Роберт Бернс
The Complete Works
CCCVI. TO MR. THOMSON
[The instrument which the poet got from the braes of Athol, seems of an order as rude and incapable of fine sounds as the whistles which school-boys make in spring from the smaller boughs of the plane-tree.]
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 sentiment with the Scottish.
Canst thou leave me thus, my Katy?[276]
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 earth) that I much suspect he has, in his plates, mistaken the figure of the stock and horn. I have, at last, gotten one, but it is a very rude instrument. It is comprised of three parts; the stock, which is the hinder thigh bone of a sheep, such as you see in a mutton ham; the horn, which is a common Highland cow’s horn, cut off at the smaller end, until the aperture be large enough to admit the stock to be pushed up through the horn until it be held by the thicker end of the thigh-bone; and lastly, an oaten reed exactly cut and notched like that which you see every shepherd boy have, when the corn-stems are green and full grown. The reed is not made fast in the bone, but is held by the lips, and plays loose in the smaller end of the stock; while the stock, with the horn hanging on its larger end, is held by the hands in playing. The stock has six or seven ventages on the upper side, and one back-ventage, like the common flute. This of mine was made by a man from the braes of Athole, and is exactly what the shepherds wont to use in that country.
However, either it is not quite properly bored in the holes, or else we have not the art of blowing it rightly; for we can make little of it. If Mr. Allan chooses, I will send him a sight of mine, as I look on myself to be a kind of brother-brush with him. “Pride in poets is nae sin;” and I will say it, that I look on Mr. Allan and Mr. Burns to be the only genuine and real painters of Scottish costume in the world.
R. B.
CCCVII. TO PETER MILLER, JUN., ESQ., OF DALSWINTON
[In a conversation with James Perry, editor of the Morning Chronicle, Mr. Miller, who was then member for the Dumfries boroughs, kindly represented the poverty of the poet and the increasing number of his family: Perry at once offered fifty pounds a year for any contributions he might choose to make to his newspaper: the reasons for his refusal are stated in this letter.]
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 insular individual, unconnected with a wife and a family of children, with the most fervid enthusiasm I would have volunteered my services: I then could and would have despised all consequences that might have ensued.
My prospect in the Excise is something; at least it is, encumbered as I am with the welfare, the very existence, of near half-a-score of helpless individuals, what I dare not sport with.
In the mean time, they are most welcome to my Ode; only, let them insert it as a thing they have met with by accident and unknown to me.—Nay, if Mr. Perry, whose honour, after your character of him, I cannot doubt; if he will give me an address and channel by which anything will come safe from those spies with which he may be certain that his correspondence is beset, I will now and then send him any bagatelle that I may write. In the present hurry of Europe, nothing but news and politics will be regarded; but against the days of peace, which Heaven send soon, my little assistance may perhaps fill up an idle column of a newspaper. I have long had it in my head to try my hand in the way of little prose essays, which I propose sending into the world though 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 anybody who has the least relish for wit, is a high treat indeed.
With the most grateful esteem I am ever,
Dear Sir,
R. B.
CCCVIII. TO MR. SAMUEL CLARKE, JUN., DUMFRIES
[Political animosities troubled society during the days of Burns, as much at least as they disturb it now—this letter is an instance of it.]
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 no-body’s welfare to care for but my own, we should certainly have come, according to the manners of the world, to the necessity of murdering one another about the business. The words were such as, generally, I 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.
CCCIX. TO MR. THOMSON
[Burns allowed for the songs which Wolcot wrote for Thomson a degree of lyric merit which the world has refused to sanction.]
December, 1794.
It is, I assure you, the pride of my heart to do anything 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:—
Now in her green mantle, &c.[277]
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,
R. B.
CCCX. TO MR. THOMSON
[In this brief and off-hand way Burns bestows on Thompson one of the finest songs ever dedicated to the cause of human freedom.]
January, 1795.
I fear for my songs; however, a few may please, yet originality is a coy feature in composition, and in a multiplicity of efforts in the same style, disappears altogether. For these three thousand years, we poetic folks have been describing the spring, for instance; and as the spring continues the same, there must soon be a sameness in the imagery, &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.
