poet, whic CORRESPONDENCE. never was effaced. The verses I allude to are among the most imperfect of his pieces; but a few stanzas may perhaps be an object of curiosity to you, both on account of the character to which they relate, and of the light which they throw on the situation and feelings of the writer, before his name was known to the public. the first, and aways wished that his pursuits and habits should continue the same as in the former part of life; with the addition of, what I considered as then completely within his reach, a good farm on moderate terms, in a part of the country agreeable to his taste. The attentions he received during his stay in town from all ranks and descriptions of persons, I cannot positively say, at this distance of were such as would have turned any head but I cannot say that I could perceive time, whether, at the period of our first ac- his own. quaintance, the Kilmarnock edition of his poems any unfavourable effect which they left on his had been just published, or was yet in the press. mind. He retained the same simplicity of manI suspect that the latter was the case, as I have ners and appearance which had struck me so still in my possession copies in his own hand-forcibly when I first saw him in the country; writing, or some of his favourite performances; nor did he seem to feel any additional self-imparticularly of his verses "on turning up a portance from the number and rank of his new Mouse with his plough ;"-" on the Mountain acquaintance. His dress was perfectly suited to Daisy ;" and "the Lament." On my return to his station, plain and unpretending, with a sufEdinburgh, I showed the volume, and mention- ficient attention to neatness If I recollect right ed what I knew of the author's history, to se- he always wore boots; and, when on more than veral of my friends, and among others, to Mr. usual ceremony, buck-skin breeches. Henry Mackenzie, who first recommended him to public notice in the 97th number of The Lounger. The variety of his engagements, while in Edinburgh, prevented me from seeing him so often as I could have wished. In the course of At this time Burns's prospects in life were so the spring he called on me once or twice, at extremely gloomy, that he had seriously formed my request, early in the morning, and walked a plan of going out to Jamaica in a very humble with me to Braid-Hills, in the neighbourhood situation, not, however, without lamenting, that of the town, when he charmed me still more by his want of patronage should force him to think his private conversation, than he had ever done He was passionately fond of the of a project so repugnant to his feelings, when in company. his ambition aimed at no higher an object than beauties of nature; and I recollect once he told the station of an exciseman or gauger in his own me, when I was admiring a distant prospect in one of our morning walks, that the sight of so country. His manners were then, as they continued many smoking cottages gave a pleasure to his ever afterwards, simple, manly, and indepen-mind, which none could understand who had dent; strongly expressive of conscious genius not witnessed, like himself, the happiness and and worth; but without any thing that indica- the worth which they contained. In his political principles he was then a Jated forwardness, arrogance, or vanity. He took his share in conversation, but not more than cobite; which was perhaps owing partly to belonged to him; and listened with apparent this, that his father was originally from the esattention and deference, on subjects where his tate of Lord Mareschall. Indeed he did not want of education deprived him of the means of appear to have thought much on such subjects, information. If there had been a little more of nor very consistently. He had a very strong gentleness and accommodation in his temper, he sense of religion, and expressed deep regret at would, I think, have been still more interest-the levity with which he had heard it treated ing; but he had been accustomed to give law occasionally in some convivial meetings which in the circle of his ordinary acquaintance; and he frequented. I speak of him as he was in his dread of any thing approaching to meanness the winter of 1786-7; for afterwards we met or servility, rendered his manner somewhat de-but se'dom, and our conversations turned chiefcided and hard. Nothing, perhaps, was more ly on his literary projects, or his private affairs. I do not recollect whether it appears or not remarkable among his various attainments, than the fluency, and precision, and originality of from any of your letters to me, that you had If you have, is superfluous his language, when he spoke in company; more ever seen Burns. particularly as he aimed at purity in his turn of for me add, that the idea which his conversa expression, and avoided more successfully than tion conveyed of the powers of his mind, exmost Scotchmen, the peculiarities of Scottish phraseology. He came to Edinburgh early in the winter following, and remained there for several months. By whose advice he took this step, I am unable to say. Perhaps it was suggested only by his own curiosity to see a little more of the world; but, I confess, I dreaded the consequences from • See Songs, p. 210. ceeded, if possible, that which is suggested by his writings. Among the poets whom I have happened to know, I have been struck, in more than one instance, with the