The Complete Works of Robert Burns Part 198

Lx.x.xVII.

TO JAMES DALRYMPLE, ESQ.

ORANGEFIELD.

[James Dalrymple, Esq., of Orangefield, was a gentleman of birth and poetic tastes--he interested himself in the fortunes of Burns.]

_Edinburgh_, 1787.

DEAR SIR,

I suppose the devil is so elated with his success with you that he is determined by a _coup de main_ to complete his purposes on you all at once, in making you a poet. I broke open the letter you sent me; hummed over the rhymes; and, as I saw they were extempore, said to myself, they were very well; but when I saw at the bottom a name that I shall ever value with grateful respect, "I gapit wide, but naething spak." I was nearly as much struck as the friends of Job, of affliction-bearing memory, when they sat down with him seven days and seven nights, and spake not a word.

I am naturally of a superst.i.tious cast, and as soon as my wonder-scared imagination regained its consciousness, and resumed its functions, I cast about what this mania of yours might portend. My foreboding ideas had the wide stretch of possibility; and several events, great in their magnitude, and important in their consequences, occurred to my fancy. The downfall of the conclave, or the crushing of the Cork rumps; a ducal coronet to Lord George Gordon and the Protestant interest; or St. Peter's keys to * * * * * *.

You want to know how I come on. I am just in _statu quo_, or, not to insult a gentleman with my Latin, in "auld use and wont." The n.o.ble Earl of Glencairn took me by the hand to-day, and interested himself in my concerns, with a goodness like that benevolent Being, whose image he so richly bears. He is a stronger proof of the immortality of the soul, than any that philosophy ever produced. A mind like his can never die. Let the worshipful squire H. L., or the reverend Ma.s.s J. M.

go into their primitive nothing. At best, they are but ill-digested lumps of chaos, only one of them strongly tinged with bituminous particles and sulphureous effluvia. But my n.o.ble patron, eternal as the heroic swell of magnanimity, and the generous throb of benevolence, shall look on with princely eye at "the war of elements, the wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds."

R. B.

Lx.x.xVIII.

TO CHARLES HAY. ESQ.,

ADVOCATE.

[The verses enclosed were written on the death of the Lord President Dundas, at the suggestion of Charles Hay, Esq., advocate, afterwards a judge, under the t.i.tle of Lord Newton.]

SIR,

The enclosed poem was written in consequence of your suggestion, last time I had the pleasure of seeing you. It cost me an hour or two of next morning's sleep, but did not please me; so it lay by, an ill-digested effort, till the other day that I gave it a critic brush.

These kind of subjects are much hackneyed; and, besides, the wailings of the rhyming tribe over the ashes of the great are cursedly suspicious, and out of all character for sincerity. These ideas damped my muse's fire; however, I have done the best I could, and, at all events, it gives me an opportunity of declaring that I have the honour to be, Sir, your obliged humble servant,

R. B.

Lx.x.xIX.

TO MISS M----N.

[This letter appeared for the first time in the "Letters to Clarinda,"

a little work which was speedily suppressed--it is, on the whole, a sort of Corydon and Phillis affair, with here and there expressions too graphic, and pa.s.sages over-warm. Who the lady was is not known--or known only to one.]

_Sat.u.r.day Noon, No. 2, St. James's Square_,

_New Town, Edinburgh_

Here have I sat, my 'dear Madam, in the stony alt.i.tude of perplexed study for fifteen vexatious minutes, my head askew, bending over the intended card; my fixed eye insensible to the very light of day poured around; my pendulous goose-feather, loaded with ink, hanging over the future letter, all for the important purpose of writing a complimentary card to accompany your trinket.

Compliment is such a miserable Greenland expression, lies at such a chilly polar distance from the torrid zone of my const.i.tution, that I cannot, for the very soul of me, use it to any person for whom I have the twentieth part of the esteem every one must have for you who knows you.

As I leave town in three or four days, I can give myself the pleasure of calling on you only for a minute. Tuesday evening, some time about seven or after, I shall wait on you for your farewell commands.

The hinge of your box I put into the hands of the proper connoisseur.

The broken gla.s.s, likewise, went under review; but deliberative wisdom thought it would too much endanger the whole fabric.

I am, dear Madam,

With all sincerity of enthusiasm,

Your very obedient servant,

R. B.

XC.

TO MISS CHALMERS.

[Some dozen or so, it is said, of the most beautiful letters that Burns ever wrote, and dedicated to the beauty of Charlotte Hamilton, were destroyed by that lady, in a moment when anger was too strong for reflection.]

_Edinburgh, Nov._ 21, 1787.

I have one vexatious fault to the kindly-welcome, well-filled sheet which I owe to your and Charlotte's goodness,--it contains too much sense, sentiment, and good-spelling. It is impossible that even you two, whom I declare to my G.o.d I will give credit for any degree of excellence the s.e.x are capable of attaining, it is impossible you can go on to correspond at that rate; so like those who, Shenstone says, retire because they make a good speech, I shall, after a few letters, hear no more of you. I insist that you shall write whatever comes first: what you see, what you read, what you hear, what you admire, what you dislike, trifles, bagatelles, nonsense; or to fill up a corner, e'en put down a laugh at full length. Now none of your polite hints about flattery; I leave that to your lovers, if you have or shall have any; though, thank heaven, I have found at last two girls who can be luxuriantly happy in their own minds and with one another, without that commonly necessary appendage to female bliss--A LOVER.

Charlotte and you are just two favourite resting-places for my soul in her wanderings through the weary, th.o.r.n.y wilderness of this world. G.o.d knows I am ill-fitted for the struggle: I glory in being a Poet, and I want to be thought a wise man--I would fondly be generous, and I wish to be rich. After all, I am afraid I am a lost subject. "Some folk hae a hantle o' fauts, an' I'm but a ne'er-do-weel."

_Afternoon_--To close the melancholy reflections at the end of last sheet, I shall just add a piece of devotion commonly known in Carrick by the t.i.tle of the "Wabster's grace:"--

"Some say we're thieves, and e'en sae are we, Some say we lie, and e'en sae do we!

Gude forgie us, and I hope sae will he!