 fashonable circles by Major Robertson, 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 have gotten one of your Highland pebbles, which I fancy would make me a very decent one; and I want to cut my armorial bearing on it; will you be so obliging as inquire what will be the expense of such a business?? I do not know that - - 2 The seal, with the arms as devised by the Poet, was cut in Edinburgh, and used by him till his death. 278 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. º 5 my name is matriculated, as the heralds call it, at all; but I have invented arms for myself; so you know I shall be the chief of the name; and, by courtesy of Scotland, will likewise be entitled to supporters. These, however, I do not intend having on my seal. I am a bit of a herald, and shall give you, Secundum artem, my arms. On a field, azure, a holly bush, seeded, proper, in base; a shepherd's pipe and crook, saltier-wise, also proper, in chief. On a wreath of the colours, a wood-lark perching on a sprig of bay-tree, proper, for crest. Two mottoes; round the top of the crest, Wood motes wild; at the bottom of the shield, in the usual place, Better a wee bush than mae bield. By the shepherd's pipe and crook I do not mean the nonsense of painters of Arcadia, but a Stock and Horn, and a Club, such as you see at the head of Allan Ramsay, in Allan’s quarto edition of the ‘Gentle Shepherd.’ By the bye, do you know Allan 2. He must be a man of very great genius 1—Why is he not more known 2– Has he no patrons ? or do “Poverty's cold wind and crushing rain beat keen and heavy '' on him 7 I once, and but once, got a glance of that noble edition of the noblest pastoral in the world: and dear as it was, I mean, dear as to my pocket, I would have bought it; but I was told that it was printed and engraved for subscribers only. He is the only artist who has hit genuine pastoral costume. What, my dear Cunningham, is there in riches, that they narrow and harden the heart so 2 I think, that were I as rich as the sun, I should be as generous as the day; but as I have no reason to imagine my soul a nobler one than any other man's, I must conclude that wealth imparts a bird-lime quality to the possessor, at which the man, in his native poverty, would have revolted. What has led me to this, is the idea of such merit as Mr Allan possesses, and such riches as a nabob or government contractor possesses, and why they do not form a mutual league. Let wealth shelter and cherish unprotected merit, and the gratitude and celebrity of that merit will richly repay it. R. B. No. CCXL. TO MISS BENSON.2 DUMFRIES, 21st MARCH, 1793. MADAM, AMONG many things for which I envy those hale, long-lived old fellows before the flood, is this in particular, that when they met with any body after their own heart, they had a charming long prospect of many, many happy meetings with them in after-life. Now in this short, stormy, winter day of our fleeting existence, when you now and then, in the Chapter of Accidents, meet an individual whose acquaintance is a real acquisition, there are all the probabilities against you, that you shall never meet with that valued character more. On the other hand, brief as this miserable being is, it is none of the least of the miseries belonging to it, that if there is any miscreant whom you hate, or creature whom you despise, the ill-run of the chances shall be so against you, that in the over- takings, turnings, and jostlings of life, pop, at some unlucky corner, eternally comes the wretch upon you, and will not allow your indignation or contempt a moment's repose. As I am a sturdy believer in the powers of darkness, I take these to be the doings of that old author of mischief, the devil. It is well known that he has some kind of short-hand way of taking down our thoughts, and I make no doubt that he is perfectly acquainted with my sentiments respecting Miss Benson: how much I admired her abilities and valued her worth, and how very fortunate I thought myself in her acquaintance. For this last reason, my dear Madam, I must entertain no hopes of the very great pleasure of meeting with you again. Miss Hamilton tells me that she is sending a packet to you, and I beg leave to send you the inclosed 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. R. B. NO. CCXLI. TO PATRICK MILLER, ESQ. OF DALSWINTON. -- DUMFRIES, APRIL, 1793. SIR, MY poems having just come out in another edition,4 will you do me the honour to accept of a copy : A mark of my gratitude to you, as a gentleman to whose goodness I have 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 venera- tion for you, as a man, whose benevolence of heart does honour to human nature. 3 What the Sonnet was it not stated in any edition. 4 Viz. an edition in 2 vols. Small Svo, published by Creech in l See Note at p. 104. 2 Now Mrs Basil Montagu. 1793. Jſ. S \,\!. 279 (º S2TATE (C) 2. Sº oG)7&_g TX----~~ ==º CJ + ; : GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. There was a time, Sir, when I was your depen- dant:l this language then would have been like the vile incense of flattery—I could not have used it.—Now that connexion is at an end, do me the honour to accept of this homest tribute of respect from, Sir, Your much indebted humble servant, R. B. NO, CCXLII. TO JOHN FRANCIS ERSKINE, ESQ. OF MAR.? DUMFRIES, 13TH APRIL, 1793. SIR, DEGENERATE as human nature is said to be— and in many instances, worthless and unprincipled it is—still there are bright examples to the con- trary: examples that, even in the eyes of superior beings, must shed a lustre on the name of Man. Such an example have I now before me, when you, Sir, came forward to patronise and befriend a distant 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 friend, Mr Riddel of Glenriddel, has just read me a paragraph of a letter he had from you. Accept, Sir, of the silent throb of gratitude; for words would but mock the emotions of my soul. You have been misinformed as to my final dis- mission from the Excise; I am still in the service. —Indeed, but for the exertions of a gentleman who must be known to you, Mr Graham of Fintray, a gentleman who has ever been my warm and generous friend, I had, without so much as a hear- ing, or the slightest previous intimation, been turned adrift, with my helpless family, to all the horrors of want.—Had I had any other resource, probably I might have saved them the trouble of a dismission; but the little money I gained by my publication, is almost every guinea, embarked, to save from ruin an only brother, who, though one of the worthiest, is by no means one of the most fortunate of men. 1 Burns alludes to the time when he was tenant of Ellisland, of which Mr Miller was landlord. 2 “In consequence of the poet's freedom of remark on public measures, maliciously misrepresented to the Board of Excise, he was represented as actually dismissed from his office.—This report induced Mr Erskine to propose a subscription in his favour, which was refused by the poet with that elevation of sentiment that peculiarly characterized his mind, and which is so happily displayed in this letter. See letter to R. Graham of Fintray, Dec. 1792, written by Burns, with even more than his accustomed pathos and eloquence, in further explanation.”— CROME K. Mr Erskine of Mar, in consequence of the reversal of his grandfather's attainder, became earl of Mar in 1824, but died in the following year, at the age of eighty-four. He was a staunch Whig in politics. 2 ( ). O In my defence to their accusations, I said, that whatever might be my sentiments of republics, ancient or modern, as to Britain, I abjured the idea:—That a CONSTITUTION, which, in its original principles, experience had proved to be every way fitted for our happiness in society, it would be insanity to sacrifice to an untried visionary theory: —That, in consideration of my being situated in a department, however humble, immediately in the hands of people in power, I had forborne taking any active part, either personally, or as an author, in the present business of REFORM. But that, where I must declare my sentiments, I would say there existed a system of corruption between the executive power and the representative part of the legislature, which boded no good to our glori- ous CONSTITUTION; and which every patriotic Briton must wish to see amended.—Some such sentiments as these, I stated in a letter to my gen- erous patron Mr Graham, which he laid before the Board at large; where, it seems, my last remark gave great offence; and one of our super- visors general, a Mr Corbet, was instructed to inquire on the spot, and to document me—“ that my business was to act, not to think; and that whatever might be men or measures, it was for me to be silent and obedient.” Mr Corbet was likewise my steady friend; so between Mr Graham and him, I have been partly forgiven; only I understand that all hopes of my getting officially forward are blasted. Now, Sir, to the business in which I would more immediately interest you. The partiality of my COUNTRYMEN has brought me forward as a man of genius, and has given me a character to support In the POET I have avowed manly and independent sentiments, which I trust will be found in the MAN. Reasons of no less weight than the support of a wife and family, have pointed out as the eligible, and, situated as I was, the only eligible line of life for me, my present occupation. Still my honest fame is my dearest concern; and a thousand times have I trembled at the idea of those degrading epithets that malice or misrepresentation may affix to my name. I have often, in blasting anti- cipation, listened to some future hackney scribbler, with the heavy malice of savage stupidity, exult- ing in his hireling paragraphs—“BURNS, notwith- standing the fanfaronade of independence to be found in his works, and after having been held forth to public view, and to public estimation as a man of some genius, yet, quite destitute of resources within himself to support his borrowed dignity, he dwindled into a paltry exciseman, and slunk out the rest of his insignificant existence in the meanest of pursuits, and among the vilest of mankind.” In your illustrious hands, Sir, permit me to lodge () ! GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. ° my disavowal and defiance of these slanderous falsehoods. BURNs was a poor man from birth, and an exciseman by necessity: but—I will say it! the sterling of his honest worth, no poverty could debase, and his independent British mind, oppression might bend, but could not subdue. Have not I, to me, a more precious stake in my country's welfare, than the richest dukedom in it?—I have a large family of children, and the prospect of 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 machination to wrest from them the birthright of my boys, the little independent BRITONS, in whose veins runs my own blood?—No! I will not! should my heart's blood stream around my attempt to defend it! Does any man tell me, that my full efforts can be of no service; and that it does not belong to my humble station to meddle with the 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 unin- formed MOB may swell a nation's bulk; and the titled, tinsel, courtly throng, may be its feathered ornament; but the number of those who are ele- vated enough in life to reason and to reflect, yet low enough to keep clear of the venal contagion of a court!—these are a nation’s strength. I know not how to apologise for the impertinent length of this epistle; but one small request I must ask of you farther—When you have hon- oured this letter with a perusal, please to commit it to the flames. BURNS, in whose behalf you have so generously interested yourself, I have here, in his native colours, drawn as he is; but should any of the people in whose hands is the very bread he eats, get the least knowledge of the picture, it would ruin the poor BARD for ever! My poems having just come out in another edi- tion, I beg leave to present you with a copy as a small mark of that high esteem and ardent grati- tude, with which I have the honour to be, SIR, Your deeply indebted, And ever devoted humble servant, R. B. NO. CCXLIII. TO MR, ROBERT AINSLIE. APRIL 26, 1793. I AM terribly out of humour, my dear Ainslie, and that is the reason why I take up my pen to gow ; ’tis the nearest way (probatum est) to reco- I received your letter, and was much enter- tained 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 (whom my Grannie often told me, rode on will-o'- wisp,) or, in a more classic phrase, SPUNKLE, were looking over my elbow.—A happy thought the idea has engendered in my head SPUNKLE- thou shalt henceforth be my symbol, signature, and titulary genius ! Like thee, hap-step-and- lowp, here-awa-there-awa, higglety-pigglety, pell- mell, hither-and-yon, ram-stam, happy-go-lucky, up-tails-a'-by-the-light-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, amusing myself by, and at my own light: and if any opaque-souled lubber of man- kind complain that my elfin, lambent, glimmerous wanderings have misled his stupid steps over pre- cipices, or into bogs; let the thick-headed blun- derbuss recollect, that he is not SPUNKIE :-that SPCN Kie's wanderings could not copied be ; Amid these perils none durst walk but he. 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 block- heads, by mere dint of handling books, grow so wise that even they themselves are equally convinced of and surprised at their own parts 2 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 Pricklouse having a good Scots mile to walk in coming, and, of course, another in returning, Bodkin was sure to lay his hand on some heavy quarto, or ponderous folio, with, and under which, wrapt up in his grey plaid, he grew wise as he grew weary, all the way home. He earried this so far, that an old musty Hebrew concordance, 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 think of l vor my spirits again. this theory. Yours, 2 SPUNKIE. 5% 2. N 28). tº. §§ oG)Zºº) GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. NO, CCXLIV. TO MISS KENNEDY.1 MADAM, PERMIT me to present you with the inclosed song as a small though grateful tribute for the honour of your acquaintance. I have, in these verses, attempted some faint sketches of your portrait in the unembellished simple manner of descriptive TRUTH.—Flattery I leave to your LOVERS, whose exaggerating fancies may make them imagine you still nearer perfection than you really are. Poets, Madam, of all mankind, feel most forci- bly the powers of BEAUTY; as, if they are really POETS of nature's making, their feelings must be finer, and their taste more delicate than most of the world. In the cheerful bloom of SPRING, or the pensive mildness of AUTUMN; the grandeur of SUMMER, or the hoary majesty of WINTER ; the poet feels a charm unknown to the rest of his species. Even the sight of a fine flower, or the company of a fine woman (by far the finest part of God’s works below), have sensations for the poetic heart that the HERD of man are strangers to.—On this last account, Madam, I am, as in many other things, indebted to Mr Hamilton's kindness in introducing me to you. Your lovers may view you with a wish, I look on you with pleasure; their hearts in your presence, may glow with desire, mine rises with admiration. That the arrows of misfortune, however they should, as incident to humanity, glance a slight wound, may never reach your heart—that the snares of villany may never beset you in the road of life—that INNOCENCE may hand you by the path of HONOUR to the dwelling of PEACE, is the sincere wish of him who has the honour to be, &c. R. B. NO. CCXLV. TO MISS CRAIK. 2 DUMFRIES, AUGUST, 1793, MADAM, SoME rather unlooked-for accidents have pre- vented my doing 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 inclose you two of my late pieces, as some lcind of return for the pleasure I have received in perusing a certain MS. volume of poems in the possession of Captain Riddel. To repay one with an old song, is a proverb, whose force, you, Madam, I know, will not allow. What is said of illustrious descent is, I believe, equally true of a talent for poetry—none ever despised it who had pretensions to it. The fates and characters of the rhyming tribe often employ my thoughts when I am disposed to be melancholy. There is not among all the martyrologies that ever were pen- ned, so rueful a narrative as the lives of the poets. —In the comparative view of wretches, the cri- terion is not what they are doomed to suffer, but how they are formed to bear. Take a being of our kind, give him a stronger imagination and a more delicate sensibility, which between them will ever engender a more ungovernable set of passions than are the usual lot of man: implant in him an irresistible impulse to some idle vagary, such as arranging wild flowers in fantastical nose- gays, tracing the grasshopper to his haunt by his chirping song, watching the frisks of the little min- nows in the sunny pool, or hunting after the intrigues of butterflies—in short, send him adrift after some pursuit which shall eternally mis- lead him from the paths of lucre, and yet curse him with a keener relish than any man living for the pleasures that lucre can purchase; lastly, fill up the measure of his woes by bestowing on him a spurning sense of his own dignity, and you have created a wight nearly as miserable as a poet. To you, Madam, I need not recount the fairy plea- sures the muse bestows to counterbalance this catalogue of evils. Bewitching poetry is like | 8 1 Miss Kennedy was a relation of the Hamiltons of Mauch- line. It is not now known what the song was which the Poet inclosed in this letter. “The banks o' Doon" was composed on the melancholy history of Miss Kennedy of Dalgarroch (see p. 47)—whether the same with the present Miss Kennedy, we have not ascertained—but at least that could not be the song sent on this occasion. 2 “Miss Helen Craik of Arbigland had merit both as a poetess and novelist : her ballads may be compared with those of Mac- of the satirie, which rendered them acceptable to all who under- stood their allusions. She died some years ago at Allonby; she was much of an enthusiast, and lived estranged from her family for a long period of her life. Her father was one of the wisest gentlemen and most sensible improvers of property on the Scottish side of the Solway : his taste, too, in architecture was of a pure kind ; he lived to a good old age, and had the misfor- tune to witness with his own eyes the melancholy death of his only son. The heir of Arbigland, accompanied by some six- teen young men of the parish, set off one summer morning in his pleasure skiff to pay a visit to the English shore; when more than half-way over the Solway, a whirlwind suddenly arose, seized the sails, whirled the skiff around, and down it went with all on board—though a vessel was near, not a soul was saved. The wretched father saw all this from a seat on the top of the house ; after the skiff sank, he sat still for an hour, looking fixedly, it is said, on the sea. Arbigland is now the property of his grandson, Douglas Hamilton Craik, Esq. The situation on the Solway side is beautiful ; the house is a model of proportion and elegant workmanship: the woods which partly enclose it, are very lofty, and some of the firs of the spruce tribe are of enormous girth. Burns was a frequent 2A. H. visitor here; nor has the ancient hospitality of the house of C) §3) neil, and her novels, amid much graphic force, had a seasoning | Craik declined, nor its love of literature.”—CUNNINGHAM. §e 282 3-2.É. º () 3. gº º: 33- ~~~~<> | 2 A \ } 285 & ºg a § ().- ‘r, Sº §§ <- & :% º Tºkº----~ d GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. Among the profusion of idle compliments, which insidious craft, or unmeaning folly, incessantly offer at your shrine—a shrine, how far exalted above such adoration—permit me, were it but for rarity's sake, to pay you the honest tribute of a warm heart and an independent mind; and to assure you, that I am, thou most amiable, and most accomplished of thy sex, with the most respectful esteem, and fervent regard, thine, &c. R. B. TNo. CCLV. TO MRS RIDDEL. I WILL wait on you, my ever valued friend, but whether in the morning I am not sure. Sunday closes a period of our curst revenue business, and may probably keep me employed with my pen until noon. Fine employment for a poet's pen! There is a species of the human genus that I call the gin-horse class: what enviable dogs they are! Round, and round, and round they go, Mundell's ox, that drives his cotton mill, is their exact pro- totype—without an idea or wish beyond their circle; fat, sleek, stupid, patient, quiet, and con- tented; while here I sit, altogether Novemberish, a damned 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 per- suaded that it was of me the Hebrew sage pro- phesied, 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– * * * * * 3- Ak. Pray that wisdom and bliss be more frequent visitors of R. B. NO. CCLVI. TO MRS RIDDEL. 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 any thing 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 Woodlea; 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 pronounce 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 thing 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. R. NO. CCLVII. TO MRS RIDDEL. I HAVE often told you, my dear friend, that you had a spice of caprice in your composition, and you have as often disavowed it; even perhaps while your opinions were, at the moment, irre- fragably proving it. Could any thing estrange me from a friend such as you?—No! To-morrow I shall have the honour of waiting on you. Farewell, thou first of friends, and most accom- plished of women! even with all thy little caprices! R. B. CCLVIII. TO MRS RIDDEL. MADAM, I RETURN your common-place book. I have perused it with much pleasure, and would have continued my criticisms, but as it seems the critic has forfeited your esteem, his strictures must lost their value. If it is true that “offences come only from the heart,” before you I am guiltless. To admire, esteem, and prize you, as the most accomplished of women, and the first of friends—if these are crimes, I am the most offending thing alive. In a face where I used to meet the kind com- placency 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 hawt-en-bas rigour may depress an unoffending wretch to the ground, it has a tendency to rouse a stubborn something in his bosom, which, though it cannot heal the wounds of his soul, is at least an opiate to blunt their poignancy. With the profoundest respect for your abilities; the most sincere esteem, and ardent regard, for your gentle heart and amiable manners; and the most fervent wish and prayer for your welfare, peace, and bliss, I have the honour to be, Madam, your most devoted humble servant, R. B. 286 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. O No. CCLIX. TO JOHN SYME, ESQ.1 YoU know that among other high dignities, you have the honour to be my supreme court of critical judicature, from which there is no appeal. I inclose you a song which I composed since I saw 1 This gentleman was one of Burns's most intimate friends during his residence in Dumfries, and one of his executors after his decease. He was a man of lively talents, social and benevo- lent character, and a style of manners that forcibly recalled the gentleman of a former age, when, in the midst of rougher pleasures than what mow flourish in the higher walks of life, there were also forms of politeness somewhat more scrupulous than any which obtain in the present day. His father was a writer to the signet, in extensive practice, and the proprietor of the estate of Barncailzie in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright. Though Mr Syme in early life studied enough of the law to be afterwards an expert master of all common forms, he preferred the military profession, and, about the year 1773, entered the 72nd regiment with the commission of ensign. Soon after, abandoning this pursuit, he retired to his father's estate, and devoted himself to the life of a gentleman farmer, improving with all possible zeal, and spending much of his leisure time in field sports. But the disaster of the Ayr Bank, in whose ruin his father was involved, ultimately proved the means of depriv- ing him of his home at Barncailzie, and in 1791 he removed to Dumfries, to fulfil the duties of a lucrative appointment which he had in the meantime obtained, that of Distributor of Stamps for the District. The apartments which he occupied in this capacity formed the ground floor of a house of no fine appearance in what was then called the Friar Vennel, but now Bank Street, a few yards from the walk along the Nith. When Burns, at the close of 1791, removed from Ellisland to Dumfries, he became the tenant of the floor immediately above Mr Syme's office; and ere long a friendship of the warmest nature took place between these two individuals. Mr Syme, who was Burns's senior by a very few years, was enabled, by his gentlemanly connection in the district, to introduce the poet to many eminent persons. In July, 1793, they had a ride together through Galloway, in the course of which the Distributor took the bard to the residence of the Glendonwynes of Parton, Mr Gordon of Kenmure, (after- wards Viscount Kenmure), and the Earl of Selkirk. A letter by Mr Syme, descriptive of this little tour, is published in the memoir of the poet. Mr Syme then, and during his whole life, kept a most hospitable table, to which men of all grades of rank, provided they possessed estimable qualities, were welcome; and here accordingly the strangest associations sometimes took place, a landed gentleman of princely fortune perhaps sitting beside his neighbour's head-gardener, or a party of majors and captains beside some sharp-witted Dumfries tradesman. The scene of these hospitalities was a stone-paved room in the villa of Ryedale, on the west side of the Nith. The wit of the host was as lively as his welcome was kind. Burns was a frequent guest at Ryedale, and we have his own words attesting the esteem in which he held Mr Syme as a host:— “Who is proof to thy personal converse and wit, Is proof to all other temptation.” Such is the language of an impromptu note written in Decem- ber, 1795. After the death of Burns, Mr Syme became the most conspicuous resident friend of the family, whose claims on the public he was indefatigable in urging. It was also at his press- ing request, joined to that of Mr Gilbert Burns and Mrs Dunlop of Dunlop, that Dr Currie undertook the task of publishing the poet's works, and writing the requisite biographical memoir. Along with Gilbert Burns, Mr Syme proceeded to Liverpool, and spent three weeks in Dr Currie's house, for the purpose of giving information respecting the poet, and explaining what- ever was obscure with respect to dates and allusions in his writings. 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 acquaint- ances, the Oswald family, there is nothing charms me more than Mr Oswald's unconcealable attach- ment to that incomparable woman. Did you ever, my dear Syme, meet with a man who owed more to the Divine Giver of all good things than Mr O. ? A fine fortune; a pleasing exterior; self-evident amiable dispositions, and an ingenuous upright mind, and that informed, too, much beyond the usual run 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 see- ing, 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 cha- racter of poverty and poetry, be construed into some modification or other of that servility which my soul abhors. R. B. No. CCLX. TO MISS DUMFRIES, 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 aspect of Burns, in a letter to Mr Henry Constable of Edin- burgh, who had requested his opinion of a portrait of the poet, painted by a Mr Taylor: “The poet's expression,” says Mr Syme, “varied perpetually, according to the idea that predominated in his mind; and it was beautiful to mark 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 flexibility, formed at all times an index to his mind, and as sunshine or shade pre- dominated, you might have told a priori, whether the company was to be favoured with a scintillation of wit, or a sentiment of benevolence, or a burst of fiery indigmation. * * I cordially concur with what Sir Walter Scott says of the poet's eyes. In his animated moments, and particularly when his anger was aroused by instances of tergiversation, meanness, or tyranny, they were actually like coals of living fire.” Mr Syme died at Dumfries, on the 24th November, 1831, in So lately as November, 1829, he was able to write the 77th year of his age. ſ the following vivid description of the personal demeanour and 2 “O wat ye wha's in yon town,’ &c., see p. 58. gº C}{Xi'; 287 §§ tºº º/Sºft ~~&sº saxº) ºs GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. Kvºſs, ~ tºº O)^ |& º (º º- …- © Ö0 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 took its flight ! These, Madam, are sensations of no ordinary anguish.-However, you also may be offended with some imputed improprieties of mine; sensi- bilities you know I possess, and sincerity none will deny me. To oppose these 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 , through your means. You know that, at the wish of my late friend, I Imade a collection of all my trifies 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 acci- dent 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 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 's goodness, which I well know, and ever will revere, will not refuse this favour to a man whom she once held in some degree of estimation. With the sincerest esteem, I have the honour to be, Madam, &c. R. B. NO, CCLXI. TO MR ALEX. CUNNINGHAM. 25TH FEB., 1794. CANST thou minister to a mind diseased ? Canst thou speak peace and rest to a soul tost on a sea of troubles, without one friendly star to guide her course, and dreading that the next surge may overwhelm her ? Canst thou give to a frame, tremblingly alive as the tortures of suspense, the 288 stability and hardihood of the rock that braves the blast 2 If thou canst not do the least of these why wouldst thou disturb me in my miseries, with thy inquiries after me ! For these two months I have not been able to lift a pen. My constitution and frame were, ab origine, blasted with a deep incurable taint of hypochondria, which poisons my existence. Of late a number of domestic vexations, and Some pecuniary share in the ruin of these cursed times; losses which, though trifling, were yet what I could ill bear, have so irritated me, that my feelings at times could only be envied by a reprobate spirit, listening to the sentence that dooms it to per- dition. Are you deep in the language of consolation ? I have exhausted in reflection every topic of com- fort. A heart at ease would have been charmed with my sentiments and reasonings; but as to myself, I was like Judas Iscariot preaching the gospel; he might melt and mould the hearts of those around him, but his own kept its native incorrigibility. Still there are two great pillars that bear us up, amid the wreck of misfortune and misery. The ONE is composed of the different modifica- tions of a certain noble, stubborn something in man, known by the names of courage, fortitude, magna- nimity. The OTHER is made up of those feelings and sentiments, which, however the sceptic may deny them, or the enthusiast disfigure them, are yet, I am convinced, original and component parts of the human soul; those senses of the mind, if I may be allowed the expression, which connect us with, and link us to, those awful obscure realities —an all-powerful, and equally beneficent God; and a world to come, beyond death and the grave. The first gives the nerve of combat, while a ray of hope beams on the field; the last pours the balm of comfort into the wounds which time can In GVel' CUll"G. I do not remember, my dear Cunningham, that you and I ever talked on the subject of religion at all. I know some who laugh at it, as the trick of the crafty FEW, to lead the undiscerning MANY; or at most as an uncertain obscurity, which man- kind 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, senti- ment, and taste, I shall thus add largely to his enjoyments. Let me flatter myself that this sweet GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. : little fellow, who is just now running about my desk, will be a man of a melting, ardent, glowing heart; and an imagination, delighted with the painter, and rapt with the poet. Let me figure him wandering out in a sweet evening, to inhale the balmy gales, and enjoy the 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 sub- lunary 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 pre- cious, vast addition, that conscious virtue stamps them for her own; and lays hold on them to bring herself into the presence of a witnessing, judging, and approving God." R. B. No. CCLXII. TO THE EARL OF GLENCAIRN. MAY, 1794. 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 lord- ship, 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 the press; and in my grati- tude 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 bro- ther'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 conta- gion 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 conclu- sion. Exalted as are the honours of your lord- ship's name, and unnoted as is the obscurity of mine; with the uprightness of an honest man, I come before your lordship, with an offering, how- ever humble, 'tis all I have to give, of my grate- ful respect; and to beg of you, my lord—’tis all I have to ask of you, that you will do me the hon- our to accept of it. I have the honour to be, R. B. NO. CCLXIII, TO DAVID MACCULLOCH, ESQ.3 DUMFRIES, 21st JUNE, 1794. MY DEAR SIR, MIY long projected journey through your coun- try 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 Glens about that time, and will meet us about dish-of-tea hour. Syme goes also to Kerrough- tree, and let me remind you of your kind pro- mise 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, º R. B. NO. CCLXIV. TO MRS DUNLOP. CASTLE DOUGLAS, 25TH JUNE, 1794. HERE in a solitary inn, in a solitary village, am I set by myself, to amuse my brooding fancy as I may.—Solitary confinement, you know, is Howard's favourite idea of reclaiming sinners; so let me 1 ‘They 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 grief,' will do well to pause over this noble letter, and judge for them- selves. The enemy under which he was destined to sink had already beaten in the outworks of his constitution when these limes were penned.”—I.ockHART. 2 The new edition of the Poet's works, II. 289 2 O 3 This gentleman, who is now deceased, had a sister married to Thomas Scott, brother of Sir Walter Scott. The original letter was long preserved in India, but in 1824 was transmitted from Bombay to Archibald Hastie, Esq., London. ... " ' º ~ * §§ }\cs .N. Gººs--- º f GY& Sº Q z. \{ * §§ & | GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. z_2 consider by what fatality it happens that I have so long been exceeding sinful as to neglect the correspondence of the most valued friend I have on earth. To tell you that I have been in poor health will not be excuse enough, though it is true. I am afraid that I am about to suffer for the follies of my youth. My medical friends threaten me with a flying gout; but I trust they are mis- taken. I am just going to trouble your critical patience with the first sketch of a stanza I have been fram- ing as I passed along the road. The subject is Liberty: you know, my honoured friend, how dear the theme is to me. I design it as an irregular ode for General Washington's birth-day. After hav- ing mentioned the degeneracy of other kingdoms, I come to Scotland thus : “Thee, Caledonia, thy wild heaths among, Thee, famed for martial deed and sacred song, To thee I turn with swimming eyes; Where is that Soul of freedom fled? Immingled with the mighty dead Beneath the hallowed turf where Wallace lies, Hear it mot, Wallace, in thy bed of death, Ye babbling winds in silence sweep, Disturb ye not the hero's sleep.” with the additions of “That arm which nerved with thundering fate, Braved usurpation's boldest daring ! One quenched in darkness like the sinking star, And one the palsied arm of tottering, powerless age."1 You will probably have another scrawl from me in a stage or two. R. B. NO. CCLXV. TO MR. JAMES JOHNSON. DUMFRIES, 1794. MY DEAR FRIEND, YoU should have heard from melong ago; but over and above some vexatious share in the pecun- iary losses of these accursed times, I have all this winter been plagued with low spirits and blue devils, so that I have almost hung my harp on the willow trees. I am just now busy correcting a new edition of my poems, and this, with my ordinary business, finds me in full employment. I send you by my friend, Mr Wallace, forty- One songs for your fifth volume; if we cannot finish it any other way, what would you think of Scots words to some beautiful Irish airs? In the mean time, at your leisure, give a copy of the *-*- 1 See “Liberty, a Fragment," page 132, vol. i. Museum to my worthy friend, Mr Peter Hill, bookseller, to bind for me, interleaved with blank leaves, exactly as he did the Laird of Glenriddel's, that I may insert every anecdote I can learn, together with my own criticisms and remarks on the songs. A copy of this kind I shall leave with you, the editor, to publish at some after period, by way of making the Museum a book famous to the end of time, and you renowned for ever. I have got a Highland dirk, for which I have great veneration; as it once was the dirk of Lord Balmerino. It fell into bad hands, who stripped it of the silver mounting, as well as the knife and fork. I have some thoughts of sending it to your care, to get it mounted anew. Thank you for the copies of my Volunteer Ballad.—Our friend Clarke has done indeed well ! 'tis chaste and beautiful. I have not met with any thing that has pleased me so much, You know I am no connoisseur: but that I am an amateur—will be allowed me. R. B. NO. CCLXVI. TO MR SAMUEL CLARKE, JUN., DUMFRIES. SUNDAY MORNING. 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, we should cer- tainly 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 believe, end in a brace of pistols; but I am still pleased to think that I did not ruin the peace and welfare of a wife and a family of children in a drunken squabble. Farther, you know that the report of certain political opinions 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, I beg, will take care to prevent it. I tax your wish for Mr Burns’ welfare with the task of waiting, as soon as possible, on every gentleman who was present, and state this to him, and, as you please, show him this letter. What, after all, was the obnoxious toast? “May our success in the present war be equal to the justice of our cause.”—A toast that the most outrageous frenzy of loyalty cannot object to. I request and beg that this morning you will wait on the parties present at the foolish dispute. I shall only add, that I am truly sorry that a man who stood so high in my estimation as Mr , should use me in the manner in which I conceive he has done. R. B. 290 —ºxº GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. No. CCLXVII. TO PETER MILLER, JUN. ESQ., OF DALSWINTON. DUMFRIES, Nov., 1794. DEAR SIR, YoUR offer is indeed truly generous, and most sincerely do I thank you for it: but in my present situation, I find that I dare not accept it. You well know my political sentiments; and were I an family of children, with the most fervid enthu- siasm I would have volunteered my services: I then could and would have despised all conse- quences that might have ensued. My prospect in the Excise is something; at least, it is, encumbered as I am with the welfare, the very existence, of near half-a-score of help- less individuals, what I dare not sport with. have met with by accident and unknown to me. —Nay, if Mr Perry, whose honour, after your character of him, I cannot doubt, if he will give me an address and channel by which any thing will come safe from those spies with which he may be certain that his correspondence is beset, I will now and then send him any bagatelle that I may write. In the present hurry of Europe, nothing but news and politics will be regarded; but against the days of peace, which Heaven send soon, my little assistance may perhaps fill up an idle column of a newspaper. I have long had it in my head to try my hand in the way of little prose essays, which I propose sending into the world through the medium of some newspaper; and should these be worth his while, to these Mr Perry shall be welcome ; and all my reward shall be, his treating me with his paper, which, by the bye, to any body who has the least relish for wit, is a high treat indeed. With the most grateful esteem, I am ever, Dear Sir, R. B. 1 “In a conversation with his friend Mr Perry, (the proprie- that gentleman the insufficiency of Burns' salary to answer the imperious demands of a numerous family. In their sympathy ; for his misfortunes, and in their regret that his talents were nearly lost to the world of letters, these gentlemen agreed on the plan of settling him in London. To accomplish this most desirable object, Mr Perry, very spiritedly, made the Poet a handsome offer of an annual stipend for the exercise of his talents in his newspaper. Burns' reasons for refusing this offer are stated in the present letter.”