horses without a driver, and came into the kiln, which Mr B. thought was rather a suspicious circumstance, as there was nothing extraordinary in an Excise-officer going into a legal malt-floor so as to [induce a man to] leave three horses yoked to a plough in the distant middle of a moor. This servant, on being repeatedly questioned by Mr Burns, could not tell when the malt was put to steep, when it was taken out, &c.-in short, was determined to be entirely ignorant of the affair. By and by, Mr J.'s son came in; and on being questioned as to the steeping, taking out of the grain, &c., Mr J., junior, referred me to this said servant, this ploughman, who, he said, must remember it best, as having been the principal actor in the business. The lad then, having gotten his cue, circumstantially recollected all about it. 'All this time, though I was telling the son and servant the nature of the premunire they had incurred, though they pleaded for mercy keenly, the affair of the notice having been sent never once occurred to them, not even the son, who is said to have been the bearer. This was a stroke reserved for, and worthy of the gentleman himself. As to Mrs Kelloch's oath, it proves nothing. She did, indeed, depone to a line being left for me at her house, which said line miscarried. It was a sealed letter; she could not tell whether it was a malt-notice or not; she could not even condescend on the month, nor so much as the season of the year. The truth is, T. J. and his family being Seceders, and consequently coming every Sunday to Thornhill Meeting-house, they were a good conveyance for the several maltsters and traders in their neighbourhood to transmit to post their notices, permits, &c. 'But why all this tergiversation? It was put to the petitioner in open court, after a full investigation of the cause: "Was he willing to swear that he meant no fraud in the matter?" And the justices told him, that if he swore he would be assoilzied [absolved], otherwise he should be fined; still the petitioner, after ten minutes' consideration, found his conscience unequal to the task, and declined the oath. 'Now, indeed, he says he is willing to swear; he has been exercising his conscience in private, and will perhaps stretch a point. But the fact to which he is to swear was equally and in all parts known to him on that day when he refused to swear as to-day nothing can give him further light as to the intention of his mind, respecting his meaning or not meaning a fraud in the affair. No time can cast further light on the present resolves of the mind; but time will reconcile, and has reconciled many a man to that iniquity which he at first abhorred.' This is followed by a note of Collector Mitchell, calling for confirmation of judgment against J. A brief, dateless letter of Burns to this gentleman evidently refers to the affair, and shews that the poet was far from being assured that the justices would decide in favour of the revenue. TO COLLECTOR MITCHEL L. ELLISLAND, [October 13, 1790]. SIR-I shall not fail to wait on Captain Riddel to-night-I wish and pray that the goddess of Justice herself would appear to-morrow among our hon. gentlemen, merely to give them a word in their ear that mercy to the thief is injustice to the honest man. For my part, I have galloped over my ten parishes these four days, until this moment that I am just alighted, or rather that my poor jackassskeleton of a horse has let me down; for the miserable devil has been on his knees half-a-score of times within the last twenty miles, telling me in his own way: 'Behold, am not I thy faithful jade of a horse, on which thou hast ridden these many years?' In short, sir, I have broke my horse's wind, and almost broke my own neck, besides some injuries in a part that shall be nameless, owing to a hard-hearted stone of a saddle. I find that every offender has so many great men to espouse his cause, that I shall not be surprised if I am not committed to the stronghold of the law to-morrow for insolence to the dear friends of the gentlemen of the country. I have the honour to be, sir, your obliged and obedient humble R. B. 2 How the matter ended, does not appear. TO CRAUFORD TAIT, ESQ., EDINBURG H.3 ELLISLAND, 15th October 1790. DEAR SIR-Allow me to introduce to your acquaintance the bearer, Mr Wm. Duncan, a friend of mine, whom I have long known and long loved. His father, whose only son he is, has a decent little property in Ayrshire, and has bred the young man to the law, in The documents respecting the Mirecleugh prosecution, exclusive of the letter which follows, were found among the official papers of Mr Kerr, who was clerk of the peace at the time they are now in the possession of Mr M'Gowan, architect, Dumfries. The answers by Burns are in his well-known hand, without signature. 2 There evidently should be but one negative in this sentence. 3 Son of Mr Tait of Harvieston, where Burns had been so pleasantly entertained on several occasions in 1787. which department he comes up an adventurer to your good town. I shall give you my friend's character in two words: as to his head, he has talents enough, and more than enough, for common life; as to his heart, when Nature had kneaded the kindly clay that composes it, she said: 'I can no more.' You, my good sir, were born under kinder stars; but your fraternal sympathy, I well know, can enter into the feelings of the young man who goes into life with the laudable ambition to do something, and to be something among his fellow-creatures, but whom the consciousness of friendless obscurity presses to the earth, and wounds to the soul! Even the fairest of his virtues are against him. That independent spirit, and that ingenuous modesty-qualities inseparable from a noble mind-are, with the million, circumstances not a little disqualifying. What pleasure is in the power of the fortunate and the happy, by their notice and patronage, to brighten the countenance and glad the heart of such depressed youth! I am not so angry with mankind for their deaf economy of the purse: the goods of this world cannot be divided without being lessened-but why be a niggard of that which bestows bliss on a fellow-creature, yet takes nothing from our own means of enjoyment? We wrap ourselves up in the cloak of our own better fortune, and turn away our eyes, lest the wants and woes of our brother-mortals should disturb the selfish apathy of our souls! I am the worst hand in the world at asking a favour. That indirect address, that insinuating implication, which, without any positive request, plainly expresses your wish, is a talent not to be acquired at a plough-tail. Tell me, then-for you can-in what periphrasis of language, in what circumvolution of phrase, I shall envelop, yet not conceal, this plain story?