Is there for honest poverty.[278]
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?”—
Sweet fa’s the eve on Craigieburn.[279]
Farewell! God bless you!
R. B.
CCCXI. TO MR. THOMSON
[Of this letter, Dr. Currie writes “the poet must have been tipsy indeed to abuse sweet Ecclefechan at this rate;” it is one of the prettiest of our Annandale villages, and the birth-place of that distinguished biographer.]
Ecclefechan, 7th February, 1795.
My dear Thomson,
You cannot have any idea of the predicament in which I write to you. In the course of my duty as supervisor (in which capacity I have acted of late), I came yesternight to this unfortunate, wicked little village. I have gone forward, but snows of ten feet deep have impeded my progress: I have tried to “gae back the gate I cam again,” but the same obstacle has shut me up within insuperable bars. To add to my misfortune, since dinner, a scraper has been torturing catgut, in sounds that would have insulted the dying agonies of a sow under the hands of a butcher, and thinks himself, on that very account, exceeding good company. In fact, I have been in a dilemma, either to get drunk, to forget these miseries; or to hang myself, to get rid of them: like a prudent man (a character congenial to my every thought, word, and deed), I of two evils have chosen the least, and am very drunk, at your service!
I wrote you yesterday from Dumfries. I had not time then to tell you all I wanted to say; and, Heaven knows, at present have not capacity.
Do you know an air—I am sure you must know it—“We’ll gang nae mair to yon town?” I think, in slowish time, it would make an excellent song. I am highly delighted with it; and if you should think it worthy of your attention, I have a fair dame in my eye to whom I would consecrate it.
As I am just going to bed, I wish you a good night.
R. B.
CCCXII. TO MR. THOMSON
[The song of Caledonia, in honour of Mrs. Burns, was accompanied by two others in honour of the poet’s mistress: the muse was high in song, and used few words in the letter which enclosed them.]
May, 1795.
O stay, sweet warbling woodlark, stay![280]
Let me know, your very first leisure, how you like this song.
Long, long the night.[281]
How do you like the foregoing? The Irish air, “Humours of Glen,” is a great favourite of mine, and as, except the silly stuff in the “Poor Soldier,” there are not any decent verses for it, I have written for it as follows:—
Their groves o’ sweet myrtle let foreign lands reckon.[282]
Let me hear from you.
R. B.
CCCXIII. TO MR. THOMSON
[The poet calls for praise in this letter, a species of coin which is always ready.]
How cruel are the parents.[283]
Mark yonder pomp of costly fashion.[284]
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 poetizing, provided that the strait-jacket of criticism don’t cure me. If you can, in a post or two, administer a little of the intoxicating potion of your applause, it will raise your humble servant’s phrensy 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.
R. B.
CCCXIV. TO MR. THOMSON
[Thomson at this time sent the drawing to Burns in which David Allan sought to embody the “Cotter’s Saturday Night:” it displays at once the talent and want of taste of the ingenious artist.]
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 abilities here, and they all agree with me in classing it as a first-rate production. My phiz is sae kenspeckle, 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 honoured my rustic music 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 man-fu’ 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.
Give the enclosed epigram to my much-valued friend Cunningham, and tell him, that on Wednesday I go to visit a friend of his, to whom his friendly partiality in speaking of me in a 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?
R. B.
CCCXV. TO MR. THOMSON
[In allusion to the preceding letter, Thomson says to Burns, “You really make me blush when you tell me you have not merited the drawing from me.” The “For a’ that and a’ that,” which went with this letter, was, it is believed, the composition of Mrs. Riddel.]
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:—
Oh whistle, and I’ll come to ye, my lad;
Oh 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.
In fact, a fair dame, at whose shrine I, the priest of the Nine, offer up the incense of Parnassus—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?
This is no my ain lassie, &c.[285]
Do you know that you have roused the torpidity of Clarke at last? He has requested me to write three or four songs for him, which he is to set to music himself. The enclosed sheet contains two songs for him, which please to present to my valued friend Cunningham.
I enclose the sheet open, both for your inspection, and that you may copy the song “Oh 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 enclose you a “For a’ that and a’ that,” which was never in print: it is a much superior song to mine. I have been told that it was composed by a lady, and some lines 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:—
To Chloris.[286]
Une bagatelle de l’amitié.