unaccountable disparity between their general talents, and the occasional inspirations of their more favoured moments. But all the faculties of Burns's mind were, as far as I could judge, equally vigorous; and his predilection for poetry was rather the result of his own enthusiastic and impassioned which he heard them. The collection of songs by Dr. Aiken, which I first put into his hands, he read with unmixed delight, notwithstanding his former efforts in that very difficult species of writing; and I have little doubt that it had some effect in polishing his subsequent compositions. temper, than of a genius exclusively adapted to degree of true genius, the extreme facility and that species of composition. From his couver- good nature of his taste, in judging of the comsation I should have pronounced him to be fit- positions of others, where there was any real ted to excel in whatever walk of ambition he ground for praise. I repeated to him many had chosen to exert his abilities. passages of English poetry with which he was Among the subjects on which he was accus- unacquainted, and have more than once wittomed to dwell, the characters of the individu-nessed the tears of admiration and rapture with als with whom he happened to meet, was plainly a favourite one. The remarks he made on them were always shrewd and pointed, though frequently inclining too much to sarcasm. His praise of those he loved was sometimes indiscriminate and extravagant; but this, I suspect, proceeded rather from the caprice and humour of the moment, than from the effects of attachment in blinding his judgment. His wit was ready, and always impressed with the marks of a vigorous understanding; but, to my taste, not often pleasing or happy. His attempts at epigram, in his printed works, are the only performances, perhaps, that he has produced, totally unworthy of his genius. In judging of prose, I do not think his taste was equally sound. I once read to him a passage or two in Franklin's Works, which I thought very happily executed, upon the model of Addison; but he did not appear to relish, or to perceive the beauty which they derived from their exquisite simplicity, and spoke of them with indifference, when compared with the In summer, 1787, I passed some weeks in point, and antithesis, and quaintness of Junius. Ayrshire, and saw Burns occasionally. I think The influence of this taste is very perceptible that he made a pretty long excursion that sea- in his own prose compositions, although their son to the Highlands, and that he also visited great and various excellencies render some of what Beattie calls the Arcadian ground of Scot-them scarcely less objects of wonder than his land, upon the banks of the Teviot and the poetical performances. The late Dr. Robertson Tweed. used to say, that, considering his education, the I should have mentioned before, that not-former seemed to him the more extraordinary of withstanding various reports I heard during the the two. preceding winter, of Burns's predilection for convivial, and not very select society, I should have concluded in favour of his habits of sobriety, from all of him that ever fell under my own observation. He told me indeed himself, that the weakness of his stomach was such as to deprive him entirely of any merit in his temperance. I was however somewhat alarmed about the effect of his now comparatively sedentary and luxurious life, when he confessed to me, the first night he spent in my house after his winter's campaign in town, that he had been much disturbed when in bed, by a palpitation at his heart, which, he said, was a complaint to which he had of late become subject. His memory was uncommonly retentive, at least for poetry, of which he recited to me frequently long compositions with the most minute accuracy. They were chiefly ballads, and other pieces in our Scottish dialect; great part of them (he told me) he had learned in his childhood, from his mother, who delighted in such recitations, and whose poetical taste, rude as it probably was, gave, it is presumable, the first direction to her son's genius. Of the more polished verses which accidentally fell into his hands in his early years, he mentioned particularly the recommendatory poems, by different authors, prefixed to Hervey's Meditations; a book which has always had a very wide circulation among such of the coun degree of taste with their religious studies. And these poems (although they are certainly below mediocrity) he continued to read with a degree of rapture beyond expression. He took notice of this fact himself, as a proof how much the taste is liable to be influenced by accidental cir In the course of the same season, I was led by curiosity to attend for an hour or two a Ma-try people of Scotland, as affect to unite some son-Lodge in Mauchline, where Burns presided. He had occasion to make some short unpremeditated compliments to different individuals from whom he had no reason to expect a visit, and every thing he said was happily conceived, and forcibly as well as fluently expressed. If I am not mistaken, he told me, that in that cumstances. village, before going to Edinburgh, he had be- His father appeared to me, from the account longed to a small club of such of the inhabi- he gave of him, to have been a respectable and tants as had a taste for books, when they used worthy character, possessed of a mind superior to converse and debate on any