allowed me a claim; and your esteem, as an honest man, I know is my due. To these, sir, permit me to appeal; by these may I adjure you to save me from that misery which threatens to overwhelm me, and which-with my latest breath I will say itI have not deserved. R. B. To think of this great poct having to say, that the consideration of his wife and little ones unnerved courage and withered resolution in the braving of any indignity! There has been a dispute about the nature and extent of the trouble into which Burns fell on this occasion. His supervisor, Mr Alexander Findlater, who survived till 1839, expressed his conviction that a very slight hint of disapprobation or warning was alone given to Burns, because, had it been of a more serious nature, he must necessarily have been the channel through which it was communicated. In support of this affirmation, is the fact ascertained by Mr Lockhart, that no notice of a reprimand to Burns appears in the records of the Board of Excise. To the same effect is the trivial notice taken of the matter by the poet a few days after, in a letter to Mrs Dunlop, as well as the little reference made to it by him at any subsequent time. All this would make it seem that Burns, in his letter to Mr Graham, expressed an unnecessary alarm and warmth of indignation. On the other hand, we shall see that the rumour of the day represented the unfortunate poet as dismissed from his situation for his political heterodoxy, and that he himself, in a letter which he wrote to Mr Erskine, of Mar, in April 1793, stated that, but for Mr Graham's intercession, this dismissal would have taken place. With that fact before us, and remembering the character of the time, the jealousy of all men in power, and the sense they could not but have of the danger of Burns's hostility to government within the sphere of his personal influence, we cannot doubt that the affair was one of a serious character, calculated to sink deeply into the spirit of our poct, already sufficient at war with fortune and all circumstances, social and domestic. TO MRS DUNLOP. DUMFRIES, 31st December 1792. DEAR MADAM-A hurry of business, thrown in heaps by my absence, has until now prevented my returning my grateful acknowledgments to the good family of Dunlop, and you in particular, for that hospitable kindness which rendered the four days I spent under that genial roof four of the pleasantest I ever enjoyed. Alas, my dearest friend! how few and fleeting are those things we call pleasures!-on my road to Ayrshire I spent a night with a friend whom I much valued, a man whose days promised to be many; and on Saturday last, we laid him in the dust! Jan. 2, 1793. I have just received yours of the 30th, and feel much for your situation. However, I heartily rejoice in your prospect of recovery from that vile jaundice. As to myself, I am better, though not quite free of my complaint. You must not think, as you seem to insinuate, that in my way of life I want exercise. Of that I have enough; but occasional hard drinking is the devil to me. Against this I have again and again bent my resolution, and have greatly succeeded. Taverns I have totally abandoned: it is the private parties in the family-way, among the hard-drinking gentlemen of this country, that do me the mischief-but even this I have more than half given over.1 Mr Corbet can be of little service to me at present; at least I should be shy of applying. I cannot possibly be settled as a supervisor for several years. I must wait the rotation of the list; and there are twenty names before mine. I might, indeed, get a job of officiating where a settled supervisor was ill or aged; but that hauls me from my family, as I could not remove them on such an uncertainty. Besides, some envious, malicious devil has raised a little demur on my political principles, and I wish to let that matter settle before I offer myself too much in the eye of my supervisors. I have set, henceforth, a seal on my lips as to these unlucky politics; but to you I must breathe my sentiments. In this, as in everything else, I shall show the undisguised emotions of my soul. War I deprecate: misery and ruin to thousands are in the blast that announces the destructive demon. R. B. * * The following extract from a letter addressed by Mr Bloomfield to the Earl of Buchan, contains so interesting an exhibition of the modesty inherent in real worth, and so philosophical, and at the same time so poetical an estimate of the different characters and destinies of Burns and its author, that I should esteem myself culpable were I to withhold it from the public view : "The illustrious soul that has left amongst us the name of Burns, has often been lowered down to a comparison with me; but the comparison exists more in circumstances than in essentials. That man stood up with the stamp of superior intellect on his brow-a visible greatness: and great and patriotic subjects would only have called into action the powers of his mind, which lay inactive while he played calmly and exquisitely the pastoral pipe. "The letters to which I have alluded in my preface to the Rural Tales were friendly warnings, pointed with immediate reference to the fate of that extraordinary man. 'Remember Burns!' has been the watchword of my friends. I do remember Burns; but I am not Burns !-neither have I his fire to fan or to quench, nor passions to control! Where, then, is my merit if I make a peaceful voyage on a smooth sea, and with no mutiny on board? To a lady-I have it from herself-who remonstrated with him on his danger from drink, and the pursuits of some of his associates, he replied: Madam, they would not thank me for my company if I did not drink with them. I must give them a slice of my constitution.' How much to be regretted that he did not give them thinner slices of his constitution, that it might have lasted longer!"'