I cannot settle to my mind.--Farming, the only thing of which I know anything, and heaven above knows but little do I understand 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 reading you cannot complain of your pennyworth.
I am ever, my dear Sir,
Yours,
R. B.
P.S. The cloot has unfortunately broke, but I have provided a fine buffalo-horn, on which I am going to affix the same cipher which you will remember was on the lid of the cloot.
LXV.
TO WILLIAM NICOL, ESQ.
[The charm which Dumfries threw over the poet, seems to have dissolved like a spell, when he sat down in Ellisland: he spoke, for a time, with little respect of either place or people.]
_Mauchline, June 18, 1787._
MY DEAR FRIEND,
I am now arrived safe in my native country, after a very agreeable jaunt, and have the pleasure to find all my friends well. I breakfasted with your gray-headed, reverend friend, Mr. Smith; and was highly pleased both with the cordial welcome he gave me, and his most excellent appearance and sterling good sense.
I have been with Mr. Miller at Dalswinton, and am to meet him again in August. From my view of the lands, and his reception of my bardship, my hopes in that business are rather mended; but still they are but slender.
I am quite charmed with Dumfries folks--Mr. Burnside, the clergyman, in particular, is a man whom I shall ever gratefully remember; and his wife, Gude forgie me! I had almost broke the tenth commandment on her account. Simplicity, elegance, good sense, sweetness of disposition, good humour, kind hospitality are the const.i.tuents of her manner and heart; in short--but if I say one word more about her, I shall be directly in love with her.
I never, my friend, thought mankind very capable of anything generous; but the stateliness of the patricians in Edinburgh, and the servility of my plebeian brethren (who perhaps formerly eyed me askance) since I returned home, have nearly put me out of conceit altogether with my species. I have bought a pocket Milton, which I carry perpetually about with me, in order to study the sentiments--the dauntless magnanimity, the intrepid, unyielding independence, the desperate daring, and n.o.ble defiance of hardship, in that great personage, SATAN. "Tis true, I have just now a little cash; but I am afraid the star that hitherto has shed its malignant, purpose-blasting rays full in my zenith; that noxious planet so baneful in its influences to the rhyming tribe, I much dread it is not yet beneath my horizon.--Misfortune dodges the path of human life; the poetic mind finds itself miserably deranged in, and unfit for the walks of business; add to all, that thoughtless follies and hare-brained whims, like so many _ignes fatui_, eternally diverging from the right line of sober discretion, sparkle with step-bewitching blaze in the idly-gazing eyes of the poor heedless bard, till, pop, "he falls like Lucifer, never to hope again." G.o.d grant this may be an unreal picture with respect to me! but should it not, I have very little dependence on mankind. I will close my letter with this tribute my heart bids me pay you--the many ties of acquaintance and friendship which I have, or think I have in life, I have felt along the lines, and, d.a.m.n them, they are almost all of them of such frail contexture, that I am sure they would not stand the breath of the least adverse breeze of fortune; but from you, my ever dear Sir, I look with confidence for the apostolic love that shall wait on me "through good report and bad report"--the love which Solomon emphatically says "is strong as death." My compliments to Mrs. Nicol, and all the circle of our common friends.
P.S. I shall be in Edinburgh about the latter end of July.
R. B.
LXVI.
TO MR. JAMES CANDLISH.
[Candlish was a cla.s.sic scholar, but had a love for the songs of Scotland, as well as for the poetry of Greece and Rome.]
_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 a.s.sisting an honest Scotch enthusiast,[174] 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. Pompey"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.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 174: Johnson, the publisher and proprietor of the Musical Museum.]
LXVII.
TO ROBERT AINSLIE, ESQ.
["Burns had a memory stored with the finest poetical pa.s.sages, which he was in the habit of quoting most aptly in his correspondence with his friends: and he delighted also in repeating them in the company of those friends who enjoyed them." These are the words of Ainslie, of Berrywell, to whom this letter in addressed.]
_Arracher_, 28_th June_, 1787.
MY DEAR SIR,
I write on my tour through a country where savage streams tumble over savage mountains, thinly overspread with savage flocks, which sparingly support as savage inhabitants. My last stage was Inverary--to-morrow night"s stage Dumbarton. I ought sooner to have answered your kind letter, but you know I am a man of many sins.
R. B.
LXVIII.
TO WILLIAM NICOL, ESQ.
[This visit to Auchtertyre produced that sweet lyric, beginning "Blythe, blythe and merry was she;" and the lady who inspired it was at his side, when he wrote this letter.]
_Auchtertyre, Monday, June, 1787._