At this unhappy period, the bard looked to his Muse for consolation. Jean Lorimer, about the beginning of 1793, came to reside in Dumfries, and the spell of her charms was soon thrown over him. During this month he produced the beautiful songs "Gala Water," "Poortith Cauld," and "Lord Gregory." Above all, on the morning of his own Birthday, the following sweet sonnet was suggested to him on hearing a thrush utter its melting notes amid the bleakness of winter. Sing on, sweet thrush, upon the leafless bough, So, in lone Poverty's dominion drear, Sits meek Content with light unanxious heart; I thank thee, Author of this opening day! Thou whose bright sun now gilds yon orient skies! Riches denied, thy boon was purer joys What Wealth could neither give nor take away! Yet come, thou child of Poverty and care, The mite high Heaven bestowed, that mite with thee I'll share. We may now consider that the "political blast which threatened our Bard's welfare is overblown," and everything "set to rights with the Board;" even under the cruel impediment that "all hopes of his getting officially forward are blasted." The following amusing letter from his old friend William Nicol of the High School, Edinburgh, will indicate what kind of rumors had reached "the buckish tradesmen and stately patricians" of the capital about the affair. Paine produced his "Rights of Man," she published "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman." The book is an appeal against Rousseau's theory that women were made for the pleasure of man, and that their education should fit them to be our mistresses rather than our companions. It protests against the false gallantries which lower women under pretext of raising them, and claims for them a perfect social and political equality with man. She had hitherto lived a blameless single life; but, attracted by the inviting aspect of the dawn of the French Revolution, she removed from London to Paris, where, in the spring of 1793, she attached herself to, and lived with, Gilbert Imlay, an American, who eventually turned out to be a heartless fellow. He deserted her after the birth of a child, and returning to London, she attempted to drown herself about the close of 1795. She was rescued, and six months thereafter became the wife of the eccentric William Godwin. On 10th September 1797 she died in giving birth to a daughter, who afterwards became the wife of the poet Shelley, and survived to 1851. DEAR CHRISTLESS BOBBIE,-What is become of thee? Has the Devil flown off with thee, as the gled does with a bird? If he should do so there is little matter, if the reports concerning thy imprudence are true. What concerns it thee whether the lousy Dumfriesian fiddlers play "Cà Ira," or "God save the King"? Suppose you had an aversion to the King, you could not, as a gentleman, wish God to use him worse than he has done. The infliction of idiocy is no sign of Friendship, or Love; and I am sure damnation is a matter far beyond your wishes or ideas. But reports of this kind are only the insidious suggestions of ill-minded persons; for your good sense will ever point out to you, as well as to me, a bright model of political conduct, who flourished in the victorious reign of Queen Anne, viz., the Vicar of Bray, who, during the convulsions of Great Britain which were without any former example, saw eight reigns, in perfect security; because he remembered that precept of the sensible, shrewd, temporising Apostle, "We ought not to resist the Higher Powers." You will think I have gotten a pension from the Government; but I assure you, no such a thing has been offered me. In this respect my vanity prompts me to say, they have not been so wise as I would have wished them to be; for I think their Honors have often employed as impotent scribblers. * We print this letter in the type of the text, because Burns inscribed it in his own holograph, among his own letters in the Glenriddell collection. The reader has here an opportunity to judge of the correctness of Lockhart's estimate of Nicol's letters, quoted in our footnote at page 305, Vol. II. What is become of Mrs. Burns Enough of Politics. and the dear bairns? though I do not write often my best wishes shall ever attend her and the family. My wife, who is in a high devotional fit this evening, wishes that she and her children may be reckoned the favorites of the Lord, and numbered with the elect. She indeed leaves your honor and me to shift for ourselves; as, so far as she can judge from the criteria laid down in