—CROMEk. Mr Perry was a mative of Aberdeen, and long distinguished in London as an able and spirited journalist on the Whig side of politics. By his liberality in employing a number of quali- fied persons to relieve each other, he was the first to establish the present improved system of reporting for newspapers. In his hands “The Morning Chronicle' rose to high distinction as an uncompromising advocate of liberal principles in very à troublous times. He died in Dec., 1821, aged 65. ANJ my Ode ; only, let them insert it as a thing they I think is Recollection, with a whip of scorpions, insular individual, unconnected with a wife and a In the mean time, they are most welcome to tor of “The Morning Chronicle, ’) Mr Miller represented to O &= NO. CCLXVIII. TO MRS RIDDEL. SUPPOSES H IMSELF TO BE WRITING FROM THE DEAD TO THIE LIVING. MADAM, I DARE say that this is the first epistle you ever received from this nether world. I write you from the regions of hell, amid the horrors of the damned. 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 sen- tenced to endure the purgatorial tortures of this infernal confine for the space of ninety-nine years, eleven months, and twenty-nine days, and all on account of the impropriety of my conduct yester- night 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 forbids peace or rest to approach me, and keeps anguish eternally awake. Still, Madam, if I could in any measure be reinstated in the good opinion of the fair circle whom my conduct last night so much injured, I think it would be an alleviation to my torments. For this reason I trouble you with this letter. To the men of the company I will make no apology.—Your husband, who in- sisted 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 apologize. 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 damned 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 out- raged her beyond all forgiveness.—To all the other ladies please present my humblest contrition for my conduct, and my petition for their gracious pardon. O all ye powers of decency and decorum ! whisper to them that my errors, though great, were involuntary—that an intoxicated man is the vilest of beasts—that it was not in my nature to be brutal to any one—that to be rude to a woman, when in my senses, was impossible with me— but— X: X: * * Sk Regret! Remorse ! Shame ye three hellhounds 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. 91 : º ...& sº-ºº: º 2-s ^) 'Jº) (\S. ==tº TX GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. sº © -, * NO. CCLXIX figure. This, Madam, is not the unmeaning or TO MRS RIDE).E.L. DUMFRIES, 1795. MR BURNS’ compliments to Mrs Riddel—is much obliged to her for her polite attention in sending him the book. Owing to Mr B. being at present acting as supervisor of excise, a department that occupies his every hour of the day, he has not that time to spare which is necessary for any belle-lettre pursuit; but, as he will, in a week or two, again return to his wonted leisure, he will then pay that attention to Mrs R.'s beautiful song, “To thee, loved Nith,’ which it so well deserves. 1 When “Anacharsis’ Travels” come to hand, which Mrs Riddel mentioned as her gift to the public library, Mr B. will feel honoured by the indul- gence of a perusal of them before presentation: it is a book he has never yet seen, and the regula- tions of the library allow too little leisure for deliberate reading. FRIDAY EVENING. P. S. Mr 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 See]], NO. CCLXX. TO MISS FONTENELLE.2 DUMFRIES, 1795. MADAM, IN such a bad world as ours, those who add to the scanty sum of our pleasures are positively our benefactors. 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 1 Cunningham gives two verses of this song by Mrs Riddel as a specimen. They are as follows:– “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 bowerſ where are they now P Ah where the garlands that 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 past away For wintry horrors dark and drear. Yon osier'd 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." 2 At this time an actress in the Dumfries Theatre of consid- erable personal attraction, Her subsequent history we have not ascertained. 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 approaching benefit night 33 If they 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. . B. NO. CCLXXI. 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 Dul- ness herself could wish, I shall not drawl out aheavy letter with a number of heavier apologies for my late silence. Only one I shall mention, because I know you will sympathize 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 hus- band 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 death-bed, 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.” 3 See the “Address spoken by Miss Fontenello' given at page 134, vol. i. 292 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. DECEMBER 24TH. We have had a brilliant theatre here this sea- son; Qnly, as all other business does, it experi- ences a stagnation of trade from the epidemical complaint of the country, want of cash. I men- tion our theatre merely to lug in an occasional Address which I wrote for the benefit night of one of the actresses, and which is as follows." 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 Feel- ing,” “May the Great Spirit bear up the weight of thy grey hairs, and blunt the arrow that brings them rest 1” 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 7 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 afterwards wrote out fair. On looking over some old musty papers, which, from time to time, I had parcelled by, as trash that were scarce worth preserving, and which yet at the same time I did not care to destroy; I dis- covered many of these rude sketches, and have written, and am writing them out, in a bound MS. for my friend's library. As I wrote always to you the rhapsody of the moment, I can- not find a single scroll to you except one, about the commencement of our acquaintance. If there were any possible conveyance, I would send you a perusal of my book. R. B. NO. CCLXXII, TO MR ALEXANDER FINDLATER, SUPERVISOR OF EXCISE, DUMFRIES.” SIR, INCLOSED 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 4 pro- mised me to make it right, if you will have the goodness to show 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 new books. So much for schemes.—And that no scheme to be- tray a FRIEND, or mislead a STRANGER ; to seduce a young GIRL, or rob a HEN-ROOST; to subvert LBERTY, or bribe an EXCISEMAN ; to disturb the GENERAL ASSEMBLY, or annoy a GOSSIPPING; to overthrow the credit of ORTHODOXY, or the autho- rity of old so NGs; to oppose your wishes, or frustrate my hopes—MAY PROSPER—is the sincere wish and prayer of R. B. NO. CCLXXIII. TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING CHRONICLE.5 DUMFRIES, 1795. SIR, YoU will see 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 papers either have never been sent 1 See the address, p. 134, vol. i. 2 “Burns generally carried Cowper's “Task" in his pocket, and took it out when he found himself in a lonely road, or in a brew-house, where he had to wait sometimes to “gauge the browst.” The copy which he used was one lent to him by Mrs Dunlop ; he enriched the margins with notes, critical and com- mendatory, and from the number of the marks and the fre- quency of the praise it appears that the English Bard was a great favourite. This precious volume was, after the death of the poet, placed in the library at Dunlop ; but the family car- rying it with them one winter to Edinburgh, it was unfortu- nately destroyed by fire, along with other volumes which had been in the hands of Burns, and which attested equally his feelings and his taste."—CUNNINGHAM. 3 This gentleman was long resident in Glasgow, where he died in December, 1839, at the age of eighty-five. In Lock– hart's Life of Burns, Findlater is made to deny that the Board of Excise used any undue severity towards the Poet, on account of his political principles, affirming that all he was sub- jected to was only a verbal, or private caution, to be more cir- cumspect in future. The accuracy of this statement, Cunning- ham called in question in his edition, and Findlater defended it in two letters addressed to the editor of the Glasgow Courier, of dates Feb. 1834 and Jan. 1835. The points at issue are too complicated to be discussed, and the letters too long to be inserted, in this place. It may be sufficient in Findlater's favour to say, that notwithstanding his defence of the Board of Excise, he was a sincere friend of Burns', a warm admirer of his genius, and one imbued with the same political predilections which the Poet at the time entertained. 4. A brother Exciseman of Burns at this time. Erskine is still alive (August, 1841), and resides in Glasgow, where most of his life has been spent as a clerk. He is a man of much native shrewdness and wit, but is now borne down by three heavy burthens—old age, deafness, and poverty. 5 Mr Perry. See note in page 29). ‘This letter owes its origin to the following circumstance. 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 Češ 㺠ź =& \ey W > r .* 2): § s * SN: 293 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. me, or else have never reached me. To be deprived of any one number of the first newspa- per in Great Britain for information, ability, and independence, is what I can ill brook to 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 situa- tion 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 dis- tant, obscure, country town : but that humble domicile in which I shelter my wife and children, is the CASTELLUM of a BRITON; and that scanty, hard-earned income which supports them, is as truly my property, as the most magnificent for- tune, of the most PUISSANT MEMBER of your Hous E OF NOBLES. These are my sentiments; and to them I sub- scribe 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. NO. CCLXXIV. TO MR HERON, OF HERON. 1 DUMFRIES, 1794, or 1795. SIR, I INCLOSE you some copies of a couple of poli- tical 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— 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; which, 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 detesta- tion 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 showed 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 every species of literary pursuit. The moment I am appointed 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 com- plete leisure. A life of literary leisure, with a decent competency, 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 affairs before you thus, to hook my dependent situation on your benevo- lence. If, in my progress of life, an opening should occur where the good offices of a gentle- man of your public character and political conse- quence might bring me forward, I shall petition your goodness with the same frankness as I now do myself the honour to subscribe myself, “Who does the utmost that he can, Does well, acts nobly, angels could no more.” “The Morning Chronicle.” Burns asked, ‘Why do you not write to the Editors of the Paper?’ ‘Good God, Sir, can I pre- sume to write to the learned Editors of a Newspaper?"—“Well, if you are afraid of writing to the Editors of a Newspaper, I 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 trans- cribed, 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 taught him to exercise, prompted him to the prudence of begging a friend to wait on the person for whom it was written, and request the favour to have it returned. This request was complied with, and the paper never appeared in print.”—CROMEK. 1 Also styled ‘of Kerroughtree,’ but properly as above. 2 See ‘The Heron Dallads," pages 135–137, vol. i. 29.4 ~~~< &/º &ixTV * º * cºx, G) §ºn the man, who is firmly persuaded of infinite 2 This sarcastic Address was found among the Poet's papers. Öğ 5. Sºo 295 cº ~ Gº: » (SNY, @, …” Sº k=} r Q º, O f / sºº) \º f A. **s- Jºst §§ * Yºº-Lº- =º NO. CCLXXV. TO MRS DUNLOP, IN LONDON. DUMFRIES, 201II DECEMBER, 1795. 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. As I hope to get a frank from my friend Cap- tain 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 your great metropolis, and where I have the honour to preside over the Scottish verse, as no less a per- sonage 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 politi- cal 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 posi- tive 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 com- ing 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 ing every circumstance that can happen in his lot —I felicitate such a man as having a solid founda- tion 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. JANUARY 12TH. You will have seen our worthy and ingenious friend, the Doctor, long ere this. I hope he is well, and beg to be remembered to him. I have just been reading over again, I dare say for the hundred and fiftieth time, his View of Society and Manners; 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 any body but Dr Moore. By the bye, you have deprived me of Zeluco, remember that, when you are disposed to rake up the sins of my neglect from among the ashes of my laziness. He has paid me a pretty compliment, by quot- ing me in his last publication." R. B. NO. CCLXXVI. ADDRESS OF THE SCOTCPH DISTILLERS TO THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAMI PITT. 2 SIR, WHILE pursy burgesses crowd your gate, sweat- ing under the weight of heavy addresses, permit us, the quondam distillers in that part of Great Britain called Scotland, to approach you, not with venal approbation, but with fraternal condolence; not as what you are just now, or for some time have been; but as what, in all probability, you will shortly be.—We shall have the merit of not deserting our friends in the day of their 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, however the 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 ignorant of the traffic of these corporation compliments.-The little great man l Edward, a novel, by Dr Moore. xºſ ſº sº GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. *aš9% (3% Wisdom and Goodness, superintending and direct- * i" GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE, 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 compli- ments 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 approaching 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 us, great Sir, with the sympathy of fellow-feeling, to hail your passage to the realms of ruin. Whether the sentiment proceed from the sel- fishness or cowardice of mankind is immaterial; but to point out to a child of misfortune those who are still more unhappy, is to give him some degree of positive enjoyment. In this light, Sir, our downfall may be again useful to you:-Though not exactly in the same way, it is not perhaps the first time it has gratified your feelings. It is true, the triumph of your evil star is exceedingly des- piteful. At an age when others are the votaries of pleasure, or underlings in business, you had attained the highest wish of a British statesman; and with the ordinary date of human life, what a prospect was before you! Deeply rooted in Royal Favour, you overshadowed the land. The birds of passage, which follow ministerial sunshine through every clime of political faith and manners, flocked to your branches; 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 the tree, and cut off its branches; shake off his leaves, and scatter his fruit; let the beasts get away from under it, and the fowls from his branches!” A blow from an unthought-of quarter, 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 eyes, Sir, to the tragic scenes of our fate.—An ancient nation, that for many ages had gallantly maintained the unequal 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 circumstan- ces, 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 Excise. This just privilege has of late given great umbrage to some interested, powerful individuals of the more potent part of the empire, and they 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 individuals, largely engaged in trade, where 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 unprincipled ambition! Your foes, Sir, were avowed; were too brave to take an ungen- erous advantage; you fell in the face of day.—On the contrary, our enemies, to complete our over- throw, contrived to make their guilt appear the villany of a nation.—Your downfall only drags with you your private friends and partisans: in our misery are more or less involved the most numerous and most valuable part of the community —all those who immediately depend on the cultiva- tion of the soil, from the landlord of a province down to his lowest hind. - Allow us, Sir, yet farther, just to hint at another rich vein of comfort in the dreary regions of adversity;-the gratulations of an approving con- science. In a certain great assembly, of which you are a distinguished member, panegyrics on your private virtues have so often wounded your delicacy, that we shall not distress you...with any thing on the subject. There is, however, one part of your public conduct which our feelings will not permit us to pass in silence; our gratitude must trespass on your modesty; we mean, worthy Sir, your whole behaviour to the Scots Distillers.-In evil hours, when obtrusive recollection presses bitterly on the sense, let that, Sir, come like an 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 sympathizing fellow-sufferers, And grateful humble Servants, JOHN BARLEYCORN–Praeses. NO. CCLXXVII. TO THE HON. THE PROVOST, BAILIES, AND TOWN COUNCIL OF DUMIFRIES. GENTLEMEN, THE literary taste and liberal spirit of your good town has so ably filled the various depart- ments of your schools, as to make it a very great *. º- yº, * 296 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 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 that 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 distinc- tion 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. NO. CCLXXVIII. TO MRS RIDDEL. DUMFRIES, 20th JANUARY, 1796. ICANNOT express my gratitude to you for allow- ing 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 the obligation is stronger than to any other individual of our society; as “Anachar- sis’ is an indispensable desideratum to a son of the IYAUISGS. The health you wished me in your morning's card, is, I think, flown from me for ever. I have not been able to leave my bed to-day till about an hour ago. These wickedly unlucky advertise- ments I lent (I did wrong) to a friend, and I am ill able to go in quest of him. The muses have not quite forsaken me. The following detached stanzas I intend to interweave in some disastrous tale of a shepherd.” R. B. NO. CCLXXIX. TO MRS DUNLOP. DUMFRIES, 31st JANUARY, 1796. THESE many months you have been two packets in my debt—what sin of ignorance I have com- mitted 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, 3 and so rapidly, as to put it out of my power to pay the last duties to her. I had scarcely begun to recover from that shock, when I became myself the victim of a most severe rheumatic fever, and long the 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. “When pleasure fascinates the mental sight, Affliction purifies the visual ray, Religion hails the drear, the untried night, And shuts, for ever shuts life's doubtful day.” R. B. No. CCLXXX. TO MRS RIDDEL, W H O H.A.D DESIRED H 1AI TO GO TO THE BIRTH-DAY ASSEMBLY O N THAT DAY TO SHOW HIS LOYALTY. DUMFRIES, 4TH JUNE, 1796. I AM in such miserable health as to be utterly incapable of showing my loyalty in any way. Rackt as I am with rheumatisms, I meet every face with a greeting, like that of Balak to Balaam— “Come, curse me, Jacob ; and come, defy me, Israel!” So say I–Come, curse me, that east wind; and come, defy me, the north! Would you have me in such circumstances copy you out a love-song : I may perhaps see you on Saturday, but I will not be at the ball.—Why should I? “man delights not me, nor woman either!” Can you supply me with the song, “Let us all be unhappy together?” —do if you can, and oblige le pawvre miserable R. B. NO. CCLXXXI. TO MR CLARKE,4 SC EIO O L MASTER, F O R F A R. DUMFRIES, 26TH JUNE, 1796. 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. ! It is gratifying to know, that the Poet's request was at once complied with. 2 What the stanzas were is not now known. 3 This child died at Mauchline. - 4 This letter was first incorporated in a collected edition of the Poet's works by Messrs Chambers of Edinburgh, 1839. It had previously been published in some periodical. 297 2 P wn s ‘sº i. §: §§º sº g z_2 5\@-3Ts-—---- GENERAI, CORRESPONDENCE. Whether I shall ever get about again, is only lºnown to Him, the Great Unknown, whose creature I am. Alas, Clarke! I begin to fear the worst. As to my individual self, I am tranquil, and would despise myself if I were not; but Burns's poor widow, and half-a-dozen of his dear little ones—helpless orphans!—there I am weak as a woman's tear. 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 me the same kindness. Be so very good as, by 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 Ishall 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. R. B. NO. CCLXXXII. TO MR JAMES JOHNSON, EDINBURGH. DUMFRIES, 4TH JULY, 1796. How are you, my dear friend, and how comes on your fifth volume 2 You may probably think that for some time past I have neglected you and your work; but, alas ! the hand of pain, and sor- row, 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 pub- lication 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 been so very good already; but my wife has a very particular friend of hers, a young lady who sings well, to whom she wishes to pre- sent 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. No. CCLXXXIII. TO MR. ALEX. CUNNINGHAM. BRow, 2 SEA-BATHING QUARTERs, 7TH JULY, 1796. MY DEAR CUNNINGLIAM, 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 rheu- matism, 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 quar- ters, 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 fº 2 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;3 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 poète, if I die not of disease, I must perish with hunger. 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 1 ‘In this humble and delicate manmer did poor Burns ask for a copy of a work of which he was principally the founder, and to which he had contributed, gratuitously, not less than 184 ori- ginal, altered, and collected songs! The editor has seen 180 transcribed by his own hand for the “Museum.” –CROMEK. 2 See a description of the Brow, note, p. 145. 3. According to Mr Findlater, the Commissioners of Excise could not grant the full salary in case of absence from duty, but one of them, Graham of Fintry, in Burns's case, made up the difference from his own pocket, which was about five pounds. 298 GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 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 Aleaxander Cummingham Burns. My last was James Glen- cairn, so you can have no objection to the com- pany of nobility. Farewell, R. B. NO. CCLXXXIV. TO MR. GILBERT BURNS. 10TH JULY, 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 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 thoughtless- ness 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. NO. CCLXXXV. 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 think has strengthened me; but my appe- tite is still extremely bad. No flesh nor fish can I swallow: porridge and milk are the only thing 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. NO. CCLXXXVI. 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 ill- ness which has long hung about me, in all proba- bility will speedily send me beyond that bourn whence no traveller returns. Your friendship, with which for many years you honoured me, was a friendship dearest to my soul. Your con- versation, 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. I NO. CCLXXXVII. TO MR JAMES BURNESS, WIRITER, 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 com- menced 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; you know, and my physician assured me, that melan- choly and low spirits are half my disease: guess, then, my horrors since this business began. If I had it settled, I would be, I think, quite well in a manner. How shall I use the language to you, O do not disappoint me! but strong necessity's curst command.” I “Burns had, however, the pleasure of receiving a satisfac- tory explanation of his friend's silence, and an assurance of the continuance of her friendship to his widow and children; an assurance that has been amply fulfilled. It is probable that the greater part of her letters to him were destroyed by our bard about the time that this last was written. He did not foresee that his own letters to her were to appear in print, nor con- ceive the disappointment that will be felt, that a few of this excellent lady's have not served to enrich and adorn the col- lection. The above letter is supposed to be the last production of Robert Burns, who died on the 21st of the month, nine days afterwards.”—CURRIE. Three other letters, however, have come to light since Currie wrote—one of the same date as the above, and two of dates still later. 2 “James Burness sent his cousin ten pounds the moment he received his letter, though he could ill spare the money, and concealed his kindness from the world, till, on reading the life and letters of the Poet, he was constrained, in support of his own good name, to conceal it no longer. I was informed by my friend, Dr Burness, that his grandfather, now in his eighty-fourth year, was touched by the dubious way in which I had left the subject in the Poet's life, and felt that he was liable to the im- putation of coldness of heart.—In a matter of such delicacy, I could not ask the family, and accordingly had left it as I found it, without comment or remark. The following letters will make all as clear as day, and right my venerable friend in a matter respecting which he cannot be but anxious:’—ALLAN CUNNINGHAMI. 299 $2 £ C. SC) → X? f 9& / -* , , Q/ſº ©º % O X, tº 25 | * - *: Jº 3- .* Cl r y | gº W. , <> 7. # *: h \, f £; | { .-- O i. # * & 2A 6.3 * l A. 3 ~ º Se: ...+ sº Ç 2. s * § 2. w * º Nſ) {=== TE- ^/ſºſ. sº gº= *Q. sº sº GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. º . |O) - <>, >{\_º es. Yº...~ I have been thinking over and over my brother's \j W affairs, and I fear I must cut him up; but on this NO, CCLXXXVIII. 2. I shall [require] your advice. Forgive me for once more mentioning by return of post,-save me from the horrors of a jail! My compliments to my friend James, and to all the rest. I do not know what I have written. The subject is so horrible, I dare not look it over again. Farewell. R. B. | I will correspond at another time, particularly as | TO MR BURNESS, MONTROSE. “SIR, “AT the desire of Mrs Burns, I have to acquaint you with the melancholy and much regretted event of your friend's death. He expired on the morning of the 21st, about five o'clock. The situation of the unfortunate Mrs Burns and her charming boys, your feeling heart can easily paint. It is, however, much to her consolation that a few of his friends, particularly Mr John Syme, collector of the stamps, and Dr William Maxwell, both gentlemen of the first respectability and connections, have step- ped forward with their assistance and advice ; and I think there can be no doubt but that a very handsome provision will be raised for the widow and family. The former of these gentle- men has written to most of the Edinburgh professors with whom either he or Mr Burns were acquainted, and to several other particular friends. You will easily excuse your mot having Sooner an answer to your very kind letter, with an acknow- ledgment of the contents, for, at the time it was received, Mr Burns was totally unable either to write or dictate a letter, and Mrs Burns wished to defer answering it till she saw what turn affairs took. “I am, with much respect, your most obedient and very hum- ble servant, “John LEwARs.” “DUMIFR1es, 23RD JULY, 1796.” *m-º-º: | TO MRS ROBERT BURNS, DUMFRIES. “MY DeAR Cousi N, “IT was with much concern I received the melancholy news of the death of your husband. Little did I expect, when I had the pleasure of seeing you and him, that a change so sudden would have happened. “l sincerely sympathize with you in your affliction, and will be very ready to do any thing in my power to alleviate it. “I am sensible that the education of his family was the object nearest to my cousin's heart, and I hope you will make it your study to follow up his wish by carefully attending to that object, So far as may be possible for you ; or, if you think of parting with your son, Robert, and will allow me to take charge of him, I will endeavour to discharge towards him the duty of a father, and educate him with my own sons. “I am happy to hear that something is to be done for you and the family; but as that may take some time to carry it into effect, I beg you will accept of the enclosed five pounds to sup- ply your present necessities. “My friend mentioned to me that any little thing he had was in the hands of his brother Gilbert, and that the payment of it, at present, would be hard upon him; I have therefore to en- treat that, so far as your circumstances will permit, you will use lenity in settling with him. “I have farther to request that you will offer my best thanks - tº Mr Lewars for his very friendly letter to me on this melan. choly event, with my sincere wishes that such a warm heart as { his may never want a friend. “I shall be glad to hear of your welfare, and your resolution in regard to your son, and I remain, dear cousin, your affee- tionate friend, TO JAMES GRACIE, ESQ. BROW, WEDNESDAY MORNING, 16TH JULY, 1796. 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 week," and I return to town the beginning of next week, it not being a tide week. hurry. So, God bless you. R. B. NO. CCLXXXIX. TO JAMES ARMOUR, MASON, MAUCHLINE.2 DUMFRIES, 18TH JULY, 1796. MY DEAR SIR, DO, for heaven’s sake, send Mrs Armour here immediately. My wife is hourly expected to be put to bed. Good God what a situation for her to be in, poor girl, without a friend! I re- turned 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. TO MR BURNESS, MONTROSE. “DEAR SIR, “I was duly favoured with your letter of the 29th July.— Your goodness is such as to render it wholly out of my power to make any suitable acknowledgment, or to express what I feel for so much kindness. “With regard to my son Robert, I cannot as yet determine; the gentlemen here (particularly Dr Maxwell and Mr Syme, who have so much interested themselves for me and the family) do not wish that I should come to any resolution as to parting with any of them, and I own my own feelings rather incline me to keep them with me. I think they will be a comfort to me, and my most agreeable companions; but should any of them ever leave me, you, Sir, would be, of all others, the gen- tleman under whose charge I should wish to see any of them, and I am perfectly sensible of your very obliging offer. “Since Mr Lewars wrote you, I have got a young son, who, as well as myself, is doing well. “What you mention about my brother, Mr Gilbert Burns, is what accords with my own opinion, and every respect shall be paid to your advice. I am, dear Sir, with the greatest respect and regard, your very much obliged friend, - | “JAMES BURNess.” * Montrose, 29tri JULY, 1796 '' º $) “JEAN BURNs.” “DUMFRIES, 3RD AUGUST, 1796.” 1 Mr Gracie, who was a banker in Dumfries, had kindly offered Burns a post-chaise to bring him home. 2 This letter to the father of his Wife, is the last which the Poet wrote, being dated only three days before his death. It proves the strength of his care as a husband even in the extre- mity of his disease. The originalis preserved by the Poet's Son, Major James Glencairn Burns, late of the Hon. East India Company's Service. 00 I am detaining a man in a burning. -- *- L E TT E R S T () (; L A R IN D A. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. THE following Letters, with the exception of one only, were written by RoberT BURNs before his Jº's scarcely two people on earth by whom it would 3%, marriage. They are printed verbatim from the originals, and where any of them are torn, which unfortunately is the case with two or three, the deficiencies are marked by asterisks. The lady to whom they are addressed seems to have encouraged a friendly correspondence with the Poet, whose fascinating powers of mind must necessarily have produced, on her part, esteem and admiration. Yet, although he was forbidden to indulge the more tender affections of the heart, it was natural to expect, from the strong sensibility and delicate feelings of the Bard, that, in his correspondence with a young and amiable woman, love must be a principal theme. We are happy that, from the condescension of the proprietor, we are enabled to favour the public with an additional portion of the writings of our favourite Poet: nor is this condescension the effect of vanity, as, from the letters themselves, this lady can never be discovered: although, like Swift's Vanessa, she is, under a fictitious name, ushered into immortality by an author equally celebrated. As these Letters, on perusal, will be found to possess every mark of the strong and vigorous mind of Burns, they will, in no degree, diminish that celebrity he has so justly merited by his epistolary compositions. No. I. MADAM, THURSDAY EVENING. I HAD set no small store by my tea-drinking to-night, and have not often been so disappointed. Saturday evening I shall embrace the opportunity with the greatest pleasure. I leave this town this day se’ennight, and, probably, for a couple of twelvemonths; but must ever regret that I so lately got an acquaintance I shall ever highly esteem, and in whose welfare I shall ever be warmly interested. Our worthy common friend, in her usual plea- Sant way, rallied me a good deal on my new acquaintance, and in the humour of her ideas I wrote some lines, which I inclose you, as I think they have a good deal of poetic merit; and Miss tells me you are not only a critic, but a poetess. Fiction, you know, is the native region of poetry; and I hope you will pardon my vanity in sending you the bagatelle as a tolerable off- hand jew-d'esprit. I have several poetic trifles, which I shall gladly leave with Miss , Ol' you, if they were worth house room; as there are tº ºx U. mortify me more to be forgotten, though at the distance of nine score miles.—I am, Madam, with the highest respect, your very humble servant, * * * NO. II. SATURDAY EVENING. I CAN say with truth, Madam, that I never met with a person in my life whom I more anxi- ously wished to meet again than yourself. To- night I was to have had that very great pleasure, I was intoxicated with the idea, but an unlucky fall from a coach has so bruised one of my knees, that I can’t stir my leg; so if I don’t see you again, I shall not rest in my grave for chagrin. I was vexed to the soul I had not seen you sooner; I determined to cultivate your friendship with the enthusiasm of religion; but thus has Fortune ever served me. I cannot bear the idea of leav- ing Edinburgh without seeing you. I know not how to account for it—I am strangely taken with some people, nor am I often mistaken. You are a stranger to me; but I alm an odd being: Sonie 0.1 G) ...TC) gº / Q 2 ; 6 Q)/sº º ==º - --~Y ~. \D **. 3, ºù sº LETTERS TO CLARINDA, yet unnamed feelings, things, not principles, but better than whims, carry me farther than boasted reason ever did a philosopher.—Farewell! every happiness be yours! - * * 3: NO. III. FRIDAY EVENING. I BEG your pardon, my dear “Clarinda,” for the fragment scrawl I sent you yesterday. I really do not know what I wrote. A gentleman, for whose character, abilities, and critical know- ledge, I have the highest veneration, called in just as I had begun the second sentence, and I would not make the porter wait. I read to my much-respected friend several of my own baga- telles, and, among others, your lines, which I had copied out. He began some criticisms on them as on the other pieces, when I informed him they were the work of a young lady in this town, which, I assure you, made him stare. My learned friend seriously protested, that he did not believe any young woman in Edinburgh was capable of such lines; and if you know any thing of Professor Gregory, you will neither doubt of his abilities nor his sincerity. I do love you, if possible, still better for having so fine a taste and turn for poesy. I have again gone wrong in my usual unguarded way, but you may erase the word, and put esteem, respect, or any other tame Dutch expression you please, in its place. I be- lieve there is no holding converse, or carrying on correspondence, with an amiable woman, much less a gloriously amiable fine woman, without some mixture of that delicious passion, whose most devoted slave I have more than once had the honour of being—But why be hurt or of fended on that account 7 Can no honest man have a prepossession for a fine woman, but he must run his head against an intrigue! Take a little of the tender witchcraft of love, and add it to the generous, the honourable sentiments of manly friendship; and I know but one more de- lightful morsel, which few, few in any rank ever taste. Such a composition is like adding cream to strawberries; it not only gives the fruit a more elegant richness, but has a peculiar deliciousness of its own. I inclose you a few lines I composed on a late melancholy occasion. I will not give above five or six copies of it at all, and I would be hurt if any friend should give any copies without my consent. You cannot imagine, Clarinda (I like the idea of Arcadian names in a commerce of this kind,) low much store I have set by the hopes of your future friendship. just idea of my character, but I wish you to see me as I am. I am, as most people of my trade are, a strange Will-o'-Wisp being; the victim, too frequently, of much imprudence and many follies. My great constituent elements are pride and pas- Sion. The first I have endeavoured to humanize into integrity and honour; the last makes me a devotee, to the warmest degree of enthusiasm, in love, religion, or friendship—either of them, or all together, as I happen to be inspired. 'Tis true, I never saw you but once; but how much acquaintance did I form with you in that once! Do not think I flatter you, or have a design upon you, Clarinda; I have too much pride for the one, and too little cold contrivance for the other; but of all God's creatures I ever could approach in the beaten way of my acquaintance, you struck me with the deepest, the strongest, the most per- manent impression. I say the most permanent, because I know myself well, and how far I can promise either on my prepossessions or powers. Why are you unhappy? And why are so many of our fellow-creatures, unworthy to belong to the same species with you, blest with all they can Wish’ You have a hand all benevolent to give— Why were you denied the pleasure? You have a heart formed—gloriously formed—for all the most refined luxuries of love: Why was that heart ever wrung 2 O Clarinda! shall we not meet in a state, some yet unknown state of being, where the lavish hand of plenty shall minister to the highest wish of benevolence; and where the chill north-wind of prudence shall never blow over the flowery fields of enjoyment? If we do not, man was made in vain! I deserved most of the un- happy hours that have lingered over my head; they were the wages of my labour: but what unprovoked demon, malignant as hell, stole upon the confidence of unmistrusting busy Fate, and dashed your cup of life with undeserved sorrow? Let me know how long your stay will be out of town; I shall count the hours till you inform me of your return. Cursed etiquette forbids your seeing me just now; and so soon as I can walk I must bid Edinburgh adieu. Lord, why was I born to see misery which I cannot relieve, and to meet with friends whom I cannot enjoy 7 I look back with the pang of unavailing avarice on my loss in not knowing you sooner: all last win- ter, these three months past, what luxury of intercourse have I not lost ! Perhaps, though, 'twas better for my peace. You see I am either above, or incapable of dissimulation. I believe it is want of that particular genius. I despise design, because I want either coolness or wisdom to be capable of it. I am interrupted.