54 Feet polished Craigleith Stone for a Headstone for Robert Ferguson, at Is., 10 Feet 8 inches dble. Base Moulding, at is. 6d., 4 Large Iron Cramps, 2 Stones to set the base on, at is., 320 Letters on do., at 8s., Head, and setting up ditto, £2140 0 16 0 0 2 10 o 20 I 58 050 050 In the letter which enclosed the account to the poet in 1789, Mr. Robert Burn,* apologises for the delay that had taken place in erecting the stone, and facetiously adds:—“I shall be happy to receive orders of a like nature for as many more of your friends that have gone hence as you please.” (9) TO ALEX. CUNNINGHAM, ESQ., WRITER, EDINBURGH. (DOUGLAS, 1877.) † MY DEAR CUNNINGHAM:-To-morrow, or some day soon, I will write you as entertaining a letter as I can; in the meantime take a scrawl of very serious business. You remember Mr. Clarke, Master of the Grammar School at Moffat, whom I formerly recoinmended to your good offices: the crisis of his fate is just at hand. Mr. M'Murdo of Drumlanrig, Ferguson of Craigdarroch, and Riddell of Glenriddell, gentlemen who know Clarke personally and intimately, have strained and are straining every nerve to serve him, but alas! poor Clarke's foes are mighty! Lord Hopetoun, spurred on by those infernal creatures that always go between a great Man and his inferiors, has sworn his destruction; irritated as he justly is that any Plebeian, and the son of a Plebeian, should dare to oppose existence-a trifling affair, against his Lordship's high "Died at Edinburgh, June 5, 1815, Mr. Robert Burn, architect."-Scots Magazine. From the poet's holograph in the possession of James T. Gibson Craig, Esq., Edinburgh. See the poet's letters to Clarke at pp. 288 and 293 of present volume. ÆT. 34.] CLARKE, THE SCHOOLMASTER. 293 and mighty will. What I know, and you know that I would do for a friend of yours, I ask of you for a friend-a much esteemed friend of mine. Get the Principal's interest in his favor.* Be not denied! To interpose between lordly cruelty and helpless merit is a task worthy of you to ask, and him to execute. In the meantime, if you meet with Craigdarroch, or chance to wait on him (by the bye, I wish you would mention this very business), he will inform you of the great merits of one party, and the demerits of the other. You shall hear from me soon. DUMFRIES, 5th Feb. 1792. God bless you! ROBT. BURNS. (2) TO MR. JAMES CLARKE, SCHOOLMASTER, MOFFAT. (CHAMBERS, 1852.) DUMFRIES, 17th Feb., 1792. MY DEAR SIR,-If this finds you at Moffat, or as soon as it finds you at Moffat, you must without delay wait on Mr. Riddell, as he has been very kindly thinking of you in an affair that has occurred of a clerk's place in Manchester, which, if your hopes are desperate in your present business, he proposes procuring for you. I know your gratitude for past, as well as hopes of future, favors will induce you to pay every attention to Glenriddell's wishes; as he is almost the only, and undoubtedly the best friend that your unlucky fate has left you. Apropos, I just now hear that you have beat your foes, every tail hollow. Huzza! Io triumphe!† Mr. * Principal Robertson, the historian, was Cunningham's uncle. Notwithstanding the "triumph," it is certain that Clarke still continued to require, and did obtain, assistance from our poet, and he soon relinquished his situation at Moffat for a similar one in Forfar. The reader will hear of him again in 1796. Riddell, who is at my elbow, says that if it is so, he begs that you will wait on him directly, and I know you are too good a man not to pay your respects to your saviour. Yours, R. B. Down to the present date, the reader has seen little or nothing of any interest which Burns took in the progress of the French Revolution. Just about the time when he was corresponding with Helen Maria Williams of London, and criticising her poem on Slavery, in July 1789, the Bastile was destroyed and the Princes of the Blood and chief Noblesse were fain to escape from France. In October following, poor Louis XVI. was brought to Paris, and forced to accept the "Declaration of the Rights of Man." This was immediately followed by a Decree of the National Assembly re-constructing France into Departments; and Monastic Institutions and Titles of Nobility were suppressed. The King, who was kept a close prisoner, failed in an attempt to escape, in June 1791, and was forced formally to accept the new Constitution. Such was the position of matters at the date we have now reached. A minute examination of the daily chronicles of that