Irvine-side,' Irvine-side, Even your faes will allow, And your friends they dare grant you nae mair. Muirland Jock, Muirland Jock, Whom the L-d made a rock There's no mortal so fit To confound the poor Doctor at ance. There was wit i' your skull, When ye pilfered the alms o' the poor; When ye're ta'en for a saunt, Calvin's sons, Calvin's sons, Yet were she e'en tipsy, She could ca' us nae waur than we are.* 1 Rev. George Smith, Galston. This gentleman is praised as friendly to Common Sense in The Holy Fair. The offence which was taken at that praise probably imbittered the poet against him. 2 Rev. John Shepherd, Muirkirk. The statistical account of Muirkirk, contributed by this gentleman to Sir John Sinclair's work, is above the average in intelligence, and very agreeably written. He had, however, an unfortunate habit of saying rude things, which he mistook for wit, and thus laid himself open to Burns's satire. 4 The elder, William Fisher, whom Burns had formerly scourged. In the present version of this poem, advantage is taken of a few various readings from a copy published by Allan Cunningham, in which there is a curious repetition of the last line of each verse, along with the name of the party addressed. A specimen of this arrangement is given in the following additional stanza, from Allan's copy : It may be added, that the war raged till, in April 1790, the case came on for trial before the synod, when M'Gill stopped further procedure by giving in a document expressive of his deep regret for the disquiet he had occasioned, explaining the challenged passages of his book, and declaring his adherence to the standards of the church on the points of doctrine in question.1 Burns seems not to have entered upon his new house at Ellisland till the year 1789 was somewhat advanced, for he addressed letters to his brother William in March, dating from the Isle. Elizabeth Smith remembers the removal from that narrow tenement to the better accommodations of Ellisland, though she cannot be precise about the time. Burns came to her, and with a slight smile on his face, desired her to take the Family-Bible and a bowl of salt, and placing the one upon the other, carry them to the new house, and walk into it before any other person. This was the old freit appropriate to the taking possession of a new house, the object being to secure good-luck for all who should tenant it. The poet, like a man of imagination, delighted in such ancient observances, albeit his understanding, on a rigid tasking, would have denied their conclusions. He himself, with his wife on his arm, followed little Betty, the Bible and salt, and so entered upon the possession of what was comparatively to him the Great Babylon which he had built. On the 18th of August, his spouse brought him an infant, whom he named Francis Wallace, in honour of Mrs Dunlop. Seeing his family thus extending, and perhaps not greatly in heart about the second year's crop of his farm, he about this time applied to Mr Graham of Fintry to be nominated Excise-officer of the rural district in which he lived. He took this step entirely as a prudential one, calculating on being a gainer by it to an extent not much less than forty pounds a year, which he thought a most desirable addition to the profits of his farm. According to Allan Cunningham, who had opportunities of being well informed about the Ellisland period of Burns's life, he contemplated devoting his farm chiefly to the business of the dairy. His sisters were skilled in this branch of rural economy, and had imparted their knowledge as far as possible to Mrs Burns. He thought that, while Jean, with the assistance of some of her west-country 1 Dr M'Gill died March 30, 1807, at the age of seventy-six, and in the forty-sixth year of his ministry. The account of the controversy here given is abridged from Murray's Literary History of Galloway. The notes on the clergymen are from a living member of their profession (1851), who officiated in Ayrshire at a time not long subsequent to the period of the poem. sisterhood, managed the cows and their produce, he himself might go on with the Excise business, and still have a sufficiency of time for the reduced duties connected with Ellisland which were then left to himself. Thus, both ways money would be coming in. It was a good and plausible plan; but, as Mr Cunningham observes: The best-laid schemes o' mice and men The poet, however, deserves credit for his good intention, and for the castigation of spirit to which he must have submitted on the occasion. 'Searching auld wives' barrels, Och, hon! the day! That clarty barm should stain my laurels ; These movin' things ca'd wives and weans, dirty yeast children So he had extemporaneously sung on getting his appointment. The verse shews the motive, and does the poet honour. We have seen that Burns sent his protest against Mr Kirkpatrick's revolution-sermon to the editor of the Star, a London evening paper. He had more recently transmitted to the same quarter Delia, an Ode; and now he appears to have proposed to the editor something like a regular correspondence. Dr Currie preserved some degree of mystery regarding both the paper and the editor; and it was not without considerable difficulty that the present biographer obtained light respecting both. As already mentioned, the editor was Mr Peter Stuart, long after known by his connection in succession