—Adieu! my dear Clarinda! SYLVANDER. I do not know if you have a ſº 302 I,ETTERS TO CLARINDA. º =& No. IV. MONDAY EVENING, 11 O'CLOCK. WHY have I not heard from you, Clarinda Ż To-day I expected it; and before supper, when a letter to me was announced, my heart danced with rapture: but behold, 'twas some fool, who had taken it into his head to turn poet, and made me an offering of the first-fruits of his nonsense. “It is not poetry, but prose run mad.” Did I ever repeat to you an epigram I made on a Mr Elphinstone, who has given a translation of Mar- tial, a famous Latin poet 2 The poetry of Elphin- stone can only equal his prose notes. I was sitting in a merchant's shop of my acquaintance, waiting somebody; he put Elphinstone into my hand, and asked my opinion of it; I begged leave to write it on a blank leaf, which I did. TO MR ELPHINSTONE, &c. “O thou, whom poesy abhors : Whom prose has turned out of doors : Heardst thou yon groan P proceed no further 'Twas laurel'd Martial calling murther . " I am determined to see you, if at all possible, on Saturday evening. Next week I must sing– “The night is my departing night, The morn's the day I maun awa"; There's neither friend nor foe o' mine, But wishes that I were awa’ What I ha'e done for lack o' wit, I never, never can reca’; I hope ye're a' my friends as yet, Gude night, and joy be wi' you a' . " If I could see you sooner, I would be so much the happier; but I would not purchase the dear- est gratification on earth, if it must be at your expense in worldly censure, far less inward peace! I shall certainly be ashamed of thus scrawling whole sheets of incoherence. The only wnity (a sad word with poets and critics () in my ideas, is CLARINDA. There my heart “reigns and revels.” “What art thou, Love? whence are those charms, That thus thou bear'st an universal rule 2 For thee the soldier quits his arms, The king turns slave, the wise man fool. In vain we chase thee from the field, And with cool thoughts resist thy yoke: Next tide of blood, alas ! we yield ; And all those high resolves are broke . " I like to have quotations for every occasion. They give one's ideas so pat, and save one the trouble of finding expression adequate to one's feelings. I think it is one of the greatest pleasures attending a poetic genius, that we can give our * woes, cares, joys, loves, &c. an embodied form in verse, which, to me, is ever immediate ease. Goldsmith says finely of his Muse— “Thou source of all my bliss and all my wo; Å My limb has been so well to-day, that I have gone up and down stairs often without my staff. To-morrow I hope to walk once again on my own legs to dinner. It is only next street—Adieu. SYLVANDER. NO. V. SUNDAY NIGHT. THE impertinence of fools has joined with a return of an old indisposition, to make me good for nothing to-day. The paper has lain before me all this evening, to write to my dear Clarinda, but— “Fools rush'd on fools, as waves succeed to waves.” I cursed them in my soul; they sacrilegiously disturbed my meditations on her who holds my heart. What a creature is man | A little alarm last Inight and to-day, that I am mortal, has made such a revolution on my spirits! There is no philosophy, no divinity, comes half so home to the mind. I have no idea of courage that braves heaven. 'Tis the wild ravings of an imaginary hero in bedlam. I can no more, Clarinda; I can scarcely hold up my head; but I am happy you do not know it, you would be so uneasy. SYLVANDER. MONDAY MORNING. I AM, my lovely friend, much better this morn- ing on the whole; but I have a horrid languor on my spirits. “Sick of the world and all its joys, My Soul in pining sadness mourns; Dark scenes of woe my mind employs, The past and present in their turns.” Have you ever met with a saying of the great, and likewise good Mr Locke, author of the famous Essay on the Human Understanding : He wrote a letter to a friend, directing it, “not to be delivered till after my decease: ” it ended thus— “I know you loved me when living, and will pre- serve my memory now I am dead. All the use to be made of it is, that this life affords no solid satisfaction, but in the consciousness of having done well, and the hopes of another life. Adieu ! I leave my best wishes with you. J. LOCKE.” Clarinda, may I reckon on your friendship for life 2 I think I may. Thou almighty Preserver of men thy friendship, which hitherto I have CŞ. ſº |W | ! \ X. | (7.7×TV Thou found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so.” too much neglected, to secure it shall, all the l & 2) 303. (Sº º - S2TA'7. C (SITs sº (S) Šºš== ~~~~ :* $ 3. - =s* ~~~~ ‘s `CŞ. cº §: LETTERS TO CLARINDA. care future days and mights of my life, be my steady The idea of my Clarinda follows— “Hide it, my heart, within that close disguise, Where, mix’d with God's, her lov’d idea lies.” But I fear that inconstancy, the consequent imperfection of human weakness. Shall I meet with a friendship that defies years of absence, and the chances and changes of fortune 2 Perhaps “such things are ; ” one homest man I have great hopes from that way: but who, except a romance writer, would think on a love that could promise for life, in spite of distance, absence, chance, and change; and that too, with slender hopes of frui- tion ? For my own part, I can say to myself in both requisitions, “Thou art the man ” I dare, in cool resolve I dare, declare myself that friend, and that lover. If womankind is capable of such things, Clarinda is. I trust that she is; and feel I shall be miserable if she is not. There is not one virtue which gives worth, or one sentiment which does honour to the sex, that she does not possess superior to any woman I ever saw : her exalted mind, aided a little perhaps by her situa- tion, is, I think, capable of that nobly-romantic love—enthusiasm. May I see you on Wednesday evening, my dear angel ? The next Wednesday again will, I conjecture, be a hated day to us both. I tremble for censorious remark, for your sake; but in extraordinary cases, may not usual and useful pre- caution be a little dispensed with ? Three even- ings, three swift-winged evenings, with pinions of down, are all the past; I dare not calculate the future. I shall call at Miss ’s to-morrow evening; twill be a farewell call. I have wrote out my last sheet of paper, so I am reduced to my last half-sheet. What a strange mysterious faculty is that thing called imagination | We have no ideas almost at all of another world; but I have often amused myself with visionary schemes of what happiness might be enjoyed by small alterations—alterations that we can fully enter into, in this present state of exis- tence. For instance, suppose you and I just as we are at present; the same reasoning powers, sentiments, and even desires; the same fond curi- osity for knowledge and remarking observation in our minds; and imagine our bodies free from pain and the necessary supplies for the wants of nature at all times, and easily within our reach : imagine further, that we were set free from the laws of gravitation, which bind us to this globe, and could at pleasure fly, without inconvenience, through all the yet unconjectured bounds of crea- tion, what a life of bliss would we lead, in our mutual pursuit of virtue and knowledge, and our mutual enjoyment of friendship and love I see you laughing at my fairy fancies, and calling me a voluptuous Mahometan ; but I am certain I would be a happy creature, beyond any thing we call bliss here below ; nay, it would be a paradise congenial to you too. Don't you see us, hand in hand, or rather, my arm about your lovely waist, making our remarks on Sirius, the nearest of the fixed stars; or surveying a comet, flaming innoxious by us, as we just now would mark the passing pomp of a travelling monarch ; or in a shady bower of Mercury or Venus, dedi- cating the hour to love, in mutual converse, rely- ing honour, and revelling endearment, whilst the most exalted strains of poesy and harmony would be the ready spontaneous language of our souls 7 Devotion is the favourite employment of your heart; so is it of mine; what incentives then to, and powers for, reverence, gratitude, faith, and hope, in all the fervours of adoration and praise to that Being whose unsearchable wisdom, power, and goodness, so pervaded, so inspired, every sense and feeling !—By this time, I dare say, you will be blessing the neglect of the maid that leaves me destitute of paper SYLVANDER. NO. VI. 1 TUESDAY MORNING. I CANNOT go out to-day, my dearest Clarinda, without sending you half a line, by way of a sin- offering ; but, believe me, ’twas the sin of ignor- ance. Could you think that I intended to hurt you by any thing I said yesternight : Nature has been too kind to you for your happiness, your delicacy, your sensibility.—O why should such glorious qualifications be the fruitful source of woe You have “murdered sleep” to me last night. I went to bed, impressed with an idea that you were unhappy; and every start I closed my eyes, busy Fancy painted you in such scenes of romantic misery, that I would almost be per- suaded you were not well this morning. —“If I unweeting have offended, Impute it not.” —“But while we live, But one short hour perhaps, between us two Let there be peace.” If Mary is not gone by this reaches you, give her my best compliments. She is a charming girl, and highly worthy of the noblest love. I send you a poem to read, till I call on you this night, which will be about nine. I wish I could procure some potent spell, some fairy charm, that would protect from injury, or restore to rest, that bosom-chord, “tremblingly alive all o'er,” on 1 This letter, and the one which follows, should probably be placed later in the correspondence. 304 & N£) Q - —23.4%j) łº +== ~<2< SO). § º LETTERS TO CLARINDA. 95. Sºf which hangs your peace of mind. I thought, vainly, I fear, thought that the devotion of love— love strong as even you can feel—love guarded, invulnerably guarded, by all the purity of virtue, and all the pride of honour, I thought such a love would make you happy—will I be mistaken 3 I can no more for hurry “ ” “ ” “ * * No. VII. MY EVER DEARRST CLARINDA, I MAKE a numerous dinner party wait me while I read yours, and write this. Do not require that I should cease to love you, to adore you in my soul—'tis to me impossible—your peace and happiness are to me dearer than my soul— name the terms on which you wish to see me, to correspond with me, and you have them. I must love, pine, mourn, and adore in secret—this you must not deny me—you will ever be to me— “Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes, Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart 1" I have not patience to read the puritanic scrawl. —Wile sophistry !—Ye heavens ! thou God of nature I thou Redeemer of mankind ye look down with approving eyes on a passion inspired by the purest flame, and guarded by truth, deli- cacy, and honour; but the half-inch soul of an unfeeling, cold-blooded, pitiful presbyterian bigot, cannot forgive any thing above his dungeon bosom and foggy head. Farewell; I'll be with you to-morrow evening —and be at rest in your mind—I will be yours in the way you think most to your happiness! I dare not proceed I love, and will love you, and will with joyous confidence approach the throne of the almighty Judge of men, with your dear idea, and will despise the scum of sentiment, and the mist of sophistry. SYLVANDER. No. VIII. YoU are right, my dear Clarinda: a friendly correspondence goes for nothing, except one write their undisguised sentiments. Yours please me for their intrinsic merit, as well as because they are 3/owrs, which, I assure you, is to me a high recom- mendation. Your religious sentiments, Madam, I revere. If you have, on some suspicious evi- dence, from some lying oracle, learned that I despise or ridicule so sacredly important a matter as real religion, you have, my Clarinda, much mis- noble Festus!” Have you ever met a perfect character? Do we not sometimes rather exchange faults than get rid of them? For instance, I am perhaps tired with, and shocked at a life too much the prey of giddy inconsistencies and thoughtless follies; by degrees I grow sober, prudent, and statedly pious—I say statedly, because the most unaffected devotion is not at all inconsistent with my first character—I join the world in congratu- lating myself on the happy change. But let me pry more narrowly into this affair. Have I, at bottom, anything of a secret pride in these endow- ments and emendations? Have I nothing of a presbyterian sourness, an hypocritical severity, when I survey my less regular neighbours? In a word, have I missed all those nameless and num- berless modifications of indistinct selfishness, which are so near our own eyes, that we can scarcely bring them within the sphere of our vision, and which the known spotless cambric of our charac- ter hides from the ordinary observer ? My definition of worth is short; truth and humanity respecting our-fellow-creatures; rever- ence and humility in the presence of that Being, my Creator and Preserver, and who, I have every reason to believe, will one day be my Judge. The first part of my definition is the creature of unbiassed instinct; the last is the child of after reflection. Where I found these two essentials, I would gently note, and slightly mention, any attendant flaws—flaws, the marks, the conse- quences of human nature. I can easily enter into the sublime pleasures that your strong imagination and keen sensibility must derive from religion, particularly if a little in the shade of misfortune; but I own I cannot, without a marked grudge, see Heaven totally engross so amiable, so charming a woman, as my friend Clarinda; and should be very well pleased at a circumstance that would put it in the power of somebody (happy somebody!) to divide her attention, with all the delicacy and tenderness of an earthly attachment. You will not easily persuade me that you have not a grammatical knowledge of the English lan- guage.—So far from being inaccurate, you are elegant beyond any woman of my acquaintance, except one, whom I wish you knew. Your last verses to me have so delighted me, that I have got an excellent old Scots air that suits the measure, and you shall see them in print , in the Scots Musical Museum, a work publishing by a friend of mine in this town. I want four stanzas; you gave me but three, and one of them alluded to an expression in my former letter; so I have taken your two first verses, with a slight alteration in the second, and have added a third; \ construed your friend.—“I am not mad, most but you must help me to a fourth. Here they gº II. 305 2 Q § T-3--~ <ººs --~~<> 1 His autobiography, probably, which he drew out for Dr Moore. saxº * Q. º *** Q * .* - -& s t º |\! X \ \o AT) -*}–~~ {} sº- ^--—--~~~ LETTERS TO CLARINDA. my discernment, I knew, the first of women Her name is indelibly written in my heart's core ——but I dare not look in on it—a degree of agony would be the consequence. Oh! thou perfidious, cruel, mischief-making demon, who presidest over that frantic passion—thou mayest, thou dost poi- son my peace, but thou shalt not taint my honour —I would not, for a single moment, give an asy- lum to the most distant imagination, that would shadow the faintest outline of a selfish gratifica- tion, at the expense of her whose happiness is twisted with the threads of my existence. May she be as happy as she deserves! And if my tenderest, faithfulest friendship, can add to her bliss, I shall at least have one solid mine of enjoyment in my bosom! Don’t guess at these ravings! I watched at our front window to-day, but was disappointed. It has been a day of disappoint- ments. I am just risen from a two hours’ bout after supper, with silly or sordid souls, who could relish nothing in common with me but the Port. One—'Tis now “witching time of night;” and whatever is out of joint in the foregoing scrawl, impute it to enchantments and spells; for I can’t look over it, but will seal it up directly, as I don’t care for to-morrow’s criticisms on it. You are by this time fast asleep, Clarinda; may good angels attend and guard you as con- stantly and faithfully as my good wishes do. “Beauty, which, whether waking or asleep, Shot forth peculiar graces.” John Milton, I wish thy soul better rest than I expect on my pillow to-night! O for a little of the cart-horse part of human nature! Good night, my dearest Clarinda! SYLVANDER. NO. XII. THURSDAY MORNING. “ Unlavish Wisdom never works in vain.” I HAVE been tasking my reason, Clarinda, why a woman, who, for native genius, poignant wit, strength of mind, generous sincerity of soul, and the sweetest female tenderness, is without a peer, and whose personal charms have few, very, very few parallels, among her sex; why, or how she should fall to the blessed lot of a poor hairum- scairum poet, whom Fortune had kept for her particular use, to wreak her temper on whenever she was in ill humour. One time I conjectured, that as Fortune is the most capricious jade ever known, she may have taken, not a fit of remorse, but a paroxysm of whim, to raise the poor devil out of the mire, where he had so often and so conveniently served her as a stepping-stone, and given him the most glorious boon she ever had in her gift, merely for the maggot's sake, to see how his fool head and his fool heart will bear it. At other times I was vain enough to think, that Nature, who has a great deal to say with For- tune, had given the coquettish goddess some such hint as, “Here is a paragon of female excellence, whose equal, in all my former compositions, I never was lucky enough to hit on, and despair of ever doing so again; you have cast her rather in the shades of life; there is a certain Poet of my making; among your frolics it would not be amiss to attach him to this masterpiece of my hand, to give her that immortality among mankind, which no woman, of any age, ever more deserved, and which few rhymsters of this age are better able to confer.” EVENING, 9 O'CLOCK. I AM here, absolutely unfit to finish my letter —pretty hearty after a bowl, which has been constantly plied since dinner till this moment. I have been with Mr Schetki, the musician, and he has set it! finely. I have no distinct ideas of any thing, but that I have drunk your health twice to-night, and that you are all my soul holds dear in this world. SYLVANDER. NO. XIII. I WAS on the way, my Love, to meet you (I never do things by halves) when I got your card. M goes out of town to-morrow morning, to see a brother of his who is newly arrived from I am determined that he and I shall call on you together: so, look you, lest I should never see to-morrow, we will call on you to- night; and you may put off tea till about seven ; at which time, in the Galloway phrase, “an’ the beast be to the fore, an’ the branks bide hale,” expect the humblest of your humble servants, and his dearest friend. We propose staying only half an hour, “for ought we ken.” I could suffer the lash of misery eleven months in the year, were the twelfth to be composed of hours like yesternight. You are the soul of my enjoyment: all else is of the stuff of stocks and stones. SYLVANDER. No. XIV. THURSDAY NOON. I AM certain I saw you, Clarinda; but you don’t look to the proper story for a poet’s lodging— “Where speculation roosted near the sky.” 1 * Clarinda, mistress of my soul,” &c.—See p. 95, vol. i. . 2” - S. £º §§ Sº, LETTERS TO CLARIND A. & * <-- R- > ** 6 º . «. cº Fº 9. ~/ 'J * { - <>. - ...?" 2G , (, LETTERS TO CLARINDA. made, I feel my soul respire more easily. I know you will go along with me in my justification— would to heaven you could in my adoption too ! —I mean an adoption beneath the stars—an adoption where I might revel in the immediate beams of “She, the bright sun of all her sex.” I would not have you, my dear Madam, so much hurt at Miss 's coldness. "Tis plac- ing yourself below her, an honour she by no means deserves. We ought, when we wish to be econo- mists in happiness—we ought, in the first place, to fix the standard of our own character; and when, on full examination, we know where we stand, and how much ground we occupy, let us contend for it as property; and those who seem to doubt, or deny us what is justly ours, let us either pity their prejudices, or despise their judg- ment. I know, my dear, you will say this is self- conceit: but I call it self-knowledge. The one is the overweening opinion of a fool, who fancies himself to be what he wishes himself to be thought ; the other is the honest justice that a man of sense, who has thoroughly examined the subject, owes to himself. Without this standard, this column in our own mind, we are perpetually at the mercy of the petulance, the mistakes, the prejudices, nay, the very weakness and wicked- ness of our fellow-creatures. I urge this, my dear, both to confirm myself in the doctrine, which, I assure you, I sometimes need; and because I know that this causes you often much disquiet.—To return to Miss she is most certainly a worthy soul, and equalled by very, very few, in goodness of heart. But can she boast more goodness of heart than Clarinda. ? Not even prejudice will dare to say so. For penetration and discernment, Clarinda sees far beyond her: to wit, Miss dare make no pretence; to Clarinda's wit, scarcely any of her sex dare make pretence. Personal charms it would be ridiculous to run the parallel. And for conduct in life, Miss was never called out, either much to do or to suffer; Clarinda has been both ; and has performed her part, where Miss would have sunk at the bare idea. Away, then, with these disquietudes Let us pray with the honest weaver of Kilbarchan— “Lord, send us a guid conceit o’ oursel’l” Or, in the words of the auld sang, “Who does me disdain, I scorn them again, And I'll never mind any such foes.” There is an error in the commerce of intimacy * * * * * 3: * Way of exchange, have not an equivalent to give us; and, what is still worse, have no idea of the value of our goods. Happy 313 is our lot indeed, when we meet with an honest ºf merchant, who is qualified to deal with us on our own terms; but that is a rarity. With almost every body we must pocket our pearls, less or more, and learn, in the old Scotch phrase—“To gi'e sic like as we get.” For this reason one should try to erect a kind of bank or store-house in one’s own mind; or, as the Psalmist says, “We should Commune with our own hearts and be still.” This is exactly * * 3& # * 3% %: * 3& + * NO. XXIV. I OWN myself guilty, Clarinda; I should have Written you last week; but when you recollect, my dearest Madam, that yours of this night's post is only the third I have got from you, and that this is the fifth or sixth I have sent to you, you will not reproach me, with a good grace, for unkindness. I have always some kind of idea, not to sit down to write a letter, except I have time and possession of my faculties so as to do Some justice to my letter; which at present is rarely my situation. For instance, yesterday I dined at a friend's at some distance; the savage hospitality of this country spent me the most part of the night over the nauseous potion in the bowl: this day—sick—head-ach—low spirits— miserable—fasting, except for a draught of water or small beer; now eight o'clock at night—only able to crawl ten minutes’ walk into M to wait the post, in the pleasurable hope of hearing from the mistress of my soul. But, truce with all this When I sit down to Write to you, all is harmony and peace. A hun- dred times a-day do I figure you, before your taper, your book, or work laid aside, as I get within the room. How happy have. I been and how little of that scantling portion of time, called the life of man, is sacred to happiness | I could moralize to-night like a death's head. “O what is life, that thoughtless wish of all ! A drop of honey in a draught of gall.” Nothing astonishes me more, when a little sick- ness clogs the wheels of life, than the thoughtless career we run in the hour of health. “None saith, Where is God, my Maker, that giveth songs in the night: who teacheth us more knowledge than the beasts of the field, and more understanding than the fowls of the air.” Give me, my Maker, to remember thee! Give me to act up to the dignity of my nature I Give me to feel “ another's wo;” and continue with me that dear-lov’d friend that feels with mine ! The dignified and dignifying consciousness of 2 R LETTERS TO CLARINDA. an honest man, and the well-grounded trust in approving Heaven, are two most substantial sources of happiness. 3k * * * 3k SYLVANDER. No. XXV. 1 BEFORE you ask me why I have not written you, first let me be informed of you how I shall write you ! “In friendship,” 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 thunder. When I take up the pen, recollec- tion ruins me. Ah my ever dearest Clarinda | Clarinda —what an host of memory's tenderest offspring crowd on my fancy at that sound ! But I must not indulge that subject—you have for- bid it. I am extremely happy to learn, that your pre- cious health is re-established, and that you are once more fit to enjoy that satisfaction in exis- tence, which health alone can give us. My old friend has indeed been kind to you. Tell him, that I envy him the power of serving you. I had a letter from him a while ago, but it was so dry, so distant, so like a card to one of his clients, that I could scarcely bear to read it, and have not yet answered it. He is a good honest fellow; and can write a friendly letter, which would do equal honour to his head and his heart; as a whole sheaf of his letters I have by me will witness: and though Fame does not blow her trumpet at my approach now, as she did them, when he first hon- oured 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 which I have a right to. You would laugh were you to see me where I am just now !—would to heaven you were here to laugh with me! though I am afraid that cry- ing 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 confirma- tion of which, my dear Mrs Mack, here is your 1 A considerable period of time must have elapsed between the date of this and the previous letters. good health ! may the hand-waled benisons o' heaven bless your bonnie face; and the wratch wha skellies at your weelfare, may the auld tink- ler diel 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, when a married lady is called on as a toast, I constantly give you; but as your name has never passed my lips, even to the most inti- mate friend, I give you by the name of Mrs Mack. This is so well known among my acquaintances, that when my married lady is called for, the toast-master will say—“O, we need not ask him who it is—here’s Mrs Mack l” I have also, among my convivial friends, set on foot a round of toasts, which I call a round of Arcadian Shep- herdesses; 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 this glass of wine to a most ardent wish for your happiness! In vain would Prudence, with decorous sneer, Point out a cens’ring world, and bid me fear: Above that world on wings of love I rise, I know its worst, and can that worst despise. * Wrong’d, injur'd, shunn'd, unpitied, unredrest, The mock’d 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 * * $: * * 3k * * 3& * * * SYLVANDER. At what period of the Correspondence the following Poem was sent, is wr.certain. “I BURN, I burn, as when thro’ ripen'd corm, By driving winds the crackling flames are borne !’ Now madd’ning wild, I curse that fatal night; Now bless the hour which charm'd my guilty sight, In vain the laws their feeble force oppose ; Chained at his feet they groan Love's vanquish'd foes: In vain Religion meets my shrinking eye; I dare not combat—but I turn and fly : Conscience in vain upbraids the unhallow'd fire; Love grasps his scorpions—stifled they expire: Reason drops headlong from his sacred throne, Your dear idea reigns, and reigns alone; Each thought intoxicated homage yields, And riots wanton in forbidden fields ! By all on high adoring mortals know ! By all the conscious villain fears below ! By your dear self the last great oath I swear; Not life nor soul were ever half so dear. 314 CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN BURNS AND CLARINDA. THE LETTERs To CLARINDA were first published in 1802, by Mr Stewart, bookseller, Trongate, Glasgow—the same person who first gave to the world “ The Jolly Beggars,” “Holy Willie's Prayer,” and other stringent pieces of Burns, which Dr Currie (erring, as the world has since pronounced, on the side of over-caution), did not admit into his edition of the Poet's works. Con- siderable doubts at first existed as to the authenticity of the letters, but these have been altogether removed by the recent publication of the Correspondence between Burns and Clarinda, with a memoir of the latter by her grandson, W. C. M'Lehose. Clarinda was the assumed name of a lady in Edinburgh, of superior personal attractions and much sensibility, with whom Burns became acquainted towards the close of the year 1787. He had only seen her once (in the house of his friend Miss Nimmo, on which occasion Clarinda invited him to tea, as referred to in the first letter in the present series), when he got his leg severely bruised by a hackney coach, which confined him to his lodgings for several weeks, and which gave rise to the present correspondence, he adopting the name of Sylvander, and the lady that of Clarinda. On his recovery from the accident, he was often in the company of the lady till his departure from Edinburgh, one or two months afterwards. He only saw her once again, in December 1791, but they corresponded occasionally till near the period of his death. Clarinda was the daughter of a highly respectable surgeon in Glasgow, and her maiden name Agnes Craig. When only seventeen years of age (in July, 1776), she was married to a Mr M'Le- hose, a law agent in the same city; but the union proved an unhappy one, from dissimilarity of temper and sentiment, and ended in a separation, after Mrs M*Lehose had given birth to four children, all of whom died young except one. M'Lehose went to the West Indies, and his wife, on the death of her father, took up her residence in Edinburgh, where she was kindly patronized through life by her cousin, Lord Craig, one of the lords of session. In 1791, her husband unex- pectedly invited her to Jamaica, sending money for the voyage : she went ; but apparently the re- union was not a happy one, and the climate hurt her, so she was glad to return to Edinburgh, after a very brief absence. One or two of Burns's songs were made on the occasion of her departure,” and some letters passed between them on her return, but they never met, as we have said above, after December, 1791, which was two months before her embarking for Jamaica. Clarinda, in her private journal, has this jotting, forty years beyond the date of her last interview —“6th Dec. 1831.—This day I never can forget. Parted with Burns in the year 1791, never more to meet in * These were those beginning— “Behold the hour, the boat arrive,” and “Ance mair I hail thee, thou gloomy December.” Also that exquisitely passionate song, which Sir Walter Scott characterizes as containing the essence of a thousand love tales: “Ae fond kiss, and then we sever; Ae fareweel, alas, for ever ! Deep in heart-wrung tears I’ll pledge thee, } Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee. “Had we never loved sae kindly, Had we never loved sae blindly; Never met—or never parted, |We had ne'er been broken-hearted.” 315 CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN BURNS AND CLARINDA. - º this world. Oh, may we meet in heaven P-She survived Burns nearly half a century, although { she was of his own age, having been born in the same year. Her death took place at a house | which she had long occupied on the Calton Hill, Edinburgh, in October, 1841. ! In early life, Clarinda (then Miss Craig) was considered one of the Beauties of Glasgow, and styled “the pretty Miss Nancy.” Her personal appearance in middle age is thus described by her grandson:—“She was short in stature; her hands and feet small and delicate; her skin fair, with a ruddy colour in her cheeks, which she retained to the end of her life; her eyes were lively, and evinced great vivacity; her teeth well-formed, and beautifully white; her voice was soft and pleasing.” The letters of Burns to Clarinda contain some noble passages, full of fire and generous warmth of feeling, and others displaying his characteristic sagacity; but, on the whole, this portion of the poet's literary remains could have been better spared than any other portion, without entailing loss to his reputation. The letters in general are characterized by vehemence of feeling ;—simpli- city of thought or expression is rarely to be found in them; on the contrary, they are too often marked by strained sentiment and laboured diction. Burns had much to excuse him for writing in this vein. He was only a year from the plough, when this celebrated beauty confessed an admira- tion for him, and said she had long sought his company as one whose sentiments and feelings re- sembled her own. The lady, besides being beautiful, was clever, accomplished, fond of adulation, and, above all, full of the liveliest sensibilities. Burns felt himself constrained to write wp to her sympathies and her expectations of him, and the result is, that the letters to Clarinda bear in many places a forced and exaggerated character. The poet was doubtless fascinated by the attachment of the beauty, and expressed himself in the most rapturous terms regarding her; but it is greatly to be questioned if his love for her ever equalled, in sincerity or depth of feeling, his love for Highland Mary or Bonnie Jean. The intimacy between Burns and Clarinda, notwithstanding some startling passages in the Cor- respondence, was, there is no reason to doubt, without vice. Viewing Clarinda as a married woman, her conduct, beyond question, was imprudent; but when we consider the cruelty of her position—deserted by her husband in the bloom of youth—we should judge with tenderness of her imprudence. To open up a correspondence with one whom she mentally admired, and whose ad- miration she in return coveted, was a temptation which she could not resist; and although the correspondence rose in passion far above the Platonics to which it was originally intended to be confined, there is every evidence to believe that, beyond this impropriety, no offence to good morals marked the connection between Burns and Clarinda. - 316 tº-1 & N Y §º- §-Z l; Lý (??" f ś (o) § Yº...ſº-º-º- º RE M A R K S ON S C 0 TT IS H S O N G S A N D B A L L A DS, &c. § §§ *g - RE M A. R. KS ON S C OTTIS H S ON GS AND BALL ADS, &c. THE following REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SoNGS AND BALLADS exist in the hand-writing of BURNs, in an interleaved copy of “Johnson's Scots Musical Museum,” which he presented to Captain Riddel of Glenriddel. These valuable volumes were left by Mrs Riddel to her niece, Miss Eliza Bayley, of Manchester, by whose kindness Mr Cromek was enabled to present the Public with transcripts of this amusing and miscellaneous collection. Sir Walter Scott justly observes, on this part of the Reliques of Burns, “The strictures might have adorned with great propriety a second edition of Johnson's Museum, or any other collection of Scottish Songs; but separated from the verses to which they relate, how can any one be interested in learning, that “Down the Burn Davie' was the com- position of David Maigh, keeper of the blood-hounds to the Laird of Riddel; that ‘Tarry Woo' was, in the opinion of Burns, a very pretty song; or even that the author of ‘Polwarth on the Green’ was Captain John Drummond Macgregor, of the family of Bochaldie?” Mr Cromek, on his sugges- tion, re-published Burns’ Remarks, accompanied with the songs on which the Poet commented, to which he himself added such information and anecdotes as he had collected in the course of two journeys to Scotland. The same method is followed in this Edition. Most of the songs of which the Poet speaks are here given, with occasionally additional commentary; and to distinguish the whole from Burns' own, they are enclosed within brackets, and printed on a smaller type. Qſìje #igilamb QBueen. No sordid wish, nor trifling joy, - Her settled calm of mind destroy; THIS Highland Queen, music and poetry, was Strict honour fills her spotless soul, composed by Mr MºVicar, purser of the Solway º º: 8, º: to the . e man of war.—This I had from Dr Blacklock. A. ºi.. º [The Highland Queen was published in Ruddiman's How blest that youth, whom gentle Fate Edinburgh Magazine for April, 1758, and in Herd's Has destined for so fair a mate! Collection, before it appeared in Johnson's Museum. Has all these wond'ring gifts in store, Of its author, nothing is known beyond what Burns And each returning day brings more; records above. The following is a copy of the song: No youth so happy can be seen, Possessing thee, my Highland Queen.] No more my song shall be, ye swains, Of purling streams or flowery plains; More pleasing beauties now inspire, 33266 fije Gatnitie. And Phoebus tunes th bling lyre: g Divinely ... * . ing lyre; THIS song shows that the Scottish Muses did To celebrate my Highland Queen. not all leave us when we lost Ramsay and Oswald, as I have good reason to believe that the verses & S - 3.3 and music are both posterior to the days of these M. freedom, truth, and beauty join'd; two gentlemen. It is a beautiful song, and in the om pride and affectation free, © * Sº Alike she smiles on you and me; genuine Scottish taste. We have few pastoral The brightest nymph that trips the green compositions, I mean the pastoral of nature, that I do pronounce my Highland Queen. are equal to this. In her sweet innocence you’ll find, 319 REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONG. [This song was written by the Rev. JAMES MUIR- HEAD, Minister of Urr Parish, Galloway. He was a maker of rhymes, and in 1795, at the controverted elec- tion of the Dumfries burghs, falling under the lash of our Poet, avenged himself by some satirical lines, which have much ill-mature, but no wit. He died in 1808, in the 68th year of his age, and 38th of his ministry.— Oswald was a music-seller in London, about the year 1750. He published a large collection of Scottish tunes, which he called the Caledonian Pocket Companion. Mr Tytler observes, that his genius in composition, joined to his taste in the performance of Scottish music, was matural and pathetic. The following is a copy of Bess the Gawkie. It appeared first in Herd's Collection. BLYTHE young Bess to Jean did say, Will ye gang to yon sunny brae, Where flocks do feed and herds do stray, And sport awhile wi' Jamie Ż Ah, na, lass, I’ll no gang there, Nor about Jamie tak’ mae care, Nor about Jamie tak’ nae care, For he's ta'en up wi' Maggie For hark, and I will tell you, lass, Did I not see your Jamie pass, Wi’ meikle gladness in his face, Out o'er the muir to Maggie? I wat he ga’e her mony a kiss, And Maggie took them ne'er amiss; *Tween ilka smack, pleas'd her wi' this, That Bess was but a gawkie. For when a civil kiss I seek, She turns her head and thraws her cheek, And for an hour she'll scarcely speak: Wha’d no ca' her a gawkie? But sure my Maggie has mair sense, She’ll gi'e a score without offence; Now gi'e me ame unto the mense, And ye shall be my dawtie. O, Jamie, ye ha'e mony ta’em, But I will never stand for ame, Or twa, when we do meet again; Sae ne'er think me a gawkie. Ah, na, lass, that ne'er can be, Sic thoughts as these are far frae me, Or ony that sweet face that see, E'er to think thee a gawkie. But, whisht!—mae mair of this we'll speak, For yonder Jamie does us meet; Instead of Meg he kiss'd sae sweet, I trow he likes the gawkie. O dear Bess, I hardly knew, When I came by, your gown sae new, I think ye've got it wat wi' dew; Quoth she, That’s like a gawkie. It's wat wi' dew, and 'twill get rain, And I’ll get gowns when it is game, Saeye may gang the gate ye came, And tell it to your dawtie. The guilt appear'd in Jamie's cheek; He cry’d, O cruel maid, but sweet, If I should gang anither gate, I ne'er could meet my dawtie : The lasses fast frae him they flew, And left poor Jamie sair to rue, That ever Maggie's face he knew, Or yet ca'd Bess a gawkie. As they went o'er the muir they sang; The hills and dales wi'echoes rang, The hills and dales wi' echoes rang, Gang o'er the muir to Maggie. I QBſ), @pen tije IBoot, 3Lorū (fºregory. IT is somewhat singular, that in Lanark, Ren- frew, Ayr, Wigton, Kirkcudbright, and Dumfries- shires, there is scarcely an old song or tune which, from the titles, &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 bal- lad, which is a long one, is called both by tra- dition and in printed collections, “The Lass o' Lochroyan,” which I take to be Lochroyan in Galloway. [When Burns wrote this, beyond what Percy had dome, little was really known of the ballad literature of the country. Since them, much light has been thrown upon it by the labours of many enthusiastic collectors; and Motherwell has proved that the western and south- western counties of Scotland are no ways deficient in this species of lore. See his “Minstrelsy, Ancient and Modern, for several fine old ballads belonging to the * West countrie.” The song given in the Museum, under this title, is only a part of the old ballad, ‘The Lass of Lochroyan,’ and is as follows: OH, open the door, Lord Gregory, Oh, open and let me in; The rain rains on my scarlet robes, The sleet dreeps o'er my chin. If you are the lass that I loved ance, As I trow you are not she, Come gi'e me some of the tokens That passed 'tween you and me. Ah, wae be to you, Gregory, An ill death may you die; You will not be the death of one, But you’ll be the death of three. Oh, don’t you mind, Lord Gregory, 'Twas down at yon burnside, We changed the ring off our fingers, And I put mine on thine.] Qſìje 3Gamţg of fije (ſtocely. THIS song is one of the many attempts that English composers have made to imitate the Scot- tish manner, and which I shall, in these Stric- tures, beg leave to distinguish by the appellation of Anglo-Scottish productions. The music is pretty good, but the verses are just above con- tempt. 