Guthrie's "Trial of a Saving Interest" that both you and I are stamped with the marks of Reprobation. May all the curses from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation light, materially and effectually, on thy enemies; and may all the blessings of the Covenant be eminently exemplified in thy person, to the glory of a forgiving Deity! Here, or elsewhere, I am always thine sincerely, WILLM. NICOL. The above letter is introduced under the following heading :"From my worthy friend, Mr. Nicol, of the High School, Edinburgh, alluding to some temeraire conduct of mine, in the political opinions of the day." Burns made the following reply, which has hitherto been misplaced in the chronology of our author's correspondence. () TO MR. WILLIAM NICOL, EDINBURGH. (CURRIE, 1800, in part, and here completed). DUMFRIES, 20th Feb. 1793. O THOU, wisest among the Wise, meridian blaze of Prudence, full-moon of Discretion, and chief of many Counsellors! How infinitely is thy puddle-headed, rattle-headed, wrong-headed, round-headed slave indebted to thy super-eminent goodness, that from the luminous path of thy own right-lined rectitude, thou lookest benignly down on an erring wretch, of whom the ÆT. 35.] LORD OF LAGGAN'S MANY HILLS. 335 zig-zag wanderings defy all the powers of calculation, from the simple copulation of units, up to the hidden mysteries of fluxions! May one feeble ray of that light of wisdom which darts from thy sensorium, straight as the arrow of heaven, and bright as the meteor of inspiration descending from the holy and undefiled Priesthood against the head of the Unrighteous,―may it be my portion, so that I may be less unworthy of the face and favor of that father of Proverbs and master of Maxims, that antipode of Folly, and magnate among the Sages, the wise and witty Willie Nicol! Amen! Amen! Yea, so be it! For me! I am a beast, a reptile, and know nothing! From the cave of my ignorance, amid the fogs of my dulness, and pestilential fumes of my political heresies, I look up to thee, as doth a toad through the iron-barred lucerne of a pestiferous dungeon, to the cloudless glory of a summer sun! Sorely sighing in bitterness of soul, I say, When shall my name be the quotation of the wise, and my countenance be the delight of the godly, like the illustrious lord of Laggan's many hills?* As for him, his works are perfect never did the pen of Calumny blur the fair page of his reputation, nor the bolt of Hatred fly at his dwelling. At his approach is the standing up of men, even the Chiefs and the Rulers; and before his presence the frail form of lovely Woman, humbly awaiting his pleasure, is extended on the dust. Thou mirror of Purity, when shall the elfin-lamp of my glimmerous understanding, purged from sensual appetites and gross desires, shine like the constellation of thy intellectual powers !-As for thee, thy thoughts are pure, and thy lips are holy. Never did. the unhallowed breath of the powers of darkness, and the pleasures of darkness, pollute the sacred flame of *The reference here is to a small estate called Laggan, in the parish of Glencairn, Dumfriesshire, near Maxwellton, bought by Nicol in 1790. thy sky-descended and heavenward desires; never did the vapors of impurity stain the unclouded serene of thy cerulean imagination. O that like thine were the tenor of my life, like thine the tenor of my conversation! then should no friend fear for my strength, no enemy rejoice in my weakness! Then should I lie down and rise up, and none to make me afraid. thy pity and thy prayer be exercised forlamp of Wisdom and mirror of Morality! Thy devoted slave, May thou ROBT. BURNS. (") TO ALEXANDER CUNNINGHAM, ESQ., EDINBURGH. (DOUGLAS, 1877.)* DUMFRIES, 20th Feb. 1793. WHAT are you doing? What hurry have you got on your head, my dear Cunningham, that I have not heard from you? Are you deeply engaged in the mazes of the law, the mysteries of love, or in the profound wisdom of modern politics?-Curse on the word which ended the period! Quere.-What is Politics? Answer.-Politics is a science wherewith, by means of nefarious cunning and hypocritical pretence, we govern civil politics for the emolument of ourselves and adherents. Quere.-What is a Minister? Answer.-A Minister is an unprincipled fellow, who, by the influence of hereditary or acquired wealth-by superior abilities, or by a lucky conjuncture of cir The holograph was in the possession of the late James Cunningham, Esq., W. S., son of the poet's correspondent. The father died in 1812, and the son in 1878. |
