By some neglect in Mr. Hamilton, I did not hear of your kind request for a subscription paper till this day. I will not attempt any acknowledgment for this, nor the manner in which I see your name in Mr. Hamilton's subscription list. Allow me only to say, Sir, I feel the weight of the debt. I have here likewise enclosed a small piece, the very latest of my productions. I am a good deal pleased with some sentiments myself, as they are just the native querulous feelings of a heart, which, as the elegantly melting Gray says, "melancholy has marked for her own." Our race comes on a-pace; that much-expected scene of revelry and mirth; but to me it brings no joy equal to that meeting with which your last flattered the expectation of, I WENT to Dr. Douglas yesterday, fully resolved to take the opportunity of Captain Smith; but I found the Doctor with a Mr. and Mrs. White, both Jamaicans, and they have deranged my plans altogether. They assure him that to send me from Savannah la Mar to Port Antonio will cost my master, Charles Douglas, upwards of fifty pounds; besides running the risk of throwing myself into a pleuritic fever, in consequence of hard travelling in the sun. On these accounts, be refuses sending me with Smith, but a vessel sails from Greenock the first of September, right for the place of my destination. The Captain of her is an intimate friend of Mr. Gavin Hamilton's, and as good a fellow as heart could wish with him I am destined to go. Where I shall shelter, I know not, but I hope to weather the storm. Perish the drop of blood of mine that fears them! I know their worst, and am prepared to meet it :"I'll laugh an' sing, an' shake my leg, As lang's I dow." On Thursday morning, if you can muster as much self-denial as to be out of bed about seven o'clock, I shall see you as I ride through to Cumnock. After all, Heaven bless the sex! I feel there is still happiness for me among them :"O woman, lovely woman, Heaven designed you To temper man!—we had been brutes without you."! I RECEIVED your message by G. Paterson, and as I am not very throng at present, I just write to let you know that there is such a worthless, rhyming reprobate, as your humble servant, still (1) Otway, "Venice Preserved." in the land of the living, though I can scarcely say, in the place of hope. I have no news to tell you that will give me any pleasure to mention, or you to hear. Poor ill-advised ungrateful Armour came home on Friday last. You have heard all the particulars of that affair, and a black affair it is. What she thinks of her conduct now, I don't know; one thing I do know-she has made me completely miserable. Never man loved, or rather adored a woman more than I did her; and, to confess a truth between you and me, I do still love her to distraction after all, though I won't tell her so if I were to see her, which I don't want to do. My poor dear unfortunate Jean! how happy have I been in thy arms! It is not the losing her that makes me so unhappy, but for her sake I feel most severely: I foresee she is in the road to, I am afraid, eternal ruin. **** May Almighty God forgive her ingratitude and perjury to me, as I from my very soul forgive her: and may his grace be with her and bless her in all her future life! I can have no nearer idea of the place of eternal punishment than what I have felt in my own breast on her account. I have tried often to forget her; I have run into all kinds of dissipation and riots, mason-meetings, drinking-matches, and other mischief, to drive her out of my head, but all in vain. And now for a grand cure; the ship is on her way home that is to take me out to Jamaica; and then, farewell dear old Scotland! and farewell dear ungrateful Jean! for never never will I see you more. You will have heard that I am going to commence poet in print; and to-morrow my works go to the press. I expect it will be a volume of about two hundred pages-it is just the last foolish action I intend to do; and then turn a wise man as fast as possible. Believe me to be, dear Brice, Your friend and well-wisher, XXI. TO MR. ROBERT AIKEN. [This letter was written under great distress of mind. That separation which Burns records in "The Lament" had, unhappily, taken place between him and Jean Armour; and it would appear, that, for a time at least, a coldness ensued between the poet and the patron, occasioned, it is conjectured, by that fruitful subject of sorrow and disquiet. The letter I regret to say is not wholly here.] SIR, [Ayrshire, 1786.] I WAS with Wilson, my printer, t'other day, and settled all our by-gone matters between us. After I had paid him all demands, I made him the offer of the second edition, on the hazard of being paid out of the first and readiest, which he declines. By his account, the paper of