Burns was not quite a silent and complying observer of the war carried on against the patriotic party in France.

When General Dumourier, after unparalleled victories, deserted the army of the Republic, April 5, 1793, only prevented by narrow accidents from betraying his troops into the hands of the enemy, some one expressing joy in the event where Burns was present, he chanted almost extempore the following verses to the tune of Robin Adair :

You're welcome to Despots, Dumourier;

You're welcome to Despots, Dumourier.
How does Dampierre do?

Ay, and Beurnonville too?1

Why did they not come along with you, Dumourier?

I will fight France with you, Dumourier;

I will fight France with you, Dumourier;
I will fight France with you,

I will take my chance with you ;

By my soul, I'll dance a dance with you, Dumourier.
Then let us fight about, Dumourier;

Then let us fight about, Dumourier;
Then let us fight about,

Till Freedom's spark is out,

Then we 'll be damned, no doubt-Dumourier.

As will be afterwards seen, there are other compositions of our imprudent bard, expressing ardent sympathy with the French, as against the powers banded for the suppression of the Republic. Nor could he always keep his tongue from betraying the sentiments of his heart. Thus, for instance, at a private dinner-party, on the health of Mr Pitt being proposed, Burns called for a toast to Washington, as a much greater man, and was sullen because his request was not obeyed.

We now come to the remarkable letter which he wrote to Mr Erskine of Mar, with reference to the late animadversions on his conduct by the Excise Board. Mr Erskine-grandson of the rebel carl of 1715, and himself subsequently restored to the family titles-was a zealous Whig. Like other men of wealth of that party, he thought himself bound to do all in his power to compensate for the severity with which the government was treating some

1 Dampierre was one of Dumourier's generals, whom he expected to desert along with him. Beurnonville was an emissary of the Convention, so much his friend that he had similar hopes of him, which, however, were disappointed. The latter person lived to figure in the crisis of the Restoration in 1814.

of the humbler liberals. Having heard that Burns was dismissed from his situation, he wrote to Mr Riddel of Glenriddel, another of the notables in the recent movements for parliamentary reform, offering in that case to head a subscription in the poet's behalf. Burns consequently addressed Mr Erskine as follows:—

TO JOHN FRANCIS ERSKINE, ESQ., OF MAR.

DUMFRIES, 13th April 1793.

SIR-Degenerate as human nature is said to be—and in many instances worthless and unprincipled it is-still there are bright examples to the contrary; examples that, even in the eyes of superior beings, must shed a lustre on the name of Man.

Such an example have I now before me, when you, sir, came forward to patronise and befriend a distant obscure stranger, merely because poverty had made him helpless, and his British hardihood of mind had provoked the arbitrary wantonness of power. My much esteemed friend, Mr Riddel of Glenriddel, has just read me a paragraph of a letter he had from you. Accept, sir, of the silent throb of gratitude; for words would but mock the emotions of my soul.

You have been misinformed as to my final dismission from the Excise; I am still in the service. Indeed, but for the exertions of a gentleman who must be known to you, Mr Graham of Fintry—a gentleman who has ever been my warm and generous friend—I had, without so much as a hearing, or the slightest previous intimation, been turned adrift with my helpless family to all the horrors of want. Had I had any other resource, probably I might have saved them the trouble of a dismission; but the little money I gained by my publication is, almost every guinea, embarked to save from ruin an only brother, who, though one of the worthiest, is by no means one of the most fortunate of men.

In my defence to their accusations I said, that whatever might be my sentiments of republics, ancient or modern, as to Britain I abjured the idea that a CONSTITUTION which, in its original principles, experience had proved to be every way fitted for our happiness in society, it would be insanity to sacrifice to an untried visionary theory-that, in consideration of my being situated in a department, however humble, immediately in the hands of people in power, I had forborne taking any active part, either personally or as an author, in the present business of REFORM: but that, where I must declare my sentiments, I would say there existed a system of corruption between the executive power and the representative part of the legislature, which boded no good to our glorious CONSTITUTION, and which every patriotic Briton must wish to see amended. Some such sentiments as these I stated in a letter to my generous patron Mr Graham, which he laid before the Board at large, where, it

seems, my last remark gave great offence; and one of our supervisors-general, a Mr Corbet, was instructed to inquire on the spot, and to document me-that my business was to act, not to think; and that, whatever might be men or measures, it was for me to be silent and obedient.

Mr Corbet was likewise my steady friend; so between Mr Graham and him, I have been partly forgiven: only, I understand that all hopes of my getting officially forward are blasted.

Now, sir, to the business in which I would more immediately interest you. The partiality of my COUNTRYMEN has brought me forward as a man of genius, and has given me a character to support. In the POET I have avowed manly and independent sentiments, which I trust will be found in the MAN. Reasons of no less weight than the support of a wife and family, have pointed out as the eligible, and, situated as I was, the only eligible line of life for me, my present occupation. Still my honest fame is my dearest concern; and a thousand times have I trembled at the idea of those degrading epithets that malice or misrepresentation may affix to my name. I have often, in blasting anticipation, listened to some future hackney scribbler, with the heavy malice of savage stupidity, exulting in his hireling paragraphs-BURNS, notwithstanding the fanfaronade of independence to be found in his works, and after having been held forth to public view and to public estimation as a man of some genius, yet, quite destitute of resources within himself to support his borrowed dignity, he dwindled into a paltry exciseman, and slunk out the rest of his insignificant existence in the meanest of pursuits, and among the vilest of mankind.'