Coila.
R. B.
CCCXVI. TO MR. THOMSON
[In the double service of poesy and music the poet had to sing of pangs which he never endured, from beauties to whom he had never spoken.]
Forlorn my love, no comfort near, &c.[287]
How do you like the foregoing? I have written it within this hour: so much for the speed of my Pegasus; but what say you to his bottom?
R. B.
CCCXVII. TO MR. THOMSON
[The unexampled brevity of Burns’s letters, and the extraordinary flow and grace of his songs, towards the close of his life, have not now for the first time been remarked.]
Last May a braw wooer.[288]
Why, why tell thy lover.[289]
Such is the peculiarity of the rhythm of this air, that I find it impossible to make another stanza to suit it.
I am at present quite occupied with the charming sensations of the toothache, so have not a word to spare.
R. B.
CCCXVIII. TO MRS. RIDDEL
Supposes himself to be writing from the dead to the living.
[Ill health, poverty, a sense of dependence, with the much he had deserved of his country, and the little he had obtained, were all at this time pressing on the mind of Burns, and inducing him to forget what was due to himself as well as to the courtesies of life.]
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 the manner of my leaving your earth I do not exactly know, as I took my departure in the heat of a fever of intoxication contracted at your too hospitable mansion; but, on my arrival here, I was fairly tried, and sentenced to endure the purgatorial tortures of this infernal confine for the space of ninety-nine years, eleven months, and twenty-nine days, and all on account of the impropriety of my conduct yesternight under your roof. Here am I, laid on a bed of pitiless furze, with my aching head reclined on a pillow of ever-piercing thorn, while an infernal tormentor, wrinkled, and old, and cruel, his name I think is Recollection, with a whip of scorpions, forbids peace or rest to approach me, and keeps anguish eternally awake. Still, Madam, if I could in any measure be reinstated in the good opinion of the fair circle whom my conduct last night so much injured, I think it would be an alleviation to my torments. For this reason I trouble you with this letter. To the men of the company I will make no apology.—Your husband, who insisted on my drinking more than I chose, has no right to blame me; and the other gentlemen were partakers of my guilt. But to you, Madam, I have much to 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 d—mned wretch’s best apology to her. A Mrs. G–, a charming woman, did me the honour to be prejudiced in my favour; this makes me hope that I have not outraged her beyond all forgiveness.—To all the other ladies please present my humblest contrition for my conduct, and my petition for their gracious pardon. O all ye powers of decency and decorum! whisper to them that my errors, though great, were involuntary—that an intoxicated man is the vilest of beasts—that it was not in my nature to be brutal to any one—that to be rude to a woman, when in my senses, was impossible with me—but—
Regret! Remorse! Shame! ye three hell-hounds that ever dog my steps and bay at my heels, spare me! spare me!
Forgive the offences, and pity the perdition of, Madam, your humble slave.
R. B.
CCCXIX. TO MRS. RIDDEL
[Mrs. Riddel, it is said, possessed many more of the poet’s letters than are printed—she sometimes read them to friends who could feel their wit, and, like herself, make allowance for their freedom.]
Dumfries, 1795.
Mr. Burns’s compliments to Mrs. Riddel—is much obliged to her for her polite attention in sending him the book. Owing to Mr. B.’s 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. When “Anacharsis’ Travels” come to hand, which Mrs. Riddel mentioned as her gift to the public library, Mr. B. will thank her for a reading of it previous to her sending it to the library, as it is a book Mr. B. has never seen: he wishes to have a longer perusal of them than the regulations of the library allow.
Friday Eve.
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 seen.
R. B.
CCCXX. TO MISS LOUISA FONTENELLE
[That Miss Fontenelle, as an actress, did not deserve the high praise which Burns bestows may be guessed: the lines to which he alludes were recited by the lady on her benefit-night, and are printed among his Poems.]
Dumfries, December, 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 figure. This, Madam, is not the unmeaning or insidious compliment of the frivolous or interested; I pay it from the same honest impulse that the sublime of nature excites my admiration, or her beauties give me delight.
Will the foregoing lines be of any service to you in your approaching benefit-night? 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.
R. B.