a thousand copies would cost about twenty-seven pounds, and the printing about fifteen or sixteen: he offers to agree to this for the printing, if I will advance for the paper, but this, you know, is out of my power; so farewell hopes of a second edition till I grow richer! an epocha which I think will arrive at the payment of the British national debt. There is scarcely any thing hurts me so much in being disappointed of my second edition, as not having it in my power to show my gratitude to Mr. Ballantyne, by publishing my poem of "The Brigs of Ayr." I would detest myself as a wretch, if I thought I were capable in a very long life of forgetting the honest, warm, and tender delicacy with which he enters into my interests. I am sometimes pleased with myself in my grateful sensations; but I believe, on the whole, I have very little merit in it, as my gratitude is not a virtue, the consequence of reflection; but sheerly the instinctive emotion of my heart, too inattentive to allow worldly maxims and views to settle into selfish habits. I have been feeling all the various rotations and movements within, respecting the excise. There are many things plead strongly against it; the uncertainty of getting soon into business; the consequences of my follies, which may perhaps make it impracticable for me to stay at home; and besides I have for some time been pining under secret wretchedness, from causes which you pretty well know-the pang of disappointment, the sting of pride, with some wandering stabs of remorse, which never fail to settle on my vitals like vultures, when attention is not called away by the calls of society, or the vagaries of the muse. Even in the hour of social mirth, my gaiety is the madness of an intoxicated criminal under the hands of the executioner. All these reasons urge me to go abroad, and to all these reasons I have only one answer---the feelings of a father. This, in the present mood I am in, overbalances every thing that can be laid in the scale against it. * * * * You may perhaps think it an extravagant fancy, but it is a sentiment which strikes home to my very soul though sceptical in some points of our current belief, yet, I think, I have every evidence for the reality of a life beyond the stinted bourne of our present existence; if so, then, how should I, in the presence of that tremendous Being, the Author of existence, how should I meet the reproaches of those who stand to me in the dear relation of children, whom I deserted in the smiling innocency of helpless infancy? O, thou great unknown Power!-thou almighty God! who has lighted up reason in my breast, and blessed me with immortality!-I have frequently wandered from that order and regularity necessary for the perfection of thy works, yet thou hast never left me nor forsaken me! *** * Since I wrote the foregoing sheet, I have seen something of the storm of mischief thickening over my folly-devoted head. Should you, my friends, my benefactors, be successful in your applications for me, perhaps it may not be in my power, in that way, to reap the fruit of your friendly efforts. What I have written in the preceding pages, is the settled tenor of my present resolution; but should inimical circumstances forbid me closing with your kind offer, or enjoying it only threaten to entail farther misery **** To tell the truth, I have little reason for complaint; as the world, in general, has been kind to me fully up to my deserts. I was, for some time past, fast getting into the pining, distrustful snarl of the misanthrope. I saw myself alone, unfit for the struggle of life, shrinking at every rising cloud in the chance-directed atmosphere of fortune, while all defenceless I looked about in vain for a cover. It never occurred to me, at least never with the force it deserved, that this world is a busy scene, and man, a creature destined for a progressive struggle; and that, however I might possess a warm heart and inoffensive manners (which last, by the by, was rather more than I could well boast); still, more than these passive qualities, there was something to be done. When all my school-fellows and youthful compeers (those misguided few excepted who joined, to use a Gentoo phrase, the "hallachores" of the human race) were striking off with eager hope and earnest intent, in some one or other of the many paths of busy life, I was "standing idle in the marketplace," or only left the chase of the butterfly from flower to flower, to hunt fancy from whim to whim. * * * * You see, Sir, that if to know one's errors were a probability of mending them, I stand a fair chance; but according to the reverend Westminster divines, though conviction must precede conversion, it is very far from always implying it. **** R. B. WITH the sincerest grief I