interesting ques-to what might have been expected from his tions that occurred to them in the course of station in life. He ascribed much of his own their reading. His manner of speaking in pub-principles and feelings to the early impressions lic had evidently the marks of some practice in he had received from his instructions and examextempore elocution. ple. I recollect that he once applied to him I must not omit to mention, what I have al-(and he added, that the passage was a literal ways considered as characteristical in a high statement of fact,) the two last lines of the fol lowing passage in the Minstrel; the whole of surprise at the distinct conception he appeared which he repeated with great enthusiasm: This truth sublime, his simple sire had taught: With respect to Burns's early education, I cannot say any thing with certainty. He al from it to have formed, of the general principles of the doctrine of association. When I saw Mr. Alison in Shropshire last autumn, I forgot to inquire if the letter be still in existence. If it is, you may easily procure it, by means of our friend Mr. Houlbrooke. No. LXIX. FROM GILBERT BURNS TO DR. CURRIE, PRINCIPAL POEMS. Ir may gratify curiosity to know some particulars of the history of the preceding Poems, on which the celebrity of our Bard has been hitherto founded; and with this view the following extract is made from a letter of Gilbert Burns, the brother of our Poet, and his friend and confidant from his earliest years. ways spoke with respect and gratitude of the GIVING THE HISTORY OF THE ORIGIN OF THE school-master who had taught him to read English; and who, finding in his scholar a more than ordinary ardour for knowledge, had been at pains to instruct him in the grammatical principles of the language. He began the study of Latin, but dropped it before he had finished the verbs. I have sometimes heard him quote a few Latin words, such as omnia vincit amor, &c., but they seemed to be such as he had caught from conversation, and which he repeated by rote. I think he had a project, after he came to Edinburgh, of prosecuting the study under his intimate friend, the late Mr. Nicoll, one of the masters of the grammar-school here; but I do not know that he ever proceeded so far as to make the attempt. He certainly possessed a smattering of French; and, if he had an affectation in any thing, it was in introducing occasionally a word or phrase from that language. It is possible that his knowledge in this respect might be more extensive than I suppose it to be; but this you can learn from his more intimate acquaintance. It would be worth while to inquire, whether he was able to read the French authors with such facility as to receive from them any improvement to his taste. For my own part, I doubt it much-nor would I believe it, but on very strong and pointed evidence. DEAR SIR, Mossgiel, 2d April, 1798. YOUR letter of the 14th of March I received in due course, but, from the hurry of the season, have been hitherto hindered from answering it. I will now try to give you what satisfaction I can in regard to the particulars you mention. I cannot pretend to be very accurate in respect to the dates of the poems, but none of them, except Winter, a Dirge, (which was a juvenile production), the Death and Dying Words of poor Mailie, and some of the songs, were composed before the year 1784. The cir cumstances of the poor sheep were pretty much as he has described them. He had, partly by way of frolic, bought a ewe and two lambs from a neighbour, and she was tethered in a field adjoining the house at Lochlie. He and I were going out with our teams, and our two younger brothers to drive for us, at mid-day, when Hugh Wilson, a curious looking awkward boy, clad in plaiding, came to us with much anxiety in his face, with the information that the ewe had entangled herself in the tether, and was lyThe last time I saw him was during the win- ing in the ditch. Robert was much tickled ter, 1788-89; when he passed an evening with with Hughoc's appearance and postures on the me at Drumsheugh, in the neighbourhood of occasion. Poor Mailie was set to rights, and Edinburgh, where I was then living. My friend when we returned from the plough in the evenMr. Alison was the only other person in com-ing, he repeated to me her Death and Dying pany. I never saw him more agreeable or interesting. A present which Mr. Alison sent him afterwards of his Essays on Taste, drew from Burns a letter of acknowledgment, which I remember to have read with some degree of If my memory does not fail me, he was well instructed in arithmetic, and knew something of practical geometry, particularly of surveying. -All his other attainments were entirely his own. Words pretty much in the way they now stand. Among the earliest of his poems was the Epistle to Davie. Robert often composed without any regular plan. When any thing made a strong impression on his mind, so as to rouse it on the rock, or distaff. This simple instrument is a very portable one, and well fitted to the social inclination of meeting in a neighbour's house; hence the phrase of going a-rocking or with the rock. As the connection the phrase had with the implement was forgotten when the rock gave way to the spinning-wheel, the phrase came to be used by both sexes on social occasions, and men talk of going with their rocks as well as women. to poetic exertion, he would give way to the was letting the