TO MR. CUNNINGHAM.
[Honest Jamie Thomson, who shot the hare because she browsed with her companions on his father"s "wheat-braird," had no idea he was pulling down such a burst of indignation on his head as this letter with the poem which it enclosed expresses.]
_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 satisfaction;--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 friendship 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 encouragement 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 gra.s.s 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, And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye!
May never pity soothe thee with a sigh, Nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel heart!
&c. &c.
Let me know how you like my poem. I am doubtful whether it would not be an improvement to keep out the last stanza but one altogether.
Cruikshank is a glorious production of the author of man. You, he, and the n.o.ble Colonel of the Crochallan Fencibles are to me
"Dear as the ruddy drops which warm my heart"
I have a good mind to make verses on you all, to the tune of "_Three guid fellows ayont the glen._"
R. B.
CLX.
TO MR. SAMUEL BROWN.
[Samuel Brown was brother to the poet"s mother: he seems to have been a joyous sort of person, who loved a joke, and understood double meanings.]
_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 G.o.d 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.
CLXI.
TO RICHARD BROWN.
[Burns was much attached to Brown; and one regrets that an inconsiderate word should have estranged the haughty sailor.]
_Mauchline, 21st May, 1789._
MY DEAR FRIEND,
I was in the country by accident, and hearing of your safe arrival, I could not resist the temptation of wishing you joy on your return, wishing you would write to me before you sail again, wishing 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 existence, 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,
R. B.
CLXII.
TO MR. JAMES HAMILTON.
[James Hamilton, grocer, in Glasgow, interested himself early in the fortunes of the poet.]
_Ellisland, 26th May, 1789._
DEAR SIR,
I send you by John Glover, carrier, the 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 therewith."
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 honest man, has by no means lived in vain!_
With every wish for your welfare and future success,