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The flowers of spring, how gay they bloomed,
When last with him I wandered here!
The flowers of spring are passed away
For wintry horrors dark and drear.
Yon osiered stream, by whose lone banks
My songs have lulled him oft to rest,
Is now in icy fetters locked-

Cold as my false love's frozen breast.

MR THOMSON TO BURN S.

EDINBURGH, 30th January 1795.

MY DEAR SIR-I thank you heartily for Nannie's Awa', as well as for Craigieburn, which I think a very comely pair. Your observation on the difficulty of original writing in a number of efforts, in the same style, strikes me very forcibly; and it has again and again excited my wonder to find you continually surmounting this difficulty, in the many delightful songs you have sent me. Your vive la bagatelle song, For a' that, shall undoubtedly be included in my list.

The supervising duties which Burns had taken up, brought him early in February to the village of Ecclefechan, in Annandale-a place which will continue to be memorable in Scottish biography as the birthplace of several remarkable men, all of them connected with the history of our bard. The first was the school-tyrant Nicol, of whom we have not heard for some time. The second was Dr Currie of Liverpool, the amiable editor of Burns, and most effective friend of his family. A third, who would be first seeing the light just about this time, was Thomas Carlyle, than whom no man has written about Burns with a fairer apprehension of his merits, or a truer expression of sympathy for his misfortunes. Burns, little thinking of the destinies of Ecclefechan infants, had come there in the midst of an extraordinary fall of snow, which threatened to keep him a prisoner to his inn for many days. It was such a snow-fall as no living man remembered. Most people throughout Scotland, on wakening in the morning, found their houses absorbed in it up to the second tier of windows; and in some hollows of the Campsie Fells, near Glasgow, it was drifted to the depth of from eighty to a hundred feet. Some roads were impassable for weeks; and even in the streets of Edinburgh, it had not entirely disappeared on the king's birthday, the 4th

of June.

The immediate consequences to Burns are amusingly

described by himself:

BURNS TO MR THOMSON.

1

ECCLEFECHAN, 7th February 1795. MY DEAR THOMSON-You cannot have any idea of the predicament in which I write to you. In the course of my duty as supervisor-in which capacity I have acted of late-I came yesternight to this unfortunate, wicked little village. I have gone forward, but snows of ten feet deep have impeded my progress; I have tried to gae back the gait I cam again, but the same obstacle has shut me up within insuperable bars. To add to my misfortune, since dinner, a scraper has been torturing catgut, in sounds that would have insulted the dying agonies of a sow under the hands of a butcher, and thinks himself, on that very account, exceeding good company. In fact, I have been in a dilemma, either to get drunk, to forget these miseries; or to hang myself, to get rid of them: like a prudent man-a character congenial to my every thought, word, and deed-I, of two evils, have chosen the least, and am very drunk, at your service!2

I wrote you yesterday from Dumfries. I had not time then to tell you all I wanted to say; and, Heaven knows, at present I have not capacity.

Do you know an air-I am sure you must know it-We'll gang nae mair to yon town? I think, in slowish time, it would make an excellent song. I am highly delighted with it; and if you should think it worthy of your attention, I have a fair dame in my eye, to whom I would consecrate it. [Try it with this doggrel-until I give you a better:

CHORUS.

O wat ye wha's in yon town,

Ye see the e'enin' sun upon?
The dearest maid's in yon town
That e'enin' sun is shinin' on.

O sweet to me yon spreading tree,
Where Jeanie wanders aft her lane;

The hawthorn flower that shades her bower,
Oh, when shall I behold again?

As I am just going to bed, I wish you a good-night.

R. B.

P.S.-As I am likely to be storm-staid here to-morrow, if I am

in the humour, you shall have a long letter from me.]

1 Dr Currie remarks, that the poet must have been tipsy indeed to abuse sweet Ecclefechan at this rate.

2 The handwriting confirms the poet's confession, for it lacks his usual clearness and regularity.

BURNS TO MR THOMSON.

[Post-mark, February 9], 1795.

[I am afraid, my dear sir, that printing your songs in the manner of Ritson's would counteract the sale of your greater work; but, secluded as I am from the world, its humours and caprices, I cannot pretend to judge in the matter. If you are ultimately frustrated of Pleyel's assistance, what think you of applying to Clarke? This, you will say, would be breaking faith with your subscribers; but, bating that circumstance, I am confident that Clarke is equal, in Scottish song, to take up the pen even after Pleyel.