In your illustrious hands, sir, permit me to lodge my disavowal and defiance of these slanderous falsehoods. BURNS was a poor man from birth, and an exciseman by necessity; but-I will say it -the sterling of his honest worth no poverty could debase, and his independent British mind oppression might bend, but could not subdue. Have not I, to me, a more precious stake in my country's welfare than the richest dukedom in it? I have a large family of children, and the prospect of many more. I have three sons, who, I see already, have brought into the world souls ill qualified to inhabit the bodies of SLAVES. Can I look tamely on, and see any machination to wrest from them the birthright of my boys-the little independent BRITONS, in whose veins runs my own blood? No! I will not, should my heart's blood stream around my attempt to defend it!

Does any man tell me, that my full efforts can be of no service, and that it does not belong to my humble station to meddle with the concern of a nation?

I can tell him, that it is on such individuals as I that a nation has to rest, both for the hand of support and the eye of intelligence. The uninformed мOв may swell a nation's bulk; and the titled,

tinsel, courtly throng may be its feathered ornament; but the number of those who are elevated enough in life to reason and to reflect, yet low enough to keep clear of the venal contagion of a court-these are a nation's strength!

I know not how to apologise for the impertinent length of this epistle; but one small request I must ask of you further-When you have honoured this letter with a perusal, please to commit it to the flames. BURNS, in whose behalf you have so generously interested yourself, I have here, in his native colours, drawn as he is; but should any of the people in whose hands is the very bread he eats, get the least knowledge of the picture, it would ruin the poor BARD for ever.

My poems having just come out in another edition, I beg leave to present you with a copy, as a small mark of that high esteem and ardent gratitude with which I have the honour to be, sir, your deeply-indebted and ever-devoted humble servant, R. B.

At this very time, as we have already partly seen, he was engaged to an unusual extent in dalliance with the Muse, for the benefit of Mr Thomson.

MR THOMSON TO BURNS.

EDINBURGH, April 1793.

I rejoice to find, my dear sir, that ballad-making continues to be your hobbyhorse. Great pity 'twould be were it otherwise. I hope you will amble it away for many a year, and 'witch the world with your horsemanship.'

I know there are a good many lively songs of merit that I have not put down in the list sent you; but I have them all in my eye. My Patie is a Lover gay, though a little unequal, is a natural and very pleasing song, and I humbly think we ought not to displace or alter it, except the last stanza. . . [Here followed a number of observations on the Scottish songs, and on the manner of adapting these to the music.]

BURNS TO MR THOMSON.

April 1793.

I have yours, my dear sir, this moment. I shall answer it and your former letter, in my desultory way of saying whatever comes uppermost.

The business of many of our tunes wanting at the beginning what fiddlers call a starting-note, is often a rub to us poor rhymers.

There's braw, braw lads on Yarrow braes,
That wander through the blooming heather,'

you may alter to

'Braw, braw lads on Yarrow braes,

1

Ye wander,' &c.

My song, Here awa', there awa', as amended by Mr Erskine, I entirely approve of, and return you.

2

Give me leave to criticise your taste in the only thing in which it is, in my opinion, reprehensible. You know I ought to know something of my own trade. Of pathos, sentiment, and point, you are a complete judge; but there is a quality more necessary than either in a song, and which is the very essence of a ballad—I mean simplicity; now, if I mistake not, this last feature you are a little apt to sacrifice to the foregoing.

Ramsay, as every other poet, has not been always equally happy in his pieces; still I cannot approve of taking such liberties with an author as Mr W [alker] proposes doing with The Last Time I came o'er the Moor. Let a poet, if he chooses, take up the idea of another, and work it into a piece of his own; but to mangle the works of the poor bard whose tuneful tongue is now mute for ever in the dark and narrow house-by Heaven, 'twould be sacrilege! I grant that Mr W [alker]'s version is an improvement; but I know Mr W [alker] well, and esteem him much: let him mend the song, as the Highlander mended his gun-he gave it a new stock, a new lock, and a new barrel.

I do not by this object to leaving out improper stanzas, where that can be done without spoiling the whole. One stanza in The Lass o' Patie's Mill must be left out: the song will be nothing worse for it. I am not sure if we can take the same liberty with Corn-rigs are Bonny. Perhaps it might want the last stanza, and be the better for it. Cauld Kail in Aberdeen, you must leave with me yet a while. I have vowed to have a song to that air on the lady whom I attempted to celebrate in the verses Puirtith Cauld and Restless Love. At anyrate, my other song, Green grow the Rashes, will never suit. That song is current in Scotland under the old title, and to the merry old tune of that name, which of course would mar the progress of your song to celebrity. Your book will be the standard of Scots songs for the future: let this idea ever keep your judgment on the alarm.

I send a song on a celebrated toast in this country to suit Bonny Dundee. I send you also a ballad to The Mill, Mill O!3

In manuscript, 'Rove amang the blooming heather.' Mr Thomson had subsequently adopted, 'Ye wander.'

2 The reader has already seen that Burns did not finally adopt all of Mr Erskine's alterations. CURRIE.

The song to the tune of Bonny Dundee is that named Jessie. The ballad to The Mill, Mill O! is that beginning, 'When wild war's deadly blast was blawn.'-CURRIE.