my ain, gat o'er the lugs in love wi' a braw, bonie, fodgel hizzie frae the English side, weel-ken'd i' the burgh of Annan by the name o' "Bonie Mary ;" and I tauld the tale as follows: (N. B.-The chorus is auld.) * COME COWE ME, MINNIE, COME COWE ME. Forgive this wicked scrawl. Thine in all the sincerity of a brace of honest Port. Oct. 25th 1793. R. B. THE PATRIARCH-A WICKED SONG, AUTHOR'S NAME UNKNOWN.* (CHAMBERS, 1852.) Tune.-"The Waukin o' a winter's night." THE PUBLISHER ΤΟ THE READER. READER.-Courteous Reader,―The following is certainly the production of one of those licentious, ungodly (too-much-abounding in this our day) wretches, who take it as a compli ment to be called wicked, provided you allow them to be witty. Pity it is that while so many tar-barrels in the country are empty, and so many gibbets untenanted, some example is not made of these profligates! * Chambers, who first printed this heading in 1852, records that the poet's MS. was then possessed by the Town Clerk of Forfar. ་ (7) TO MR. ROBERT CLEGHORN, SAUGHTON MILLS. (DOUGLAS, 1877.) My best compliments to Mrs. Cleghorn, and all your friends of my acquaintance. Many happy returns of the season to you, my worthy Sir, and (pardon me) your fully as worthy bedfellow. The foregoing poem is for her. For you, I make a present of the following new edition of an old Cloaciniad song, a species of composition which I have heard you admire, and a kind of song which I knew you wanted much. It is sung to an old tune, something like "Tak your ould cloak about ye." There was twa wives, and twa witty wives, Sat o'er a stowp o' brandy, &c., &c. God speed the plough, and send a good seed time! Amen! Farewell! ROBT. BURNS. The reader may recollect of a letter by Lord Byron, dated 14th Dec. 1813, addressed to his friend Hodgson, in which he writes of some of Burns's manuscript letters thus:-"Will you tell Drury I have a treasure for him-a whole set of original Burns letters never published, nor to be published; for they are full of fearful oaths, and the most nauseous songs-all humorous, but coarse bawdry. However they are curiosities and shew him quite in a new point of view-the mixture, or rather contrast of tenderness, delicacy, obscenity, and coarseness in the same mind is wonderful." We suspect that Byron has not characterized those manuscripts quite correctly in every particular; for we never found "fearful oaths" in any of our poet's writings, and not one, even of his wickedest songs, can truly be termed " nauseous." ET. 35.] THE BRITTLE THREAD OF LIFE. 379 (38) TO MRS. DUNLOP OF DUNLOP. (CURRIE, 1800.) DUMFRIES, 15th Dec. 1793. MY DEAR FRIEND.-As I am in a complete Decemberish humor, gloomy, sullen, stupid, as even the deity of Dulness herself could wish, I shall not drawl out a heavy letter with a number of heavier apologies for my late silence. Only one I shall mention, because I know you will sympathise in it: these four months, a sweet little girl, my youngest child, has been so ill, that every day, a week or less threatened to terminate her existence.* There had much need be many pleasures annexed to the state of husband and father, for God knows they have many peculiar cares. I cannot describe to you the anxious, sleepless hours these ties have frequently given me. I see a train of helpless little folk; me and my exertions all their stay; and on what a brittle thread does the life of man hang! If I am nipt off at the command of fate; even in all the vigor of manhood as I am, such things happen every day-gracious God! what would become of my little flock! 'Tis here I envy your people of fortune. A father on his death-bed, taking an everlasting leave of his children, has indeed woe enough; but the man of competent fortune leaves his sons and daughters independency and friends; while I-but I shall run distracted if I think any longer on the subject ! To leave off talking of the matter so gravely, I shall sing with the old Scots ballad : This was Elizabeth Riddell Burns, whose birth is announced at page 313, supra. She appears to have been from the first, a delicate infant, and at this date was the poet's youngest child; "James Glencairn" followed in August 1794, and Elizabeth was sent to be nursed by the Armours at Mauchline, where she died in Autumn 1795. 380 WIFE AND WEANS AND CROWDIE. [1793 "O that I had ne'er been married, Crowdie three times in a day; Ye'll crowdie a' my meal away." December 24th. We have had a brilliant theatre here this season; only, as all other business has, it experiences a stagnation of trade from the epidemical complaint of the country-want of cash. I mention our theatre merely to lug in an occasional "Address" which I wrote for the benefit night of one of the actresses, which is as follows: ADDRESS SPOKEN BY MISS FONTENELLE ON HER BENEFIT NIGHT. Wednesday December 4th, 1793,* at the Theatre Dumfries. "Still anxious to secure your partial favor, And not less anxious, sure this night than ever," &c. See page 194, supra. 25th, Christmas Morning. This, my much loved friend, is a morning of wishes: accept mine-so Heaven hear me, as they are sincere! that blessings may attend your steps, and affliction know you not! In the charming words of my favorite author, The Man of Feeling, "May the great spirit bear up the weight of the grey hairs: and blunt the arrow that brings them rest!" Now that I talk of authors, how do you like Cow Currie, who dates this letter 1795, has set down the date of this "benefit night" as having been "December 4th, 1795," and his mistake has been hitherto followed by every editor of Burns. The internal evidence, however, for 1793 is too strong to be controverted. per? Is not the Task a glorious poem? The religion of the Task, bating a few scraps of Calvinistic divinity, is the religion of God and Nature: the religion that exalts, that ennobles man. Were not you to send me your Zeluco in return for mine? Tell me how you like my marks and notes through the book. I would not give a farthing for a book, unless I were at liberty to blot it with my criticisms. * I have lately collected, for a friend's perusal, all my letters: I mean those which I first sketched, in a rough draught, and afterwards wrote out fair. On looking over some old musty papers, which from time to time I had parcelled by, as trash that was scarce worth preserving, and which yet at the same time I did not care to destroy; I discovered many of these rude sketches, and have written, and am writing them out, in a bound MS. for my friend's library. As I wrote always to you the rhapsody of the moment, I cannot find a single scroll to you, except one, about the commencement of our acquaintance. If there were any possible conveyance, I would send you a perusal of my book. R. B. It may The crowning evidence to prove Dr. Currie's mis-date of the foregoing letter lies in the closing paragraph where the poet refers to the Glenriddell manuscript book of letters. be suggested that this is only another instance of several fragments of the poet's correspondence being, in absence of full dates, conjecturally thrown together in the process of arranging the chronology of the letters; but it will be found that the text of each of the three divisions renders Dr. Currie's date an impossible one. In December 1795, the little girl whose ill health the writer deplores in the first portion of his letter, had been four months dead; and he himself was just getting into a convalescent state after being nearly brought by disease to the gates of death. At such a time, he could not have spoken of himself as being then "in all the vigor of manhood;" *At page 239, supra, we have referred to this copy of Zeluco, now in the hands of Mrs. Dunlop's representatives. |