- My dear Mr Tait, my friend Mr Duncan, whom I have the pleasure of introducing to you, is a young lad of your own profession, and a gentleman of much modesty and great worth. Perhaps it may be in your power to assist him in the, to him, important consideration of getting a place; but at all events, your notice and acquaintance will be a very great acquisition to him, and I dare pledge myself that he will never disgrace your favour.' You may possibly be surprised, sir, at such a letter from me; 'tis, I own, in the usual way of calculating these matters, more than our acquaintance entitles me to; but my answer is short: Of all the men at your time of life whom I knew in Edinburgh, you are the most accessible on the side on which I have assailed you. You are very much altered, indeed, from what you were when I knew you, if generosity point the path you will not tread, or humanity call to you in vain. As to myself-a being to whose interest I believe you are still a well-wisher-I am here, breathing at all times, thinking sometimes, and rhyming now and then. Every situation has its share of the cares and pains of life, and my situation, I am persuaded, has a full ordinary allowance of its pleasures and enjoyments. My best compliments to your father and Miss Tait. If you have an opportunity, please remember me in the solemn-league-andcovenant of friendship to Mrs Lewis Hay.' I am a wretch for not writing her; but I am so hackneyed with self-accusation in that way, that my conscience lies in my bosom with scarce the sensibility of an oyster in its shell. Where is Lady Mackenzie? Wherever she is, God bless her! I likewise beg leave to trouble you with compliments to Mr Wm. Hamilton, Mrs Hamilton and family, and Mrs Chalmers, when you are in that country. Should you meet with Miss Nimmo, please remember me kindly to her. R. B. On the day when Burns wrote this letter, he received a visit from his young friend Robert Ainslie. It was the kirn-night, or evening for the celebration of harvest-home; and Ainslie found, besides a sister of Burns and a sister of Mrs Burns, who were ordinary inmates of the house, three male and female cousins who had been assisting in the harvest-work, and a few neighbours of homely character. 'We spent the evening,' says Ainslie in a letter to Mrs M'Lehose, in the way common on such occasions-of dancing, and kissing the lasses at the end of every dance.' The guest speaks of Burns's hearty welcome to himself, and of his kind attentions to Mrs Burns, but does not seem to have thought the ménage and company worthy of the poet. Our friend,' he says, 'is as ingenious as ever, and seems happy with the situation I have described. His mind, however, seems to me to be a great mixture of the poet and exciseman. One day he sits down and writes a beautiful poem-and the next seizes a cargo of tobacco from some unfortunate smuggler, or roups out some poor wretch for selling liquors without a licence. From his conversation, he seems to be pretty frequently among the great. Having found that his farm does not answer, he is about to give it up, and depend wholly on the Excise.' 12 As if to make up by one great effort for the scant attention he had this year given to the Muse, Burns composed, in its fall, the much-admired poem of Tam o' Shanter. According to the recital of Gilbert Burns, it originated thus: "When my father feued his little property near Alloway Kirk, the wall of the churchyard had gone to ruin, and cattle had free liberty of pasture in it. My father and two or three neighbours joined in an application to 1 Formerly Miss Margaret Chalmers. 2 Original letter in the possession of the late Mr W. C. M'Lehose, grandson of Clarinda, the town-council of Ayr, who were superiors of the adjoining land, for liberty to rebuild it, and raised by subscription a sum for enclosing this ancient cemetery with a wall: hence he came to consider it as his burial-place, and we learned that reverence for it people generally have for the burial-place of their ancestors. My brother was living in Ellisland, when Captain Grose, on his peregrinations through Scotland, stayed some time at Carse House in the neighbourhood, with Captain Robert Riddel of Glenriddel, a particular friend of my brother's. The antiquary and the poet were unco pack and thick thegither." Robert requested of Captain Grose, when he should come to Ayrshire, that he would make a drawing of Alloway Kirk, as it was the burial-place of his father, where he himself had a sort of claim to lay down his bones when they should be no longer serviceable to him; and added, by way of encouragement, that it was the scene of many a good story of witches and apparitions, of which he knew the captain was very fond. The captain agreed to the request, provided the poet would furnish a witch-story, to be printed along with it. Tam o' Shanter was produced on this occasion, and was first published in Grose's Antiquities of Scotland.' "The poem,' says Mr Lockhart, was the work of one day; and Mrs Burns well remembers the circumstances. He spent most of the day on his favourite walk by the river, where, in the afternoon, she joined him with some of her children-[there were then only two.] He was busily crooning to himsel', and Mrs Burns, perceiving that her presence was an interruption, loitered behind with her little ones among the broom. Her attention was presently attracted by the strange and wild gesticulations of the bard, who, now at some distance, was agonised with an ungovernable access of joy. He was reciting very loud, and with the tears rolling down his cheeks, those animated verses which he had just conceived: "Now Tam, O Tam! had thae been queans, A' plump and strappin' in their teens ; The above,' says Mr Lockhart, is quoted from a manuscript journal of Cromek. Mr M'Diarmid confirms the statement, and adds that the poet, having committed the verses to writing on the top of his sod-dike over the water, came into the house, and read them immediately in high triumph at the fireside.' |