The Complete Works of Robert Burns Part 211

_Ellisland, 16th August, 1788._

I am in a fine disposition, my honoured friend, to send you an elegiac epistle; and want only genius to make it quite Shenstonian:--

"Why droops my heart with fancied woes forlorn?

Why sinks my soul, beneath each wintry sky?"

My increasing cares in this, as yet strange country--gloomy conjectures in the dark vista of futurity--consciousness of my own inability for the struggle of the world--my broadened mark to misfortune in a wife and children;--I could indulge these reflections till my humour should ferment into the most acid chagrin, that would corrode the very thread of life.

To counterwork these baneful feelings, I have sat down to write to you; as I declare upon my soul I always find that the most sovereign balm for my wounded spirit.

I was yesterday at Mr. Miller's to dinner for the first time. My reception was quite to my mind: from the lady of the house quite flattering. She sometimes. .h.i.ts on a couplet or two, _impromptu._ She repeated one or two to the admiration of all present. My suffrage as a professional man, was expected: I for once went agonizing over the belly of my conscience. Pardon me, ye my adored household G.o.ds, independence of spirit, and integrity of soul! In the course of conversation, "Johnson's Musical Museum," a collection of Scottish songs with the music, was talked of. We got a song on the harpsichord, beginning,

"Raving winds around her blowing."[187]

The air was much admired: the lady of the house asked me whose were the words. "Mine, Madam--they are indeed my very best verses;" she took not the smallest notice of them! The old Scottish proverb says well, "king's caff is better than ither folks' corn." I was going to make a New Testament quotation about "casting pearls" but that would be too virulent, for the lady is actually a woman of sense and taste.

After all that has been said on the other side of the question, man is by no means a happy creature. I do not speak of the selected few, favoured by partial heaven, whose souls are tuned to gladness amid riches and honours, and prudence and wisdom. I speak of the neglected many, whose nerves, whose sinews, whose days are sold to the minions of fortune.

If I thought you had never seen it, I would transcribe for you a stanza of an old Scottish ballad, called, "The Life and Age of Man;"

beginning thus:

"'Twas in the sixteenth hunder year Of G.o.d and fifty-three, Frae Christ was born, that bought us dear, As writings testifie."

I had an old grand-uncle, with whom my mother lived awhile in her girlish years; the good old man, for such he was, was long blind ere he died, during which time his highest enjoyment was to sit down and cry, while my mother would sing the simple old song of "the Life and Age of Man."

It is this way of thinking; it is these melancholy truths, that make religion so precious to the poor, miserable children of men.--If it is a mere phantom, existing only in the heated imagination of enthusiasm,

"What truth on earth so precious as a lie."

My idle reasonings sometimes make me a little sceptical, but the necessities of my heart always give the cold philosophisings the lie.

Who looks for the heart weaned from earth; the soul affianced to her G.o.d; the correspondent devout thanksgiving, constant as the vicissitudes of even and morn; who thinks to meet with these in the court, the palace, in the glare of public life? No: to find them in their precious importance and divine efficacy, we must search among the obscure recesses of disappointment, affliction, poverty, and distress.

I am sure, dear Madam, you are now more than pleased with the length of my letters. I return to Ayrshire middle of next week: and it quickens my pace to think that there will be a letter from you waiting me there. I must be here again very soon for my harvest.

R. B.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 187: See Song LII.]

Cx.x.xIII.

TO MR. BEUGO,

ENGRAVER, EDINBURGH.

[Mr. Beugo was at well-known engraver in Edinburgh: he engraved Nasmyth's portrait of Burns, for Creech's first edition of his Poems; and as he could draw a little, he improved, as he called it, the engraving from sittings of the poet, and made it a little more like, and a little less poetic.]

_Ellisland, 9th Sept. 1788._

MY DEAR SIR,

There is not in Edinburgh above the number of the graces whose letters would have given me so much pleasure as yours of the 3d instant, which only reached me yesternight.

I am here on the farm, busy with my harvest; but for all that most pleasurable part of life called SOCIAL COMMUNICATION, I am here at the very elbow of existence. The only things that are to be found in this country, in any degree of perfection, are stupidity and canting. Prose they only know in graces, prayers, &c., and the value of these they estimate as they do their plaiding webs--by the ell! As for the muses, they have as much an idea of a rhinoceros as of a poet.

For my old capricious but good-natured huzzy of a muse--

"By banks of Nith I sat and wept When Coila I thought on, In midst thereof I hung my harp The willow-trees upon."

I am generally about half my time in Ayrshire with my "darling Jean,"

and then I, at lucid intervals, throw my h.o.r.n.y fist across my becob-webbed lyre, much in the same manner as an old wife throws her hand across the spokes of her spinning-wheel.

I will send you the "Fortunate Shepherdess" as soon as I return to Ayrshire, for there I keep it with other precious treasure. I shall send it by a careful hand, as I would not for anything it should be mislaid or lost. I do not wish to serve you from any benevolence, or other grave Christian virtue; 'tis purely a selfish gratification of my own feelings whenever I think of you.

If your better functions would give you leisure to write me, I should be extremely happy; that is to say if you neither keep nor look for a regular correspondence. I hate the idea of being obliged to write a letter. I sometimes write a friend twice a week, at other times once a quarter.

I am exceedingly pleased with your fancy in making the author you mention place a map of Iceland instead of his portrait before his works: 'twas a glorious idea.

Could you conveniently do me one thing?--whenever you finish any head I should like to have a proof copy of it. I might tell you a long story about your fine genius; but as what everybody knows cannot have escaped you, I shall not say one syllable about it.

R. B.

Cx.x.xIV.

TO MISS CHALMERS,

EDINBURGH.

[To this fine letter all the biographer of Burns are largely indebted.]

_Ellisland, near Dumfries, Sept. 16th, 1788._

Where are you? and how are you? and is Lady Mackenzie recovering her health? for I have had but one solitary letter from you. I will not think you have forgot me, Madam; and for my part--

"When thee, Jerusalem, I forget, Skill part from my right hand!"