I was much disappointed, my dear Sir, in wanting your most agreeable company yesterday. However, I heartily pray for good weather next Sunday; and whatever aerial Being has the guidance of the elements, may take any other half-dozen of Sundays he pleases, and clothe them with
"Vapours and clouds, and storms, Until he terrify himself At combustion of his own raising."
I shall see you on Wednesday forenoon. In the greatest hurry,
R. B.
CLx.x.xIV.
TO WILLIAM DUNBAR, W.S.
[This letter was first published by the Ettrick Shepherd, in his edition of Burns: it is remarkable for this sentence, "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."
We may look round us and inquire which line of life the poet could possibly mean.]
_Ellisland, 14th January, 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-esteem Sir, should you and I let negligent indolence, for I know it is nothing worse, step in between us and bar the enjoyment 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 n.o.bler 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 had 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 50 per annum, nor have I yet felt any of those mortifying circ.u.mstances in it that I was led to fear.
_Feb. 2._
I have not, for sheer hurry of business, been able to spare five minutes to finish my letter. Besides my farm business, I ride on my Excise matters at least two hundred miles every week. I have not by any means given up the muses. You will see 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 a 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. G.o.d 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.
CLx.x.xV.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[Falconer, the poet, whom Burns mentions here, perished in the Aurora, in which he acted as purser: he was a satirist of no mean power, and wrote that useful work, the Marine Dictionary: but his fame depends upon "The Shipwreck," one of the most original and mournful poems in the language.]
_Ellisland, 25th January, 1790._
It has been owing to unremitting hurry of business 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 independent spirit, I hope it is neither poetic license, 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 mortification, 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 n.o.ble, 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 "Shipwreck," which you so much admire, is no more. After witnessing the dreadful catastrophe he so feelingly describes in his poem, and after weathering 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 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!"[195]
Old Scottish song 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 concludes 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 anything more truly the language of 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 G.o.dson[196]
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 certain miniature dignity in the carriage of his head, and the glance of his fine black eye, which promise 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 a.s.suring you how truly I am, &c.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 195: The ballad is in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, ed. 1833, vol. iii. p. 304.]
[Footnote 196: The bard"s second son, Francis.]
CLx.x.xVI.