320 REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONG. [THE music was the composition of JAMES Hook, a London composer after the middle of the last century, and father of the late Theodore Hook, the novelist. Tenducci, a celebrated Italian singer of Scottish songs, introduced it to Edinburgh society, and rendered it for a while popular. The author of the words is unknown. They arc as follows: IRECITATIVE. As on the banks of Tweed I lay reclin'd Beneath a verdant shade, I heard a sound more sweet, than pipe or flute, Sure more enchanting was not Orpheus' lute, While list’ming and amaz'd I turm'd my eyes, The more I heard, the greater my surprise; I rose and follow’d, guided by my ear, And in a thick-set grove I saw my dear. Unseen, unheard, (she thought) thus sung the maid: AIR. To the soft murmuring stream I will sing of my love, How delighted am I when abroad I can rove, To indulge a fond passion for Jockey my dear, When he's absent I sigh, but how blythe when he's near. 'Tis these rural amusements delight my sad heart, Come away to my arms, love, and never depart, To his pipe I could sing, for he's bonny and gay: Did he know how I lov’d him, no longer he'd stay. Neither limnet mor mightingale sing half so sweet ; And the soft melting strain did kind echo repeat, It so ravish'd my lieart and delighted my ear, Swift as light'ning I flew to the arms of my dear; She, surpris'd, and detected, some moments did stand, Like the rose was her cheek, and the lily her hand, Which she plac'd on her breast, and said, Jockey, I fear I have been too imprudent, pray how came you here For to visit my eves, and to see my lambs play, By the banks, of the Tweed, and the groves I did stray, But my Jenny, dear Jenny, how oft have I sigh’d, And have vow’d endless love if you would be my bride; To the altar of Hymen my fair one repair, Where the knot of affection shall tie the fond pair, To the pipe's sprightly notes the gay dance we will lead, And will bless the dear grove by the banks of the Tweed.] Qſìje 36cing of Śineet lºdgeg. THIS song, as far as I know, for the first time appears here in print.—When I was a boy, it was a very popular song in Ayrshire. I remember to have heard those fanatics, the Buchanites, sing some of their nonsensical rhymes, which they dig- nify with the name of hymns, to this air. [For an account of the Buchamites, See Letter No. IX. of the General Correspondence, p. 154. One verse of this song will suffice. “As I was a walking one morning in May, The little birds were singing delightful and gay; The little birds were singing delightful and gay; Where I and my true love did often sport and play, Down among the beds of sweet roses, Where I and my true love did often sport and play, Down among the beds of sweet roses.” I II. 321 #05ſin (Tagtſe, THESE beautiful verses were the production of a Richard Hewit, a young man that Dr Blacklock, to whom I am indebted for the anecdote, kept for Some years as an amanuensis. I do not know who is the author of the second song to the tune. Tytler, in his amusing history of Scots music, gives the air to Oswald; but in Oswald’s own collection of Scots tunes, where he affixes an asterisk to those he himself composed, he does not make the least claim to the tune. [Richard Hewit was taken, when a boy, during the residence of Dr Blacklock in Cumberland, to lead him. —He addressed a copy of verses to the Doctor on quit- ting his service. Among the verses are the following lines:— “How oft these plains I’ve thoughtless prest; Whistled or sung some fair distrest, When fate would steal a tear.” “Alluding,” as it is said in a note, “to a sort of narra- tive songs, which make no inconsiderable part of the innocent amusements with which the country people pass the wintry mights, and of which the author of the present piece was a faithful rehearser.”—Hewit subse- quently became secretary to Lord Milton, and died in 1794. The tune of Roslin Castle is now known to be older than Oswald’s day, and to have at first been called ‘The House of Glamis.” ROSLIN CASTLE. 'Twas in that season of the year, When all things gay and Sweet appear, That Colim, with the morning ray, Arose and sung his rural lay. Of Nanny’s charms the shepherd sung, The hills and dales with Nanny rung; While Roslin Castle heard the swain, And echoed back the cheerful strain. Awake, sweet Muse ! the breathing spring With rapture warms; awake and sing! Awake and join the vocal throng, Who hail the morning with a song; To Namly raise the cheerful lay, § O! bid her haste and come away; In sweetest smiles herself adorn, And add new graces to the morn! O, hark, my love! on ev’ry spray Each feather'd warbler tunes his lay; 'Tis beauty fires the ravish'd throng, And love inspires the melting song: Then let my raptur'd notes arise, For beauty darts from Nanny's eyes; And love my rising bosom Warms, And fills my soul with sweet alarms. O come, my love thy Colim's lay With rapture calls, O come away! Come, while the Muse this wreath shall twine Around that modest brow of thine. O! hither haste, and with thee bring That beauty blooming like the spring, Those graces that divinely shime, And charm this ravish’d breast of mine!] 2 S REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONGS. | $ah, pe joijnnie contin'. THIS song, for genuine humour in the verses, and lively originality in the air, is unparalleled. I take it to be very old. [See Burns's observations on the same tume in his letter to Thomson, No. XLII. p. 167. He there adverts to the extreme pathos of the tune, when played slow. The words are very matural and beautiful. The author is unknown, SAw ye Johnnie comin’? quo' she, Saw ye Johmmie comin’? O saw ye Johnnie comin’? quo' she, Saw ye Johmmie comin', Wi’ his blue bommet on his head, And his doggie rimmin”, quo' she; Amd his doggie rimmin’? Fee him, father, fee him, quo' she; Fee him, father, fee him: For he is a gallant lad, And a weel doin’; And a the wark about the house Gaes wi' me when I see him, quo' she; Wi’ me when I see him. What will I do wi' him, hussy? What will I do wi' him? He's ne'er a sark upon his back, And I ha'e mane to gie him. I ha'e twa sarks into my kist, And ame o’ them I'll gi'e him, And for a mark of mair fee, Dimma stand wi' him, quo' she, Dimma stand wi' him. For weel do I lo'e him, quo' she; Weel do I lo’e him: O fee him, father, fee him, quo' she; Fee him, father, fee him: He'll haud the plough, thrash i' the barn, And lie wi' me at e'en, quo' she; Lie wi' me at e'en.] QTIqut fije (Taſbron. A TRADITION is mentioned in the “Bee,” that the second Bishop Chisholm, of Dumblane, used to say, that if he were going to be hanged, nothing would soothe his mind so much by the way as to hear “Clout the Caldron” played. I have met with another tradition, that the old song to this tune, “Ha’e ye ony pots or pans, Or ony broken chanlers,” was composed on one of the Kenmure family, in the cavalier times; and alluding to an amour he had, while under hiding, in the disguise of an itinerant tinker. The air is also known by the Iname of “The Blacksmith and his Apron.” which, from the rhythm, seems to have been a line of some old song to the tune. [The following is a verse of this humorous song. The rest partakes strongly of the licence of olden times. “HA’E ye ony pots or pans, Or ony broken chanlers, For I'm a tinker to my trade, And newly come frae Flanders, As scant o' siller as o' grace, Disbanded, we’ve a bad rum; Gar tell the lady o' the place, I’m come to clout her caldron.”] 35am pettae tup 33rggy. 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 ori- ginal 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 follows; a song fami- liar from the cradle to every Scottish ear. “SAw ye my Maggie, Saw ye my Maggie, Saw ye my Maggie, Linkin o’er the lea 7 High kilted was she, High kilted was she, High kilted was she, Her coat aboon her knee. What mark has your Maggie, What mark has your Maggie, What mark has your Maggie, That ame may ken her be 3 * * * * 3& Though it by no means follows, that the silli- est verses to an air must, for this reason, be the original song ; yet I take this ballad, of which I have quoted part, to be the old verses. The two songs in Ramsay, one of them evidently his own, are never to be met with in the fire-side circle of our peasantry; while 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 song in the Museum which Burns praises so highly may be older than Ramsay’s, but it can be traced no farther back than to Herd's collection, 1769. It is as follows: “SAw ye mae my Peggy, Saw ye nae my Peggy, Saw ye mae my Peggy, Coming o'er the leaf REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONGS. Sure a finer creature Ne’er was form'd by nature, So complete each feature, So divine is she. O! how Peggy charms me; Every look still warms me, Every thought alarms me, Lest she love nae me. Peggy doth discover Nought but charms all over: Nature bids me love her, That's a law to me. Wha would leave a lover, To become a rover? No, I’ll ne'er give over *Till I happy be. For since love inspires me, As her beauty fires me, And her absence tires me, Naught can please but she. When I hope to gain her, Fate seems to detain her, Could I but obtain her, Happy would I bel I’ll lie down before her, Bless, sigh, and adore her, With faint looks implore her, Till she pity me.”] Oſije iſ ſomerg of 3:Uimburgſ), THIS song is one of the many effusions of Scots Jacobitism. The title, “Flowers of Edinburgh,’ 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 bye, it is singular enough that the Scot- tish Muses were all Jacobites.—I have paid more attention to every description of Scots songs than perhaps any body living has done, and I do not recollect one single stanza, or even the title of the most trifling Scots air, which has the least pane- gyrical reference to the families of Nassau or Brunswick," while there are hundreds satirizing them. This may be thought no panegyric on the Scots Poets, but I mean it as such. For myself, I would always take it as a compliment to have it said that my heart ran before my head, and surely the gallant though unfortunate house of Stuart, the kings of our fathers for so many heroic ages, is a theme much more interesting than * 3k * * * * [The concluding part of the sentence has been erased, and the Poet's comparison of our native race of princes with some others, must therefore remain imperfect. It is not known upon what grounds Burns says that this is one of the many effusions of Scots Jacobitism. The tune called ‘The Flowers of Edinburgh,” is not very old. It became a fashionable hornpipe towards the middle of the last century, and received its name pro- bably in compliment to the young ladies of Edinburgh who were them attending the dancing schools. The following are the two first verses of the song to which the tune is sung. “MY love was once a bonnie lad; He was the flow'r of a his kin; The absence of his bonnie face, Has rent my tender heart in twain. I day nor night find no delight—— In silent tears I still complain; | And exclaim 'gainst those my rival foes, That ha'e ta'en frae me my darling swain. Despair and anguish fill my breast, Since I have lost my blooming rose: I sigh and moan while others rest; His absence yields me no repose. To seek my love, I’ll range and rove Thro’ every grove and distant plain; Thus I’ll ne'er cease, but spend my days Tº hear tidings from my darling swain.”] $Jamie Qāap. JAMIE GAY is another and a tolerable Anglo- Scottish piece. [Jamie Gay is to be found in the London Songster, 1767, and also in Herd's collection, 1776. The author is unknown. The music was the composition of Mr Berg. We give the words as rather a favourable speci- men of an English-Scotch song. As Jamie Gay gang’d blythe his way, Along the banks of Tweed; A bonny lass, as ever was, Came tripping o'er the mead: The hearty swain, untaught to feign, The buxom mymph survey’d: And full of glee, as lad could be, Bespake the pretty maid. Dear lassy tell, why by thinesell Thou hast’ly wand rest here : My ewes, she cry’d, are straying wide; Can’st tell me laddy where? To town I’ll hie, he made reply, Some meikle sport to see; But thou’rt so sweet, so trim and neat, I’ll seek the ewes with thee. She gae’m her hand, mor made a stand, But lik’d the youth's intent; O'er hill and dale, o'er plaim and vale, Right merrily they went ; The birds sang sweet the pair to greet, And flowers bloom'd around; And as they walk’d, of love they talk d, And joys which lovers crown'd. 1 This is not strictly correct. There were a number of anti- jacobite songs written and published, but none of them of much merit. at S 323 sº G) SE- º § gº IX--- ——º-XXºcyº º sº Q. REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONGS. And now the sum had rose to moon, (The zenith of his pow'r,) When to a shade their steps they made, To pass the mid-day hour: The bonny lad row’d in his plaid The lass, who scorn’d to frown; She soon forgot the ewes she sought, And he to gang to town.] iſłip beat jockie. ANOTHER Anglo-Scottish production. [This song appears in a collection called “St Cecilia” published in 1779. The tune is very fine. The words are as follows: MY laddie is game far awa’ o'er the plain, While in sorrow behind I am forc’d to remain; Tho' blue bells and viºlets the hedges adorn, Tho' trees are in blossom, and sweet blows the thorn, No pleasure they give me, in vain they look gay; There's nothing can please now, my Jockey's away, Forlorn I sit singing, and this is my strain, Haste, haste my dear Jockey to me back again. When lads and their lasses are on the green met, They dance, and they sing, they laugh and they chat, Contented and happy, with hearts full of glee, I can’t without envy their merriment see; Those pleasures offend me, my shepherd's not there, No pleasures I relish that Jockey don't share; It makes me to sigh, I from tears scarce refrain; I wish my dear Jockey return'd back again. But hope shall sustain me, nor will I despair, IIe promis'd he would in a fortnight be here; On fond expectation my wishes I'll feast, For love, my dear Jockey, to Jemmy will haste; Them, farewell, each care, and adieu, each vain sigh, Who'll then be so blest or so happy as I; I'll sing on the meadows, and alter my strain, When Jockey returns to my arms back again.] jFpe gae rub jet o'er ini' strac. IT is self-evident, that the first four lines of this song are part of a song more ancient than Ramsay’s beautiful verses which are annexed to them. As music is the language of nature, and poetry, particularly songs, are always less or more localized (if I may be allowed the verb) by some of the modifications of time and place, this is the reason why so many of our Scots airs have out- lived their original, and perhaps many subsequent sets of verses; except a single name or phrase, or sometimes one or two lines, simply to distinguish To this day, among people who know nothing of Ramsay’s verses, the following is the song, and all the song that ever I had: t the tunes by. | “GIN ye meet a bonnie lassie, Gi’e her a kiss and let her gae; But gin ye meet a dirty hizzie, Fye, gae rub her o'er wit strae. Fye, gae rub her, rub her, rub her, Fye, gae rub her o'er wi' strae; An’gin ye meet a dirty hizzie, Fye, gae rub her o'er wit strae.” [“Ramsay's spirited imitation,” says Cromek, “ of the “Wides ut alta stet nive candidum, Soracle, of Horace, is considered as one of the happiest efforts of the author's genius.”—For a very elegant critique on the poem, and a comparison of its merits with those of the Original, the reader is referred to Lord Woodhouselee’s “Remarks on the Writings of Ramsay,” usually printed with that Poet's works. The following is his Ode in its complete state, from which the song of “Gin you meet a bommie lassie' is takem, beginning, after the chorus, at the ninth verse. The tune of ‘Fye gae rub her o'er wi' strae’ is very old, as it can be traced in some of our most ancient manuscript music-books. LOOK up to Pentland's tow’ring tap, Bury’d beneath great wreaths of smaw, O'er ilka cleugh, ilk scar, and slap, As high as omy Roman wa'. Driving their baws frae whims or tee, There's no mae gowfers to be seen; r - --> * º Nor dousser fock wysing a jee, The byass-bouls on Tamson’s green. Then fling on coals, and ripe the ribs, And beek the house baith butt and ben; That mutchkin stowp it hauds but dribs, Then let's get in the tappit hem. Good claret best keeps out the cauld, And drives awa’ the winter soon; It makes a man baith gash and bauld, And heaves his saul beyond the moon. Leave to the gods your ilka care, If that they think us worth their while, They can a rowth of blessings spare, Which will our fashious fears beguile. For what they have a mind to do, That will they do, should we gang wud; If they command the storms to blaw, Then upo' sight the hailstanes thud, But soon as e'er they cry, ‘Be quiet,” The blatt’ring winds dare mae mair move, But cour into their caves and wait The high command of supreme Jove. Let meist day come as it thinks fit, The present minute's only ours; On pleasure let's employ our wit, And laugh at Fortune's fickle powers. Be sure ye dinna quat the grip Of ilka joy, when ye are young, Before auld age your vitals nip, And lay yetwafald o'er a rung, 3 24 REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONGS. 6 Sweet youth's a blythe and heartsome time; Then, lads and lasses, while it’s May, Gae pou the gowan in its prime, Before it wither and decay. Watch the saft minutes of delyte, When Jenny speaks beneath her breath, And kisses, laying a the wyte On you, if she kepp ony skaith. “Haith, ye're ill-bred,” she'll smiling say; ‘Ye'll worry me, ye greedy rook;’ Syne frae your arms she’ll rim away, And hide hersel in some dark nook. Her laugh will lead you to the place Where lies the happiness you want, And plainly tells you to your face, Nineteen may-says are half a grant. Now to her heaving bosom cling, And sweetly tuilyie for a kiss, Frae her fair finger whup a ring, As taiken of a future bliss. These benisons, I'm very sure, Are of the gods indulgent grant; Then, surly carls, whisht, forbear To plague us wi' your whining cant.] (Iije £agg o' 3Libígton. THE old song, in three eight line stanzas, is well known, and has merit as to wit and humour, but is rather unfit for insertion.—It begins, “The bonnie lass o’ Liviston, Her name ye ken, her name ye kem, And she has written in her contract, To lie her lane, to lie her lane.” &c., &c. [The old song, though a little wild in its language, is more natural than the modern song which took its place. The tune is to be found in Crockat's music- book, 1709, but is probably older than that. The ver- sion by Ramsay is as follows: PAIN’D with her slighting Jamie's love, Bell dropt a tear—Bell dropt a tear; The gods descended from above, Well pleased to hear—well pleased to hear. They heard the praises of the youth, From her own tongue—from her own tongue, Who now converted was to truth, And thus she sung—and thus she sumg. Bless'd days, when our ingenuous sex, More frank and kind—more frank and kind, Did not their loved adorers vex, But spoke their mind—but spoke their mind. Repenting now, she promis'd fair, Would he return—would he return, Why lov’d I the deserving swain, Yet still thought shame—yet still thought shame, When he my yielding heart did gain, To own my flame—to own my flame? Why took I pleasure to torment; And seem'd too coy—and seem'd too coy 3 Which makes me now, alas! lament My slighted joy—my slighted joy. Ye fair, while beauty's in its spring, Own your desire—own your desire, While love's young pow'r with his soft wing, Fans up the fire—fans up the fire. O do not with a silly pride, Or low design—or low design, Refuse to be a happy bride, But answer plain—but answer plain. Thus the fair mourner wail'd her crime, With flowing eyes—with flowing eyes, Glad Jamie heard her all the time With sweet surprise—with sweet surprise. Some chance had led him to the grove, His mind unchang’d—his mind unchang'd ; Flew to her arms, and cry’d, My love, I’m now reveng’d—I’m now reveng’d.] &ſje Jagt QTime # came o’ct fje ſtauír. RAMSAY found the first line of this song, which had been preserved as the title of the charming air, and then composed the rest of the verses to suit that line. This has always a finer effect than composing English words, or words with an idea foreign to the spirit of the old title. Where old titles of songs convey an idea at all, it will gen- erally be found to be quite in the spirit of the air. [In the Skene manuscript collection of tunes, made in the reign of James VI., and published by Mr Dauney in 1838, occurs a fine air, entitled, ‘Alace, yat I came owr the moor, and left my love behind me.” The modern tune is founded on this. The old words are lost. The following is Ramsay’s song:— THE last time I came o'er the muir, I left my love behind me; Ye pow'rs! what pain do I endure, When soft ideas mind me: Soon as the ruddy morm display'd The beaming day ensuing, I met betimes my lovely maid In fit retreats for wooing. Beneath the cooling shade we lay, Gazing and chastely sporting, We kiss'd and promis’d time away, Till might spread her black curtain. I pitied all beneath the skies, Even kings when she was nigh me; In rapture I belield her eyes, Which could but ill deny me. Should I be call’d where cammons roar, Where mortal steel may wound me; } º ! | f f She ne'er again would give him care, Or cast upon some foreign shore, Or cause to mourn—or cause to mourn, Where dangers may surround me; Å &º ~ D sº Q GY 325 9& (D sº tº SC Q.) º º ojº ęż C’s §§ Y: £% (OQ-ZT-3--~~ ----><\ºes * sº º 7-’ \", º *A*. &; ºf W GºGº º). sº *... REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONGS. Yet hopes again to see my love, And feast on glowing kisses, Shall make my cares at distance move, In prospect of such blisses. In all my soul there's not one place To let a rival enter; Since she excels in every grace, In her my love shall centre. Sooner the seas shall cease to flow, Their waves the Alps shall cover, On Greenland ice shall roses grow, Before I cease to love her. The next time I go o'er the muir, She shall a lover find me; And that my faith is firm and pure, Tho' I left her bellind me: Then Hymen’s sacred bonds shall chain My heart to her fair bosom, There, while my being does remain, My love more fresh shall blossom.] §ojnnie's Qārep 33 reeftº. THOUGH this has certainly every evidence of being a Scottish air, yet there is a well-known tune and song in the North of Ireland, called “The Weaver and his Shuttle, O,” which, though sung much quicker, is every note the very tune. [The beautiful tune called ‘Johnnie's Grcy Breeks,” is to be found at least as far back as in Oswald's collec- tion, 1742. The original words to the tune are much older than ‘The Weaver and his Shuttle, O, but are too coarse for extract. The following is a modified version of the old words, but is not given in the Mu- SCli Ill - WHEN I was in my se’enteen year, I was baith blythe and bonnie, O, O the lads lo'ed me baith far an’ near, But I lo’ed name but Johnnie, O: He gain'd my heart in twa three weeks, He spake sae blythe and kindly, O; And I made him mew grey breeks, That fitted him most finely, O. He was a handsome fellow; His humour was baith frank and free • His bonnie locks sae yellow, Like gowd they glitter'd in my c'e;— His dimpled chin and rosy cheeks, And face sae fair and ruddy, O; And then-a-days his grey breeks Was neither auld nor duddy, O. 5 But now they are threadbare worm, They’re wider than they wont to be; They're tashed-like, and sair torn, And cloutcq sair on ilka knee. But gim I had a simmer's day, As I have had right momy, O, I'd make a web o’ new grey, To be breeks to my Johnnie, O. For he's weel wordy o’ them, And better, gin I had to gi'e, And I’ll tak’ pains upo' them, Frae fauts I’ll strive to keep them free. To clead him weel shall be my care, And please him a my study, O; But he maum wear the auld pair Awee, tho’ they be duddy, O. For when the lad was in his prime, Like him there was mae mony, O, He ca’d me aye his bonnie thing, Sae wha would mae lo'e Johnnie, O! So I lo'e Johnnie's grey breeks, For a’ the care they’ve gi'en me yet, And gin we live amither year, We’ll keep them hale between us yet. Now to conclude—his grey breeks, I’ll sing them up with mirth and glee; Here's luck to a the grey steeks, That show themsels upo' the knee! And if wi' health I’m spared, A wee while as I surely may, I shall ha'e them prepared, As well as ony that’s o' grey.] --- Qſìje £agg of $3atic'; ſūtīI. IN Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, this song is localized (a verb I must use for want of another to express my idea) somewhere in the north of Scotland, and likewise is claimed by Ayr- shire.—The following anecdote I had from the present Sir William Cunningham of Robertland, who had it from the last John, Earl of Loudon. The then Earl of Loudon, and father to Earl John before mentioned, had Ramsay at Loudon, and one day walking together by the banks of Irvine water, near New-Mills, at a place called Patie's Mill, they were struck with the appearance of a beautiful country girl. His Lordship observed, that she would be a fine theme for a song.—Allan lagged behind in returning to Loudon Castle, and at dinner, produced this identical song. [The original ‘Lass of Patie's Mill,’ is said to have been the daughter of John Anderson of Patie's Mill, in the parish of Keithhall, Aberdeenshire, who lived long before Ramsay’s day, but upon this we place little account. The tune, however, is older than the date of Ramsay’s song, and there may have existed older words to it. The following is a full copy of Ramsay's song— one of his very best. In some modern copies the second stanza is left out:— THE lass of Patie's Mill, So bonnie, blythe, and gay, In spite of all my skill, She stole my heart away. When tedding of the hay, Bare-headed on the green, Love 'midst her locks did play, And wantom'd in her een. 326 REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONGS. Her arms, white, round, and smooth, Brcasts rising in their dawn, To age it would give youth, To press 'em with his hand: Thro' all my spirits ran An ecstacy of bliss, When I such sweetness fand Wrapt in a balmy kiss. Without the help of art, Like flowers which grace the wild, She did her sweets impart, Whene'er she spoke or smil’d. Her looks they were so mild, Free from affected pride, She me to love beguil’d; I wish’d her for my bride. O, had I all that wealth, Hopeton's high mountains] fill, Insured lang life and health, And pleasure at my will; I’d promise and fulfil, That mone but bonnie she, The lass of Patie's mill, Should share the same wi' me.] Qſìje (ſurnintgpitte. THERE is a stanza of this excellent song for local humour, omitted in this set,_where I have placed the asterisms. [Burns had placed the asterisms between the 9th and 10th verses. The verse is here inserted in its pro- per place. Dugald Graham,2 bellman in Glasgow, who died in 1779, is said to be the author of this ludic- rous description of a Highlandman’s perplexities under the laws against kilts, &c., which followed the Rebel- lion, and other innovations. HERSELL pe Highland shentleman, Pe auld as Pothwell Prig, man; And momy alterations seen Amang te Lawland whig, man. First when her to the Lawlands came, Naimsell was driving cows, man; There was mae laws about him's nerse, About the preeks or trows, man. Naimsell did wear the philabeg, The plaid prick’t on her shoulder; The guid claymore hung pe her pelt, De pistol sharg’d wi' pouder. But for whereas these cursed preeks, Wherewith man's merse be locket, O hon! that eer she saw the day! For a her houghs be prol;it. | | | i | | | t i | | | ſ | | : } | | ; t ſ Every ting in de Highlands now Pe turn’d to alteration; The sodger dwall at our door-sheek, And tat's te great vexation. Scotland be turm’t a Ningland now, An' laws pring on de caudger; Naimsell wad dirk him for his deeds, But, oll ! she fear te sodger. Anither law came after dat, Me never saw de like, man; They mak’ a lang road on te crund, And ca’ him Turnimspike, man. An' wow she pe a pommie road, Like Loudon corn-riggs, man ; Where twa carts may gang on her, An' no preak ither's legs, man. They sharge a penny for ilka horse, (In troth she’ll no be cheaper:) For nought put gaun upo' the crumd, And they gi'e her a paper. They tak’ the horse then by te head, And tere tey mak’ her stan,” man; Me tell tem, me ha'e seen te day, Tey had ma sic comman’, man. Nae doubt, mainsell maun draw his purse, And pay him what him likes, man; I’ll see a shudgment on liis toor, Tat filthy Turnimspike, man. But I’ll awa to the Highland hills, Where te’il a ame dare turn her, And no come near your Turnimspike, Unless it pe to purn her.] £ighland £abutc. 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 old- est, is to be found in the ‘Musical Museum,” beginning, “I ha'e been at Crookie-den.” One reason for my thinking so is, that Oswald has it in his Collection by the name of ‘The auld 1 * Thirty-three miles south-west of Edinburgh, where the Earl of Hopeton’s mines of gold and lead are.”—CROMEK. 2 An account of Dugald Graham will be found in Chambers' Scottish Biography, published by Blackie and Son. 1 The following is the song above alluded to :- “I ha'e been at Crookie-den, My bonnie laddie, Highland laddie ; Viewing Willie and his men, My bonnie laddie, Highland laddie. There our faes that burnt and slew, My bonnie laddie, Highland laddie; There, at last, they gat their due, My bonnie laddie, Highland laddie. Satan sits in his black neuk, My bonnie laddie, Highland laddie ; Breaking sticks to roast the duke, My bonnie laddie, Highland laddie: The bluidy monster ga’e a yell, My bonnie laddie, Highland laddie; And loud the laugh gaed round a hell | My bonnie laddie, Highland laddie.” 327 W. 27. TSN - ź X-->--- ~~~~<><. Nº REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONGS. º * Highland Laddie.’ It is also known by the name JENNY's heart was frank and free, W of “Jinglan Johnnie,” which is a well-known song And wooers she had momy, yet Her sang was aye, Ofa I see, Commend me to my Johnnie yet. of four or fine stanzas, and seems to be an earlier For, air and late, he has sic gate song than Jacobite times. As a proof of this, it { } is little known to the peasantry by the name of To mak’ a body cheerie, that § * Highland Laddie;’ while every body knows I wish to be, before I die, ‘Jinglan Johnnie.” The song begins, His aim kind dearie yet. Now Jemmy's face was fu' o’ grace, Her shape was sma' and genty-like, And few or name in a' the place Had gowd and gear mair plenty yet; Tho' war's alarms, and Johnnie's charms, “Jinglan John, the meikle man, He met wi' a lass was blythe and bonnie.” Another ‘Highland Laddie’ is also in the ‘Museum,’ vol. v., which I take to be Ramsay’s Had gart her aft look eerie, yet original, as he has borrowed the chorus—: O my She sung wi' glee, I hope to be bonnie Highland lad,’ &c. It consists of three My Johnnie's aim kind dearie yet. stanzas besides the chorus; and has humour in What tho’ he’s now gaen far awa’, its composition. It is an excellent, but some- Where guns and cannons rattle, yet - what licentious song. It begins, Unless my Johnnie chance to fa. In some uncammy battle, yet “As I cam' o'er Cairney Mount, Till he return, my breast will burn And down amang the blooming heather.” Wi’ love that weel may cheer me yet, º For I hope to see, before I die, This air, and the common “Highland Laddie,” His bairns to him endear me yet.] seem only to be different sets. === *====<=. Another “Highland Laddie,” also in the ‘ Mu- £e Štoſe nip &Lember £eart atmap. seum,’ vol. v., is the tune of several Jacobite & { } g fragments. One of these old songs to it only THIS is an Anglo-Scottish production, but by | cxists, as far as I know, in these four lines— no means a bad one. & G \YY 3 2 |The following is the song. The tume (a very fine Whare ha eye been a day, one) was by Sigmor Thomaso Giordani, a native of Italy Bonnie laddie, Highland laddie? Down the back o’ Bell's brae, THE fields were green, the hills were gay, Courtin’ Maggie, courtin' Maggie.” And birds were singing on each spray, When Colin met me in the grove, Another of this name is Dr Arne’s beautiful air, And told me tender tales of love. called the new ‘Highland Laddie.” Was ever Swain so blythe as he, So kind, so faithful, and so free? | [We need not give here the different songs to the In spite of all my friends could say, tune of the “Highland Laddie.” The following obser- Young Colin stole my heart away. vation was found in a memorandum book belonging to Burns : Whene'er he steps the meads along, He sweetly joins the woodlark's song; THE HIGHLANDER’s PRAYER AT SHERIFF-MUIR. And when he dances on the green, g * {- There’s mome so blythe as Colin seen: “O Lord, be thou with us; but if thou be not with If he's but by, I nothing fear us, be not against us; but leave it between the red coats For I alone am all his care; 5 and us!”] Then, spite of all my friends can say, He's stole my tender heart away. Oſije (Hentle Şipaim. To sing such a beautiful air to such execrable verses, is downright prostitution of common sense! My mother chides whene’er I roam, And seems surpris’d I quit my home; But she’d not wonder that I rove, Did she but feel how much I love: The Scots verses indeed are tolerable. Full well I know the gen’rous swain * Will never give my bosom pain; [The air to which “The Gentle Swain’ is set in the Then, spite of all my friends can say, Museum, is Burns's favourite—‘Johnnie's Grey Breeks.” He’s stole my tender heart away.] The following will suffice as a specimen of the English - version: “Now smiling Spring again appears, jFairest of tije iſfair. ; With all the beauties of her train, * h Love soon of her arrival hears, IT is too barefaced to take Dr Percy’s charm- And flies to wound the gentle swain.” ing song, and by means of transposing a few g 8.5 ty y posing y The Scottish verses were by John Mayne, author of English words into Scots, to offer to pass it for J|\l, “Logan Braes,' and run as follows:— a Scots song.—I was not acquainted with the d -> l 2, 2% º - 328 ºiº/-) $2% |% %) *::: --- Yºº- REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONGS. Editor until the first volume was nearly finished, else, had I known in time, I would have pre- vented such an impudent absurdity. [There is an old Scottish song in Ramsay's Tea Table Miscellany, (1724), called ‘The Young Laird and Edin- burgh Katie, to which, we have little doubt, Percy owed the idea of his fine pastoral. We give one verse of it: “O Katie, wiltu gang wi' me, And leave the dinsome town awhile? The blossom's sprouting from the trec, And a' the summer's gaun to smile.” In the Museum Dr Percy's very beautiful verses are Scotchified, which Burns very properly condemns. The song, as Dr Percy wrote it, is as follows. The music was by Thomas Carter:— O NANCY, wilt thou go with me, Nor sigh to leave the flaunting town? Can silent glens have charms for thee, The lowly cot and russet gown? No longer drest in silken sheen, No longer deck’d with jewels rare, Say, canst thou quit each courtly scene 2 Where thou wert fairest of the fair? O Nancy, when thou’rt far away, Wilt thou not cast a wish behind? Say, canst thou face the parching ray Nor shrink before the wintry wind? O can that soft and gentle mien Extremes of hardship learn to bear; Nor, sad, regret each courtly scene, Where thou wert fairest of the fair? 2 O Nancy, canst thou love so true, Through perils keen with me to go? Or when thy swain mishap shall rue, To share with him the pangs of woe? Say, should disease or pain befal, Wilt thou assume the nurse's care? Nor, wistful, those gay scenes recal, Where thou wert fairest of the fair? And when at last thy love shall die, Wilt thou receive his parting breath? Wilt thou repress each struggling sigh, And cheer with smiles the bed of death And wilt thou o'er his breathless clay, Strew flow’rs, and drop the tender tear? Nor them regret those scenes so gay, Where thou wert fairest of the fair?] &ſje 35ſaitijric o't. THE following is a set of this song, which was the earliest song I remember to have got by heart. When a child, an old woman sung it to me, and I picked it up, every word, at first hearing:— “O WILLIE, weel I mind I lent you my hand, To sing you a song which you did me command; But my memory's so bad, I had almost forgot, That you call’d it the gear and the blaithrie ot. II. 329 I'll not sing about confusion, delusion, or pride, I’ll sing about a laddie was for a virtuous bride; For virtue is an ornament that time will never rot, And preferable to gear and the blaithrie o't. Tho' my lassie ha'e mae scarlets or silks to put on, We envy not the greatest that sits upon the throne, I wad rather ha'e my lassie, tho’ she cam’ in her smock, Than a princess wi' the gear and the blaithrie o’t. Tho' we ha'e 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’ll find it sweet in any spot, And we'll value not the gear and the blaithrie ot. If we ha'e ony babies, we'll count them as lent; Ha’e we less, ha'e we mair, we will aye be content; For they say they ha'e mair pleasure that wins but a groat, Than the miser wi' his gear and the blaithrie O't.— I'll not meddle wi' th' affairs o' the kirk or the queen; They're nae matters for a sang, let them sink let them swim; On your kirk I’ll ne'er encroach, but I’ll hold it still remote, Sae tak’ this for the gear and the blaithrie o't.” [The old song of “The Blaithrie o't’ is one of much spirit, with even a dash of pathos. With some verbal alterations, it runs as follows:— “WHEN I think on this warld's pelf, And the little wee share I have o't to myself, And how the lass that wants it is by the lads forgot; May the shame fa’ the gear and the blaithrie ot. Jockie was the laddie that held the pleugh, But now he's got gowd and gear eneugh; He thinks nae mair o' me that wears the plaiden coat; May the shame fa’ the gear and the blaithrie o't. Jenny was the lassie that mucked the byre, But now she is clad in her silken attire, And Jockie says he lo'es her, and swears he's me forgot; May the shame fa’ the gear and the blaithrie o't. But all this shall near daunton me, Sae lang's I keep my fancy free: For the lad that's sae inconstant, he's not worth a groat; May the shame fa’ the gear and the blaithrie o't."] fHap 3:be, at #ate of 3 Derüccm. “KATE of Aberdeen * is, I believe, the work of poor Cunningham the player; of whom the following anecdote, though told before, deserves 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 repri- manded Cunningham very severely for such an occupation on such a day. The poor poet, with that inoffensive gentleness of manners which was 2 T Č ~~~~<> Tsº gº 3. 2:9 N-2 Sº sº | | | | l ------- REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONGS. his peculiar characteristic, replied, that he hoped God and his reverence would forgive his seeming profanity of that sacred day, “as he had no dinner to eat but what lay at the bottom of that pool!” . This, Mr Woods the player, who knew Cunning- ham well, and esteemed him much, assured me was true. [Cummingham was a mative of Dublin, mot Durham, as stated above by Burns. He had little consciousness of his own merit as a Poet, and seldom wrote but when urged by necessity. His highest ambition was to be considered a great actor, for which he had no requisite either of person or talent. The following incident in his life is thus recorded by Allam Cummingham. His volume of Poems was dedicated to Garrick, whom, in his admiration of theatrical talent, he would maturally esteem the first man that ever existed. He trudged up to the metropolis to present his volume to this cele- brated character. He saw him; and, according to his own phrase, he was treated by him in the most humili- ating and scurvy manner imaginable. Garrick assumed a cold and stately air; insulted Cummingham, by behaving to him as to a common beggar, and gave him a couple of guineas, accompanied with this speech:-‘‘PLAYERs, Sir, as well as PoETs, are always poor.” The blow was too severe for the Poet. He was so confused at the time, that he had not the use of his faculties, and indeed never recollected that he ought to have spurned the offer with contempt, till his best friend, Mrs Slack, of Newcastle, reminded him of it, by giving him a sound box on the ear, when he returned once more beneath her sheltering roof, and related his sad story. The repulse, however, preyed deeply om his spirits, and drove him to that fatal resource of disappointment, dram drinking. THE silver moon's enamour’d beam Steals softly through the night, To wanton with the winding stream, And kiss reflected light. To beds of state go balmy sleep, ('Tis where you’ve seldom been,) May's vigil while the shepherds keep, With Kate of Aberdeen. The mymphs and swains expectant wait, In primrose chaplets gay, Till morn unbars her golden gate, And gives the promised May. The mymphs and swains shall all declare The promised May, when seen, Not half so fragrant, half so fair, As Kate of Aberdeen Strike up the tabor's boldest notes, We'll rouse the modding grove; The nested birds shall raise their throats, And hail the maid I love: And see—the matin lark mistakes, He quits the tufted green; Fond bird! 