read your letter. You are truly a son of misfortune. I shall be extremely anxious to hear from you how your health goes on; if it is in any way re-establishing, or if Leith promises well; in short, how you feel in the inner man. No news worth any thing: only godly Bryan was in the inquisition yesterday, and half the country-side as witnesses against him. He still stands out steady and denying: but proof was led yesternight of circumstances highly suspicious almost de facto, one of the servant girls made faith that she upon a time rashly entered the house-to speak in your cant, "in the hour of cause." I have waited on Armour since her return home; not from any the least view of reconciliation, but merely to ask for her health and-to you I will confess it-from a foolish hankering fondness-very ill placed indeed. The mother forbade me the house, nor did Jean show the penitence that might have been expected. However the priest, I am informed, will give me a certificate as a single man, if I comply with the rules of the church, which for that very reason I intend to do. I am going to put on sack-cloth and ashes this day. I am indulged so far as to appear in my own seat. Peccavi, pater, miserere mei. My book will be ready in a fortnight. If you have any subscribers return them by Connel. The Lord stand with the righteous: amen, amen. XXIII. TO JOHN BALLANTYNE, OF AYR. R. B. [There is a plain account in this letter of the destruction of the lines of marriage which united, as far as a civil contract in a matter civil can, the poet and Jean Armour. Aiken was consulted, and in consequence of his advice the certificate of marriage was destroyed.] HONOURED SIR, My proposals came to hand last night, and knowing that you would wish to have it in your power to do me a service as early as anybody, I enclose you half a sheet of them. I must consult you, first opportunity, on the propriety of sending my quondam friend, Mr. Aiken, a copy. If he is now reconciled to my character as an honest man, I would do it with all my soul; but I would not be beholden to the noblest being ever God created, if he imagined me to be a rascal. Apropos, old Mr. Armour prevailed with him to mutilate that unlucky paper yesterday. Would you believe it? though I had not a hope, nor even a wish, to make her mine after her conduct; yet, when he told me the names were all out of the paper, my heart died within me, and he cut my veins with the news. Perdition seize her falsehood! XXIV. TO MR. DAVID BRICE, SHOEMAKER, GLASGOW. R. B. [The letters of Burns at this sad period of his life are full of his private sorrows. Had Jean Armour been left to the guidance of her own heart the story of her early years would have been brighter.] Mossgiel, 17th July, 1786. I HAVE been so throng printing my Poems, that I could scarcely find as much time as to write to you. Poor Armour is come back again to Mauchline, and I went to call for her, and her mother forbade me the house, nor did she herself express much sorrow for what she had done. I have already appeared publicly in church, and was indulged in the liberty of standing in my own seat. I do this to get a certificate as a bachelor, which Mr. Auld has promised me. I am now fixed to go for the West Indies in October. Jean and her friends insisted much that she should stand along with me in the kirk, but the minister would not allow it, which bred a great trouble I assure you, and I am blamed as the cause of it, though I am sure I am innocent; but I am very much pleased, for all that, not to have had her company. I have no news to tell you that I remember. I am really happy to hear of your welfare, and that you are so well in Glasgow. I must certainly see you before I leave the country. I shall expect to hear from you soon, and am, Dear Brice, XXV. TO MR. JOHN RICHMOND. [When this letter was written the poet was skulking from place to place: the merciless pack of the law had been uncoupled at his heels. Mr. Armour did not wish to imprison, but to drive him from the country.] Old Rome Forest, 30th July, 1786. MY DEAR RICHMOND, My hour is now come-you and I will never meet in Britain more. I have orders, within three weeks at farthest, to repair aboard the Nancy, Captain Smith, from Clyde to Jamaica, and call at Antigua. This, except to our friend Smith, whom God long preserve, is a secret about Mauchline. Would you believe it? Armour has got a warrant to throw me in jail till I find security for an enormous sum. This they keep an entire secret, but I got it by a channel they little dream of; and I am wandering from one friend's house to another, and, like a true son of the gospel," have nowhere to lay my head." I know you will pour an execration on her head, but spare the poor, ill-advised girl, for my sake; though