-CROMEK. TO THE SAME.1 5th January 1793. You see my hurried life, madam; I can only command starts of time: however, I am glad of one thing-since I finished the other sheet, the political blast that threatened my welfare is overblown. I have corresponded with Commissioner Graham-for the Board had made me the subject of their animadversions; and now I have the pleasure of informing you, that all is set to rights in that quarter. Now, as to these informers, may the devil be let loose, to But, hold! I was praying most fervently in my last sheet, and I must not so soon fall a-swearing in this. Alas! how little do the wantonly or idly officious think what mischief they do by their malicious insinuations, indirect impertinence, or thoughtless blabbings. What a difference there is, in intrinsic worth, candour, benevolence, generosity, kindness-in all the charities and all the virtues-between one class of human beings and another! For instance, the amiable circle I so lately mixed with in the hospitable hall of Dunlop, their generous hearts, their uncontaminated dignified minds, their informed and polished understandings-what a contrast when compared-if such comparing were not downright sacrilege-with the soul of the miscreant who can deliberately plot the destruction of an honest man that never offended him, and with a grin of satisfaction see the unfortunate being, his faithful wife, and prattling innocents, turned over to beggary and ruin!" 1 In Dr Currie's edition, this letter is dated January 1792, and appears in the place appropriate to that date. The present editor, entertaining no doubt that the real date is 1793, has transferred it from the former to the present place. What gives reason to believe the latter the true date, is the allusion to the 'political blast' that had threatened the poet's welfare. * Mr Gilbert Burns, speaking of such a crisis, says that on the side of the government will be found ranged a great part of the wise and prudent; but on that side also will be found a great host of a very different description-all the satellites of power and the parasites of greatness, with all the worthless and detestable crew of time-serving and officious informers. At such times loyalty comes to be esteemed the cardinal virtue, capable of "hiding a multitude of sins;" and many who are conscious how worthless and hollow-hearted they are, seek to piece up their reputation, and ingratiate themselves with their superiors, by an extraordinary display of loyalty and attachment to the existing order of things, and a virtuous zeal in hunting down whoever has the audacity to question the conduct of men in power. To persons of that description, the imprudent poet had made himself peculiarly obnoxious by the unguarded freedom with which he expressed his opinions of the wonderful events then attracting the notice of every one; and their enmity was heightened by his unqualified expression, general and particular, of his contempt for such sycophantic characters. By such "Loyal Natives" was the conduct of our poet strictly watched, with the view of detecting every political transgression or private fault; every imprudence or failing was magnified and exaggerated to a frightful degree; and the public alarm which brought such characters into contact with the respectable orders of society, procured the admission and circulation of these injurious reports in such circles as made them be received without suspicion.' Your cup, my dear madam, arrived safe. I had two worthy fellows dining with me the other day, when I with great formality produced my whigmaleerie cup,' and told them that it had been a family-piece among the descendants of William Wallace. This roused such an enthusiasm, that they insisted on bumpering the punch round in it; and by and by never did your great ancestor lay a suthron more completely to rest, than for a time did your cup my two friends. Apropos, this is the season of wishing. May God bless you, my dear friend, and bless me, the humblest and sincerest of your friends, by granting you yet many returns of the season! May all good things attend you and yours, wherever they are scattered over the earth! R. B. So lately as the 2d of the month, our poet had told Mrs Dunlop that he had of late 'greatly succeeded' in giving up hard drinking. Since then, perhaps on that same evening, he had had two worthy fellows dining with him, and, producing the old familycup which had been presented to him by Mrs Dunlop, he had set it into such active operation, as to lay his guests prostrate. Such are the rapid strides of Burns from profession to the opposite kind of practice. So soon, too, does he forget the indignity of the inquiry into his political conduct. Well might he liken himself, as he often did, to an ignis-fatuus. The merry-making in question is very likely identical with one which has been heard of from a clerical acquaintance of Burns. The bard, not being on good terms with the parish clergy, and no great favourite at this time with any of the cloth, had still retained the friendship of one, who has been described as a most worthy as well as able man, but not much of a clergyman-the Rev. Mr M'Morine of Caerlaverock. Meeting this gentleman in Dumfries on a market-day, when the country clergy usually came to town to hear the news, he had engaged him to come next forenoon to baptise his recently born infant; and Mr M'Morine came accordingly, but at an earlier hour than was perhaps expected. On being shewn into Burns's parlour, he found a party composed of the poet and two companions, who had evidently sat since the previous evening. The description which the clergyman gave of the two visitors corresponds exactly with what Burns hints at in his account of the effects of the cup. The poet seemed taken by surprise, but in perfect possession of himself, and he very quickly put matters This cup, of cocoa-nut, mounted upon a comparatively modern stalk, and rimmed with silver, is now in the possession of Archibald Hastie, Esq., M.P. for Paisley, who likewise possesses Burns's punch-bowl. in decent order for the performance of the intended ceremony. It may be remarked that Mr M'Morine, though he clung to Burns's friendship when all the other clergy of the district looked coldly on him, used to relate the story with an unfavourable leaning towards the poet. He both was shocked by the idea. of so prolonged a debauch, and thought meanly of the appearance of the two guests. Now, if the circumstances be identical, we see that Burns had reason to regard the men as 'worthy fellows,' and there was a special feeling about the Wallace-cup which had operated in promoting the conviviality, not to speak of the recognised licence of the season, the date being apparently the second day of the new year. Many other things which have been related unfavourably to Burns, might prove susceptible of a similar extenuation, if we knew the whole of the connected facts. BURNS TO MR THOMSON. SONG. TUNE-Cauld Kail in Aberdeen,2 O poortith cauld, and restless love, This warld's wealth, when I think on Her een sae bonny blue betray 'What greatly confirms our supposition of this being the affair alluded to by Mr M'Morine, is that the 2d of January was a Wednesday, the Dumfries market-day. Burns had written to Mrs Dunlop on that forenoon. The cup afterwards arrived. In the evening, he had the two worthy fellows dining with him. Mr M'Morine came next morning, the 3d, and on Saturday the 5th, the poet speaks of the circumstances in a new letter to Mrs Dunlop. 2 This song is usually sung to the tune of I had a Horse, I had nae mair. |