'tis not the morning breaks, *Tis Rate of Aberdeen Now lightsome o'er the level mead, Where midnight fairies rove, Like them, the jocund dance we’ll lead, Or tune the reed to love: For see the rosy May draws nigh, She claims a virgin queen; And hark, the happy shepherds cry, ‘’Tis Kate of Aberdeen l'] (ſtmerly $ibe. IN Ramsay’s ‘Tea-table Miscellany,’ he tells us that about thirty of the songs in that publication were the works of some young gentlemen of his acquaintance; which songs are marked with the letters D., C., &c.—Old Mr Tytler, of Wood- houselee, the worthy and able defender of the beauteous Queen of Scots, told me that the songs marked C. in the ‘Tea-table,” were the composi- tion of a Mr Crawfurd, of the house of Achnames, who was afterwards unfortunately drowned com- ing from France.—As Tytler was most intimately acquainted with Allan Ramsay, I think the anec. dote may be depended on. Of consequence, the beautiful song of ‘Tweed Side’ is Mr Crawfurd’s, and indeed does great honour to his poetical talents. He was a Robert Crawfurd; the Mary he celebrates, was a Mary Stewart, of the Castle- Milk family, afterwards married to a Mr John Ritchie, [RoBERT CRAwFURD, author of ‘Tweed Side,’ ‘The Bush aboon Traquair, &c., was a cadet of the family of Drumsoy. He is sometimes called WILLIAM Craw- furd, a mistake arising from Lord Woodhouselee mis- applying an expression in one of Hamilton of Bangour's letters regarding a Will. Crawfurd. His father was twice married, first, to a daughter of a Gordon of Turn- berry, by whom he had two sons, Thomas, at one time envoy extraordinary to the court of France, and Robert, the poet. The latter resided long in France, and died, or, as is said, was drowned on returning to his native country, in 1732. The second marriage of the father was to Jean, daughter of Archibald Crawfurd of Au- chinames, in Renfrewshire, by whom he had a large family. Hence the mistake of making the poet belong to the Auchinames family (as is generally dome)—a mistake, we believe, first exposed by Mr David Laing, of the Sigmet Library, Edinburgh. Mr Ramsay of Ochtertyre, in a letter to Dr Blacklock, dated 27th Oct., 1787, says, “You may tell Mr Burns when you see him, that Colonel Edmonston told me t'other day that his cousin Colonel George Crawfurd was no poet, but a great singer of songs; but that his eldest brother ROBERT (by a former marriage) had a great turn that way, having written the words of ‘The Bush aboon Traguair’ and “Tweed side.” That the Mary to whom it was addressed was Mary Stewart of the Castlemilk family, afterwards wife of Mr John Belches. The colonel (Edmonston) never saw Robert Crawfurd, though he was at his burial fifty-five years ago. He was a pretty young man, and lived long in France.”—. According to Sir Walter Scott, the Mary celebrated in ‘Tweed side’ did not belong to the Castlemilk family, but was Mary Lilias Scott of the Harden family, a des. cendant of another famed beauty, Mary Scott of Dry- 330 2- *\,.../ º ~ / / *\,…” * x. O 2 tº sº. 3 ‘...} %)NOQ e- º 5/~. &: * "Tº sº----------º-º- —ſ (4.g.: \; |-> \s § ſº- º REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONGS. Flower of Yarrow.” The following is Crawfurd’s song of Tweed Side:— º ſ’ hope in Selkirkshire, known by the name of “The W WHAT beauties does Flora disclose! How sweet are her smiles upon Tweed! Yet Mary’s, still sweeter than those, Both mature and fancy exceed. Nor daisy, nor sweet blushing rose, Nor all the gay flowers of the field, Nor Tweed gliding gently through those, Such beauty and pleasure does yield. The warblers are heard in the grove, The limnet, the lark, and the thrush, The blackbird, and sweet cooing dove, With music enchant every bush. Come, let us go forth to the mead, Let us see how the primroses spring, We’ll lodge in some village on Tweed, And love while the feather'd flocks sing. How does my love pass the long day? Does Mary not tend a few sheep? Do they mever carelessly stray, While happily she lies asleep? Tweed’s murmurs should lull her to rest, Kind mature indulging my bliss, To relieve the soft pains of my breast, I’d steal an annbrosial kiss. 'Tis she does the virgins excel, No beauty with her may compare; Love's graces around her do dwell; She’s fairest where thousands are fair. Say, charmer, where do thy flocks stray? Oh! tell me at moon where they feed? Shall I seek them on sweet winding Tay, Or the pleasanter banks of the Tweed?] I have seen a song, calling itself the original Tweed Side, and said to have been composed by Lord Yester. It consisted of two stanzas, of which I still recollect the first— “When Maggy and I was acquaint, I carried my moddle fu' hie; Nae lintwhite on aſ the green plain, Nor gowdspink sae happy as me; But I saw her sae fair, and I lo’ed; I wood, but I came mae great speed; So now I maum wander abroad, Amd lay my banes far frae the Tweed.” [LORD YESTER, afterwards marquis of Tweeddale, died in 1713, in his 68th year. According to Mr Robert Chambers, he “was a distinguished statesman in the reigns of William and Anne, and married the only daughter of the duke of Lauderdale, considered the greatest heiress in the kingdom. He was one of the principal instruments in carrying through the Union, being at the head of the party called the Squadrome Volante. Macky, in his curious work of that period, describes him as a great encourager and promoter of trade and the welfare of his country. “He hath good sense,” he adds, “is very modest, much a man of hom- our, and hot when piqued; is highly esteemed in his country, and may make a considerable figure in it now. i He is a short brown man, towards sixty years old. The song must have been written before 1697, when he ceased to be Lord Yester, by succeeding his father. Neidpath Castle, near Peebles, which overhangs the Tweed, must be the locality of the song—that being them the property, and one of the residences, of the Tweeddale family. The song first appeared in Mr Herd's Collection, 1776.” The last stanza runs thus:– To Maggie my love I did tell, Saut tears did my passion express, Alas! for I lo'ed her o’erwell, An' the women lo'e sic a man less. Her heart it was frozen and cauld, Her pride had my ruin decreed; Therefore I will wander abroad, And lay my banes far frae the Tweed.] Qſìje 360atie ºping. THE author of the Boatie Rows was a Mr Ewen of Aberdeen. It is a charming display of womanly affection, mingling with the concerns and occupations of life. It is nearly equal to ‘There's nae Luck about the House.’ [The Mr Ewen here spoken of was JoHN Ewe N, a native of Montrose, who early in life went to Aberdeen, where he accumulated a large fortune as a dealer in hardware goods. He died in 1821, aged eighty. We know not on what authority Burns attributed this song to him. O WEEL may the boatie row, And better may she speed, And leesome may the boatie row, That wins the bairms’ bread: The boatie rows, the boatie rows, The boatie rows indeed; And weel may the boatie row, That wins the bairns’ bread. I cuist my lime in Largo bay, And fishes I catch'd mime; There was three to boil, and three to fry, And three to bait the line: The boatie rows, the boatie rows, The boatie rows indeed; And happy be the lot of a” That wishes her to speed. O weel may the boatie row, That fills a heavy creel, And cleads us a frae head to feet, And buys our porridge meal: The boatie rows, the boatie rows, The boatie rows indeed; And happy be the lot of a” That wish the boatie speed. When Jamie vow’d he would be mine, And wan frae me my heart, O muckle lighter grew my creel, He swore we’d never part: >{} ~~ t & 2s. V Yºjº" () *_ SO 1 *s-3 * – ºf * ~. 3-4 25 S- j | , K. } 33] REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONGS. The boatie rows, the boatie rows, The boatie rows fu' weel; And muckle lighter is the load, When love bears up the creel. My kurtch I put upo' my head, And dress'd mysel fu” braw; I trow my heart was douf an' wae, When Jamie gaed awa: But weel may the boatie row, And lucky be her part; And lightsome be the lassie's care, That yields an homest heart. When Sawmcy, Jock, and Janetie, Are up and gotten lear, They’ll help to gar the boatic row, And lightem a' our care; The boatie rows, the boatie rows, The boatie rows fu' weel; And lightsome be her heart that bears The murlain and the creel. And when wi' age we're worn dowm, And hirpling round the door, They’ll row to keep us dry and warm, As we did them before:– Then weel may the boatie row, She wins the bairns' bread: And happy be the lot of a” That wish the boat to speed.] (Iije 39appp ſºlarriage. ANOTHER, but very pretty Anglo-Scottish piece. [“The Happy Marriage' was written by EDWARD MooRE, author of ‘The Gamester, a tragedy, and other works. He died in 1757. The lady whom he cele- orates, his wife, was Janet Hamilton, who, like her husband, was also a clever writer of verses. Shortly before her marriage, she addressed a poem to a female companion, the first and last verses of which we may quote as specimens:— . You will think it, my dear, for the fault I must own, Your Jessy at last is quite covetous grown; Though millions of fortune should lavishly pour, I still should be wretched, if I had not MoR.E. You will wonder, my girl, who this dear one can be, Whose merit can boast such a conquest as me; But you sham't know his name, though I told you before, It begins with an M; but I dare not say MoRE. The following is Moore's song, given in the Museum : How blest has my time been, what joys have I known, Since wedlock’s soft bondage made Jessy my own; So joyful my heart is, so easy my chain, That freedom is tastcless, and roving a pain. Through walks grown with woodbines, as often we stray, Around us our boys and girls frolic and play; How pleasing their sport is, the wantom ones see, And borrow their looks from my Jessy and me. To try her sweet temper, oft-times am I seen, In revels all day with the nymphs on the green; Tho' painful my absence, my doubts she beguiles, And meets me at night with complacence and smiles. What tho’ on her cheeks the rose loses its hue, Her wit and good-humour bloom all the year through, Time still as he flies adds increase to her truth, Amd gives to her mind what he steals from her youth. Ye shepherds so gay, who make love to ensnare, And cheat with false vows the too credulous fair: In search of true pleasure, how vainly you roam; To hold it for life, you must find it at home.] &ſije Đogie. IT appears evident to me, that Oswald com- posed his ‘ Roslin Castle’ on the modulation of this air.—In the second part of Oswald’s in the three first bars, he has either hit on a wonderful similarity to, or else he has entirely borrowed the three first bars of the old air; and the close of both tunes is almost exactly the same. The old verses to which it was sung, when I took down the notes from a country girl’s voice, had no great merit.—The following is a specimen — There was a pretty May, and a milkin’ she went, Wi’ her red rosy cheeks, and her coal black hair; And she has met a young man a comin’ o'er the bent, With a double and adieu to thee, fair May. O where are ye goin', my aim pretty May, Wi’ thy red rosy cheeks, and thy coal black hair? Unto the yowes a milkin', kind Sir, she says, With a double and adieu to thee, fair May. What if I gang alang wi' thee, my aim pretty May, Wi’ thy red rosy cheeks, and thy coal black hair; Wad I be aught the warse o' that, kind Sir, she says, With a double and adieu to thee, fair May. [Burns was mistaken, as we have shown in a pre- vious page, in supposing that Oswald was the composer of the tume ‘Roslin Castle.’] #Harp's HBream, THE Mary here alluded to is generally supposed to be Miss Mary Macghie, daughter to the Laird of Airds, in Galloway. The Poet was a Mr Lowe, who likewise wrote another beautiful song, called Pompey’s Ghost.—I have seen a poetic epistle from him in North America, where he now is, or lately was, to a lady in Scotland.—By the strain of the verses, it appears that they allude to some love disappointment. [John Lowe was the son of the gardener at Kemmure castle im Galloway. Having studied for the church, } 332 5% A-SW. f * CN - -> tºº, - \. § 3. Ç=>< T-"º" ºne cº TEMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONGS. he was employed as tutor by Mr Macghie at Airds, an estate near the confluence of the Dee and the Ken. While residing there, about the year 1772, a gentleman named Alexander Miller, the lover of Miss Mary Mac- ghie, was drowned at sea—and this gave occasion to the song which preserves Lowe's name. Lowe's life was unfortunate. He died in America towards the close of the last century. In Cromek there is a Scot- tish version of ‘Mary's Dream’ given, which is said to be the original one, but is only one of the many forgeries imposed on Cromek. MARY's DREAM. THE moon had climb'd the highest hill, Which rises o'er the source of Dee, And from the eastern summit shed Her silver light on tow'r and tree: When Mary laid her down to sleep, Her thoughts on Sandy far at sea; When soft and low a voice was heard, Saying, Mary, weep no more for me! She from her pillow gently rais'd Her head, to ask who there might be; She saw young Sandy shiv'ring stand, With visage pale and hollow e'e:— O Mary dear! cold is my clay, It lies beneath a stormy Sea; Far, far from thee, I sleep in death, So, Mary, weep no more for me! • Three stormy mights and stormy days We toss'd upon the raging main, And long we strove our bark to save, But all our striving was in vain; Even them, when horror chill'd my blood, My heart was fill'd with love for thee: The storm is past, and I at rest, So, Mary, weep no more for me! O maiden dear! thyself prepare, We soon shall meet upon that shore Where love is free from doubt and care, And thou and I shall part no more!— Loud crow'd the cock, the shadows fled; No more of Sandy could she see; But soft the passing spirit said, Sweet Mary! weep no more for me!] Qſìje ſºlatly tijat tenbg tije Qjoats, BY MIR DUDGEON. THIS Dudgeon is a respectable farmer's son in Berwickshire. [William Dudgeon was for many years an extensive farmer at Preston im Berwickshire. He died in Oct., 1813, aged about sixty. His song is a very fine one, and popular. The tune is said to be a Highland air:- UP amang yon cliffy rocks, Sweetly rings the rising echo, To the maid that tends the goats, Lilting o'er her mative notes. Hark, she sings, Young Sandy's kind, And he's promis'd aye to lo'e me; Here's a broach I ne'er shall time, Till he’s fairly married to me. Drive away, ye drome, time, And bring about our bridal day. Sandy herds a flock o' sheep, Aftem does he blaw the whistle, In a strain sae saftly sweet, Lammies list’ning daurna bleat. He’s as fleet's the mountain roe, Hardy as the highland heather, Wading through the winter snow, Keeping aye his flock together; But a plaid, wi' bare houghs, He braves the bleakest norlin blast. Brawly he can dance and sing Canty glee or highland cromach; Name can ever match his fling, At a reel, or round a ring; Wightly can he wield a rung, In a brawl he's aye the bangster; A” his praise can ne'er be sung By the langest-winded sangster. Sangs that sing o' Sandy Come short, though they were e'er sae lang.] # migſ) mp #10be mere in a ſhire. I NEVER heard more of the words of this old song than the title. [The old song commenced with these words: “I wish my love were in a mire, That I might pu her out again.” But the rest of it is lost. The song in the Museum to the old tune with the above title is a translation from Sappho, by Ambrose Philips. It opens thus: — Blest as the immortal gods is he, The youth who fondly sits by thee; And hears and sees thee all the while, So softly speak, and sweetly smile.] 3IIāll (ſğäfer. THIS Allam Water, which the composer of the music has honoured with the name of the air, I have been told, is Allan Water in Strathallan. [Robert Crawfurd, of whom we have already spoken, was the author of the song given in the Museum to the tune of “Allan Water.” It begins:— What numbers shall the Muse repeat, What verse be found to praise my Annie; On her ten thousand graces wait, Each swain admires and own’s she's bomie.] 33 REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONGS. Qſìjere's mae jLucit about tije 390tige. THIS is one of the most beautiful songs in the Scots, or any other language.—The two lines, “And will I see his face again, 12, And will I hear him speak! as well as the two preceding ones, are unequalled almost by any thing I ever heard or read: and the lines, “The present moment is our aim, The meist we never saw,” are worthy of the first poet. It is long posterior to Ramsay’s days. About the year 1771 or 1772 it came first on the streets as a ballad; and I Sup- pose the composition of the song was not much anterior to that period. [The authorship of this song has been much disputed. It is generally ascribed to William Julius Mickle, the translator of the Lusiad, and this is countenanced by the fact that a copy of it, in his own hand-writing, was found among his papers after his death; but other evi- dence goes to prove that it was the production of a poor schoolmistress, named Jean Adams, who lived at Crawfurd’s-dyke, Greenock, early in the last century. Jean was a woman of natural talents and great enthu- siasm of character, but her life was chequered and unfortunate, and at last she was constrained to seek shelter in the Town's Hospital, Glasgow, where she died on the 9th April, 1765. A volume of her poems was published for her by subscription, at Glasgow, in 1734. They are chiefly of a moral and religious cast; and although the above song is not among them, she was known to avow herself the author of it long before Mickle's name was known. The stanza beginning— “The cauld blasts o' the wintry wind,” is said to be an interpolation by Dr Beattie. AND are ye sure the news is true? And are ye sure he's weel? Is this a time to talk o’ wark? Ye jads, lay by your wheel! Is this a time to talk o' wark When Colin’s at the door? Gi'e me my cloak, I'll to the quay, And see him come ashore. For there's nae luck about the house, There's nae luck ava, There's little pleasure in the house, When our gudeman’s awa. Rise up and mak’ a clean fire-side, Put on the muckle pat: Gi'e little Kate her cotton gown, And Jock his Sunday’s coat. And mak’ their shoon as black as slaes, Their hose as white as smaw; It's a' to please my ain gudeman, He likes to see them braw. There is twa hens upon the bauk, ’S been fed this month and mair; Mak haste and thraw their necks about, That Colin weel may fare! And spread the table meat and clean, Gar ilka thing look braw; It's a' for love of my gudeman, For he's been lang awa. O gi'e me down my bigonets, My bishop-satin gown; For I maum tell the bailie’s wife That Colin’s come to town; My Sunday’s shoon they maun gae on, My hose o’ pearl blue, It's a to please my aim gudeman, For he's baith leel and true. Sae true's his word, sae smooth's his speech, His breath like caller air, His very fit has music im't, When he comes up the stair. And will I see his face again! And will I hear him speak! I’m downright dizzy wi' the thought, In troth, I’m like to greet! The cauld blasts of the winter wind, That thrilled thro’ my heart, They’re a blaun by: I ha'e him safe, 'Till death we’ll never part; But what puts parting in my head? It may be far awa; The present moment is our aim, The meist we never saw Since Colin's well, I'm well content, I ha'e nae mair to crave; Could I but live to mak’ him blest, I'm blest aboon the lave. And will I see his face again! And will I hear him speak! I’m downright dizzy with the thought, In troth, I’m like to greet!] QCarrp (ſāoo. THIS is a very pretty song; but I fancy that the first half stanza, as well as the tune itself, are much older than the rest of the words. [The song appears in Ramsay's Tea-Table Miscellamy, but the name of the author is unknown. TARRY woo, tarry woo, Tarry woo is ill to spin; Card it weil, card it weil, Card it weilere ye begin; When 'tis carded, row'd and spun, Then the work is haſlens done; But when woven, drest, and clean, It may be cleading for a queen. Sing, my bonny harmless sheep, That feed upon the mountains steep, Bleating sweetly as ye go, Through the winter's frost and snow; <> | 29.4&º *...* 334 REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONGS. Hart, and hymd, and fallow-deer, No by half so useful are: Frae kings to him that hauds the plough, Are all oblig'd to tarry woo. Up, ye shepherds, dance and skip, O'er the hills and valleys trip, Sing up the praise of tarry woo, Sing the flocks that bear it too. Harmless creatures, without blame, That clead the back and cram the wanne, Keep us warm and hearty fou; Leeze me on the tarry woo. How happy is the shepherd's life, Far frae courts, and free of strife, While the gimmers bleat and bae, And the lambkins answer mae; No such music to his ear;-- Of thief or fox he has no fear; Sturdy kent and colly true, Will defend the tarry woo. He lives content, and envies mome; Not even the monarch on his throne, Tho' he the royal sceptre sways, Has not sweeter holidays, Who’d be a king, can ony tell, When a shepherd sings sae well? Sings sae well and pays his due, With homest heart and tarry woo.] (Htamtacijree, THE song of Gramachree was composed by a Mr Poe, a counseller at law in Dublin. This anecdote I had from a gentleman who knew the lady, the “Molly,” who is the subject of the song, and to whom Mr Poe sent the first manuscript of his most beautiful verses. I do not remember any single line that has more true pathos than “How can she break the honest heart that wears her in its core!” But as the song is Irish, it had nothing to do in this collection. [It is not positively known whether the tune of ‘ Gramachree’ be originally Scotch or Irish. The song upon which Burns makes the above commentary, runs as follows:— As down on Banna's banks I stray'd, One evening in May, The little birds in blythest notes Made vocal every spray: They sung their little tales of love, They sung them o'er and o'er, Ah Gramachree, ma Colleenoughe, Ma Molly Ashtore! The daisy pied, and all the sweets The dawn of mature yields; The primrose pale, the viºlet blue, Lay scatter'd o'er the fields: Such fragrance in tha bosom lies Of her whom I adore. Ah Gramachree, &c. I laid me down upon a bank, Bewailing my sad fate, That doom'd me thus the slave of love, And cruel Molly's hate: How can she break the homest heart That wears her in its core : Ah Gramachree, &c. You said you lov'd me, Molly dear; Ah! why did I believe? Yet who could think such tender words Were meant but to deceive? That love was all I ask’d on earth; Nay, heav'n could give no more. Ah Gramachree, &c. Oh had I all the flocks that graze On yonder verdant hill, Or low'd for me the num’rous herds That yon green pasture fill; With her I love I’d gladly share My kine and fleecy store. Ah Gramachree, &c. Two turtle-doves above my head Sat courting on a bough; I envied not their happiness, To see them bill and coo: Such fondness once for me she shew’d; But now, alas! 'tis o'er. Ah Gramachree, &c. Them fare thee well, my Molly dear, Thy loss I e'er shall mourn: Whilst life remains in Strephon's heart, *Twill beat for thee alone: Tho' thou art false, may heaven on thee Its choicest blessings pour! Ah Gramachree, &c.] Qſìje (Tolliet's 330mmie Laggie. THE first half stanza is much older than the days of Ramsay. The old words began thus:— “The collier has a dochter, and O she's wondrous bonnie! A laird he was that sought her, rich baith in lands and money, She wad mae ha’e a laird, nor wad she be a lady, But she wad ha’e a collier, the colour o’ her daddie.” [It is Ramsay’s version of the song that is given in the Museum. It runs as follows:— THE collier has a daughter, And, O! she’s wondrous bonnie. A laird he was that sought her, Rich baith in lands and noney. cł Sºs 335 QNº ^- **. cº 29)/sº ~~~~~ AS. --> º Yº-Y S㺠*Nº, 3' \. G ſº *: * ID-C--- - ÇN9s CNX.2 6 REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONGS. The tutors watched the motion Of this young homest lover: But love is like the ocean; Wha can its depths discover! He had the art to please ye, And was by a respected; His airs sat round him easy, Genteel but unaffected. The collier's bonnie lassie, Fair as the new-blown lilie, Aye sweet, and mever saucy, Secured the heart o’ Willie. He loved, beyond expression, The charms that were about her, And panted for possession: His life was dull without her. After mature resolving, Close to his breast he held her, In saftest flames dissolving, He tenderly thus telled her: My bonnie collier's daughter, Let naething discompose ye; It's no your scanty tocher, Shall ever gar me lose ye: For I have gear in plenty; And love says, it’s my duty To ware what heaven has lent me Upon your wit and beauty.] #lp aim #int, IBearie, Q9. THE old words of this song are omitted here, though much more beautiful than those inserted; which were mostly composed by poor Fergusson, in one of his merry humours. The old words began thus:— “I’ll rowe thee o'er the lea-rig, My ain kind dearie, O, I’ll rowe thee o'er the lea-rig, My aim kind dearie, O; Altho’ the night were ne'er sae wat, And I were ne'er sae weary, O, I'll rowe thee o'er the lea-rig, My aim kind dearie, O.” [The song given in the Museum is as follows:– WILL ye gang o'er the lea-rig, My aim kind dearie, O; And cuddle there fu' kindly, Wi’ me, my kind dearie, O! At thorny bush, or birken tree, We’ll daff, and never weary, O; They’ll scug ill een frae you and me, My aim kind dearie, O. Nae herds wi' kent or colly there, Shall ever come to fear ye, O; But laverocks whistling in the air Shall woo, like me, their dearie, O. While ithers herd their lambs and ewes, And toil for warld’s gear, my jo, Upon the lea my pleasure grows Wi’ thee, my kind dearie, O | #harp Sºcott, fije iſ Ioſuer of Yarrot). MR ROBERTSON, in his statistical account of the parish of Selkirk, says, that Mary Scott, the Flower of Yarrow, was descended from the Dry- hope, and married into the Harden family. Her daughter was married to a predecessor of the pre- sent Sir Francis Elliot of Stobbs, and of the late Lord Heathfield. There is a circumstance in their contract of marriage that merits attention, as it strongly marks the predatory spirit of the times. The father-in-law agrees to lºeep 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! [“Near the lower extremity of St Mary's lake, (a beautiful sheet of water, forming the reservoir from which the Yarrow takes its source), are the ruins of Dryhope tower, the birth-place of Mary Scott, daugh- ter of Philip Scott, of Dryhope, and famous by the traditional name of the Flower of Yarrow. She was married to Walter Scott, of Hardem, no less renowned for his depredations, than his bride for her beauty. Her romantic appellation was, in latter days, with equal justice, conferred on Miss Mary Lilias Scott, the last of the elder branch of the Harden family. I well remember the talent and spirit of the latter Flower of Yarrow, though age had then injured the charms which procured her the name: and that the words usually sung to the air of ‘Tweed-Side, beginning, ‘What beauties does Flora disclose, were composed in her honour.”—Note in Sir Walter Scott's Marmion. The old song of ‘Mary Scott, the Flower of Yarrow’ appears to have been lost, although there are several to be found in the collections with that title. The one given in the Museum is by Ramsay, and runs thus:— HAPPY's the love which meets return, When in soft flames souls equal burn; But words are wanting to discover The torments of a hopeless lover. Ye registers of heaven, relate, If looking o'er the rolls of fate, Did you there see me mark’d to marrow Mary Scott the flower of Yarrow? Ah mo! her form's too heavenly fair, Her love the gods above must share; While mortals with despair explore her, And at distance due adore her. O lovely maid! my doubts beguile, Revive and bless me with a smile; Alas! if not, you’ll soon debar a Sighing Swain the banks of Yarrow. Be hush'd, ye fears, I’ll not despair, My Mary's tender as she's fair; Then I’ll go tell her all mine anguish, She is too good to let me languish. 336 y REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONGS. QN.JP& O * With success crown'd, I’ll not envy The folks who dwell above the sky: When Mary Scott's become my marrow, We'll make a paradise in Yarrow.] ABotum fije 36turn, ſGabie. I HAVE been informed, that the tune of ‘Down the Burn, Davie,” was the composition of David Maigh, keeper of the blood slough hounds belong- ing to the Laird of Riddel, in Tweeddale. [The tune is to be found, along with the words, in the Orpheus Caledonius, 1725, a date probably before David Maigh's day, although Burns does not inform us when that worthy flourished. The old words are by Robert Crawfurd. We give the two first stanzas. The others are too salacious for repetition here:— WHEN trees did bud, and fields were green, And broom bloom'd fair to see; When Mary was complete fifteen, And love laugh’d in her e'e; Blythe Davie's blinks her heart did move, To speak her mind thus free, * Gang down the burn, Davie, love, And I shall follow thee.” Now, Davie did each lad surpass That dwalt on yon burnside, And Mary was the bonniest lass, Just meet to be a bride; Her cheeks were rosy, red, and white, Her een were bonnie blue; Her looks were like Aurora bright, Her lips like dropping dew.] Cſáillie 36tein't a 33rch o’ ſºlaut. THIS air is Masterton’s; the song mine.—The occasion of it was this:—Mr William Nicol, of the High School, Edinburgh, during the autumn vaca- tion, being at Moffat, 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 meet- ing, that Mr Masterton and I agreed, each in our own way, that we should celebrate the business. [The song is given elsewhere in this volume.] 36Link o'er tſje 33 urn, THE old words, all that I remember, are– “BLINK o'er the Burn, sweet Bettie, It is a cauld winter night; It rains, it hails, it thunders, The moon she gi'es nae light: II. 337 It’s a for the sake o’sweet Bettie, That ever I tint my way; Sweet, let Ine lie beyond thee, Until it be break of day.— “O Bettie will bake my bread, And Bettie will brew my ale, And Bettie will be my love, When I come over the dale: Blink over the burn, sweet Bettie, Blink over the burn to me, And while I ha'e life, dear lassie, My aim sweet Bettie thou’s be.” [The song given in the Museum to the tune of ‘Blink o'er the Burm, sweet Bessie, was written by Joseph Mitchell, a literary adventurer in the early part of the last century, who was patronized by Sir Robert Wal- pole, and received the name of the Premier’s Poet. He died in 1738, aged fifty-three. The song is as fol- lows:— LEAVE kindred and friends, sweet Betty, Leave kindred and friends for me: Assur’d thy servant is steady, To love, to honour, and thee. The gifts of nature and fortune May flee by chance as they came; They’re grounds the destinies sport on, But virtue is ever the same. Although my fancy were roving, Thy charms so heav'nly appear, That other beauties disproving, I’d worship thine only, my dear. And should life’s sorrows embitter The pleasure we promis'd our loves, To share them together is fitter, Than moan asunder like doves. Oh! were I but ance so blessed, To grasp my love in my arms! By thee to be grasp'd and kissed! And live on thy heaven of charms: I’d laugh at fortune’s caprices, Should fortune capricious prove; Though death should tear me to pieces, I'd die a martyr to love.] QIije 3Glpfägome 33ribal. I FIND the ‘Blythsome Bridal’ in James Wat- son's collection of Scotch poems, printed at Edin- burgh in 1706. This collection, the publisher says, is the first of its nature which has been pub- lished in our own native Scots dialect—it is now extremely scarce. [This song is generally said to have been written by Francis Semple of Beltrees in Renfrewshire, who lived about the middle of the seventeenth century. It has also been ascribed to Sir William Scott of Thirlestame in Selkirkshire, who died in 1725. The humorous cata- logue of names, with their historical epithets, are done in the true Lowland Scottish taste of former times, 2 U. REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONGS. when every householder was micknamed, from some prominent part of his character, person, or lands and houses which he rented, FYE let us a to the bridal, For there will be lilting there, For Jock's to be married to Maggie, The lass wi' the gowden hair. And there will be lang-kail and pottage, And bammocks of barley-meal, And there will be guid saut herring, To relish a cog of guid ale. Fye let us a to the bridal, For there will be lilting there, For Jock's to be married to Maggie, The lass wi' the gowden hair. And there will be Sandie the Sutor, And Will wit the meikle mou’; And there will be Tam the bluter, With Andrew the tinkler, I trow. And there will be bow-legged Robbie, With thumbless Katie's gudeman; And there will be blue-cheeked Dowbie, And Lawrie, the laird of the land. And there will be sow-libber Patie, And ploockie-fac’d Wat i' the mill, Capper-nos'd Francie, and Gibbie That wons in the howe of the hill: And there will be Alaster Sibbie, Wha in with black Bessie did mool, With sneevling Lillie and Tibbie, The lass that stands aft on the stool. And there will be Judam Maclawrie, And blinkin’ daft Barbara Macleg, Wi’ flae-luggit shairmy-fac’d Lawrie, And shangy-mou’d halucket Meg. And there will be happer-hipp'd Namcie, And fairy facid Flowrie by mame, Muck Maddie, and fat-hippit Lizzie, The lass wi' the gowden wane. And there will be girn-again Gibbie, With his glaikit wife Jemmie Bell, And misle-shimm'd Mungo Macapie, The lad that was skipper himsel. There lads and lasses in pearlings, Will feast in the heart of the ha', On sybows, and ryfarts, and Carlings, That are baith sodden and raw. And there will be fadges and brochem, With fouth o' gude gabbocks o' skate, Pow-sowdie, and drammock, and crowdie, And caller mowt-feet on a plate; And there will be partans and buckies, Speldens and whytens enew, And singed sheep-heads, and a haggis, And scadlips to sup till ye spew. And there will be lapper'd milk kebbucks, And sowens, and farles, and baps, With swats, and well-scrapped paunches, And brandy in stowps and in caps; And there will be meal-kail and castocks, With skink to sup till ye rive; And roasts to roast on a brander, Of flouks that were taken alive. Scrapt haddocks, wilks, dilse, and tangles, And a mill of good Smeeshing to prie; When weary with eating and drinking, We’ll rise up and dance till we die. Then fye let us a”, &c.] joijn £ap's 3Gottſtie 3Laggie, JoHN HAY’s “Bonnie Lassie' was daughter of John Hay, Earl or Marquis of Tweeddale, and late Countess Dowager of Roxburgh.-She died at Broomlands, near Kelso, some time between the years 1720 and 1740. [“I have found it asserted,” says Mr Robert Cham- bers, “by a credible tradition in Roxburghshire, that this song was written by a working joiner, in honour of a daughter of Johm, first Marquis of Tweeddale, who is here familiarly called by his simple name, John Hay. She was a sister of the second marquis, who under his jumior title of Lord Yester, is usually given as the author of the first version of ‘Tweedside.” The first Marquis of Tweeddale had two daughters, Lady Mar- garet and Lady Jean; but, Burns having somewhere mentioned, that the song was written in honour of one who was afterwards Countess of Roxburghe, we are enabled to set forward the eldest, Lady Margaret, as the heroine. We are further enabled, by Mr Wood’s Peerage, to state the probable era of the song. Lady Margaret Hay, wife of the third Earl of Roxburghe, was a widow, at the age of twenty-five, in the year 1682. Allowing from thirteen to five-and-twenty as the utmost range of age during which she could be celebrated as ‘John Hay's bonnie lassie, the song must have been written between the years 1670 and 1682, probably nearer the first era than the last. It may be mentiomed as a remarkable circumstance regarding this interesting lady, that she survived her husband, in uninterrupted widowhood, the amazingly long period of seventy-one years. She died at Broomlands, near Kelso, on the 23d of January, 1753, at the age of ninety- six, after having seen out several generations of her short-lived descendants; the third person in descent being them in possession of the honours of Roxburghe. Her husband was one of the unfortunate persons who were drowned at Yarmouth-roads, on the occasion of the shipwreck of the Gloucester frigate, which was bring- ing the Duke of York down to Scotland, May, 1682.” BY smooth-winding Tay a swain was reclining, Aft cried he, Oh, hey! maun I still live pining Mysel’ thus away, and daurma discover To my bonnie Hay, that I am her lover: Nae mair it will hide; the flame waxes stranger; If she's not my bride, my days are mae langer: Then I’ll take a heart, and try at a venture; May be, ere we part, my vows may content her, 338 PEMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONGS. | She's fresh as the spring, and sweet as Aurora, A’ might I sleeped soundly, l When birds mount and sing, bidding day a good morrow; My mind was never sad; y The sward of the mead, enamell'd with daisies, But now my rest is broken, Looks wither'd and dead, when twined of her graces. Wi’ thinking on my lad. O could I live in darkness, Or hide me in the sea, Since my love is unfaithful, And has forsaken me! No other love I suffer'd Within my breast to dwell; In nought I have offended, But loving him too well.” But if she appear where verdure invite her, Thefountains run clear, and the flowers smell the sweeter. 'Tis heaven to be by, when her wit is a-flowing: Her smiles and bright eyes set my spirits a-glowing. The mair that I gaze, the deeper I’m wounded; Struck dumb with amaze, my mind is confounded: I’m all in a fire, dear maid, to caress ye; For a my desire is John Hay's bonnie lassie.] Her lover heard her mourning, As by he chanc'd to pass, And press'd unto his bosom The lovely brucket lass: “My dear,” he said, “ cease grieving, Since that your love's sae true, My bonnie brucket lassie, I’ll faithful prove to you.”] Oſije 330mmie 36tucket ſlaggie. THE idea of this song is to me very original: the two first lines 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 Tytler, commonly known by the name of Balloon Tytler, from his having projected a balloon; a mortal, who, though he drudges about Edinburgh as a common printer, with 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 pompous Encyclopaedia Britannica, which he com- $ge ſherrp ag Gſäe (ſma ja’e been. THIS song is beautiful.-The chorus in particu- lar is truly pathetic. I never could learn any thing of its author. [The tume of this song, with the title, ‘Sae Merrie as we have been * is to be found in the Skene MS., a col- lection made in the reign of James VI., and published by Mr Dauney in 1838. The old words are probably lost. The song given in the Museum first appeared posed at half a guinea a-week [James Tytler was a native of Brechin in Forfarshire, where he was born in 1747. He was a laborious but eccentric and imprudent literary adventurer, and wrote on all conceivable subjects. He latterly emigrated to the United States, where he died in 1805. THE bonnie brucket lassie, She's blue beneath the e'en; She was the fairest lassie That danced on the green; A lad he lo’ed her dearly, She did his love return; But he his vows has broken And left her for to mourn. “My shape,” she says, “was handsome, My face was fair and clean; But now I’m bommie brucket, And blue beneath the e'em: My eyes were bright and sparkling, Before that they turn’d blue; But now they’re dull with weeping, And a', my love, for you. My person it was comely, My shape, they said, was meat, But now I am quite changed, My stays they winna meet. in Herd's collection, 1779, and is as follows:– A LASS, that was laden with care, Sat heavily under yon thorn; I listened a while for to hear, When thus she began for to mourn: Whene'er my dear shepherd was there, The birds did melodiously sing, And cold mipping winter did wear A face that resembled the spring. CHORUS. Sae merry as we twa ha'e been, Sae merry as we twa ha'e been; My heart is like for to break, When I think on the days we ha'e seen. Our flocks feeding close by his side, He gently pressing my hand, I view’d the wide world in its pride, And laugh’d at the pomp of command! “My dear,” he would oft to me say, “What makes you hard-hearted to me? Oh! why do you thus turn away From him who is dying for thee?” But now he is far from my sight, Perhaps a deceiver may prove, Which makes me lament day and might, That ever I granted my love. 339 REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONGS. º At eve, when the rest of the folk ! The bonnie bush bloom'd fair in May, sº Were merrily seated to spin, Its sweets I’ll aye remember; ) I set myself under an oak, But now her frowns make it decay, r And heavily sighed for him.] It fades as in December. ; } Ye rural pow'rs who hear my strains, Why thus should Peggy grieve me? Oh! make her partner in my pains, Qſìje 33amţg of 3Potti). Then let her smiles relieve me: If not, my love will turn despair, THIS air is Oswald's. My passion no more tender; I’ll leave the bush aboon Traquair, [The song in the Museum with this title opens thus:– To lonely wilds I’ll wander.] YE sylvan powers that rule the plain, Where sweetly winding Forth a glides, Conduct me to those banks again, 360ffitneſſ 3Gamţg. Since there my charming Mary bides. THIS modern thing of Pinkerton's could never pass for old but among the sheer ignorant. What poet of the olden time, or indeed of any time, It is by an unknown author, and appeared originally in Herd’s collection. The Museum quotes only a por- tion of the song. There are other and older words to the tume of ‘The Banks of Forth, beginning— ever said or wrote any thing like the line— “Without ae flouir his grave to croun!” This Awake, my love, with genial ray is not only the pedantry of tenderness, but the The sun returning glads the day.] very bathos of bad writing. • *-* -a-...