water off the field beside me impulse, and embody the thought in rhyme. The Epistle to John Lapraik was produced If he hit on two or three stanzas to please him, exactly on the occasion described by the author. he would then think of proper introductory, He says in that poem, On fasten e'en he had a connecting, and concluding stanzas; hence the rockin'. I believe he has omitted the word middle of a poem was often first produced. It rocking in the glossary. It is a term derived was, I think, in summer 1784, when in the from those primitive times, when the countryinterval of harder labour, he and I were weed-women employed their spare hours in spinning ing in the garden (kailyard) that he repeated to me the principal part of this epistle. I believe the first idea of Robert's becoming an author was started on this occasion. I was much pleased with the epistle, and said to him I was of opinion it would bear being printed, and that it would be well received by people of taste; that I thought it at least equal, if not superior, to many of Allan Ramsay's epistles, and that the merit of these, and much other Scotch poetry, seemed to consist principally in the knack of the expression-but here, there was a strain of interesting sentiment, and the Scotticism of the language scarcely seemed affected, but appeared to be the natural language of the poet; that, besides, there was certainly some novelty in a poet pointing out the consolations that were in store for him when he should go a-begging. Robert seemed very well pleased with my criticism; and we talked of sending it to some magazine, but as this plan afforded no opportunity of knowing how it would take, the idea was dropped. It was, I think, in the winter following, as we were going together with carts for coal to the family fire (and I could yet point out the particular spot), that the author first repeated to me the Address to the Deil. The curious idea of such an address was suggested to him, by running over in his mind the many ludicrous accounts and representations we have, from various quarters, of this august personage. Death and Dr. Hornbook, though not published in the Kilmarnock edition, was produced early in the year 1785. The schoolmaster of Tarbolton parish, to eke up the scanty subsistence allowed to that useful class of men, had set up a shop of grocery goods. Having accidentally fallen in with some medical books, and become most hobby-horsically attached to the study of medicine, he had added the sale of a few medicines to his little trade. He had got a shop-bill printed, at the bottom of which, overlooking his own incapacity, he had advertised, that "Advice would be given in common disorders at the shop, gratis." Robert was at a masonmeeting, in Tarbolton, when the "Dominie" unfortunately made too ostentatious a display of his medical skill. As he parted in the evening from this mixture of pedantry and physic, at the place where he describes his meeting with Death, one of those floating ideas of apparition, he mentions in his letter to Dr. Moore, crossed his mind; this set him to work for the rest of the way home. These circumstances he related when he repcated the verses to me next afternoon, as I was holding the plough, and he It was at one of these rockings at our house, when we had twelve or fifteen young people with their rocks, that Lapraik's song, beginning"When I upon thy bosom lean," was sung, and we are informed who was the author. Upon this Robert wrote his first epistle to Lapraik; and his second in reply to his answer. The verses to the Mouse and Mountain-Daisy were composed on the occasions mentioned, and while the author was holding the plough; 1 could point out the particular spot where each was composed. Holding the plough was a favourite situation with Robert for poetic compositions, and some of his best verses were produced while he was at that exercise. Several of the poems were produced for the purpose of bringing forward some favourite sentiment of the author. He used to remark to me, that he could not well conceive a more mortifying picture of human life than a man seeking work. In casting about in his mind how this sentiment might be brought forward, the elegy Man was made to Mourn, was composed. Robert had frequently remarked to me, that he thought there was sothing peculiarly venerable in the phrase, "Let us worship God," used by a decent sober head of a family introducing family worship. To this sentiment of the author the world is indebted for the Cotter's Saturday Night. The hint of the plan, and the title of the poem, were taken from Fergusson's Farmer's Ingle. When Robert had not some pleasure in view in which I was not thought fit to partici pate, we used frequently to walk together when the weather was favourable, on the Sunday afternoons, (those precious breathing-times to the labouring part of the community), and enjoyed such Sundays as would make one regret to see their number abridged. It was in one of these walks that I first had the pleasure of hearing the author repeat the Cotter's Saturday Night. I do not recollect to have read or heard any thing by which I was more highly electrified. The fifth and sixth stanzas, and the eighteenth, thrilled with peculiar ecstasy through my soul. I mention this to you, that you may see what hit the taste of unlettered criticism. I should This poem is founded on a traditional story. The leading circumstances of a man riding home very late from Ayr, in a stormy night, his seeing a light in Alloway Kirk, his having the curiosity to look in, his seeing a dance of witches, with the devil playing on the bag-pipe to them, the scanty covering of one of the witches, which made him so far forget himself as to cry-" Weel loupen, short sark !"