add to your enjoyments-so help Sylvander, ye Powers above, in his hour of need, as he freely gives these all to Clarinda! I esteem you, I love you as a friend; I admire you, I love you as a woman beyond any one in all the circle of creation; I know I shall continue to esteem you, to love you, to pray for you-nay, to pray for myself for your sake. Expect me at eight-and believe me to be ever, my dearest Madam, Yours most entirely, SYLVANDER. No. CXI. TO CLARINDA. WHEN matters, my love, are desperate, we must put on a desperate face "On reason build resolve, That column of true majesty in man" or, as the same author finely says in another place, "Let thy soul spring up And lay strong hold for help on Him that made thee." I am yours, Clarinda, for life. Never be discouraged at all this. Look forward in a few weeks I shall be somewhere or other, out of the possibility of seeing you; till then, I shall write you often, but visit you seldom. Your fame, your welfare, your happiness, are dearer to me than any gratification whatever. Be comforted, my love! the present moment is the worst; the lenient hand of time is daily and hourly either lightening the burden, or making us insensible to the weight. None of these friends -I mean Mr.- and the other gentleman-can hurt your worldly support; and of their friendship, in a little time you will learn to be easy, and by and by to be happy without it. A decent means of livelihood in the world, an approving God, a peaceful conscience, and one firm trusty friend-can anybody that has these be said to be unhappy? These are yours. To-morrow evening I shall be with you about eight, probably for the last time till I return to Edinburgh. In the meantime, should any of these two unlucky friends question you respecting me, whether I am the man, I do not think they are entitled to any information. As to their jealousy and spying, I despise them. Adieu, my dearest Madam ! SYLVANDER. No. CXII. TO MR. JAMES CANDLISH. MY DEAR FRIEND, [EDINBURGH, 1788.] If once I were gone from this scene of hurry and dissipation, I promise myself the pleasure of that correspondence being renewed which has been so long broken. At present I have time for nothing. Dissipa tion and business engross every moment. I am engaged in assisting an honest Scotch enthusiast,* a friend of mine, who is an engraver, and has taken it into his head to publish a collection of all our songs set to music, of which the words and music are done by Scotsmen. This, you will easily guess, is an undertaking exactly to my taste. I have collected, begged, borrowed, and stolen, all the songs I could meet with. "Pompey's Ghost," words and music, I beg from you immediately, to go into his second number-the first is already published. I shall shew you the first number when I see you in Glasgow, which will be in a fortnight or less. Do be so kind as to send me the song in a day or two-you cannot imagine how much it will oblige me. Direct to me at Mr. W. Cruikshank's, St. James's Square, New Town, Edinburgh.--R. B. No. CXIII. TO MRS. DUNLOP. EDINBURGH, February 12, 1788. SOME things in your late letters hurt me not that you say them, but that you mistake me. Religion, my honoured Madam, has not only been all my life my chief dependence, but my dearest enjoyment. I have indeed been the luckless victim of wayward follies; but, alas! I have ever been "more fool than knave." A mathematician without religion is a probable character; an irreligious poet is a monster.-R. B. No CXIV. TO THE REV. JOHN SKINNER. REVEREND AND DEAR SIR, EDINBURGH, 14th February, 1788. I have been a cripple now near three months, though I am getting vastly better, and have been very much hurried besides or else I would have wrote you sooner. I must beg your pardon for the epistle you sent me appearing in the magazine. I had given a copy or two to some of my intimate friends, but did not krow of the printing of it till the publication of the magazine. However, as it does great honour to us both, you will forgive it. The second volume of the songs I mentioned to you in my last is published to-day. I send you a copy, which I beg you will accept as a mark of the veneration I have long had, and shall ever have, for your character, and of the claim I make to your continued acquaintance. Your songs appear in the third volume, with your name in the index; as I assure you, Sir, I have heard your "Tullochgorum," particularly among our west-country folks, given to many different names, and most commonly to the immortal author of "The Minstrel," who indeed never wrote anything Mr. Johnson. publisher of the Scots Musical Museum. superior to "Gie's a sang, Montgomery cried." Your brother has promised me your verses to the Marquis of Huntly's reel, which certainly deserve a place in the collection. My kind host, Mr. Cruikshank, of the High School here, and said to be one of the best Latins in this age, begs me to make you his grateful acknowledgments for the entertainment he has got in a Latin publication of yours, that I borrowed for him from your acquaintance, and much-respected friend in this place, the Reverend Dr. Webster. Mr. Cruikshank maintains that you write the best Latin since Buchanan. I leave Edinburgh to-morrow, but shall return in three weeks. Your song you mentioned in your last, to the tune of "Dumbarton Drums,” and the other, which you say was done by a brother in trade of mine, a ploughman, I shall thank you for a copy of each. I am ever, reverend Sir, With the most respectful esteem and sincere veneration, yours, R. B. No. CXV. TO MR. RICHARD BROWN. EDINBURGH, February 15, 1788. MY DEAR FRIEND, I received yours with the greatest pleasure. I shall arrive at Glasgow on Monday evening; and beg, if possible, you will meet me on Tuesday. I shall wait you Tuesday all day. I shall be found at Davies's Black Bull Inn. I am hurried, as if hunted by fifty devils, else I should go to Greenock; but if you cannot possibly come, write me, if possible, to Glasgow, on Monday; or direct to me at Mossgiel by Mauchline; and name a day and place in Ayrshire, within a fortnight