-- [The song, by Pinkerton, which Burns here condemns perhaps too sweepingly, runs thus. The first verse is not given in the Museum, Qſìje 3Gugſ abdom (Iſraquair. ! ON the blythe Beltane as I went, THIS is another beautiful song of Mr Crawfurd’s By mysel attour the green bent, composition. In the neighbourhood of Traquair, Wharby the crystal waves of Clyde tradition still shows the old “ Bush; ” which, when Throch saughs and hanging hazels glyde, There, sadly sitting on a brae, I heard a damsel speak her wac. I saw it in the year 1787, was composed of eight or nine ragged birches. The Earl of Traquair has planted a clump of trees near by, which he O Bothwell bank, thou blumest fair, calls, “The new Bush.” But ah thou mak’st my heart fou sair, For a’ beneath thy holts sae grene [This song, by Robert Crawfurd, first appeared in My luve and I would sit at ene; Ramsay's Tea-Table Miscellamy. The “Bush” formerly While primroses and daisies mixt grew on the west bank of the Quair water in Peebles- Wi’ blue bells in my locks he fixt. shire, about a mile from Traquair House. * But he left me ae drearie day, And haplie now sleeps in the clay; Without ae sich his dethe to roun, Without ae flouir his grave to croun! O Bothwell bank, thou blumest fair, But ah thou mak’st my heart fu' Sair!] ! HEAR me, ye mymphs, and every swain, I’ll tell how Peggy grieves me; Tho' thus I languish and complain, t Alas! she ne'er believes me. | My vows and sighs, like silent air, Unheaded never move her; The bonnie bush aboom Traquair, Was where I first did love her. QTromſet'; £iſt, That day she smil’d and made me glad, No maid seem'd ever kinder; THE following interesting account of this plain- I thought myself the luckiest lad, tive dirge was communicated to Mr Riddel by So sweetly there to find her. Al der Frazer Tytler, Esq. of Woodhousel I tried to soothe my am’rous flame, €X3, InClGI ytler, Esq.. O UISC1662. In words that I thought tender; “In the latter end of the 16th century, the If more there passed I’m not to blame, Chisholms were proprietors of the estate of | I meant not to offend her. Cromlecks (now possessed by the Drummonds). The eldest son of that family was very much attached to a daughter of Stirling of Ardoch, commonly known by the name of fair Helen of Yet now she scornful flees the plain, ) The fields we them frequented; ſ If e'er we meet she shows disdain, w } *…* } She looks as me'er acquainted. Ardoch. | - cyſ, (~, - 2% º 340 Q- º– -- - - - ---- -------- £º- ~~~~ º -A- REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONGS. “At that time the opportunities of meeting betwixt the sexes were more rare, consequently more sought after than now; and the Scottish ladies, far from priding themselves on extensive literature, were thought sufficiently 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 found a grave, in France. Cromlus, when he went abroad to the war, was obliged to leave the management of his correspondence with his mis- tress to a lay brother of the monastery of Dum- blain, in the immediate neighbourhood of Crom- leck, and near Ardoch. This man, unfortunately, was deeply sensible of Helen's charms. He art- fully prepossessed her with stories to the disad- vantage of Cromlus, and by misinterpreting or keeping up the letters and messages entrusted to his care, he entirely irritated both. All con- nection was broken off betwixt them : Helen was inconsolable, and Cromlus has left behind him, in the ballad called “Cromlet'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 suf- ficiently softened Helen's sorrow, he proposed himself as a lover. Helen was obdurate : but at last, overcome by the persuasions of her brother with whom she lived, and who, having a family of thirty-one children, was probably very well pleased to get her off his hands—she submitted, rather than consented, to the ceremony; but there her compliance ended; and when forcibly put into bed, she started quite frantic from it, screaming out, that after three gentle taps on the wainscot, at the bed-head, she heard Cromlus’s voice, crying ‘Helen, Helen, mind me!’ Crom- lus soon after coming home, the treachery of the confidant was discovered—her marriage disan- nulled—and Helen became Lady Cromlecks.” N. B. Marg. Murray, mother to these thirty- one children, was daughter to Murray of Strewn, one of the seventeen sons of Tullybardine, and whose youngest son, commonly called the Tutor of Ardoch, died in the year 1715, aged 111 years. [Cromlet’s Lilt appears in the Tea-Table Miscellany, with the signature X., signifying that the author is unknown. It is sung to the tume of Robin Adair. SINCE all thy vows, false maid, Are blown to air, And my poor heart betray'd To sad despair, Into some wildermess My grief I will express, And thy hard-heartedness, O cruel fair! Have I not graven our loves On every tree, In yonder spreading groves, Tho' false thou be? Was not a solemn oath Plighted betwixt us both, Thou thy faith, I my troth, Constant to be? Some gloomy place I’ll find, Some doleful shade, Where neither sun nor wind E’er entrance had; Into that hollow cave, There will I sigh and rave, Because thou dost behave So faithlessly. Wild fruit shall be my meat, I’ll drink the spring, Cold earth shall be my seat: For covering I’ll have the starry sky My head to canopy, Until my soul on high Shall spread its wing. I’ll have no funeral fire, Nor tears for me: No grave do I desire, Nor obsequie: The courteous red-breast he With leaves will cover me, And sing my elegy With doleful voice. And when a ghost I am, I’ll visit thee, O thou deceitful dame, Whose cruelty Has kill'd the kindest heart That e'er felt Cupid’s dart, And never can desert From loving thee.] fHp IBEarte, if Øſijou Die. ANOTHER beautiful song of Crawfurd’s. [It appears originally in the Tea-Table Miscellamy. The old song to the same tume is lost, LovE mever more shall give me pain, My fancy's fix’d on thee, Nor ever maid my heart shall gain, My Peggy, if thou die. Thy beauty doth such pleasure give, Thy love's so true to me, Without thee I can never live, My dearie, if thou die. If Fate shall tear thee from my breast, How shall I lonely stray? In dreary dreams the might I’ll waste, In sighs the silent day. 341 º º: * QºS c. & *= - REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONGS. I ne'er can so much virtue find, Nor such perfection see; Then I’ll renounce all womankind, My Peggy, after thee. No new-blown beauty fires my heart With Cupid’s raving rage; But thine, which can such sweets impart, Must all the world engage. ‘Twas this, that, like the morning sun, Gave joy and life to me; And when its destin’d day is dome, With Peggy let me die. Ye powers, that smile on virtuous love, And in such pleasure share; You who its faithful flames approve, With pity view the fair: Restore my Peggy's wonted charms, Those charms so dear to me! Oh! mever rob them from these arms! I’m lost if Peggy die.] $je toge and let mte in. THE old set of this song, which is still to be found in printed collections, is much prettier than this; but somebody, I believe it was Ramsay, took it into his head to clear it of some seeming indelicacies, and made it at once more chaste and more dull. [THE old song of “She rose and let me in’ was writ- ten by Francis Semple, Esq. of Beltrees, in Renfrew- shire, but is too indelicate for admission. Semple lived about the middle of the seventeenth century. The original words are to be found, with the music, in Play- ford’s “Choice Ayres and Songs,” 1683, also (without the music) in Ramsay’s Tea-Table Miscellany, Herd's Collection, &c. What may be called the Anglified version (which we here give) first appeared in John- son’s Museum. Burms was mistaken in thinking that Ramsay was the author of this version—for Ramsay gives the original words with all their warmth and high colouring. THE might her sable mantle wore, And gloomy were the skies; Of glitt'ring stars appear'd no more, Than those in Nelly's eyes. When to her father's door I came, Where I had often been, I begg'd my fair, my lovely dame, To rise and let me in. But she with accents all divine, Did my fond suit reprove; And while she chid my rash design, She but inflamed my love. Her beauty oft had pleased before, While her bright eyes did roll; But virtue had the very power To charm my very soul. Then who would cruelly deceive, Or from such beauty part? I loved her so, I could not leave The charmer of my heart. My eager fondness I obey'd, Resolved she should be mime, Till Hymen to my arms convey’d My treasure so divine. Now, happy in my Nelly's love, Transporting is my joy; No greater blessing can I prove, So blest a man am I: For beauty may a while retain The conquer'd flatt’ring heart; But virtue only is the chain Holds, mever to depart.] Go to tie (ºne-hugijf3, ſtilation. I AM not sure if this old and charming air be of the South, as is commonly said, or of the North of Scotland. There is a song apparently as ancient as ‘Ewe-bughts, Marion,’ which sings to the same tune, and is evidently of the North. It begins thus:— “The Lord o' Gordon had three dochters, Mary, Marget, and Jean, They wadma stay at bonnie Castle Gordon, But awa, to Aberdeen.” [The beautiful song of the Ewe-bughts is marked in the ‘Tea-Table Miscellamy’ as an old song with addi- tions. WILL ye go to the ewe-bughts, Marion, And wear in the sheep wi' me? The sum shimes sweet, my Marion, But mae half sae sweet as thee. O Marion’s a bonnie lass, And the blythe blinks in her e'e, And fain would I marry Marion, Gim Marion wad marry me. There's gowd in your garters, Marion, And silk on your white hause bame; Fu’ fain wad I kiss my Marion, At e'en when I come hame. There's braw lads in Earnslaw, Marion, Wha gape and glow'r wi' their e'e, At kirk when they see my Marion; But name o’ them lo’es like me. I’ve nine milk eves, my Marion, A cow and a brawny quey, I’ll gi'e them a' to my Marion, Just on her bridal-day: And ye’s get a green sey apron, And waistcoat of the Londom brown, And wow ! but ye will be vapºring, Whene'er ye gang to the town. I'm young and stout, my Marion; Name dance like me on the green; And gin ye forsake me, Marion, I’ll e'en draw up wi' Jean. 342 ~~~~<. Åſº REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONGS. Sae put on your pearlings, Marion, And kyrtle of the cramasie: And soon as my chim has mae hair on, I shall come west and see ye.] #Leinig (50rUom. THIS air is a proof how one of our Scots tunes comes to be composed out of another. I have one of the earliest copies of the song, and it has prefixed, “Tune of Tarry woo.” Of which tune a different set has insensibly varied into a different air.—To a Scots critic, the pathos of the line, “Tho' 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 ‘Lewis Gordon” was a Mr Geddes, priest at Shenval, in the Ainzie. [Lord Lewis Gordon, younger brother to the then Duke of Gordon, commanded a detachment for the Chevalier, and acquitted himself with great gallantry and judgment. He died in 1754. OH ! send Lewie Gordon hame, And the lad I winna, name; Tho' his back be at the wa', Here’s to him that’s far awa! Oh hom! my Highland man! Oh, my bonnie Highland man! Weel would I my true love kem, 'Amang ten thousand Highland mem. Oh! to see his tartam-trews, Bonnet blue, and laigh-heel’d shoes; Philabeg aboon his knee; That's the lad that I’ll gang wi'ſ The princely youth that I do mean, Is fitted for to be a king: On his breast he wears a star; You’d tak’ him for the god of war, Oh to see this princely one, Seated on a royal throne! Disasters a would disappear, Then begins the Jub’lee year! Oh hom! my Highland man! Oh, my bonnie Highland man! Weel would I my true love ken, Amang ten thousand Highland men.] QP 390me a litic, DR BLACKLOCK informed me that this song was composed on the infamous massacre of Glencoe. 343 [The song is as follows, only it has the burthen of “O Home a Rie, repeated at the end of each line. A line or two of this song is sung by Davie Gellatly in the * novel of Waverley. Oh! was not I a weary wight! Maid, Wife, and Widow, in one night! When in my soft and yielding arms, When most I thought him free from harms; Even at the dead time of the night, They broke my bower, and slew my knight. Wi’ae lock o' his jet black hair, I’ll tie my heart for evermair; Nae sly-tongued youth, or flattºring Swain, Shall e'er untie this knot again; * Thine still, dear youth, that heart shall be, Nor pant for aught save heaven and thee.] #'II meter ſeabe fjee. THIS is another of Crawfurd’s songs, but I do not think in his happiest manner.—What an absurdity, to join such names as Adonis and Mary together [ONE day I heard Mary say, How shall I leave thee? Stay, dearest Adonis, stay; Why wilt thou grieve me? Alas! my fond heart will break, If thou should leave me: I'll live and die for thy sake, Yet never leave thee. Say, lovely Adonis, say, Has Mary deceived thee! Did e'er her young heart betray New love, that has grieved thee! My constant mind ne’er shall stray, Thou may believe me. I’ll love thee, lad, might and day, And never leave thee. Adonis, my charming youth, What can relieve thee? Cam Mary thy anguish soothe? This breast shall receive thee. My passion can ne'er decay, Never deceive thee; Delight shall drive pain away, Pleasure revive thee. But leave thee, leave thee, lad, How shall I leave thee? Oh! that thought makes me sad; I’ll never leave thee! Where would my Adonis fly? Why does he grieve me? Alas! my poor heart will die, If I should leave thee.] Glorn 33igg are 330mmie. ALL the old words that ever I could meet with º º X ſº *C g (s º) * º REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONGS. to this air, were the following, which seems to have been an old chorus. O corn rigs and rye rigs, O corn rigs are bonnie; And whene'er ye meet a bommy lass, Preen up her cockermony, [The song given in the Museum is Peggy's opening song in the Gentle Shepherd. The tune is very old. Though the roads were ever so filthy, Or the day so scoury and foul, I would aye be ganging wi' Geordie; I lik’d it far better than school. The mucking, &c. My brither abuses me daily, For being wi' Geordie so free, My sister she ca's me hoodwinked, Because he's below my degree. The mucking, &c. But well do I like my young Geordie, Altho’ he was cumming and slee; He ca’s me his dear and his homey, And I’m sure that my Geordie loes me. The mucking, &c. My Patie is a lover gay, His mind is never muddy, His breath is sweeter than new hay, º: His face is fair and ruddy. His shape is handsome, middle size; He’s stately in his walking; The shining of his een surprise; 'Tis heaven to hear him talking. The mouse is a merry beast, And the moudewort wants the een: But the warld shall ne'er get wit Sae merry as we ha'e been. Last night I met him on a bawk, The mucking, &c.] ** Lanš5 ºvv. Where yellow corm was growing, There momy a kindly word he spake, That set my heart a glowing. He kiss'd, and vow’d he wad be mine, And loo'd me best of ony; That gars me like to sing simsyne, O corn riggs are bonny. &ſºlautting o' fije iſ auſt. THERE are two stanzas still sung to this tune, which I take to be the original song, whence Ramsay composed this beautiful song of that name in the Gentle Shepherd. It begins— Let maidens of a silly mind Refuse what maist they’re wanting, Since we for yielding are design'd, We chastely should be granting; Then I’ll comply, and marry Pate, And syne my cockermony; He’s free to touzle air or late, Where corn riggs are bonny.] “O will ye speak at our town, As ye come frae the fauld,” &c. I regret that, in many of our old songs, the delicacy of this old fragment is not equal to its wit and humour. Oſije ſºlucking o' Georbie's bpre. [MY Peggy is a young thing, Just enter’d in her teens, Fair as the day, and sweet as May, Fair as the day, and always gay; My Peggy is a young thing, And I’m not very auld, Yet weel I like to meet her at The wauking of the fauld. THE chorus of this song is old; the rest is the work of Balloon Tytler. [There exist fragments of an old song called ‘The Mucking o' Geordie's byre,” said to have been made on a young lady, who married her father's tenant, and who was obliged to labour at menial offices. The song by My P ks s tl James Tytler is as follows:– y Peggy speaks sae sweetly, Whene'er we meet alame, I wish mae mair to lay my care, I wish mae mair of a that's rare; My Peggy speaks sae sweetly, To a the lave I’m cauld; But she gars a my spirits glow At wauking of the fauld. As I went over yon meadow, And carelessly passed along, I listen’d with pleasure to Jemmy, While mourmfully singing this song. The mucking of Geordie's byre, And the shooling the gruip so clean, Has aft gart me spend the night sleepless, And brought the salt tears in my een. My Peggy smiles sae kindly, Whene’er I whisper love, That I look down on aſ the town, That I look down upon a crown; My Peggy smiles sae kindly, It makes me blythe and bauld, And maething gi'es me sic delight As wauking of the fauld. It was not my father's pleasure, Nor was it my mother’s desire, That ever I puddl’d my fingers, Wi’ the mucking o' Geordie's byre. The mucking, &c. & * º 4 4 º: • 3ſº YC) --~, <> A º -jº ~" sº REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONGS. My Peggy sings sae saftly, When on my pipe I play; By a the rest it is confest, By a' the rest that she sings best; My Peggy sings sae saftly, And in her sangs are tauld, With innocence, the wale of sense, At wauking of the fauld..] 36ttle pe pet. THERE is a beautiful song to this tune, begin- ning, “Alas, my son, you little know,” which is the composition of Miss Jenny Graham, of Dumfries. [The song given in the Museum is from Herd's Col- lection, 1769, and rums thus:– GIN I had a wee house and a canty wee fire, A bonnie wee wifie to praise and admire, A bonnie wee yardie aside a wee burn; Farewell to the bodies that yammer and mourn. Sae bide ye yet, and bide ye yet, Ye little kem what may betide ye yet; Some bonnie wee body may be my lot, And I’ll be canty wi' thinking o't. When I gang afield, and come hame at e'en, I’ll get my wee wifie fu' meat and fu' clean; And a bonnie wee bairnie upon her knee, That will cry, papa or daddy to me. And if there happen ever to be A diff'rence atween my wee wifie and me, In hearty good humour, although she be teaz’d, I'll kiss her and clap her until she be pleas'd. Sae bide ye yet, and bide ye yet, Ye little ken what may betide ye yet; Some bonnie wee body may be my lot, And I’ll be canty wi' thinking o't. The song to which Burns alludes, is called the Way- ward Wife. The authoress was the daughter of William Graham of Shaw, Esq., in Ammandale. She was born in 1724, and died, a maiden lady, in 1805. Although she wrote other pieces, mone of them seem to be extant. THE WAY WARD WIFE. ALAs! my som, you little know The sorrows that from wedlock flow: Farewell to every day of ease, When ye have gotten a wife to please. Sae bide ye yet, and bide ye yet, Ye little ken what's to betide ye yet; The half of that will game you yet, If a wayward wife obtain you yet. Your hopes are high, your wisdom small, And yet ye’ve met wi' little thrall; II. 345 The black cow on your foot ne'er trod,l Which gars you sing alang the road. Sometimes the rock, sometimes the recl, Or some piece of the spinning wheel, She will drive at you wi' good will, And then she'll send you to the de'il. When I like you was young and free, I valued not the proudest she; Like you I vainly boasted then, That men alone were born to reign. Great Hercules and Samson too, Were stronger men than I or you; Yet they were baffled by their dears, And felt the distaff and the shears. Stout gates of brass, and well-built walls, Are proof’gainst swords and cannon-balls; But nought is found by sea or land, That can a wayward wife withstand. Sae bide ye yet, and bide ye yet, Ye little ken what’s to betide ye yet; The half of that will game ye yet, If a wayward wife obtain ye yet. *** The above concludes Burns's annotations on the first volume of the ‘Musical Museum.” To the second volume he wrote the following preface. “In the first volume of this work, two or three airs, not of Scots composition, have been inad- vertently inserted; which, whatever excellence they may have, was improper, as the collection is meant to be solely the music of our own country. The songs contained in this volume, both music and poetry, are all of them the work of Scots- men. Wherever the old words could be recov- ered, they have been preferred; both as suiting better the genius of the tunes, and to preserve the productions of those earlier sons of the Scottish Muses, some of whose names deserved a better fate than has befallen them—“Buried 'midst the wreck of things which were.” Of our more mo- dern songs, the Editor has inserted the authors’ names as far as he can ascertain them; and as that was neglected in the first volume, it is annexed here. If he has made any mistakes in this affair, which he possibly may, he will be very grateful at being set right. “Ignorance and prejudice may perhaps affect . to sneer at the simplicity of the poetry or music of some of these poems; but their having been, for ages, the favourites of Nature's judges—the common people—was to the Editor a sufficient test of their merit. Edin, March 1, 1788.” l This is an ancient proverbial expression. It is used in Yorkshire to this day, and is generally applied to such indis- creet unmarried young men as have not yet sown their wild oats. 2 X REMAIRKS ON SCOTTISH SONGS. 5. & 2} | X * \ | SC &O) } § .# 3 <--> * ‘S’’-3--> 6. tºº t jº 3= */ . TX_2 £Haggie 3Lattler. THIS old song, so pregnant with Scottish maïveté and energy, is much relished by all ranks, notwithstanding its broad wit and palpable allusions.—Its language is a precious model of imitation : sly, sprightly, and forcibly expressive, —Maggie's tongue wags out the nicknames of Rob the Piper, with all the careless lightsomeness of unrestrained gaiety. [FRANCIS SEMPLE, Esq. of Beltrees, in Renfrewshire, who lived about the middle of the seventeenth century, is the reputed author of this popular song. There is strong reason, however, for doubting this hypothesis. The song appears to belong to a period considerably later than Semple's day. WHA wadna be in love Wi’ bommie Maggie Lauder? A piper met her gaum to Fife, And speir’d what was’t they ca’d her;-- Right scornfully she answered him, Begone, you hallanshaker! Jog on your gate, you bladderskate, My name is Maggie Lauder. Maggie, quo he, and by my bags, I’m fidgin fain to see thee; Sit down by me, my bonnie bird, In troth I winnie steer thee: For I’m a piper to my trade, My name is Rob the Ranter; The lasses loup as they were daft, When I blaw up my chanter. Piper, quo’ Meg, ha'e ye your bags? Or is your drone in order? If ye be Rob, I’ve heard of you, Live you upo' the border? The lasses a”, baith far and near, Have heard o’ Rob the Ranter; I’ll shake my foot wi' right gude will, Gif you’ll blaw up your chanter. Then to his bags he flew wi' speed, About the drome he twisted; Meg up and wallop’d o'er the green, For brawly could she frisk it. Weel dome! quo’ he—Play up! quo' she; Weel bobb’d! quo’ Rob the Ranter; 'Tis worth my while to play indeed, When I ha'e sic a dancer. Weel ha'e ye play'd your part, quo' Meg, Your cheeks are like the crimson; There's name in Scotland plays sae Weel, Since we lost Habbie Simpson.] I’ve liv'd in Fife, baith maid and wife, These ten years and a quarter; Gim” ye should come to Amster fair, Speir ye for Maggie Lauder.] 1 The celebrated Piper of Kilbarchan, a village in Renfrew- shire, where a statue of Habbie is still to be seen. 346 (ſtament={{{uir. ‘TRANENT-MUIR' was composed by a Mr Skirving, a very worthy respectable farmer near Haddington. I have heard 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 awa’ back,” said the honest farmer, “and tell Mr Smith that I ha'e 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—I’ll rim awa’.” [The battle here celebrated is better known by the name of the battle of Prestonpans, where prince Charles Stuart, commonly called the Young Chevalier, at the head of his Highland army, completely routed the English forces under the command of Sir John Cope, who was afterwards tried by a court-martial for his conduct in this battle, and acquitted. Cope is said to have left the field in such haste, that he never once stopped his horse, nor looked back, till he got to Had- dington, which is seven or eight miles off. This action happened Sept. 22, 1745—The author of the song, ADAM SKIRVING, was also the reputed author of ‘Johnnie Cope, which will be found further on in the volume. THE Chevalier, being void of fear, Did march up Birslie brae, man, And thro’ Trament, ere he did stent, As fast as he could gae, man: While general Cope did taunt and mock, Wi’mony a loud huzza, man; But ere next morm proclaim'd the cock, We heard another craw, man. The brave Lochiel,2 as I heard tell, Led Camerons on in clouds, man; The morning fair, and clear the air, They loos'd with devilish thuds, man. Down gums they threw, and swords they drew, And soon did chase them aff, man; On Seaton-Crafts they buft their chafts, And gart them rim like draff, man. The bluff dragoons swore blood and ’oons, They’d make the rebels run, man; And yet they flee when them they see, And winna fire a gun, man: They turn'd their back, the foot they brake, Such terror seiz'd them a', man: Some wet their cheeks, some fyl'd their breeks, And some for fear did fa’, man. 2 Donald Cameron of Lochiel, chief of the clan Cameron, a gentleman of great bravery, and of the most amiable disposi- tion. He was wounded at the battle of Culloden, and died in France colonel of a regiment, which his grateful master had procured him, as a small reward and compensation for his great services and misfortunes, 1748. REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONGS. ſ The volunteers prick'd up their ears, And vow gin they were crouse, man; But when the bairns saw’t turn to earn'st, They were not worth a louse, man. Maist feck gade hame—Ofy for shame! They'd better stay’d awa’, man, Than wif cockade to make parade, And do nae good at a”, man. Monteith the great, where hersell sate, Un’wares did ding him o'er, man; Yet wad mae stand to bear a hand, But aff fu' fast did scour, man; O'er Soutra hill, ere he stood still, Before he tasted meat, man: Troth, he may brag of his swift mag, That bare him aff sae fleet, man. And Simpson 2 keen, to cleer the een Of rebels far in wrang, man, Did never strive wi' pistols five, But gallop’d with the thrang, man: He turn’d his back, and in a crack Was cleanly out of sight, man; And thought it best; it was mae jest Wi’ Highlanders to fight, man. 'Mangst a’ the gang name bade the bang But twa, and ame was tane, man; For Campbell rade, but Myrie 3 staid, And sair he paid the kain, man; Fell skelps he got, was waur than shot Frae the sharp-edg’d claymore, man; Frae many a spout came running out His reeking-het red gore, man. But Gard’mer 4 brave did still behave Like to a hero bright, man; His courage true, like him were few, That still despised flight, man; For king and laws, and country's carise, In honour's bed he lay, man; His life, but not his courage, fled, While he had breath to draw, man. And Major Bowle, that worthy soul, Was brought down to the ground, man; His horse being shot, it was his lot For to get momy a wound, man. Lieutenant Smith, of Irish birth, Frae whom he call’d for aid, man, Being full of dread, lap o'er his head, And wadna be gainsaid, man. He made sic haste, sae spurr'd his beast, ‘Twas little there he saw, man; To Berwick rade, and safely said, The Scots were rebels a”, man. But let that end, for weel 'tis kend His use and wont to lie, man; The Teague is naught, he never faught, When he had room to flee, man. And Caddell drest, amang the rest, With gun and good claymore, man, On gelding grey he rode that way, With pistols set before, man; The cause was good, he’d spend his blood, Before that he would yield, man; But the nicht before, he left the cor’, And mever faced the field, man. But gallant Rodger, like a sodger, Stood and bravely fought, man; I’m wae to tell, at last he fell, But mae down wi' him brought, man: At point of death, wi' his last breath, (Some standing round in ring, man), On's back, lying flat, he wav'd his hat, And cry’d, God save the king, man. 1 The minister of Longformacus, a volunteer; who happen- ing to come, the night before the battle, unawares upon a Highlandman in an awkward position, threw him over, and carried his gun as a trophy to Cope's camp. 2 Another volunteer Presbyterian minister, who said he would convince the rebels of their error by the dint of his pis- tols; having, for that purpose, two in his pockets, two in his holsters, and one in his belt. 3 Mr Myrie was a student of physic, from Jamaica; he entered as a volunteer in Cope's army, and was miserably mangled by the broad sword. 4 James Gardner, colonel of a regiment of horse. “At the beginning of the onset, which lasted but a few minutes, he received a wound by a bullet in his left breast, which made him give a sudden spring in his saddle ; upon which his ser- vant, who had led the horse, would have persuaded him to retreat : but he said it was only a wound in the flesh, and fought on, though he presently after received a shot in his right thigh. by his men, and particularly by Lieutenant-Colonel Whitney, who was shot through the arm here, and a few months after fell nobly in the battle of Falkirk; and by Lieutenant West, a mam of distiuguished bravery ; as also by about fifteen dra- gooms, who stood by him to the last. But after a faint fire, the regiment in general was seized with a panic ; and though their Colonel, and some other gallant officers, did what they could to rally them, once or twice, they at last took a precipitate flight. And justin the moment when Colonel Gardiner seemed to be making a pause, to deliberate what duty required him to The Colonel was for a few moments supported do in such a circumstance, he saw a party of the foot, who were then bravely fighting near him, and whom he was ordered to support, had no officer to head them ; upon which he said eagerly, “Those brave fellows will be cut to pieces for want of a commander.” He thereupon rode up to them, and cried aloud, “Fire on, my lads, and fear nothing.' But just as they were out of his mouth, a Highlander advanced towards him with a scythe fastened on a long pole, with which he gave him such a deep wound on his right arm, that his sword dropped out of his hand; and at the same time several others coming about him, while he was thus dreadfully entangled with that cruel weapon, he was dragged off his horse. The moment he fell, another Highlander gave him a stroke, either with a broad-sword or a Lochaber axe, on the hinder part of his head, which was the mortal blow. All that his faithful attendant saw further at this time was, that as his hat was falling off, he took it in his left hand, and waved it as a signal to him to retreat; and added, “Take care of yourself." Upon which the servant retired, and fled to a mill, about two miles distant, where he changed his dress, and, disguised like a miller's ser- vant, returned about two hours after the engagement. The hurry of the action was then over, and he found his much hon- oured master, not only plundered of his watch and other things of value, but also stripped of his upper garments and boots; yet still breathing, though not capable of speech. In this condition he conveyed him to the church of Tranent, from whence he was immediately taken to the minister's house, and laid on a bed; where he continued breathing, and frequently groaning, till about eleven in the forenoon, when he took his final leave of pain and sorrow.”—DoDDRIDGE. o 347 “ºº. 3)\o 22. - K. Q Sºo. ac Nº. \ * W REMARKS ON scottish songs. Some Highland rogues, like hungry dogs, Neglecting to pursue, man, About they faced, and in great haste Upon the booty flew, man; And they, as gain, for a their pain, Are deck'd wi' spoils of war, man; Fu’bauld can tell, how her mainsell Was ne'er Sae praw before, man. At the thorm-tree, which you may see Bewest the Meadow-mill, man, There mony slain lay on the plain, The clams pursuing still, man. Sic unco hacks, and deadly whacks, Imever saw the like, man; Lost hands and heads cost them their deads, That fell near Preston-dyke, man. That afternoon, when a’ was done, I gaed to see the fray, man; But had I wist what after past, I’d better staid away, man: On Seaton sands, wi' nimble hands, They pick'd my pockets bare, man; But I wish ne'er to drie sic fear, or a’ the sum and mair, man.] *-* *-m-m- &ſo tie &áegberg gin pegg. THE Chorus of this song is old, the rest of it is mine,—Here, once for all, let me apologize for many silly compositions of mine in this work. Many beautiful airs wanted words; in the hurry of other avocations, if I could string a parcel of rhymes together any thing near tolerable, I was fain to let them pass. He must be an excellent poet indeed, whose every performance is excel- lent. [See the song at page 5, beginning, My heart was ance as blythe and free.’] apolmart on the Green. THE author of ‘Polwart on the Green, is Capt. John Drummond M*Gregor, of the family of Bochaldie. [George Chalmers says that this song was written by Allan Ramsay; and in this he is supported by every other authority, Burns excepted. The first four and the last four lines, however, are older than Ramsay's day. Polwart is a village in Berwickshire, with a green, where formerly a thorm tree grew, round which the villagers used to dance at weddings. At Polwart on the green If you'll meet me the morn, Where lasses do convene To dance about the thorn; A kindly welcome ye shall meet, Frae her who likes to view A lover and a lad complete— The lad and lover you. Let dorty dames say ma, As lang as e”er they please, Seem caulder than the sma’, While inwardly they bleeze. But I will frankly shaw my mind, And yield my heart to thee; Be ever to the captive kind, That langs na to be free. At Polwart on the green, Amang the mew mawn hay, Wi’ sangs and dancing keen, We'll pass the heartsome day. At night, if beds be o'er thrang laid, And thou be twin’d of thime, Thou shalt be welcome, my dear lad, To take a part of mine.] $trepſon and glphia. THE following account of this song I had from Dr Blacklock. . The Strephon and Lydia mentioned in the song were perhaps the loveliest couple of their time. The gentleman was commonly known by the name of Beau Gibson. The lady was the Gentle Jean, celebrated somewhere in Hamilton of Ban- gour's poems.-Having frequently met at public places, they had formed a reciprocal attachment, which their friends thought dangerous, as their resources were by no means adequate to their tastes and habits of life. To elude the bad con- sequences of such a connection, Strephon was sent abroad with a commission, and perished in Admiral Vernon’s expedition to Carthagena. The author of the song was William Wallace, Esq. of Cairnhill, in Ayrshire. [William Wallace was an advocate at the Scottish bar. He died in 1763. The tune of the song is called, “The Gordons ha'e the guiding o't.” ALL lonely on the sultry beach, Expiring Strephon lay, No hand the cordial draught to reach, Nor cheer the gloom away. Ill-fated youth! no parent nigh To catch thy fleeting breath; No bride to fix thy 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 depress'd, Thou fall'st, alas! thyself, thy kind, Thy country, unredress'd!] ; 348 REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONGS. £lacpjergon's ſaremell. MACPHERSON, a daring robber, in the begin- ning of this century, was condemned to be hanged at the assizes at Inverness. He is said, when under sentence of death, to have composed this tune, which he called his own lament, or fare- well. [See the piece given with the Note at page 16.] fölp jo, Janet. JoHNSON the publisher, with a foolish delicacy, refused to insert the last stanza of this humor- ous ballad. [This song first appeared in the Tea-Table Miscel- lany, (1724), but it is considered to be of older date, and to have received Ramsay’s corrections. O, sweet Sir, for your courtesie, When ye come by the Bass, them, For the love ye bear to me, Buy me a keeking glass, them. Keek into the draw-well, Janet, Janet; And there you’ll see your bonnie sell, My jo, Jamet. Keeking in the draw-well clear, What if I should fa’in, them? Syne aſ my kin will say and swear, I drown'd myself for sin, then. Haud the better by the brae, Janet, Janet; Haud the better by the brae, My jo, Janet. Good Sir, for your courtesie, Coming thro' Aberdeen, them, For the love ye bear to me, Buy me a pair o’ sheen, them. Clout the auld—the new are dear, Janet, Janet; A pair may gain you ha’f a year, My jo, Janet. But what, if dancing on the green, And skipping like a mawkin, If they should see my clouted sheen, Of me they will be takin'. Dance aye laigh, and late at e'en, Janet, Janet; Syme a their faults will no be seen, - My jo, Janet. Kind Sir, for your courtesie, When ye gae to the cross, then; For the love ye bear to me, Buy me a pacing horse, then. Pace upo' your spinning wheel, Janet, Janet; Pace upo' your spinning wheel, My jo, Janet. My spinning wheel is auld and stiff, The rock o't winna stand, Sir; To keep the temper-pin in tiff Employs right aft my hand, Sir. Make the best o' that ye can, Janet, Janet: But like it never wale a man, My jo, Janet.] Oſije $jepjetty's (Tomplaint, THE words by a Mr R. Scott, from the town or neighbourhood of Biggar. [This song appears in the Orpheus Caledonius, 1725, and Ramsay’s Tea-Table Miscellany. We know not on what authority Burns ascribes the authorship of the song to Mr R. Scott. The words furnish a curious ex- ample of what was considered a pathetic pastoral in the days of our great grandfathers. By a murmuring stream a fair shepherdess lay, Be so kind, O ye nymphs, I oft heard her say: Tell Strephon, I die, if he passes this way, And love is the cause of my mourning; False shepherds, that tell me of beauty and charms, Deceive me, for Strephon's cold heart never warms; Yet bring me this Strephon, I’ll die in his arms; O Strephon! the cause of my mourning. But first, said she, let me go Down to the shades below, E’er ye let Strephom know That I have lov’d him so: Then on my pale cheek no blushes will show, That love is the cause of my mourning. Her eyes were scarce closed, when Strephon came by, He thought she'd been sleeping, and softly drew nigh; But finding her breathless, O heavens! did he cry, Ah, Chloris! the cause of my mourning. Restore me my Chloris, ye nymphs use your art, They sighing reply'd, 'Twas yourself shot the dart, That wounded the tender young shepherdess' heart, And kill'd the poor Chloris with mourning. Ah then is Chloris dead, Wounded by me? he said; I’ll follow thee, chaste maid, Down to the silent shade. Then on her cold snowy breast leaning his head, Expired the poor Strephon with mourning.] 4Pife, and a' tſje 3Lanúg about it. THIS song is Dr Blacklock's. He, as well as I, often gave Johnson verses, trifling enough per- haps, but they served as a vehicle to the music. [The tume called “Fife and a the Lands about it’ can be traced in very old music books. The following are the first two verses of Dr Blacklock's song to the tune: 349 <> Sº VX N s 2) (O * ~~~~<>–~~~ ~~~~<>~. §º REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONGS. ÖğQ) - º An hero that’s bold, For there was such hashing, N Nome could him with-hold, And broad-swords a clashing, | He stoutly encounter'd the targemen, Brave Forfar 13 himself got a claw, man. : For the cowardly Whitham 1, For fear they should cut him, Seeing glittering broad-swords wi' a pa’ mam, And that in such thrang, Made Baird edicamg, 2 And from the brave clans ran awa’, mam. Brave Mar 3 and Panmure 4 Were firm, I am sure; The latter was kidnapt awa’, man; With brisk men about, JBrave Harry 5 retook His brother, and laught at them a', man. Grave Marshall 6 and Lithgow 7 And Glengary's 8 pith too, Assisted by brave Loggie-A’mon’;9 And Gordons the bright So boldly did fight, The red-coats took flight and awa’, man. Strathmore 10 and Clamronald 11 Cry’d still, Advance, Donald! Till both these heroes did fa’, man; 12 1 Major-general Thomas Whitham. 