TO CAPTAIN RIDDEL.
[Robert Riddel kept one of those present pests of society--an alb.u.m--into which Burns copied the Lines on the Hermitage, and the Wounded Hare.]
_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.
CLXXIV.
TO MR. ROBERT AINSLIE.
[The ignominy of a poet becoming a gauger seems ever to have been present to the mind of Burns--but those moving things ca"d wives and weans have a strong influence on the actions of man.]
_Ellisland, 1st Nov. 1789._
MY DEAR FRIEND,
I had written you long ere now, could I have guessed where to find you, for I am sure you have more good sense than to waste the precious days of vacation time in the dirt of business and Edinburgh.--Wherever you are, G.o.d bless you, and lead you not into temptation, but deliver you from evil!
I do not know if I have informed you that I am now appointed to an excise division, in the middle of which my house and farm lie. In this I was extremely lucky. Without ever having been an expectant, as they call their journeymen excis.e.m.e.n, 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 sensations. Fifty pounds a year for life, and a provision 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 sergeant give to a numerous, if not a respectable audience, in the streets of Kilmarnock.--"Gentlemen, for your further and better encouragement, I can a.s.sure 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 circ.u.mstances in my business; but I am tired with and disgusted at the language of complaint against the evils of life.
Human existence in the most favourable situations does not abound with pleasures, and has its inconveniences and ills; capricious foolish 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 disappointment 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 tolerably at ease in your internal reflections? "Tis much to be a great character as a lawyer, but beyond comparison more to be a great character as a man. That you may be both the one and the other is the earnest wish, and that you _will_ be both is the firm persuasion of,
My dear Sir, &c.
R. B.
CLXXV.
TO MR. RICHARD BROWN.
[With this letter closes the correspondence of Robert Burns and 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 pleasure 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 fireside circle. May the benevolent Director of all things peculiarly bless you in all those endearing connexions consequent on the tender and venerable 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 circ.u.mstance is, that the excise division which I have got is so extensive, no less than ten parishes to ride over; and it abounds besides with so much business, that I can scarcely steal a spare moment. However, labour endears rest, and both together are absolutely necessary for the proper enjoyment of human existence. I cannot meet you anywhere. No less than an order from the Board of Excise, at Edinburgh, is necessary before I can have so much time as to meet you in Ayrshire. But do you come, and see me. We must have a social day, and perhaps lengthen it out with half the 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 circ.u.mstance? 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 b.u.mper to my favourite toast, "May the companions 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 contrive to have a gossiping between our two bedfellows, it will be so much additional pleasure. Mrs.
Burns joins me in kind compliments to you and Mrs. Brown. Adieu!
I am ever, my dear Sir, yours,
R. B.
CLXXVI.
TO R. GRAHAM, ESQ.
[The poet enclosed in this letter to his patron in the Excise the clever verses on Captain Grose, the Kirk"s Alarm, and the first ballad on Captain Miller"s election.]
_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 everything in your power to keep alive and cherish." Now though since G.o.d has thought proper to make one powerful and another helpless, the connexion 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 princ.i.p.ally as such, still you permit me to approach you.
I have found the excise business go on a great deal smoother with me than I expected; owing a good deal to the generous friendship of Mr.
Mitchel, my collector, and the kind a.s.sistance 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 enclose you a few bagatelles, all of them the productions of my leisure thoughts in my excise rides.
If you know or have ever seen Captain Grose, the 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 clergymen of Ayr, and his heretical book. G.o.d help him, poor man! Though he is one of the worthiest, as well as one of the ablest of the whole priesthood of the Kirk of Scotland, in every sense of that ambiguous term, yet the poor Doctor and his numerous family are in imminent danger of being thrown out to the mercy of the winter-winds. The enclosed ballad on that business is, I confess, too local, but I laughed myself at some conceits in it, though I am convinced in my conscience that there are a good many heavy stanzas in it too.
The election ballad, as you will see, alludes to the present canva.s.s 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 his country, and who * * * * *, is a character that one cannot speak of with patience.