-with the melancholy catastrophe of the piece; is all a true story, that can be well attested by many respectable old people in that neighbourhood. I do not at present recollect any circumstances respectig the other poems, that could be at all interesting; even some of those I have mentioned, I am afraid, may appear trifling enough, but you will only make use of what appears to you of consequence. be glad to know, if the enlightened mind and make a drawing of Alloway Kirk, as it was the refined taste of Mr. Roscoe, who has borne such burial-place of his father, and where he himself honourable testimony to this poem, agrees with had a sort of claim to lay down his bones when me in the selection. Fergusson, in his Hallow they should be no longer serviceable to him; Fair of Edinburgh, I believe, likewise furnish- and added, by way of encouragement, that it ed a hint of the title and plan of the Holy Fair. was the scene of many a good story of witches The farcical scene the poet there describes and apparitions, of which he knew the Captain was often a favourite field of his observation, was very fond. The Captain agreed to the reand the most of the incidents he mentions quest, provided the Poet would furnish a witchhad actually passed before his eyes. It is scarce-story, to be printed along with it. Tam o' ly necessary to mention, that the Lament was Shanter was produced on this occasion, and was composed on that unfortunate passage in his ina- first published in Grose's Antiquities of Scottrimonial history, which I have mentioned in land. my letter to Mrs. Dunlop, after the first distraction of his feelings had a little subsided. The Tale of Twa Dogs was composed after the resolution of publishing was nearly taken. Robert had had a dog, which he called Luath, that was a great favourite. The dog had been killed by the wanton cruelty of some person the night before my father's death. Robert said to me, that he should like to confer such immortality as he could bestow upon his old friend Luath, and that he had a great mind to introduce something into the book under the title of Stanzas to the Memory of a quadruped Friend; but this plan was given up for the Tale as it now stands. Cæsar was merely the creature of the poet's imagination, created for the purpose of holding chat with his favourite Luath. The first time Robert heard the spinnet played upon, was at the house of Dr. Lawrie, then minisier of the parish The following Poems in the first Edinburgh of Loudon, now in Glasgow, having given up edition, were not in that published in Kilmarthe parish in favour of his son. Dr. Lawrie nock. Death and Dr. Hornbook; The Brigs has several daughters; one of them played; the of Ayr; The Calf; (the poet had been with father and mother led down the dance; the rest Mr. Gavin Hamilton in the morning, who said of the sisters, the brother, the poet, and the jocularly to him when he was going to church, other guest, mixed in it. It was a delightful in allusion to the injunction of some parents to family scene for our poet, then lately introduced their children, that he must be sure to bring to the world. His mind was roused to a poetic him a note of the sermon at mid-day; this adenthusiasm, and the stanzas, p. 36, were left in dress to the Reverend Gentleman on his text the room where he slept. It was to Dr. Law- was accordingly produced). The Ordination; rie that Dr. Blacklock's letter was addressed, The Address to the Unco Guid; Tam Samwhich my brother, in his letter to Dr. Moore, son's Elegy; A Winter Night; Stanzas on mentions as the reason of his going to Edinburgh. the same occasion as the preceding prayer; When my father feued his little property near Verses left at a Reverend Friend's house; The Alloway Kirk, the wall of the church-yard had firsl Psalm; Prayer under the pressure of viogone to ruin, and cattle had free liberty of pas-lent anguish; The first six verses of the nineturing in it. My father, with two or three other teenth Psalm; Verses to Miss Logan, with neighbours, joined in an application to the town Beattie's Poems; To a Haggis; Address to council of Ayr, who were superiors of the ad- Edinburgh; John Barleycorn; When Guiljoining land, for liberty to rebuild it, and raised ford Guid; Behind yon hills where Stinchar by subscription a sum for enclosing this ancient flows; Green grow the Rashes; Again recemetery with a wall; hence he came to con-joicing Nature sees; The gloomy Night; No sider it as his burial-place, and we learned that Churchman am I. reverence for it, people generally have for the burial-place of their ancestors. My brother was living in Ellisland, when Captain Grose, on his peregrinations through Scotland, s.aid some time at Carse-house, in the neighbourhood, with Captain Robert Riddel, of Glen-Riddell, a particular friend of my brother's. The Antiquarian and the Poet were "Unco pack and thick thegither." Robert requested of Captain Grose, when he should come to Ayrshir», that he would No. LXX. FROM GILBERT BURNS ΤΟ DR. CURRIE. Dinning, Dumfriesshire, 24th Oct. 1800. DEAR SIR, YOURS of the 17th instant came to my hand |