2 i. e. Aid-de-camp. 3 John (Erskine) Earl of Mar, commander-in-chief of the Chevalier's army; a nobleman of great spirit, honour, and abilities. He died at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1732. 4 James (Maule) Earl of Panmure. He died at Paris 1723. 5 Honourable Harry Maule, brother to the Earl. The cir- cumstance here alluded to is thus related in the Earl of Mar's printed account of the engagement. “The prisoners taken by us were very civilly used, and none of them stript. Some were allowed to return to Stirling upon their parole, &c. The few prisoners taken by the enemy on our Left were most of them Stript and wounded after they were taken prisoners; and the Earl of Panmure was the first prisoner wounded after being taken. The enemy having refused his parole, he was left in a Village; but upon their hasty retreat on the approach of our army, he was rescued by his brother and his servant.” 6 George (Keith) Earl Marischall, then a youth at College. He died at his government of Neufchatel in 1771. His brother, the celebrated marshall Keith, was with him in this battle. 7 James (Livingstone) Earl of Calender and Linlithgow : attainted. 8 Alexander M*Donald, of Glengary, laird of a clan; a brave and spirited chief: attainted. 9 Thomas Drummond, of Loggie-Almond, commanded the two battalions of Drummonds. He was wounded. 10 John (Lyon) Earl of Strathmore; “a man of good parts, of a most amiable disposition and character.” 11 Ronald M“Donald, captain of Clan Ronald. N. B. The captain of a clan was one, who, being next or near in blood to the chief, headed the Clan during the infancy or absence of the chief. 12 “We have lost, to our regret, the Earl of Strathmore and the captain of Clam Ronald.” Earl of Mar's letter to the gov- | Crnor of Perth. Again, printed account: “We cannot find ! above sixty of our men in all killed, among whom were the | Earl of Strathmore and the captain of Clan Ronald, both much lamented.” The latter, “for his good parts, and gentle accom- plishments, was looked upon as the most gallant and generous young gentleman among the clans. He was lamented by both | | parties that knew him.” His servant, who lay on the field watching his dead body, being asked next day who that was, answered, He was a man yesterday.—Boswell's Journey to the Hebrides, p. 359. Lord Perth 14 stood the storm, Seaforth 15 but lukewarm, Kilsyth 16 and Strathallan 17 not slaw, man; And Hamilton 18 pled The men were not bred, For he had no fancy to fa', man. Brave generous Southesk 19, Tilebairn 20 was brisk, Whose father indeed would not draw, man, Into the same yoke, Which served for a cloak, To keep the estate 'twixt them twa, man. Lord Rollo 21 mot fear'd, Kintore 22 and his beard, Pitsligo 23 and Ogilvie 24 a”, man, And brothers Balfours 25, They stood the first stours, Clackmannam and Burleigh 26 did claw, mam. But Cleppan 27 acted pretty, And Struan the witty 28, A poet that pleases us a”, man; 13 Archibald (Douglas) Earl of Forfar, who commanded a regiment in the duke's army. He is said to have been shot in the knee, and to have had ten or twelve cuts in his head from the broad-sword. He died a few days after of his wounds. 14 James Marquis of Drummond, son of James Drummond, Duke of Perth, was lieutenant-general of the horse, and “be- haved with great gallantry.” He was attainted, but escaped to France, where he soon after died. 15 William (Mackenzie) Earl of Seaforth. and died in 1740. 16 William (Livingstone) Viscount Kilsyth: attainted. 17 William (Drummond) Viscount Strathallan; whose sense of loyalty could scarcely equal the spirit and activity he mani- fested in the cause. He was taken prisoner in this battle, which he survived, to perish in that still more fatal one of Culloden-muir. He was attainted, 18 Lieutenant-general George Hamilton, commanding under the Earl of Mar. 19 James (Carnegie) Earl of Southesk; was attainted, and escaping to France, he died there in 1729. 20 William (Murray) Marquis of Tullibardine, eldest son to the Duke of Athol. Having been attainted, he was taken at Sea in 1746, and died soon after, of a flux, in the tower. 2] Robert (Rollo) Lord Rollo; a man of singular merit and great integrity. He died in 1758. 22 William (Keith) Earl of Kintore. 23 Alexander (Forbes) Lord Pitsligo; a man of good parts, great honour and Spirit, and universally beloved and esteemed. He was engaged again in the affair of 1745, for which he was attainted, and died at an advanced age in 1762. 24 James, Lord Ogilvie, eldest son of David (Ogilvie) Earl of Airly. He was attainted, but afterwards pardoned. His father, not drawing into the same yoke, saved the estate. 25 Some relations, it is supposed, of the Lord Burleigh. 26 Robert (Balfour) Lord Burleigh. He was attainted, and died in 1757. 27 Major William Cleppan, adjutant-general to the Marquis of Drummond. 28 Alexander Robertson of Struan; who, having experienced every vicissitude of life, with a stoical firmness, died in peace 1749. He was an excellent poet, and has left elegies worthy of Tibullus, O - ~~~~<><>– - * & Ç º 5 : ra :*, *, * - Y - l •, º REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONGS. Ä$43. Loose flow'd her yellow hair, Quick heav'd her bosom bare, As to the troubled air She vented her sorrow. “Loud howls the stormy west, Cold, cold is winter's blast; Haste then, O! Donald, haste, Haste to thy Flora; Twice twelve long months are o'er, Since, on aforeign shore You promised to fight no more, But meet me in Mora. Where now is Donald dear? Maids cry with taunting sneer; Say, is he still sincere To his loved Flora? Parents upbraid my moan, Each heart is turn'd to stone; Ah! Flora, thou’rt now alone, Friendless in Mora! Come them, O come away, Donald, no longer stay;- Where can my rover stray From his loved Flora! Ah! sure he me'er can be False to his vows and me; O Heaven! is not yonder he Bounding o'er Mora?” “Never, all! wretched fair! (Sigh’d the sad messenger,) Never shall Donald mair Meet his loved Floral Cold as yon mountain snow, Donald, thy love lies low; He sent me to soothe thy woe, Weeping in Mora.” Mute stood the trembling fair, Speechless with cold despair, Then striking her bosom bare, Sigh’d out, “Poor Flora!” Ah! Donald, ah, well-a-day! Was all the fond heart could say— At length the sound died away Feebly in Mora.] 3|abbie, Iiz near mte. THIS song is by Blacklock. [HARK! the loud tempest shakes the earth to its centre, How mad were the task on a journey to venture; How dismal’s my prospect, of life I am weary, O! listen, my love, I beseech thee to hear me. Hear me, hear me, in tenderness hear me; All the long winter night, laddie, lie near me. Nights tho’ protracted, tho’ piercing the weather, Yet summer was endless when we were together; Now since thy absence I feel most severely, Joy is extinguished, and being is dreary. Dreary, dreary, painful and dreary; All the long winter night, laddie, lie near me. The following is a specimen of the old verses, which glide more naturally into the subject than those of Blacklock. Lang ha'e we parted been, lassie, my dearie, Now we are met again, lassie, lie near me, Near me, near me, lassie, lie near me; Lang hast thou lien thy lane, lassie, lie near me. A’ that I ha'e endured, lassie, my dearie, Here in thy arms is cured, lassie, lie near me, Near me, near me, lassie lie near me; Lang hast thou lien thy lane, lassie lie near me.] Qſìje 36|act. 33agle. THIS song is by Dr Fordyce, whose merits as a prose writer are well known. [Dr Fordyce was a philosophical writer, of the last century. He perished at sea in the year 1755. HARK! yonder eagle lonely wails; His faithful bosom grief assails; Last night I heard him in my dream, When death and woe were all the theme. Like that poor bird I made my moan, I grieve for dearest Delia gone; With him to gloomy rocks I fly, He mourns for love, and so do I. Twas mighty love that tamed his breast, 'Tis tender grief that breaks his rest; He droops his wings, he hangs his head, Since she he fondly loved was dead. With Delia's breath my joy expired, ‘Twas Delia's smiles my fancy fired; Like that poor bird I pime, and prove Nought can supply the place of love. Dark as his feathers was the fate That robb'd him of his darling mate; Dimm'd is the lustre of his eye, That wont to gaze the sun-bright sky; To him is now for ever lost The heartfelt bliss he once could boast: Thy sorrows, hapless bird, display An image of my soul's dismay.] &ſje $jepjerb's 3reference. THIS song is Dr Blacklock’s. I don’t know how it came by the name, but the oldest appella- tion of the air was, “Whistle and I’ll come to you, my lad.” It has little affinity to the tune commonly known by that name. [In May, when the daisies appear on the green, And flow'rs in the field and the forest are seen, Where lilies bloom'd bonnie, and hawthorns up sprung, A pensive young shepherd oft whistled and sung. * sº S㺠#S_8) º $ºs sº REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONGS. Let warldly worms their minds oppress Wi’ fears o' want and double cess, And sullen sots themsells distress Wi’ keeping up decorum: Shall we sae sour and sulky sit, Sour and sulky, sour and sulky, Sour and sulky shall we sit, Like old philosophorum? Shall we sae sour and sulky sit, Wi’ neither sense, mor mirth, nor wit, Nor ever try to shake a fit To the Reel o” Tullochgorum ? May choicest blessings aye attend Each homest open-hearted friend, And calm and quiet be his end, And a that's good watch o'er him! May peace and plenty be his lot, Peace and plenty, peace and plenty, Peace and plenty be his lot, And dainties a great store o' 'em! May peace and plenty be his lot, Unstain’d by any vicious spot, And may he never want a groat, That's fond o” Tullochgorum ! But for the sullen frampish fool, That loves to be oppression's tool, May envy gnaw his rotten soul, And discontent devour him! May dool and sorrow be his chance, Dool and sorrow, dool and sorrow, Dool and sorrow be his chance, And mane say, Wae's me for him! May dool and sorrow be his chance, Wi’a’ the ills that came frae France, Whae'er he be that winna dance The Reel o” Tullochgorum!] Joijn o' 33atemport. THIS excellent song is also the composition of my worthy friend, old Skinner, at Linshart. [WHEN first I cam’ to be a man Of twenty years or so, I thought myself a handsome youth, And fain the world would know; In best attire I stept abroad, With spirits brisk and gay, And here, and there, and every where, Was like a morn in May. No care had I, nor fear of want, But rambled up and down; And for a beau I might have pass'd, In country or in town. I still was pleas'd where’er I went, And when I was alone, I tun'd my pipe, and pleas'd myself, Wi’ John o' Badenyon. Now in the days of youthful prime, A mistress I must find, For love, I heard, gave one an air, And even improv’d the mind. On Phillis fair, above the rest, Kind fortune fix’d my eyes, Her piercing beauty struck my heart, And she became my choice. To Cupid now, with hearty prayer, I offer'd many a vow ; And danc'd, and sung, and sigh’d, and swore, As other lovers do. But, when at last I breath'd my flame, I found her cold as stone ; I left the girl, and tum’d my pipe To John o' Badenyon. When love had thus my heart beguil'd With foolish hopes and vain ; To friendship's port I steer'd my course, And laugh’d at lovers’ pain; A friend I got by lucky chance, ‘Twas something like divine, An homest friend’s a precious gift, And such a gift was mine: And mow, whatever might betide, A happy man was I, In any strait I knew to whom I freely might apply: A strait soon came, my friend I tried; He heard, and spurn'd my moan; I hied me home, and tum’d my pipe To John o' Badenyon. Methought Ishould be wiser next, And would a patriot turn, Began to doat on Johnnie Wilkes, And cry up Parson Horne. Their manly spirit I admir’d, And prais'd their noble zeal, Who had, with flaming tongue and pen, Maintain’d the public weal; But, ere a month or two had past, I found myself betray’d, 'Twas self and party, after all, For a the stir they made. At last I saw the factious knaves Insult the very throne; I curs’d them a', and tun'd my pipe To John o' Badenyon. What next to do I mus’d a while, Still hoping to succeed; I pitch'd on books for company, And gravely tried to read; I bought and borrow'd every where, And studied night and day, Nor miss'd what dean or doctor wrote, That happen'd in my way: Philosophy I now esteem’d The ornament of youth, And carefully, through many a page, I hunted after truth. A thousand various schemes I tried, And yet was pleas'd with none; I threw them by, and tun’d my pip To John o' Badenyon. - And now, ye youngsters every where, That wish to make a show, Take heed in time, nor fondly hope For happiness below; & REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONGS. What you may fancy pleasure here, Is but an empty name ; And girls, and friends, and books, and so, You'll find them all the same. Then be advised and warning take From such a man as me, I’m neither Pope nor Cardinal, Nor one of high degree: You'll meet displeasure every where; Then do as I have dome, E’en tune your pipe, and please yourselves, With John o' Badenyon.] Qſìje 33mie mi’ tºe (Trooſted £orm. ANOTHER excellent song of old Skinner's. [The tune of the song is an old Highland reel. have supposed that the venerable bishop’s “Ewie wi' the Crooked Horn” was but a metaphor for the whiskey- still. O were I able to rehearse My Ewie's praise in proper verse, I’d sound it forth as loud and fierce As ever piper's drome could blaw. The Ewie withe crooked horn, Wha had kent her might ha'e sworn Sic a Ewe was never born, Hereabout nor far awa’; Sic a Ewe was never born, . Hereabout nor far awa'. I never needed tarmor keil To mark her upo' hip or heel, Her crooked horn did just as weel To ken her by among them a'; She never threaten’d scab nor rot, But keepit aye her aim jog trot, Baith to the fauld and to the cot, Was never sweir to lead nor ca', Baith to the fauld and to the cot, &c. Cauld nor hunger never dang her, Wind nor weet could never wrang her, Ance she lay an ouk and langer, Furth aneath a wreath o’ snaw: Whan ither Ewies lap the dyke, And ate the kail for a the tyke, My Ewie never play’d the like, But tye'd about the barn yard wa’; My Ewie never play’d the like, &c. A better or a thriftier beast, Nae homest man could weel ha'e wist, For, silly thing, she mever mist To ha'e ilk year a lamb or twa. The first she had I ga’e to Jock, To be to him a kind o' stock; And now the laddie has a flock O' mair mor thirty head to ca’; And now the laddie has a flock, &c. I lookit aye at even” for her, Lest mischanter should come o'er her, Or the fowmart might devour her, Gim the beastie bade awa’. My Ewie wi' the crooked horn Weel deserv’d baith girse and corn, Sic a Ewe was never born, Hereabout mor far awa’; Sic a Ewe was never born, &c. Yet last ouk, for a’ my keeping, (Wha can speak it without weeping?) A villain cam' when I was sleeping, Stolemy Ewie, horn and a'! I sought her sair upo' the morn, And down aneath a buss o’ thorn, I got my Ewie's crooked horn, But my Ewie was awa’; I got my Ewie's crooked horm, &c. O! gin I had the loon that did it, Sworn I have, as well as said it, Tho' a' the warld should forbid it, I wad gi'e his neck a thraw: I never met wi' sic a turn As this sin” ever I was born, My Ewie wi' the crooked horn, Silly Ewie, stown awa’; My Ewie wi' the crooked horn, &c. Some O! had she died o' crook or cauld, As Ewies do when they grow auld, It wad na been, by mony fauld, Sae sair a heart to name o’s a”: For aſ the claith that we ha'e worn, Frae her and her’s sae aften shorn, The loss o’ her we could ha’e borne, Had fair strae-death ta'en her awa; The loss o’ her we could ha'e borne, &c. But thus, poor thing, to lose her life, Ameath a bluidy villain's knife, I’m really fley’t that our guidwife Will never win aboon't ava : O ! a ye bards benorth Kinghorn, Call your muses up and mourn, Our Ewie wi' the crooked horn Stown frae's, and fell’t and a Our Ewie wi' the crooked horn, &c.] (Ta’ tije 35tmeg to the #tmohjeg. THIs beautiful song is in the true old Scotch taste, yet I do not know that either air or words were in print before. [See p. 32 for a copy of the song. Isobel Pagan of Muirkirk is said to have been the real author of this lyric, which Burns merely trimmed and improved. But this is very doubtful. A long account of her is given in “The Ayrshire Contemporaries of Burns.” She was a woman of a saturnine temper and very eccentric habits. She died in 1821, at the advanced age of eighty.] 9) REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONGS. : Q) Z2 Q à- (2 #Laup ſºlarp &lum, THE starting verse should be restored — Lady Mary Amm gaed out o' her bower, An' she found a bonnie rose new it the flower; As she kiss'd its ruddy lips drapping wi' dew, Quo' she, ye're maesae sweet as my Charlie's mou’. [The following is the ballad, as given in the Museum. Burns noted the words and the air from a lady, during one of his tours in the North. A complete copy of the old ballad was first published in the “North Countrie Garland,” Edinburgh 1824, 12mo. O LADY MARY ANN looks 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 ribbond round about his hat, And that will let them ken he's to marry yet. Lady Mary Ann was a flower in the dew, Sweet was its smell, and bommie was its hue, And the langer it blossomed, the sweeter it grew; For the lily in the bud will be bonnier yet. Young Charlie Cochram was the sprout of an aik, Bonnie, and blooming, and strait 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 game, when the leaves they were green; And the days are awa’ that we ha'e seen; But far better days, I trust, will come again, For my bonnie laddie's young, but he's growin' yet.] £illierranttie, THE battle of Killiecrankie was the last stand made by the clans for James, after his abdication. Here Dundee fell in the moment of victory, and with him fell the hopes of the party.—General Mackay, when he found the Highlanders did not pursue his flying army, said, “Dundee must be killed, or he never would have overlooked this advantage.”—A great stone marks the spot where Dundee fell.l [“The battle of Killiecrankie was fought on the 17th Sº June, 1689. This song may be regarded as the first of the numerous series now called Jacobite songs.”—RITson. CLAVERS and his Highland-men, Come down upo' the raw, mam, Who, being stout, gave mony a clout. The lads began to claw, them. With sword and targe into their hand, Wi’ which they were nae slaw, man, Wi’mony a fearful heavy sigh, The lads began to claw, them. O'er bush, o'er bank, o'er ditch, o'er stank, She flung amang them a”, man; The butter-box got momy knocks, Their riggin's paid for a', then; They got their paiks, wi' sudden straiks, Which to their grief they saw, man; Wi’ clinkum clamkum, o'er their crowns, The lads began to fa', then, Hur skipt about, hur leapt about, - And flang amang them a', man; The English blades got broken heads, Their crowns were cleav'd in twa, them. The durk and dour made their last hour, And prov’d their final fa’, man; They thought the devil had been there, That play’d them sic a paw, then. The solemn league and covenant Came whigging up the hills, man, Thought Highland trews durst not refuse For to subscribe their bills, them: In Willie’s name 2 they thought mae ane Durst stop their course at a', man; But hur-main-sell, wi' mony a knock, Cried Furich, whigs, awa’, man. 1 Laing, in his History of Scotland, gives the following account of the battle of Killiecrankie;—“Within an hour of sunset the signal was given by Dundee, and the Highlanders descended in thick and separate columns to the attack. After a single desultory discharge, they rushed forward with the sword, before the regulars, whose bayonets were then inserted within the musket, could be prepared to receive or to resist their furious attack. The weight of their columns pierced through the thin and straggling line where Mackay command- ed in person, and their ponderous swords completed the rout. Within a few minutes the victors and the vanquished inter- mixed together in the field, in the pursuit, and in the river dis- appeared from view. Mackay alone, when deserted by his horse and surrounded, forced his way to the right wing, where two regiments had maintained their ground. While the enemy were intent on plundering the baggage, he conducted them in silence and in obscurity across the river beneath the defile, and continued his flight for two days through the mountains to Stirling. “But Dundee, whose pursuit he dreaded, was himself no more. After a desperate and successful charge on the artillery, which he seized with his horse, he returned to restore the battle on the left, and to renew the attack against the two regiments that remained entire. At that moment, while his arms were extended to his troops, and while his person was conspicuous to the enemy, he received a shot in his side, through an open- ing in his armour, and dropt from horseback as he rode off the field. He survived to write a concise and dignified account of his victory to James. With the loss of nine hundred of his men, two thousand of the enemy were killed or taken ; and but for his untimely fate, not a man would have escaped. Had he sur- vived to improve this distinguished victory, little doubt can be entertained that he would have recovered the whole of Scotland beyond the Forth. His party were prepared to take arms on the borders, and his progress southwards might have arrested William's attention and arms, till James was firmly established in Ireland. But his death was fatal to his party; and among the papers found on his body, a letter from Melfort, intimating that the indemnity was couched in such terms as might be broken or revoked by the king at pleasure, excited deep dis- gust at the insincerity of James. A rude stone was erected on the spot, to mark his victory to future times. His memory was long lamented by his party, and his mame is still celebrated in their poetry as the last of the Scots.” 2 Prince of Orange. 378 REMARKS ON SCOTTISH SONGS. Sir Evan Dhu, and his men true, We lo’ed the liquor weel enough; Came linking up the brink, man; But, wacs my heart! my cash was done The Hogan Dutch, they feared such, Before that I had quench'd my drowth, They bred a horrid stink, then. And laith I was to pawn my shoon. The true Maclean, and his fierce men, When we had three times toom'd our stoup, Came in amang them a”, man; And the neist chappin new begun, Name durst withstand his heavy hand, Wha started in to heeze our hope, All fled and ran awa’, them. But Andro wi' his cuttie gun. Oh' on a ri, oh” on a ri, The carlin brought her kebbuck ben, Why should she lose King Shames, man? With girdle-cakes weel toasted brown; Oh' rig in di, oh' rig in di, Weel does the canny kimmer ken, She shall break a’ her banes them; They gar the swats gae glibber down. With furichinish, an’ stay a while, We ca'd the bicker aft about; And speak a word or twa, man, Till dawning we ne'erjee’d our bum, She's gi'e ye a straik, out o'er the neck, And aye the cleanest drinker out, Before ye win awa', them. Was Andro wi' his cuttie gun. Ofy for shame! ye're three for ane! He did like ony mavis sing, Hur-main-sel's won the day, man; And, as I in his oxter sat, King Shames’ red-coats should be hung up, He ca'd me aye his bonnie thing, Because they ran awa', then. And mony a sappy kiss I gat. Had they bent their bows, like Highland trews, I ha'e been east, I ha'e been west, And made as lang a stay, man, I ha'e been far ayont the sun; They'd sav'd their king, that sacred thing, But the blythest lad that e'er I saw, And Willie’d run awa', then.] Was Andro wi' his cuttie gun.] 3rturo and jig (Tuttie Gºum, £ugjie Grajam. THERE are several editions of this ballad.— This here inserted, is from oral tradition in Ayr- shire, where, when I was a boy, it was a popular Song.—It originally had a simple old tune, which I have forgotten. THIS blythsome song, so full of Scottish humour and convivial merriment, is an intimate favourite at Bridal Trystes and House-heatings. It con- tains a spirited picture of a country ale-house, touched off with all the lightsome gaiety so pecu- liar to the rural muse of Caledonia when at a fair. . [The following is the ballad, as given in the Museum. Instead of the line 2 OUR lords are to the mountains gane, “Girdle-cakes weel toasted brown,” A hunting o' the fallow deer, And they have gripet Hughie Graham, I have heard it sung, For stealing o' the bishop’s mare. “ Knuckled-cakes weel brandert brown.” And they have tied him hand and foot, And led him up thro’ Stirling town; These cakes are kneaded out with the knuckles, The lads and lasses met him there, and toasted over the red embers of wood on a Cried, Hughie Graham, thou art a loon. gridiron. They are remarkably fine, and have a © e O 1 ight hand free, l delicate relish when eaten warm with ale. On owse my right hand free, he says, And put my braid sword in the same; winter market nights the landlady heats them, He's no in Stirling town this day, and drops them into the quaigh to warm the ale: Dare tell the tale to Hughie Graham. “Weel does the cannie kimmer ken Up then bespake the brave Whitefoord, They gar the swats gae glibber down.” As he sat by the bishop's knee, Five hundred white stots I’ll gi'e you, [The song can be traced as far back as the Tea-Table If you’ll let Hughie Graham gae free. Miscellany, but nothing is known of its author. O haud your tongue, the bishop says, BLYTHE, blythe, and merry was she, And wi' your pleading let me be; Blythe was she butt and ben; For tho’ ten Grahams were in his coat, Weel she lo'ed a Hawick gill, Hughie Graham this day shall die. * And leugh to see a tappit hen. ! She took me in, and set me down, Up then bespake the fair Whitefoord, And hecht to keep me lawin-free; As she sat by the bishop's knee; | But, cumming carlin that she was, Five hundred white pence I'll gi'e to you, Y She gart me birl my bawbie. If you'll gi'e Hughie Graham to me. N gº 5.3 379 9. ſolº & S– gº TX --— ~-3>– —-32 ºffs C O M M O N - P L A C E B O O K. BEGUN IN APRIL, 1783. “OBSERVATIONS, HINTs, SONGS, SCRAPs of PoETRY, &c. by ROBERT BURNESS; a man who had little art in making money, and still less in keeping it; but was, however, a man of some sense, a great deal of honesty, and unbounded good-will to every creature, rational and irrational.—As he was but little indebted to scholastic education, and bred at a plough-tail, his performances must be strongly tinctured with his unpolished, rustic way of life; but as I believe they are really his own, it may be some entertainment to a curious observer of human nature to see how a ploughman thinks, and feels, under the pressure of love, ambition, anxiety, grief, with the like cares and passions, which, however diversified by the modes and manners of life, operate pretty much alike, I believe, on all the species.” “There are numbers in the world who do not want sense to make a figure, so much as an opinion of their own abilities to put them upon recording their observations, and allowing them the same importance which they do to those which appear in print.”—SHENSToxe. “Pleasing, when youth is long expired, to trace The forms our pencil, or our pen, designed Such was our youthful air, and shape, and face, Such the soft image of our youthful mind.”—IBID. APRIL, 1783. NOTWITHSTANDING all that has been said against love, respecting the folly and weakness it leads a young inexperienced mind into; still I think it in a great measure deserves the highest encomiums that have been passed upon it. If any thing on earth deserves the name of rapture or transport, it is the feelings of green eighteen in the com- pany of the mistress of his heart, when she repays him with an equal return of affection. AUGUST. THERE is certainly some connection between love and poetry; and, therefore, I have always thought it a fine touch of nature, that passage in a modern love-composition:— “As towards her cot he jogg’d along, Her name was frequent in his song.” For my own part, I never had the least thought or inclination of turning poet till I got once heartily in love, and then rhyme and song were, in a manner, the spontaneous language of my heart. The following composition was the first of my performances, and done at an early period of life, when my heart glowed with honest warm simplicity; unacquainted and uncorrupted with the ways of a wicked world. The performance is, indeed, very puerile and silly; but I am always pleased with it, as it recalls to my mind those happy days when my heart was yet honest, and my tongue was sincere. The subject of it was a young girl who really deserved all the praises I have bestowed on her. I not only had this opinion of her then—but I actually think so still, now that the spell is long since broken, and the enchantment at an end. O once I lov’d a bonnie lass, 1 Ay, and I love her still, And whilst that honour warms my breast I’ll love my handsome Nell. Fallal de ral, &c. As bonnie lasses I ha'e seen, And mony full as braw, But for a modest graceful mien The like I never saw. A bonnie lass, I will confess, Is pleasant to the e'e, But without some better qualities She’s no a lass for me. 1 This song is given at page 150, but we repeat it here for the convenience of the reader, who may wish to compare the Several stanzas with Burns' criticism on them. } 388 COMMON. PLACE BOOK. But Nelly's looks are blythe and sweet, And what is best of a”, Her reputation is complete, And fair without a flaw. She dresses aye sae clean and neat, Both decent and genteel: And then there's something in her gait Gars ony dress look weel. A gaudy dress and gentle air May slightly touch the heart, But it's innocence and modesty That polishes the dart. 'Tis this in Nelly pleases me, 'Tis this enchants my soul: For absolutely in my breast She reigns without control. Fallal de ral, &c. Lest my works should be thought below criti- cism; or meet with a critic who, perhaps, will not look on them with so candid and favourable an eye ; I am determined to criticise them myself. The first distich of the first stanza is quite too much in the flimsy strain of our ordinary street ballads; and, on the other hand, the second dis- tich is too much in the other extreme. The ex- pression is a little awkward, and the sentiment too serious. Stanza, the second I am well pleased with ; and I think it conveys a fine idea of that amiable part of the sex—the agreeables; or what in our Scotch dialect we call a sweet sonsylass. The third stanza has a little of the flimsy turn in it : and the third line has rather too serious a cast. The fourth stanza is a very indifferent one; the first line is, indeed, all in the strain of the second stanza, but the rest is mere expletive. The thoughts in the fifth stanza come finely up to my favourite idea—a sweet somsy lass: the last line, however, halts a little. The same sentiments are kept up with equal spirit and tenderness in the sixth stanza : but the second and fourth lines ending with short syllables hurt the whole. The seventh stanza has several minute faults: but I remember I composed it in a wild enthusiasm of passion, and to this hour I never recollect it but my heart melts, my blood sallies, at the remem- brance. SEPTEMIBER. I entirely agree with that judicious philosopher, Mr Smith, in his excellent Theory of Moral Sen- timents, that remorse is the most painful senti- ment that can imbitter the human bosom. Any ordinary pitch of fortitude may bear up tolerably well under these calamities, in the procurement of which we ourselves have had no hand; but when our own follies, or crimes, have made us miserable and wretched, to bear up with manly firmness, and at the same time have a proper peni- tential sense of our misconduct, is a glorious effort of self command. “Of all the numerous ills that hurt our peace, That press the soul, or wring the mind with anguish, Beyond comparison, the worst are those That to our folly or our guilt we owe. In every other circumstance, the mind Has this to say—‘It was no deed of mine;’ Put when to all the evil of misfortune This sting is added—“Blame thy foolish self!' Or worser far, the pangs of keen remorse; The torturing, gnawing, consciousness of guilt— Of guilt, perhaps, where we've involved others; The young, the innocent, who fondly lov'd us, Nay, more, that very love their cause of ruin O burning hell in all thy store of torments, There’s not a keener lash : Lives there a man so firm, who, while his heart Feels all the bitter horrors of his crime, Can reason down its agonizing throbs ; And, after proper purpose of amendment, Can firmly force his jarring thoughts to peace 2 O, happy happy! enviable man O glorious magnanimity of soul " MARCH, 1784. I have often observed, in the course of my ex- perience of human life, that every man, even the worst, has something good about him; though very often nothing else thana happy temperament of con- stitution inclining him to this or that virtue. For this reason, no man can say in what degree any other person, besides himself, can be, with strict justice, called wicked. Let any of the strictest character for regularity of conduct among us, ex- amine impartially how many vices he has never been guilty of, not from any care or vigilance, but for want of opportunity, or some accidental cir- cumstance intervening; how many of the weak- nesses of mankind he has escaped, because he was out of the line of such temptation; and, what often, if not always, weighs more than all the rest, how much he is indebted to the world’s good opinion, because the world does not know all: I say, any man who can thus think, will scan the failings, nay, the faults and crimes, of mankind around him, with a brother's eye. I have often courted the acquaintance of that part of mankind, commonly known by the ordin- ary phrase of blackguards, sometimes farther than was consistent with the safety of my character; those who, by thoughtless prodigality or head- strong passions, have been driven to ruin. Though disgraced by follies, nay, sometimes stained with guilt, I have yet found among them, in not a few instances, some of the noblest virtues, magnan- imity, generosity, disinterested friendship, and even modesty. 389 COMMON-PLACE BOOK. g $º s . } zº \ cy l, 39, y cº, C 2. Sºo ‘I 3-2 ź. APRIL. As I am what the men of the world, if they knew such a man, would call a whimsical mortal, I have various sources of pleasure and enjoyment, which are, in a manner, peculiar to myself, or some here and there such other out-of-the way person. Such is the peculiar pleasure I take in the season of winter, more than the rest of the year. This, I believe, may be partly owing to my misfortunes giving my mind a melancholy cast: but there is something even in the “Mighty tempest, and the hoary waste, Abrupt and deep, stretch'd o'er the buried earth,” which raises the mind to a serious sublimity, fav- ourable to every thing great and noble. There is scarcely any earthly object gives me more—I do not know if I should call it pleasure—but something which exalts me, something which en- raptures me—than to walk in the sheltered side of a wood, or high plantation, in a cloudy winter- day, and hear the stormy wind howling among the trees, and raving over the plain. It is my best season for devotion; my mind is wrapt up in a kind of enthusiasm to Him, who, in the pompous language of the Hebrew bard, “walks on the wings of the wind.” In one of these seasons, just after a train of misfortunes, I composed the fol- lowing :— The wintry west extends his blast. 1 Shenstone finely observes, that love-verses, writ without any real passion, are the most nauseous of all conceits; and I have often thought that no man can be a proper critic of love composition, except he himself, in one or more instances, have been a warm votary of this passion. As I have been all along a miserable dupe to love, and have been led into a thousand weaknesses and follies by it, for that reason I put the more confidence in my criti- cal skill, in distinguishing foppery and conceit from real passion and nature. Whether the foll- lowing song will stand the test, I will not pretend to say, because it is my own ; only I can say it was, at the time, genuine from the heart:— Behind yon hill where Lugar flows. 2 MARCH, 1784. There was a certain period of my life, that my spirit was broke by repeated losses and disasters, which threatened, and indeed effected, the utter ruin of my fortune. My body, too, was attacked by that most dreadful distemper, a hypochondria, 1 See p. 1. 2 See p. 155. 390 or confirmed melancholy. In this wretched state, the recollection of which makes me yet shudder, I hung my harp on the willow trees, except in some lucid intervals, in one of which I composed the following:— O thou Great Being what thou art.” APRIL. The following song is a wild rhapsody, miser- ably deficient in versification; but as the senti- ments are the genuine feelings of my heart, for that reason I have a particular pleasure in conning it over. My father was a farmer, 4 APRIL. I think the whole species of young men may be naturally enough divided into grand classes, which I shall call the grave and the merry : though, by the bye, these terms do not with pro- priety enough express my ideas. The grave I shall cast into the usual division of those who are goaded on by the love of money, and those whose darling wish is to make a figure in the world. The merry are the men of pleasure of all denomi- nations; the jovial lads, who have too much fire and spirit to have any settled rule of action; but, without much deliberation, follow the strong im- pulses of nature : the thoughtless, the careless, the indolent—in particular he who, with a happy Sweetness of natural temper and a cheerful vacancy of thought, steals through life—generally, indeed, in poverty and obscurity—but poverty and obscur- ity are only evils to him who can sit gravely down and make a repining comparison between his own situation and that of others; and lastly, to grace the quorum, such are, generally, those whose heads are capable of all the towerings of genius, and whose hearts are warmed with all the delicacy of feeling. AUGUST. The foregoing was to have been an elaborate dissertation on the various species of men; but as I cannot please myself in the arrangement of my ideas, I must wait till farther experience and nicer observation throw more light on the subject.—In the mean time, I shall set down the following fragment, which, as it is the genuine language of my heart, will enable any body to determine which of the classes I belong to:— There's mought but care on ev'ry han’, In ev'ry hour that passes, O, 5 3 See p. 3. 4 See p. 151. 5 See ‘Green grow the Rashes," p. 155. t?, W.A. ^. TX Tº -—--~ . ‘...} {- 7 Y : } gº COMMON PLACE-BOOK. As the grand end of human life is to cultivate an intercourse with that BEING to whom we owe life, with every enjoyment that renders life de- lightful; and to maintain an integritive conduct towards our fellow-creatures; that so by forming piety and virtue into habit, we may be fit mem- bers for that society of the pious and the good, which reason and revelation teach us to expect beyond the grave, I do not see that the turn of mind, and pursuits of such a one as the above verses describe—one who spends the hours and thoughts which the vocations of the day can spare with Ossian, Shakspeare, Thomson, Shenstone, Sterne, &c.; or, as the maggot takes him, a gun, a fiddle, or a song to make or mend; and at all times some heart’s-dear bonnie lass in view—I say I do not see that the turn of mind and pursuits of such an one are in the least more inimical to the sacred interests of piety and virtue, than the even lawful, bustling and straining after the world’s riches and honours : and I do not see but he may gain heaven as well—which, by the bye, is no mean consideration—who steals through the vale of life, amusing himself with every little flower that fortune throws in his way, as he who, straining straight forward, and perhaps spattering all about him, gains some of life's little eminences, where, after all, he can only see and be seen a little more conspicuously than what, in the pride of his heart, he is apt to term the poor, indolent devil he has left behind him. AUGUST. A Prayer, when fainting fits, and other alarm- ing symptoms of a pleurisy or some other danger- ous disorder, which indeed still threatens me, first put nature on the alarm — O thou unknown, Almighty cause Of all my hope and fear ! 1 EGOTISMS FROM MY OWN SENSATIONS. MAY. I don’t well know what is the reason of it, but, some how or other, though I am, when I have a mind, pretty generally beloved, yet I never could get the art of commanding respect.” I imagine it is owing to my being deficient in what Sterne calls “that understrapping virtue of discretion.”— I am so apt to a lapsus lingwa, that I sometimes think the character of a certain great man I have read of somewhere is very much apropos to my- self—that he was a compound of great talent and great folly.