from this date, where I may meet you. I only stay a fortnight in Ayrshire, and return to Edinburgh. I am ever, my dearest Friend, yours, No. CXVI. R. B. TO MISS CHALMERS. EDINBURGH, Sunday [February 17]. TO-MORROW, my dear Madam, I leave Edinburgh. I have altered all my plans of future life. A farm that I could live in, I could not find; and, indeed, after the necessary support my brother and the rest of the family required, I could not venture on farming in that style suitable to my feelings. You will condemn me for the next step I have taken: I have entered into the Excise. I stay in the west about three weeks, and then return to Edinburgh for six weeks' instructions; afterwards, for I get employ instantly, I go où il plait à Dieu et mon roi. I have chosen this, my dear friend, after mature deliberation. The question is not at what door of fortune's palace shall we enter in, but what doors does she open to us? I was not likely to get anything to do. I wanted un būt, which is a dangerous, an unhappy situation. I got this without any hanging on, or mortifying solicitation: it is immediate bread; and though poor in comparison of the last eighteen months of my existence, 'tis luxury in comparison of all my preceding life: besides, the commissioners are some of them my acquaintances, and all of them my firm friends.-R, B. No. CXVII. TO MRS. ROSE, OF KILRAVOCK, [This is an acknowledgment of two Highland airs which Mrs. Rose had sent him, with a very kind letter.] MADAM, EDINBURGH, February 17, 1788. You are much indebted to some indispensable business I have had on my hands, otherwise my gratitude threatened such a return for your obliging favour as would have tired your patience. It but poorly expresses my feelings to say, that I am sensible of your kindness. It may be said of hearts such as yours is, and such, I hope, mine is, much more justly than Addison applies it There was something in my reception at Kilravock so different from the cold, obsequious, dancing-school bow of politeness, that it almost got into my head that friendship had occupied her ground without the intermediate march of acquaintance. I wish I could transcribe, or rather transfuse into language, the glow of my heart when I read your letter. My ready fancy, with colours more mellow than life itself, painted the beautiful wild scenery of Kilravock; the venerable grandeur of the castle; the spreading woods; the winding river, gladly leaving his unsightly, heathy source, and lingering with apparent delight as he passes the fairy walk at bottom of the garden; your late distressful anxieties; your present enjoyments; your dear little angel, the pride of your hopes; my aged friend, venerable in worth and years, whose loyalty and other virtues will strongly entitle her to the support of the Almighty Spirit here, and His peculiar favour in a happier state of existence. You cannot imagine, Madam, how much such feelings delight me they are my dearest proofs of my own immortality. Should I never revisit the north, as probably I never will, nor again see your hospitable mansion, were I some twenty years' hence to see your little fellow's name making a proper figure in a newspaper paragraph, my heart would bound with pleasure. I am assisting a friend in a collection of Scottish songs, set to their proper tunes; every air worth preserving is to be included: among others I have given "Morag," and some few Highland airs which pleased me most, a dress which will be more generally known, though far, far inferior in real merit. As a small mark of my grateful esteem, I beg leave to present you with a copy of the work, as far as it is printed: the Man of Feeling, that first of men, has promised to transmit it by the first opportunity. I beg to be remembered most respectfully to my venerable friend and to your little Highland chieftain.* When you see the "two fair spirits of the hill" at Kildrummie,* tell them that I have done myself the honour of setting myself down as one of their admirers for at least twenty years to come-consequently they must look upon me as an acquaintance for the same period; but, as the Apostle Paul says, “this I ask of grace, not of debt." I have the honour to be, Madam, &c. R. B. No. CXVIII. TO CLARINDA. [On the 18th of February, Burns left Edinburgh for Mossgiel, visiting Glasgow and Kilmarnock on his way. In a last fond interview, Sylvander and Clarinda had parted, but the correspondence was continued. Sylvander had disclosed to Clarinda his unhappy liason with Jean Armour and the prospect of a second pledge of illicit love. Clarinda in her replies speaks with kindness of Jean, but evidently looks forward on her own side to the prospect of a union with Burns, should her husband's death leave her free to marry again. "You know," she says, "I count all things (Heaven excepted) but loss, that I may win and keep you." How far Burns had any serious thoughts of marriage with Mrs. M'Lehose, should circumstances permit it, it is difficult to say; but at any rate he reckoned himself released from all obligations towards Jean Armour, except those of common humanity.] GLASGOW, Monday Evening, Nine o'clock. THE attraction of love, I find, is in an inverse proportion to the attraction of the Newtonian philosophy. In the system of Sir Isaac, the nearer objects were to one another, the stronger was the attractive force. In my system, every milestone that marked my progress from Clarinda, awakened a keener pang of attachment to her. How do you feel, my love? Is your heart ill at ease? I fear it. God forbid that these persecutors should harass that peace, which is more precious to me than my Be assured I shall ever think on you, muse on you, and in my moments of devotion, pray for you. The hour that you are not in my thoughts, "be that hour darkness; let the shadows of death cover it; let it not be numbered in the hours of the day!" own. "When I forget the darling theme, Be my tongue mute! my fancy paint no more! * The references in these two sentences are to Mrs. Rose's mother and her son Hugh, and to young ladies of the neighbourhood. |