period indicates little or no apprehension in Britain, that as a nation it was soon to become the enemy of the French. Certainly, from the first outbreak, Edmund Burke threw out what he deemed patriotic warnings of a bloody future; but, as yet, little suspicion of evil consequences was exhibited by the British public. In January 1792, George III. opened parliament with congratulations on the peace and internal prosperity of the country; and Burns was only one of the many thousands at home who felt and expressed sympathy with the "French reformers." At page 113, supra, we have, in connexion with the song, "The deil's awa wi' th' Exciseman," introduced Lockhart's account of the capture of a smuggling craft in February 1792 by Burns and his party, of the sale of the stores and arms of the captured vessel, and of the purchase by the poet of four carronades, said to have been afterwards forwarded by him as a present to the French National Assembly. That story may be either a fact or an invention; but it does not justify Mr. Lockhart's condemnation of the poet's act of sympathy with "The Revolution in France, which patriots behold with admiration, and angels with applause, is vilified and traduced by Burke."-Letter of "PhiloTheodosius" in the Scots Magazine, June 1790. what he reckoned the cause of human freedom. He was doing no more than was being done around him on every side. In the latter part of January 1792, a subscription was opened in Glasgow "to aid the French in carrying on the war against the emigrant princes, or any foreign power by whom they may be attacked." The newspaper paragraph in which the announcement appeared, adds that "a sum of £1200 has already been subscribed." Burns, it is true, was a servant of the government at the time he is alleged to have been guilty of "an absurd and presumptuous breach of decorum" in sending the four pieces of small ordnance to France; but he did the act openly, if it was done at all, and nowhere does it appear that any person entitled to take notice of and challenge his conduct, was of opinion that he committed a fault. TO J. LEVEN, ESQ., GEN. SUPERVISOR, EXCISE OFFICE, EDINBURGH. (DOUGLAS, 1877.)* [MARCH, 1792.] SIR,-I have sealed and secured Lawson's Tea, but no permit has yet appeared, nor can it appear before Tuesday at the nearest; so there is the greater chance of the condemnation. I shrewdly suspect the Newcastle House, Rankine and Sons, is the firm; they will think that the goods being regularly delivered to a Carrier, with proper permit, will exonerate them as to farther responsibility; and Lawson, on his part, is determined not to have anything to do with it; so our process may be the easier managed. The moment that the permits arrive, as I am pretty certain they will, I shall inform you; but, in the meantime, when the three remaining boxes arrive, as they cannot, in quality, correspond with the permit, * From Alexander Laing, Esq., Newburgh on Tay, Mr. Douglas obtained a copy of this letter from the poet's holograph, now in possession of the widow of James Painter, Esq., St. John's Wood, London, who was a nephew of the gentleman addressed. and besides, will be at least beyond the limited time a full week-are not they seizable? Mr. Mitchell mentioned to you a ballad, which I composed, and sung at one of his Excise Court dinners: here it is: THE DEIL'S AWA WI' TH' EXCISEMAN. Tune-" Madam Cossy." Chorus.-The deil's awa, the deil's awa, The deil's awa wi' th' Exciseman, He's danc'd awa, he's danc'd awa, He's danc'd awa wi' th' Exciseman, If you honor my ballad by making it one of your charming bon vivant effusions, it will secure it undoubted celebrity. I have the honor to be, Sir, your obliged and devoted humble serv., ROBT. BURNS.* On 10th April 1792. The Royal Archers of Scotland complimented Burns by granting him a Diploma as a member of their corporation, which was duly forwarded to him at Dumfries. The Poet refers to that honor conferred on him in his letter to Cunningham of 10th September following. The Diploma is now preserved in the bard's Monument at Edinburgh. (3) TO WILLIAM CREECH, ESQ., BOOKSELLER. (DOUGLAS, 1877.) DUMFRIES, 16th April 1792. SIR, I this moment have yours, and were it not that habit, as usual, has deadened conscience, my *In our note at page 283, supra, attached to the popular song referred to, we found on this letter, as helping to overturn the romantic story communicated by Mr. Joseph Train to Sir Walter Scott in 1827, concerning the occasion which prompted the song. |