—N. B. To try if I can discover the causes of this wretched infirmity, and, if possible, to mend it. AUGUST. However I am pleased with the works of our Scotch poets, particularly the excellent Ramsay, and the still more excellent Fergusson; yet I am hurt to see other places of Scotland, their towns, rivers, woods, haughs, &c., immortalized in such celebrated performances, while my dear native country, the ancient bailieries of Carrick, Kyle, and Cunningham, famous both in ancient and modern times for a gallant and warlike race of inhabitants; a country where civil, and particu- larly religious liberty have ever found their first support, and their last asylum ; a country, the birth-place of many famous philosophers, soldiers, and statesmen, and the scene of many important events recorded in Scottish history, particularly a great many of the actions of the glorious WAL- LACE, the SAVIOUR of his country; yet, we have never had a Scotch poet of any eminence, to make the fertile banks of Irvine, the romantic wood- lands and sequestered scenes on Ayr, and the heathy mountainous source and winding sweep of Doon,” emulate Tay, Forth, Ettrick, Tweed, &c. 1 See p. 4. 2 “There is no doubt that if Burns at any time really laboured under this infirmity, he was successful in inquiring into its causes, and also in his efforts to amend it. When he was, at a later period of life, introduced into the superior circles of society, he did not appear them as a cypher, nor did he, by any violation of the dictates of common sense, give any occasion, even to those who were superciliously disposed to look upon him with contempt. On the contrary, he was conscious of his own moral and intellectual worth, and never abated an inch of his just claims to due consideration. The following extract of a letter from his great and good biographer, who was an ex- cellent judge of human character, bears an honourable testi- mony to the habitual firmness, decision, and independence of his mind, which constitute the only solid basis of respectability. “Burns was a very singular man in the strength and variety of his faculties.—I saw him, and once only, in the year 1792. We conversed together for about an hour in the street of Dum- fries, and engaged in some very animated conversation. We differed in our sentiments sufficiently to be rather vehemently engaged—and this interview gave me a more lively as well as forcible impression of his talents than any part of his writings. —He was a great or AToR,-an original and very versatile genius.” '—CROMEK. 3 Little did the Poet imagine, when he penned this modest memorandum, how soon he was to render THE Doon, his native stream, immortal in song, and how soon it was to become, on his account, for ever classical. The Doon takes its rise in a lake of the same name, about eight miles in length, which lies imbedded amidst a savage wilderness of moor and mountain, at the junction of the counties of Ayr and Kirkcudbright. Throughout a course of eighteen miles, which intervene be- tween the lake and the sea, it forms a boundary between the hilly district of Carrick, and the comparatively level region of Kyle. The scenery on the river, immediately after issuing from the lake, is remarkably woody and picturesque, and is a favourite holiday resort of the inhabitants of the county. It is particularly beautiful in the grounds connected with the mansion of Barbeth, the seat of Colonel M*Adam Cathcart, of Craigengillan. Formerly, the river issued from the lake by a precipice of twenty feet in height, forming a fine cataract. Now, it evades this fall by two artificial sluices, which were designed to reduce the waters of the lake, with the view of recovering some of the ground which it covered,—a transaction which has diminished 391 COMMON PLACE-BOOK. SEPTEMBER. alas ! I am far unequal to the task, both in native genius and education. Obscure I am, and obscure I must be, though no young poet, nor young Sol- dier's heart ever beat more fondly for fame than mine— “And if there is no other scene of being Where my insatiate wish may have its fill,— This something at my heart that heaves for room, My best, my dearest part, was made in vain.” There is a great irregularity in the old Scotch songs, a redundancy of syllables with respect to the exactness of accent and measure that the English poetry requires, but which glides in, most melodiously, with the respective tunes to which they are set. For instance, the fine old song of ‘The Mill, Mill, O,’ to give it a plain, prosaic reading, it halts prodigiously out of the extent and beauty of the lake, abolished the waterfall, and given only some useless stony acres to the authors of the scheme. Nevertheless, there is still much to interest the im- agination in this lonely mountain lake, and in the rough sylvan glen through which its waters, for some space, force their way. After passing Dalmellington, the river is for some miles very tame; but when it approaches Dalrymple, it again becomes picturesque and interesting, which characters it retains through- out the remainder of its course, by Blairston, Doomholm, and Kirk Alloway, till it falls into the sea near the Heads of Ayr. Loch Doon is remarkable for the ruins of an ancient castle of considerable strength, the remains of which may be seen on a small island near its upper or southern extremity. We have no doubt that the name of the lake, and consequently of the river —a name so endearingly treasured up in so many imaginations —arose from the castle, Dum (pronounced Doom) being the general appellation of such a fortress in the ancient Gaelic of the district. The castle of Loch Doon figured in the Bruce wars. When king Robert was defeated at Methven, June, 1306, his faithful friend and brother-in-law, Sir Chrystal Seton, took refuge in this secluded fortress, then in the keeping of Arthur, a relative of Sir Gilbert de Carrick, the progenitor of the family of Kennedy. The castle being surrendered by Arthur, Sir Chrystal was taken, and ruthlessly put to death, by command of king Edward, at Dumfries. It was a powerful fortress for its time, being of a huge twelve-sided figure, and protected not only by the waters of the lake, but by the wildness of the country around. Tradition represents it as having been possessed by Edward Bruce, the king's heroic brother, who on one occasion issued from it with a thousand men, and, passing along the red road by Kingswell to Strangashiel, attacked a party of English at Raploch-moss, and overthrew them with great slaughter. Fordun states, that, in 1333, when Edward III. had nearly re-completed the subjugation of Scotland, one of the few places of strength which held out against him was “the fortalice of Loch Doom, then called the Peel, the keeper of which was a brave man of common rank, named John Thom- son.” Lord Hailes conjectures that this was the same John Thomson who led the Carrick men in the army of Edward Bruce in Ireland, and who, after the overthrow and doath of that prince at Dundalk, conducted the remains of his forces into the north of Ireland. Till a recent period, a large portion of this remote insular fortress was entire, and it contained a mag- nificent staircase of seventy steps. Its dilapidation is chiefly attributable to the bad taste of a late proprietor, who used its stones for the purpose of building a shooting-lodge—a lodge, after all, found too cold to be inhabited. Some years ago, opposite to the grand entrance of Loch Doom Castle, there were found, at the bottom of the loch, seven ancient boats or canoes, hewn out of solid oak, and twenty-four feet long by four broad; in one of which were a battle-axe and war-club, both apparently of great antiquity. * In the present work, a view is given of the Doom olear its source, and also of Turnberry and Dwnwre Castles, as charac- teristic features of that land identified with the Poet's genius. Turnberry, in the immediate neighbourhood of the scene of his nineteenth summer, was more especially the place “Where Bruce once ruled the martial ranks, And shook his Carrick spear;” while Dunure and Turnberry, with Colzean Castle, may be held as perhaps the three most striking points of that terrible out much licence of interpretation, suppose these scenes to have been in the Poet's mind when he depicted the mantle of Coila, albeit they are not in the district superintended by that fair genius— “By stately tower and palace fair, And ruins pendent in the air, Bold stems of heroes here and there, I could discern; Some seemed to muse, some seemed to dare, With feature stern.” Thºrnberry, spelled in old writings Twºmbiri, Tornbery, and 3'wrºnbyrri, was, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the principal house in Carrick, and the seat of a powerful race of native chiefs, derived from Fergus lord of Galloway, and desig- nated Earls of Carrick, who possessed the supreme influence in this mountainous region previous to the rise of the Ken- medies. The castle was situated on a rock at the extremity of . a low peninsula, within the parish of Kirkoswald. The sea raged in front at the base of the rock, and even found its way, by a creek, into the interior of the fortress. Behind, the low territory just mentioned formed a pleasant domain, on which rose a small town, long since obliterated from the soil. The castle itself occupied about three-fourths of a Scottish acre, and must have been originally an impressive structure, espe- cially seen from the Sea; but only a few feet of the wall now remain. - Bruce became connected with this castle and the district of Carrick in the latter part of the thirteenth century; and it continued to be his own peculiar property, and, excepting per- haps some intervals, that of his descendants, until the latter part of the fifteenth century. The figure which his Carrick temantry made at the battle of Bannockburn is well known, It is here of importance to observe that Turnberry is recog- mised in those early times by the alternative appellation of the palace of Carrick, and is the place referred to in public docu- ments of more recent date under that name. “Carrick” (mean- ing Turnberry) is still enumerated amongst the royal palaces of Scotland, the Duke of Argyle having the honorary office of its heritable keeper. It is now the property of the Marquis of Ailsa. Dumure, situated a few miles to the north of Turnberry, and not far from the efflux of the Doon, appears to have been the first mansion of any consequence possessed by the family of Kennedy, whose early generations, down to their attaining the honours of the peerage about 1452, were all styled “ of Dunure.” It now appears as a tall empty tower, occupying one of the pinnacles of a ruggedly rocky and unpeopled coast, and a strik- ing monument of the days when men of power were glad to pitch their residence in any situation, however desolate, which might promise more than the usual advantage over, or refuge from, the fellow-creatures with whom they lived in a state of perpetual warfare. We attach the more romantic ideas to this —“ghastly castle, that etermally Holds its blind visage out to the lone sea,” when we recollect the half-savage circumstances in which the Kennedies lived down to a period when the rest of southern Scotland was comparatively civilised. Dunure Castle, which has been in ruins since the seventeenth century, now gives a territorial designation to a branch of the “Carrick shore," alluded to in “Tam o'Shanter” as the scene family of Kennedy, the present representative of which is T. Y of frequent shipwrecks through the machinations, as was sup- || F. Kennedy, Esq. of Dunure, formerly representative in parlia- ſ \ posed, of a supernatural personage. We might further, with- i ment of the Ayr district of burghs. c ºx1 -> t 2-, O 2% >4 392 {ºto- sº &= -(2)(? N -º" QX ><>-- ~~~ ~<> e ii. 3) | Earth’d up here lies an imp of hell, i. 147 Awa’ wi' your witchcraft o' beauty's alarms, . ii. 143 || Edinal Scotia's darling seat!: • i. 83 A’ ye wha live by sowps o' drink, e i. 75 | Expect ma, Sir, in this narration, i. 72 F B Fair empress of the Poet’s soul, . e ... i. 95 Bammocks o' bear meal, . e e ii. 60 Fairest maid on Devon banks, º . ii. 146 Beauteous rose-bud, young and gay, i. 65 | Fair fa’ your homest, sonsie face, . . i. 94 Before I saw Clarinda’s face, . e i. 95 || Fair the face of orient day, . e tº i. 105 Behind yom hills, where Lugar flows, . ii. , 6 Fareweel to a’ our Scottish fame, tº . ii. 48 Below thir stanes lie Jamie's banes, . . i. 140 Farewell, dear friend, may guid luck hit you, . i. 147 Beyond thee, dearie, beyond thee, dearie, ii. 36 Farewell old Scotia’s bleak domains, º i. 71 Bless the Redeemer, Cardoness, - . i. 146 Farewell thou fair day, thou green earth, and ye Blythe, blythe and merry was she, . ii. 22 skies, º e -> º . ii. 50 Blythe hae I been on yon hill, ... ii. 99 Farewell, thou stream that winding flows, . ii. 129 i 397 INDEX TO FIRST LINES. Page Farewell, ye dungeons dark and strong, . Vol. ii. 16 | I am a son of Mars, who have been in many wars, i. 28 Fate gave the word, the arrow sped, * i. 99 || I am my mammie's ae bairn, * . ii. 16 Fill me with rosy wine, . * & . i. 149 I bought my wife a stane o’ lint, ii. 62 Fintray, my stay in worldly strife, . ge i. 110 | I call no goddess to inspire my strains, i. 113 First when Maggy was my care, . & . ii. 29 | I coft a stane o’ haslock woo’, . ii. 56 Flow gently, sweet Afton among thy green I do confess thou art sae fair, . ii. 39 braes, & & tº & & ii. 5l I dream'd I lay where flowers were springing, . ii. 2 For lords or kings I dimma mourn, e . i. 99 | I gaed a waefu” gate yestreen, ii. 35 Forlorn, my love, no comfort near, . te ii. 141 Igat your letter, winsome Willie, i. 24 Frae the friends and land I love, g . ii. 35 | I hae a wife o' my aim, . * . ii. 43 Friday first's the day appointed, . g i. 145 | I hold it, Sir, my boundem duty; ii. 66 Friend of the Poet, tried and leal, & . i. 138 I lang hae thought, my youthfu' friend, i. 67 From thee, Eliza, I must go, . * º ii. l l I’ll aye ca’ in by yon town, * ii. 57 From those drear solitudes and frowsy cells, . i. 128 I’ll kiss thee yet, yet, . * º . ii. 4 Fy, let's a' to Kircudbright, . ſº tº i. 135 | I married with a scolding wife, g . ii. 15 I mind it weel, in early date, . i. 86 G I murder hate, by field or flood, i. 145 In coming by the brig o' Dye, . de ... ii. 20 Game is the day, and mirk's the might, º ii. 38 Inhuman man! curse on thy barb’rous art, . i. 101 Go, fame, an’ canter like a filly, . sº . . i. 78 In Mauchline there dwells six proper young Go fetch to me a pint o' wine, e © ii. 25 belles, . e e e ë ii. 9 Grant me, indulgent Heaven, that I may live, . i. 144 In politics if thou would'st mix, . i. 144 Green grow the rashes, O! . tº & ii. 6 || In se’enteen hunder an’ forty-nine, i. 147 Guid mornin' to your Majesty! . * . i. 69 || In simmer when the hay was mawn, . . ii. 46 Guid speed an’ furder to you, Johnnie, tº i. 26 || In this strange land, this uncouth clime, i. 97 Instead of a song, boys, I’ll give you a toast, i. 144 II In woods and wilds, ye warbling throng, i. 145 tº º I once was a maid, tho’ I cannot tell when, i. 29 Had I a cave on some wild, distant shore, ii. 104 I sing of a Whistlé, a Whistle of worth, i. 1]9 Had I the wyte, had I the wyte, ii. 54 | Is there a whim-inspired fool, * i. 69 Hail, Poesie! thou nymph reserv’d i. 130 Is there, for homest poverty, & & ii. 134 Hail! thairm-inspirin', rattlin' Willie! i. 82 It is ma, Jean, thy bonnie face, - ... ii. 40 Has auld Kilmarnock seem the deilº i. 7ſ It was a for our rightful king, * ii. 63 Ha! whare ye gaum, ye crowlin’ ferlie! i. ,08 || It was the charming month of May, ... ii. 128 Health to the Maxwells’ vet’ran Chief!. i. 12% | It was upon a Lammas might, g ii. 3 Heard ye o’ the tree o' France, e i. 129 Hear, Land o' Cakes, and brither Scots, i. 113 J He clench’d his pamphlets in his fist, i. 142 Hee balou! my sweet wee Donald, tº . ii. 60 Jamie, come try me, & tº ... ii. 25 Her daddie forbade, her mimmie forbade, . ii. 18 J ockey’s ta'en the parting kiss, ii. 49 Here around the ingle bleezing, . & . ii. 37 John Anderson, my jo, John, ii. 30 Here awa’, there awa’, wandering Willie, . ii. 92 Here Brewer Gabriel’s fire's extinct, . . i. 145 K Here cursing, swearing Burton lies, . ſº i. 148 Here is the glen, and here the bower, . . ii. 119 | Kemble, thou cur'st my unbelief, i. 143 Here’s a health to ane I lo’e dear, . . . ii. 144 Ken ye ought o' Captain Grose ? i. 114 Here’s a health to them that’s awa’, . . ii. 66 || Kilmarnock wabsters fidge am’ claw, , . i. 37 Here’s to thy health my bonnie lass, & ii. 63 || Kind Sir, I’ve read your paper through, i. l l 6 Here Holy Willie's sair worm clay, º . i. 17 | Know thou, O stranger to the fame, i. 139 Here lies a mock Marquis whose titles were shamm’d, . tº 4. te * i. 144 L Here lies a rose, a budding rose, i. 145 * Here lies John Bushby, honest man! i. 146 Lament him, Mauchline husbands a”, . i. 140 Here lies Johnny Pigeon, e º i. 140 Lament in rhyme, lament in prose, . i. 2 Here lies, now a prey to insulting neglect, . i. 128 Landlady, count the lawin', * > ... ii. 21 Here lies wi' death auld Grizel Grim, i. 147 | Lass, when your mither is frae hame, ii. 18 Here lie Willie Michie's banes, e i. 142 | Lassie wi' the lint white locks, . © ... ii. 128 Here souter Hood in death does sleep, . i. 140 || Last May a braw wooer cam down the lang glen, ii. 142 Here Stuarts once in glory reign'd, . * i. 141 || Late crippl’d of an arm and now a leg, i. 112 Here, where the Scottish muse immortal lives, i. 119 | Let half-starved slaves in warmer skies, . i. 42 Her flowing locks the raven’s wing, . . . . ii. 8 || Let me ryke up to dight that tear, i. 30 He who of Rankine sang lies stiff and dead, i. 148 || Let other poets raise a fracas, * i. 38 Hey, the dusty miller, . º e . ii. 19 | Let mot woman e'er complain, . ii. 126 Honest Will's to heaven game, i. 147 Life ne'er exulted in so rich a prize, . g i. 125 How can my poor heart be glad, & . ii. 120 | Like Esop’s lion, Burns says, “sore I feel.”. i. 141 How cold is that bosom which folly once fir’d, i. 128 || Lone on the bleaky hills the straying flocks, i. 93 How cruel are the parents, © º . ii. 138 || Long life, my lord, an' health be yours, i. 117 How lang and dreary is the night, . . ii. 22, 125 || Long, long the might, * * tº ... ii. 136 How pleasant the banks of the clear-winding Lord, we thank, an’ thee adore, i. 148 Devon, & º & tº ... ii. 20 | Loud blaw the frosty breezes, . * ... ii. 19 How shall I sing Drumlanrig's Grace, e i. 107 || Louis, what reck I by thee, . t ii. 54 How wisdom and folly meet, mix, and unite, . i. 100 #. seal of º affections, . ife, . i. ; M usband. husband. cease vour strife e ii. band, husband, c y 5 Mark yonder pomp of costly fashion, ... ii. 138 T Maxwell, if merit here you crave, º ii. 123 Musing on the roaring ocean, ... . e * ii. 22 I’m three times doubly o’er your debtor, . i. 65 | My blessings on you, sonsy wife, ... . * i. 147 I am a bard of no regard, ſº e . i. 31 My blessim’s upon thy sweet wee lippie, . . i. 148 398 INDEX TO FIRST LINES. «Ži My bonny lass, I work in brass, . Wol. i. My bottle is my holy pool, * * i. My Chloris, mark how green the groves,. ... ii. My curse upon thy venom'd stang, . ſe i. My father was a farmer upon the Carrick bor- der, O, & e gº • 11, My Harry was a gallant gay, . & * ii. My heart was ance as blyth and free, . . ii. My honoured colonel, deep I feel, . & i. My heart is a-breaking, dear Tittie! * . ii. My heart is sair—I dare na tell, § & ii. My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here, . tº e º & . ii. My lady’s gown there’s gairs upon’t, g ii. My lord, I know your noble ear, . º . i. My love she’s but a lassie yet, e g ii. My lov’d, my honour’d, much respected friend! i. My memory’s no worth a preen, . g - i. My Peggy's face, my Peggy’s form, . ſº ii. N Nae gentle dames, though e'er sae fair, . . ii. No churchman am I for to rail and to write, . ii. No more of your guests, be they titled or not, . i No more, ye warblers of the wood, no more! i No sculptur'd marble here, nor pompous lay, . i. No song nor dance I bring from yon great city, i No Stewart art thou, Galloway,. & . i Now banks and braes are claith’d in green, ... ii. Now in her green mantle blithe mature arrays, ii. Now, Kennedy, if foot or horse & & ii. Now nature hangs her mantle green, . - i. Now mature cleeds the flowery lea, . g i. Now Robin lies in his last lair, . e . i. Now rosy May comes in wi' flowers, . gº ii. Now spring has clad the grove in green, . ii. Now westlin’ winds and slaught’ring guns, . ii. O O a ye pious godly flocks, * ſº . i. O aye my wife, she dang me, . * º ii. O bonnie was yon rosy brier, & * . ii. O cam ye here the fight to shun, . & ii. O! could I give thee India’s wealth, . - i. O death, had'st thou but spar'd his life, . i. O death! thou tyrant fell and bloody, . . i O'er the mist-shrouded cliffs of the lone moun- tain straying, . º ii. Of a the airts the wind can blaw, . . . ii. O gat ye me, O gat ye me, & e ii. O guid ale comes, and guid ale goes, & ii. O §. my love were yon red rose, & . ii. O Goudie! terror o’ the Whigs, i. O had the malt thy strength of mind, . . . i. Oh! had each Scot of ancient times, . * i. O how can I be blythe and glad, & . ii. O how shall I unskilfu' try, . º * ii. Oh! I am come to the low countrie, te . ii. Oh, open the door, some pity to show, * ii. Oh Sweet be thy sleep in the land of the grave, i. O Kenmure's on and awa, Willie! * . ii. 2%. º sº º s O meikle thinks my luve o' my beauty, e ii. Page 31 148 127 102 2 26 5 138 35 56 Qken ye what Meg o' the mill has gotten, ii. 67,95 O lassie, art thou sleeping yet, & º ii. 135 Q, Lady Mary Ann looks o'er the castle wa', . ii. 48 O lay thy loof in mime, lass, . * * ii. 65 Old Winter with his frosty beard, e . i. 132 Q leave novels, ye Mauchline belles, . e ii. 8 O leeze me on my spinning-wheel, * . ii. 44 O leeze me on my wee thing, . * & ii. 87 O Logan, sweetly didst thou glide, ge . ii. 99 O lovely Polly Stewart! e g º ii. 59 O luve will venture im, . tº ſº , ii. 45 O Mally's meek, Mally’s sweet, § is ii. 68 O Mary, at thy window be, º e ... ii. 92 O May, thy morm was me’er sae sweet, gº ii. 58 O meikle do I rue, fause love, . tº ... i. 108 O merry hae I been teethin’ a heckle, Vol. ii. 32 \ O mirk, mirk is this midnight hour, . ſº ii. 91 Q mount and go, . * * ii. 28 O my love’s like a red, red rose, ii. 54 On a bank of flowers, in a summer day, . ii. 27 Once fondly lov’d, and still remember’d dear, i. 76 On Cessnock banks there lives a lass, ii. 12 One night as I did wander, . e ii. 6 One Queen Artemisa, as old stories tell, . i. 140 O, once I lov’d a bonnie lass, . * > ii. 1 O Philly, happy be that day, ii. 131 O poortith cauld and restless love, ii. 89 Oppress'd with grief, oppress'd with care, i. 50 Q raging fortune’s withering blast, - ii. 1 O rattlin', roarin' Willie, . tº ii. 23 O rough, rude, ready-witted Rankine, i. 10 Orthodox, orthodox, ſº ſº i. 102 O sad and heavy should I part, ii. 57 O saw ye bonnie Lesley, . * ii. 84 O saw ye my dear, my Phely? g ii. 124 O saw ye my dearie, my Eppie M*Nab? . ii. 40 O stay, sweet warbling wood-lark, stay, ii. 136 O steer her up; and haud her gaun, ii. 63 O tell ma me o’ wind and rain, ii. 135 O this is no my aim lassie, e ii. 139 O Thou dread Pow'r, who reign'st above, i. 71 O Thou Great Being ! what thou art, . i. 3 O Thou in whom we live and move, i. 148 O thou pale orb, that silent shines, . i. 73 O Thou, the first, the greatest friend, i. 5 O Thou unknown, Almighty Cause, . i. 4 O Thou, wha in the heavens dost dwell, i. 15 O thou! whatever title suit thee, i. 45 O thou, who kindly dost provide, i. 142 O thou whom Poetry abhors, i. 142 O Tibbie, I hae seen the day, & . ii. 2 Out over the Forth I look to the north, ii. 55 Our thrissles flourish’d fresh and fair, ii. 3] O wat ye wha’s in yon town, .. * ii. 58 O wat ye what my minnie did, ... ii. 68 O, were I on Parnassus’ hill! * : ii. 29 O, were my love yon lilac fair, º . ii. 69, 100 O wert thou in the cauld blast, . ii. 64 O wha is she that lo’es me, ii. 64 O wha my babie clouts will buy? ii. 5 O wha will to St. Stephen's house, ii. 65 O whar gat ye that bonnie blue bonnet 3 ii. 15 O whar did ye get that hauver meal bannock? ii. 15 O whistle, and I’ll come to you, Iny lad, . ii. 15, 105 O wilt thou go wi' me, sweet Tibbie Dumbar? ... ii. 24 O Willie brew’d a peck o' maut, e $º ii. 34 O why the deuce should I repine, † ii. 9 O ye wha are sae guid yoursel’, & i. 63 O ye whose cheek the tear of pity stains, i. 139 P Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare, i. 1 16 Pity the tuneful muses’ helpless train, ii. 215 Powers celestial, whose protection, ii. 8 R. Rash mortal, and slanderous poet, thy name i. 141 Raving winds around her blowing, . * ii. 21 Revered defender of beauteous Stuart, i. 93 Right, Sir, your text I’ll prove it true, i. 76 Robin shure in hairst, e * ii. 9 S i. 109 Sad bird of might, what sorrows call thee forth, Sad thy tale, thou idle page, Sae flaxen were her ringlets, . tº Say, sages, what's the charm on earth, . i. 94 ii. 122 . i. 149 Scots, wha hac wi' Wallace bled, º . ii. 108, l 13 37 See the smoking bowl before us! tº (\ 399 | Searching auld wives’ barrels, . i. 143 i. 32 CŞ)^ {../ £Nºt L-C--- º vº INDEX TO FIRST LINES. º Page Page Sensibility, how charming, e Vol. i. 133 The solemn league and covenant, . Vol. i. 143 She is a winsome wee thing, . & * ii. 84 The sum had clos'd the winter day, g . i. ºl She’s fair and fause that causes my smart, ii. 53 The tailor fell thro’ the bed, thimbles and a' . ii. 2 Should auld acquaintance be forgot, . © ii. 112 || The Thames flows proudly to the sea, & ii. 35 Shrew’d Willie Smellie to Crochallan came, . i. 141 The tither morn, when I forlorn, t ... ii. 41 Sic a reptile was Wat, g e e i. 143 The weary pund, the weary pund, ii. 42 Simmer’s a pleasant time, tº º . ii. 27 | The wind blew hollow frae the hills, . i. 126 Sing on, sweet thrush, upon the leafless bough, i. 131 | The wintry west extends his blast, j: ,] Sir, as your mandate did request, tº . i. 60 | Thickest might, o'erhang my dwelling! ... ii. , 18 Sir, o'er a gill I gat your card, g * i. 27 | Thine am I, my faithful fair, . e ii. 115 Sir, Wisdom's a fool when he’s fou’, & . i. 29 || Thine be the volumes, Jessy fair, * 1. 138 Sleep'st thou, or wak'st thou, fairest creature? ... ii. 126 This day, Time winds th” exhausted chain, . i. 115 Slow spreads the gloom my soul desires, . ii. 7] This wot ye all whom it concerns, . i. 82 Some books are lies frae end to end, i. Il Though cruel fate should bid us part, ii. 10 Some hae meat and canna eat, & * i. 145 || Thou bed, in which I first began, j, 110 Spare me thy vengeance, Galloway, . i. 146 | Thou flattering mark of friendship kind, . ii. 156 Stay, my charmer, can you leave me? º ii. 18 Thou hast left me ever, Jamie! g ii. 111 Still anxious to secure your partial favour, . i. 134 || Thou lingering star, with less'ming ray, . ii. 32 Stop, passenger! my story’s brief, & . i. 118 Thou of an independent mind, º i. 133 Stop, thief! dame Nature cried to I)eath i. 148 || Thou’s welcome, weam! mishanter fa’ me, i. 10 Streams that glide in orient plaims, . ii. 24 | Thou whom chance may hither lead, . & i. 96 Sweet fa’s the eve on Craigieburn, ii. 134 Thou, who thy honour as thy God rever'st, i. 127 Sweetest May, let love inspire thee, . ii. 10 | Thºrough and through the inspired leaves, . i. 141 Sweet floweret, pledge o' meikle love, & i. 34 'Tis friendship's pledge, my young, fair friend, i. 134, 141 Sweet naïveté of feature, . e * . i. 134 To Riddel, much lamented man, e i. 144 To thee, lov’d Nith, thy gladsome plains, . ii. 59 T True-hearted was he, the sad swain o’ the Yar- row, . e g & g ii. 93 Talk not to me of savages, e Qº . i. 149 || Turn again, thou fair Eliza, . tº ii. 46 Tam Samson's weel-worn clay here lies, . i. , 78 'Twas even—the dewy fields were green, ii. 13 That there is falsehood in his looks, e . i. 144 ‘Twas in that place o’ Scotland’s isle, i. 47 The bairns gat out wi' an unco shout, ii. , 52 | "Twas in the seventeen hundred year, i. 137 The black-headed eagle, . sº * . i. 148 'Twas na her bonnie blue e'e was my ruin, . ii. 137 The blude red rose at Yule may blaw, ii. 22 ’Twas where the birch and sounding thong are The bonniest lad that e'er I saw, ii. 59 plied, . * * te . i. 132 The Catrine woods were yellow seen, ii. 32 The cats like kitchen, * & ... ii. 185 U The Cooper o’ Cuddie cam' here awa’, ii. 56 gº tº The day returns, my bosom burns, . ii. 28 Up in the morning’s no for me, ii. 19 The De’il cam’ fiddlin’ thro’ the town, ë ii. 53 | Upon a simmer Sunday morm, º i. 1 7 The Devil got notice that Grose was a -dying, . i. 143 | Upon that might, when fairies light, i. 54 Thee, Caledonia, thy wild heaths among, i. 132 | Up wi' the carles o’ Dysart, . ii. 52 The friend, whom, wild from wisdom’s way, , i. 133 The gloomy might is gath’ring fast, . . ii. 14 W The greybeard, old wisdom, may boast of his treasures, & e te § . i. 145 || Wae is my heart, and the tear's in my e'e, ii. 60 The heather was blooming, the meadows were Wae worth thy power, thou cursed leaf, i. 75 mawn, g & * g * ii. 9 || Was e'er poor poet sae befitted, . i. 147 Their groves o' sweet myrtle let foreign lands Weary fa’ you, Dumcan Gray, * ii. 20 reckon, g * g º ii. 137 We cam’ ma here to view your warks i. 141 The king's most humble servant, I, g . i. 144 | Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower, . i. 64 The lamp of day with ill-presaging glare, . i. 96 || Wee, sleekit, cow’rin, tim’rous beastie, . i. 33 The lazy mist hangs from the brow of the hill, ii. 26 | Wha is that at my bower door? . e . ii. 40 The lovely lass of Inverness, t º . ii. 53 | Whare hae ye been sae braw, lad? . $ ii. 34 The man, in life wherever plac'd, * . i. 4 || What ails you now, ye lousy b—h, . ... i. 62 The noble Maxwells and their powers, . . ii. 44 What can a young lassie, what shall a young The ploughman he’s a bonnie lad, . ii. 21 lassie, & tº e tº ii. 40 The poor man weeps—here Gavin sleeps, , i. 139 What dost thou in that mansion fair? . . i. 146 There's auld Rob Morris that woms in yon glen, ii. 88 | What needs this din about the town o’ Lon’on, i. 115 There’s a youth in this city, it were a great pity, ii. 30 What will I do gin my hoggie die? . ii. 18 There's braw, braw lads on Yarrow braes, ... ii. 89 What of earls with whom you have supp'd, . i. 144 There's death in the cup, sae beware . i. 144 Wha will buy my troggin, * . i. 136 There’s news, lasses, news, º & ii. 70 | When biting Boreas, fell and doure, tº i. 8 There liv'd a carle on Kellyburn bracs, ii. 48 When by a gen’rous public's kind acclaim, . i. There liv'd a lass in yonder dale, . ii. 10 | When chapman billies leave the street, . There was a lass, they ca’d her Meg, ii. 19 | When chill November's surly blast, . There was a bonnie lass, and a bonnie bonnie When death’s dark stream I ferry o’er, . lass, g e g ii. 68 When first I began for to sigh and to woo her, There was a lad was born in Kyle, ii. 7 | When first I came to Stewart Kyle, . * There was a lass, and she was fair, ii. 101 | When first my brave Johnnie lad, There was a wife womn’d in Cockpen, . ii. 70 | When Guildford good our pilot stood, | There was once a day, but old Time them was When I think on the happy days, * | young, & º * º . ii. 64 | When Januar’ wind was blawing cauld, There were five carlins in the south, . i. 108 || When lyart leaves bestrew the yird, . . i ; There were three kings into the east, . i. 3 | When Nature her great master-piece designed, | The simple bard, rough at the rustic plough, . i. 78 When o'er the hill the eastern star, . ii. | The small birds rejoice in the green leaves return- When rosy May comes in wi' flowers, º • * y ing, # e º & e ii. 50 | When wild war's deadly blast was blawm, ... ii. i. The smiling spring comes in rejoicing, . ii. 51 | Where, braving angry winter’s storms, g §3. 400 /* 6 sº Yºjº ~~~~<> **s Clauted, scraped. * 9, Bluid, blood. Bummler, a * Clavers, idle stories. gº tº Y Y ... … " C & # * ~\ N .x: y CJ's tº *º sº Tºkº–--> *. >~~33.9 ar & - Cleckin, a brood of chickens. Cleed, to clothe. Cleeds, clothes. Cleekit, having caught. Cleg, the gad-fly. Clinkin, jerking, clinking. cººl, who rings the church € Clips, sheers. Clishmaclaver, idle conversation. Clock, to hatch, a beetle. Clockin, hatching. Cloot, the hoof of a cow, sheep, &c. Clootie, an old mame for the devil. Clour, a bump or swelling after a blow. Cluds, clouds. Clunk, the sound of liquor in empty- ing a bottle or cask. Coaxin, wheedling. Coble, a fishing boat. Cockermonny, a lock of hair tied upon a girl’s head; a cap. Coft, bought. Cog, a wooden dish. Coggie, diminutive of cog. Coila, from Kyle, a district of Ayr- shire, so called, saith tradition, from Coil, or Coilus, a Pictish monarch. Collie, a general, and sometimes a particular, name for country curs. Collieshangie, a quarrel. Commaun, command. Cood, the cud. Coof, a blockhead, a minny. Cº. appeared, and disappeared by ts. Coost, did cast. Coot, the ankle or foot. Cootie, a wooden kitchen dish:—also those fowls whose legs are clad with feathers, are said to be cootie. Corbie, a species of the crow, the Tà Ven. Core, corps, party, clan. Corn’t, fed with oats. Cotter, the inhabitant of a cot-house, or cottage. Couthie, kind, loving. Cove, a cove. Cowe, to terrify, to keep under, to lop; a fright; a branch of furze, broom. Cowp, to barter, to tumble over, a gang. Cowpit, tumbled. Cow’rin, cowering. Cowte, a colt. Cozie, smug. Cozily, smugly. Crabbit, crabbed, fretful. Crack, conversation, to converse. Crackin, conversing. Craft or croft, a field near a house (in old husbandry). Craig, the neck. Craiks, cries or calls incessantly, a II’Ol. Crambo-clink, or crambo-jingle, rhymes, doggrel verses. Crank, the moise of an ungreased wheel. Crankous, fretful, captious. Cranreuch, the hoar frost. Crood, or crowd, to too as a dove. Croon, a hollow and continued moam; to make a moise like the continued roar of a bull; to hum a tune. Crooning, humming. Crouchie, crook-backed. Croulin, crawling. Crouse, cheerful, courageous. Crousely, cheerfully, courageously. Crowdie, a composition of oatmeal and boiled water, sometimes from the broth of beef, mutton, &c. Crowdie-time, breakfast-time. Crummock, a cow with crooked horns. Crump, hard and brittle; spoken of bread. Crunt, a blow on the head with a cudgel. Cuif, a blockhead, a ninny. Cummock, a short staff with a crook- ed head. Curchie, a curtesy. Curler, a player at a game on the ice, practised in Scotland, called curling. Curlie, curled, whose hair falls matur- ally in ringlets. Curling, a well known game on the ICe. Curmurring, murmuring, a slight rumbling noise. Curpin, the crupper. Cushat, the dove, or wood-pigeon. Cutty, short, a spoon broken in the middle, a loose girl. Cutty-stool, the stool of repentance in church. Daddie, a father. Daffin, merriment, foolishmess. Daft, merry, giddy, foolish. Daidlin, loitering, trifling, tippling. Daimen, rare, now and them; daimen- Žcker, an ear of corn now and then, Dainty, pleasant, good humoured, agreeable. Dales, plains, valleys. Darklins, darklin. Daud, to thrash, to abuse. Daud, (noum) a large piece, the moise of one falling flat. Daur, to dare. Daurt, dared. Daurg, or daurk, a day’s labour. Davoc, David. Dawtit, or dawtet, fondled, caressed. Dearies, diminutive of dears. feariñº, dear. Deave, to deafen. Diel-ma-care! no matter! for all that! Deleerit, delirious. Descrive, to describe. Dight, to wipe, to clean corn from chaff. Dight, cleaned from chaff. Dights, cleans. Ding, to worst, to push. Dinna, do not. Dirl, a slight tremulous stroke or pain. : Dizzen, or dizºn, a dozen. Doited, stupified, silly from age. Dolt, stupified, crazed. Donzie, unlucky. – ~~~~<>S Sticked, stuck, spoils. Synd, rinse; syndings, rinsings. Tippence, twopence. Óº II. 403 3 F Ǻ Čºr . Sº (\ Ǻ T-3---- ~I #5 {}^ſ FS0 5&ºs *. GLOSS ARY. Tirl, to make a slight noise, to lin COWel". Tirlin, uncovering. Tither, the other. Tittle, to whisper. { Tittlin, whispering. Tocher, marriage portion. Tod, a fox. Toddle, to totter, like the walk of a child. Toddlin, tottering. Toom, empty. Toop, a ram. Town, a hamlet, a farm-house. Tout, the blast of a horn or trumpet, to blow a horn, &c. Tow, a rope. Towmond, a twelvemonth. Towzie, rough, shaggy. Towzled, rumpled, in disorder. Toy, a very old fashion of female head-dress. Toyte, to totter like old age. Transmugriſy'd, transmigrated, me- tamorphosed. Trashtrie, trash. Trews, trowsers. Trickie, full of tricks. Trig. spruce, meat. Trimly, excellently. Trow, to believe. Trowth, truth, a petty oath. Trysted, appointed; to trysie, to make an appointment. Try’t, tried. Tug, raw hide, of which in old times plough-traces were frequently made. Tulzie, a quarrel; to quarrel, to fight. Twa, two. Twa-three, a few. 'Twad, it would. Twal, twelve; twal-pennie worth, a small quantity, a penny-worth. N. B. One penny English is 12d. Scotch. Twin, to part. Tyke, a dog of thºuge, kind. Ugsome, disgusting. Unchancy, unlucky. Unco, strange, uncouth, very, very great, prodigious. Uncos, news. Unkenn'd, unknown. Unsicker, unsure, unsteady. Unskaith'd, undamaged, unhurt. Unweeting, unwotting, unknowingly. #. up the way. #. reproach. phauden, supported. Upo’, upon. Upsetting, assuming, conceited. Upsides with, even with, Urchin, a hedgehºg. Pap’rin, vapouring. Vera, very. Wirl, a ring round a column, &c. W Wa”, wall; wa’s, walls. Wabster, a weaver. Wad, would, to bet, a bet, a pledge. Wadna, would not. Wae, woe, sorrowful. Waesucks! O wacs me! alas! O the Waff, shabby, Waft, the cross thread that goes from the shuttle through the web; Woof. Waifu', wailing. Wair, to lay out, to expend. Wale, choice, to choose. Wal’d, chose, chosen. Walie, ample, large, jolly; also an interjection of distress, Wame, the belly. #. a belly-full. Wanchansie, unlucky. Wanrestfu', restless. Wark, work. Wark-lume, a tool to work with. Warl’, or warld, world. Warlock, a wizard. Warly, worldly, eager on amassing wealth. Warran, a warrant, to warrant. Warst, worst. Warsil'd, or warsl’d, wrestled. Wastrie, prodigality. Wat, wet, I wat, I wot, I know. Water-brose, brose made of meal and water simply, without the addi- tions of milk and butter, &c. Wattle, a twig, a wand. Wauble, to swing, to reel. Waught, a hearty draught of liquor. Waukit, thickened, as fullers do cloth. Waukräfte, not apt to sleep. Waur, worse, to worst, to get the better of. Waur’t, worsted. Wean, or Weanie, a child. Wearie, or, weary; many a weary body, many a different person. Weason, wind-pipe. Weaving the stocking; see throwing the stocking. Wee, little; wee things, little ones; 20ee bit, a small matter. Weel, well; weelfare, welfare. Weet, rain, wetness. Weird, fate. We'se, we shall. Wha, who. Whaizle, to wheeze. Whalpit, whelped. Whang, a leathern string, a piece of cheese, bread, &c. to give the strappado. Whare, where: Whare-e'er, where- eVer. Whase, whose. Wheep, to fly nimbly, to jerk; penny- wheep, small beer. Whatreck, nevertheless. Whid, the motion of a hare, running but not frighted, a lie. Whidden, running as a hare or coney. Wigmeleeries, whims, fancies, crotch- ets. Whingin, crying, complaining, fret- ting Whirligigums, useless ornaments, trifling appendages. Whissle, a whistle, to whistle. Whisht, silence; to hold one’s whisht, to be silent. Whisk, to sweep, to lash. Whiskit, lashed. Whitter, a hearty draught of liquor. Whun-stane, a whin-stone. W.’, with. Wick, to strike a stone in an oblique direction, a term in curling. Wicker, willow (the smaller sort). Wiel, a small whirlpool. Wifie, a diminutive or endearing term for wife. Willyard, wild, strange, shy. Wimple, to meander. Wimpl’t, meandered. Wimplin, waving, meandering. Win, to winnow, to get. Win’t, winded, as a bottom of yarn. Win’, wind; win’s, winds, Winna, will not. Winnock, a window. Winsome, hearty, vaunted, gay, en- gaging in mammers or appearance. Wintle, a staggering motion; to stag- ger, to reel. Winze, an oath. Wiss, to wish. Withoutten, without. Wizen'd, hide bound, dried, shrunk. Wommer, a wonder, a contemptuous appellation. Wons, dwells. Woo’, wool. Woo, to court, to make love to. Woodie, a rope, more properly one made of withs or willows; the term used for the gallows. Wooer-bab, the garter knotted below the knee with a couple of loops. Wordy, worthy. Worset, worsted. Wow, an exclamation of pleasure or wonder. Wrack, to teaze, to vex. Wraith, a spirit, a ghost: an appari- tion exactly like a living person, whose appearance is said to fore- bode the person's approaching death. Wrang, wrong, to wrong. Wreeth, a drifted heap of snow. Wud-mad, distracted. Wumble, a wimble. Wuzzent, withered, dried. Wyle, beguile. ſyliecoat, a flammel vest. Wyte, blame, to ºme. Yald, supple, active. Yammer, to complain peevishly. Ye; this pronoun is frequently used for thou Yearms, longs much. Yearlings, born in the same year, coevals. Year, is used both for singular and lural years. ell, barren, that gives no milk. Yellow-yeldring, the yellow-hammer. Yerk, to lash, to jerk. Yerkit, jerked, lashed. Yestreen, yesternight. Yett, a gate, such as is usually at the entrance into a farm-yard or field. Yill, ale. Yird, earth. Yokin, yoking, a bout. Yont, beyond. Yoursel, yourself. Yowe, an ewe. Yowie, diminutive of yowe. | } pity. Whyles, whiles, sometimes. Yule, Christmas. 410 Å !-- G LASGOW 5%. W. G. BLACKIE AND Co., PRINTERs, §3. VILLAFIELD. ~s) 339;N - §§ (2) tº ſº y-r; >> - a"-º-º-º- ~~~~<> & 594ttºrtºt - . . . . .x sº.g. : W ...Tulſ THE UNIVERSITY 5 O A *** ...?: \ f 2’ - DO NOT REMOVE MUTILATE CARD �* T“ .-~ ！- ------------…-- ~~~~~ -~ . — . . .- - -·ſ