I shall at a future period write you my sentiments as to sending my bagatelles to a newspaper.]

Here is another trial at your favourite:

O LASSIE, ART THOU SLEEPING YET?

TUNE-Let me in this ae Night.

O lassie, art thou sleeping yet?
Or art thou wakin', I would wit?

For love has bound me hand and foot,

And I would fain be in, jo.

CHORUS.

O let me in this ae night,
This ae, ae, ae night;
For pity's sake this ae night,
O`rise and let me in, jo!

Thou hear'st the winter wind and weet,
Nae star blinks through the driving sleet;
Tak pity on my weary feet,

And shield me frae the rain, jo.

The bitter blast that round me blaws
Unheeded howls, unheeded fa's;
The cauldness o' thy heart's the cause
Of a' my grief and pain, jo.

HER ANSWER.

O tell na me o' wind and rain,
Upbraid na me wi' cauld disdain;
Gae back the gait ye cam again—
I winna let you in, jo!

CHORUS.

I tell you now this ae night,
This ae, ac, ae night;
And ance for a' this ae night,
I winna let you in, jo!

The snellest blast, at mirkest hours,
That round the pathless wanderer pours,
Is nocht to what poor she endures,
That's trusted faithless man, jo.

The sweetest flower that decked the mead,
Now trodden like the vilest weed;

Let simple maid the lesson read,
The weird may be her ain, jo.
The bird that charmed his summer-day,
Is now the cruel fowler's prey;
Let witless, trusting woman say
How aft her fate's the same, jo!

I do not know whether it will do.

MR THOMSON TO BURN S.

25th February 1795.

I have to thank you, my dear sir, for two epistles-one containing Let me in this ae Night; and the other from Ecclefechan, proving that, drunk or sober, your mind is never muddy.' You have displayed great address in the above song. Her answer is excellent, and at the same time takes away the indelicacy that otherwise would have attached to his entreaties. I like the song, as

it now stands, very much.

I had hopes you would be arrested some days at Ecclefechan, and be obliged to beguile the tedious forenoons by song-making. It will give me pleasure to receive the verses you intend for O wat ye wha's in yon Town?

Amongst other things snowed up by the storm of February '95, was a Scotch county election. The death of General Stewart in January had created a vacancy in the representation of the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright—a district so closely adjoining to Dumfries, that all its concerns are there deeply felt. A writ had been issued and intrusted to Lord Garlies, M.P., son of the Earl of Galloway; but his lordship kept it back for several weeks, for the ostensible reason, that it was impossible for the electors at such a season to meet for the recording of their votes. Meanwhile, public feeling was strongly excited, the vacant seat being

contested between a Tory, under the Galloway influence, and an independent country gentleman of Whig politics. The latter was the same Mr Heron, of Kerroughtree, whom Burns had visited in June of the past year, soon after his melancholy rencontre with David M'Culloch. He was a benevolent and most respectable man. The candidate in the Tory interest was Mr Gordon, of Balmaghie, himself a man of moderate property and influence, but greatly fortified by the favour of his uncle, Mr Murray, of Broughton, one of the wealthiest proprietors in the south of Scotland, as well as by the interest of the Earl of Galloway.

It was certainly most unsuitable for Burns to take any part in this conflict, as, while no public duty was neglected by his silence, his partisanship was ten times more likely to do him harm than good. He saw, however, some of his favourite aversions, such as the Earl of Galloway and John Bushby, of Tinwald Downs, on the one side, while on the other stood a really worthy man, who had shewn him some kindness, and whose political prepossessions accorded with his own. With his characteristic recklessness, he threw off several ballads, and even caused them to be circulated in print; effusions which must now be deemed of secondary importance in the roll of his works, but which yet are well worthy of preservation for the traits of a keen satiric spirit which mingle with their local and scarcely intelligible allusions:

BALLADS ON MR HERON'S ELECTION, 1795.

BALLAD FIRST.

Whom will you send to London town,

To Parliament and a' that?

Or wha in a' the country round
The best deserves to fa' that?
For a' that, and a' that,

Through Galloway and a' that;
Where is the laird or belted knight
That best deserves to fa' that?

Wha sees Kerroughtree's open yett,
And wha is 't never saw that?
Wha ever wi' Kerroughtree meets,
And has a doubt of a' that?
For a' that, and a' that,
Here's Heron yet for a' that!
The independent patriot,
The honest man, and a' that.

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