may all the furies that rend the injured, enraged lover's bosom, await her mother until her latest hour! I write in a moment of rage, reflecting on my miserable situation-exiled, abandoned, forlorn. I can write no more-let me hear from you by the return of coach. I will write you ere I go. I am, dear Sir, Yours, here and hereafter, XXVI. TO MR. ROBERT MUIR, KILMARNOCK. R. B. [Burns never tried to conceal either his joys or his sorrows: he sent copies of his favourite pieces, and intimations of much that befell him to his chief friends and comrades-this brief note was made to carry double.] Mossgiel, Friday noon. MY FRIEND, MY BROTHER, WARM recollection of an absent friend presses so hard upon my heart, that I send him the prefixed bagatelle (the Calf), pleased with the thought that it will greet the man of my bosom, and be a kind of distant language of friendship. You will have heard that poor Armour has repaid me double. A very fine boy and a girl have awakened a thought and feelings that thrill, some with tender pressure and some with foreboding anguish through my soul. The poem was nearly an extemporaneous production, on a wager with Mr. Hamilton, that I would not produce a poem on the subject in a given time. If you think it worth while, read it to Charles and Mr. W. Parker, and if they choose a copy of it, it is at their service, as they are men whose friendship I shall be proud to claim, both in this world and that which is to come. I believe all hopes of staying at home will be abortive, but more of this when, in the latter part of next week, you shall be troubled with a visit from, My dear Sir, Your most devoted, R. B. of Hannibal;" the next was "The History of Sir William Wallace:" for several of my earlier years I had few other authors; and many a solitary hour have I stole out, after the laborious vocations of the day, to shed a tear over their glorious, but unfortunate stories. In those boyish days I remember, in particular, being struck with that part of Wallace's story where these lines occur "Syne to the Leglen wood, when it was late, I chose a fine summer Sunday, the only day my line of life allowed, and walked half a dozen of miles to pay my respects to the Leglen wood, with as much devout enthusiasm as ever pilgrim did to Loretto; and, as I explored every den and dell where I could suppose my heroic countryman to have lodged, I recollect (for even then I was a rhymer) that my heart glowed with a wish to be able to make a song on him in some measure equal to his merits. XXVII. R. B. TO MRS. DUNLOP, OF DUNLOP. [Mrs. Dunlop was a poetess, and had the blood of the Wallaces in her veins: though she disliked the irregularities of the poet, she scorned to get into a fine moral passion about follies which could not be helped, and continued her friendship to the last of his life.] MADAM, Ayrshire, 1786. I AM truly sorry I was not at home yesterday, when I was so much honoured with your order for my copies, and incomparably more by the handsome compliments you are pleased to pay my poetic abilities. I am fully persuaded that there is not any class of mankind so feelingly alive to the titillations of applause as the sons of Parnassus nor is it easy to conceive how the heart of the poor bard dances with rapture, when those, whose character in life gives them a right to be polite judges, honour him with their approbation. Had you been thoroughly acquainted with me, Madam, you could not have touched my darling heart-chord more sweetly than by noticing my attempts to celebrate your illustrious ancestor, the Saviour of his Country. "Great patriot hero! ill-requited chief!"1 The first book I met with in my early years, which I perused with pleasure, was "The Life (1) Thomson. XXVIII. TO MR. JOHN KENNEDY. [It is a curious chapter in the life of Burns to count the number of letters which he wrote, the number of fine poems he composed, and the number of places which he visited in the unhappy summer and autumn of 1786.] MY DEAR SIR, Kilmarnock, August, 1786. YOUR truly facetious epistle of the 3rd inst. gave me much entertainment. I was sorry I had not the pleasure of seeing you as I passed your way, but we shall bring up all our lee way on Wednesday, the 16th current, when I hope to have it in my power to call on you and take a kind, very probably a last adieu, before I go for Jamaica; and I expect orders to repair to Greenock every day. I have at last made my public appearance, and am solemnly inaugurated into the numerous class.-Could I have got a carrier, you should have had a score of vouchers for my authorship; but now you have them, let them speak for themselves. Farewell, my dear friend! may guid luck hit you, May nane believe him! And ony de'il that thinks to get you, Good Lord deceive him. R. B. |