with the Morning Post and the Oracle. In the Anti-Gallican position then assumed by this gentleman, we may discern one sufficient reason for the suppression of his name by Currie. His letter is valuable for the testimony it bears to the fascinating social character of the lamented Robert Fergusson, who had been a school-fellow and companion of his elder brother Charles, now a dramatic writer of some temporary fame. Mr Daniel Stuart, a younger brother, and the most notable man of the three, was the employer of Mr Coleridge in the Morning Post, and a most generous friend towards that extraordinary person during many subsequent years. See antea, under date February 1787. [TO MR ROBERT BURNS.] LONDON, 5th August 1789. MY DEAR SIR-Excuse me when I say, that the uncommon abilities which you possess must render your correspondence very acceptable to any one. I can assure you I am particularly proud of your partiality, and shall endeavour by every method in my power to merit a continuance of your politeness. * When you can spare a few moments, I should be proud of a letter from you, directed for me, Gerard Street, Soho. * I cannot express my happiness sufficiently at the instance of your attachment to my late inestimable friend, Bob Fergusson,' who was particularly intimate with myself and relations. While I recollect with pleasure his extraordinary talents and many amiable qualities, it affords me the greatest consolation that I am honoured with the correspondence of his successor in natural simplicity and genius. That Mr Burns has refined in the art of poetry, must readily be admitted; but, notwithstanding many favourable representations, I am yet to learn that he inherits his convivial powers. There was such a richness of conversation, such a plenitude of fancy and attraction in him, that when I call the happy period of our intercourse to my memory, I feel myself in a state of delirium. I was then younger than he by eight or ten years, but his manner was so felicitous, that he enraptured every person around him, and infused into the hearts of the young and old the spirit and animation which operated on his own mind. I am, dear sir, yours, &c. TO MR [PETER STUART]. [September] 1789. MY DEAR SIR-The hurry of a farmer in this particular season, and the indolence of a poet at all times and seasons, will, I hope, plead my excuse for neglecting so long to answer your obliging letter of the 5th of August. That you have done well in quitting your laborious concern in * *, I do not doubt; the weighty reasons you mention were, I hope very, and deservedly indeed, weighty ones, and your health is a matter of the last importance; but whether the remaining proprietors of the paper have also done well, is what I much doubt. The [Star], so far as I was a reader, exhibited such a brilliancy of point, such an elegance of paragraph, and such a variety of intelligence, that I can hardly conceive it possible to continue a daily paper in the same degree of excellence: but if there was a man who had abilities equal to the task, that man's assistance the proprietors have lost. 1 The erection of a monument to him. When I received your letter, I was transcribing for [the Star] my letter to the magistrates of the Canongate, Edinburgh, begging their permission to place a tombstone over poor Fergusson, and their edict in consequence of my petition; but now I shall send them to Poor Fergusson! If there be a life beyond the grave, which I trust there is; and if there be a good God presiding over all nature, which I am sure there is-thou art now enjoying existence in a glorious world, where worth of the heart alone is distinction in the man; where riches, deprived of all their pleasure-purchasing powers, return to their native sordid matter; where titles and honours are the disregarded reveries of an idle dream; and where that heavy virtue, which is the negative consequence of steady dulness, and those thoughtless, though often destructive follies, which are the unavoidable aberrations of frail human nature, will be thrown into equal oblivion as if they had never been! Adieu, my dear sir. So soon as your present views and schemes are concentered in an aim, I shall be glad to hear from you, as your welfare and happiness is by no means a subject indifferent to, yours, R. B. TO MRS DUNLOP. ELLISLAND, 6th Sept. 1789. DEAR MADAM-I have mentioned in my last my appointment to the Excise, and the birth of little Frank; who, by the by, I trust will be no discredit to the honourable name of Wallace, as he has a fine manly countenance, and a figure that might do credit to a little fellow two months older; and likewise an excellent good temper, though when he pleases he has a pipe, only not quite so loud as the horn that his immortal namesake blew as a signal to take out the pin of Stirling bridge.1 I had some time ago an epistle, part poetic and part prosaic, from your poetess, Mrs J. Little, a very ingenious but modest composition. I should have written her as she requested, but for the hurry of this new business. I have heard of her and her compositions in this country, and, I am happy to add, always to the honour of her character. The fact is, I know not well how to write to her-I should sit down to a sheet of paper that I knew not how to stain. I am no dab at fine-drawn letter Frae Jop the horn he hinted and couth blaw -The Wallace, book vii. line 1179. |