ninghame of Enterkin, I learn that this affair must have taken place in summer 1788. Burns's ballad was as follows: THE FETE CHAMPETRE. TUNE-Killiecrankie. Oh wha will to Saint Stephen's House, To do our errands there, man? Come, will ye court a noble lord, Anbank, wha guess'd the ladies' taste, When Love and Beauty heard the news, Where, gathering flowers and busking bowers, Sir Politics to fetter, As theirs alone, the patent-bliss, Then mounted Mirth, on gleesome wing, Cauld Boreas, wi' his boisterous crew, And Cynthia's car, o' silver fu', Clamb up the starry sky, man: 1 An allusion to the well-known joke of the elder Boswell, who, hearing his son speak of Johnson as a great luminary, quite a constellation, said-Yes, Ursa Major.' LETTER TO MISS CHALMERS. Reflected beams dwell in the streams, The western breeze steals through the trees How many a robe sae gaily floats! To hold their Fête Champêtre. When Politics came there, to mix But entrance found he nane, man: Wi' humble prayer to join and share gate 283 TO MISS CHALMERS, EDINBURGH. ELLISLAND, NEAR DUMFRIES, Sept. 16, 1788. Where are you? and how are you? and is Lady Mackenzie recovering her health? for I have had but one solitary letter from you. I will not think you have forgot me, madam; and for my part When thee, Jerusalem, I forget, Skill part from my right hand!' 'My heart is not of that rock, nor my soul careless as that sea? I do not make my progress among mankind as a bowl does among its fellows-rolling through the crowd without bearing away any mark or impression, except where they hit in hostile collison. I am here, driven in with my harvest-folks by bad weather; and as you and your sister once did me the honour of interesting yourselves much à l'égard de moi, I sit down to beg the continuation of your goodness. I can truly say that, all the exterior of life apart, I never saw two whose esteem flattered the nobler feelings of my soul—I will not say more, but so much, as Lady Mackenzie and Miss Chalmers. When I think of you-hearts the best, minds 1 Alluding to a superstition, which represents adders as forming annually from their slough certain little annular stones of streaked colouring, which are occasionally found, and which are in reality beads fashioned and used by our early ancestors. the noblest of human kind-unfortunate even in the shades of lifewhen I think I have met with you, and have lived more of real life with you in eight days than I can do with almost anybody I meet with in eight years—when I think on the improbability of meeting you in this world again-I could sit down and cry like a child! If ever you honoured me with a place in your esteem, I trust I can now plead more desert. I am secure against that crushing grip of iron poverty, which, alas! is less or more fatal to the native worth and purity of, I fear, the noblest souls; and a late important step in my life has kindly taken me out of the way of those ungrateful iniquities, which, however overlooked in fashionable licence, or varnished in fashionable phrase, are indeed but lighter and deeper shades of VILLANY. Shortly after my last return to Ayrshire I married 'my Jean.' This was not in consequence of the attachment of romance, perhaps ; but I had a long and much-loved fellow-creature's happiness or misery in my determination, and I durst not trifle with so important a deposit. Nor have I any cause to repent it. If I have not got polite tattle, modish manners, and fashionable dress, I am not sickened and disgusted with the multiform curse of boarding-school affectation; and I have got the handsomest figure, the sweetest temper, the soundest constitution, and the kindest heart in the county. Mrs Burns believes, as firmly as her creed, that I am le plus bel esprit, et le plus honnête homme in the universe; although she scarcely ever in her life, except the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, and the Psalms of David in metre, spent five minutes together on either prose or verse. I must except also from this last a certain late publication of Scots poems, which she has perused very devoutly, and all the ballads in the country, as she has (Oh, the partial lover! you will cry) the finest 'wood-note wild' I ever heard. I am the more particular in this lady's character, as I know she will henceforth have the honour of a share in your best wishes. She is still at Mauchline, as I am building my house; for this hovel that I shelter in, while occasionally here, is pervious to every blast that blows, and every shower that falls; and I am only preserved from being chilled to death by being suffocated with smoke. I do not find my farm that pennyworth I was taught to expect; but I believe in time it may be a saving bargain. You will be pleased to hear that I have laid aside idle éclat, and bind every day after my reapers. To save me from that horrid situation of at any time going down, in a losing bargain of a farm, to misery, I have taken my Excise instructions, and have my commission in my pocket for any emergency of fortune. If I could set all before your view, whatever disrespect you, in common with the world, have for this business, I know you would approve of my idea. 1 Mrs Burns is generally allowed to have been a good singer, her voice rising with ease to B natural. LETTER TO MISS CHALMERS. 285 I will make no apology, dear madam, for this egotistic detail; I know you and your sister will be interested in every circumstance of it. What signify the silly, idle gewgaws of wealth, or the ideal trumpery of greatness! When fellow-partakers of the same nature fear the same God, have the same benevolence of heart, the same nobleness of soul, the same detestation at everything dishonest, and the same scorn at everything unworthy-if they are not in the dependence of absolute beggary, in the name of common sense, are they not EQUALS? And if the bias, the instinctive bias of their souls run the same way, why may they not be FRIENDS? When I may have an opportunity of sending this, Heaven only knows. Shenstone says: When one is confined idle within doors by bad weather, the best antidote against ennui is to read the letters of or write to one's friends :' in that case, then, if the weather continues thus, I may scrawl you half a quire. I very lately-namely, since harvest began-wrote a poem, not in imitation, but in the manner, of Pope's 'Moral Epistles.' It is only a short essay, just to try the strength of my Muse's pinion in that way. I will send you a copy of it when once I have heard from you. I have likewise been laying the foundation of some pretty large poetic works: how the superstructure will come on I leave to that great maker and marrer of projects-TIME. Johnson's collection of Scots songs is going on in the third volume; and, of consequence, finds me a consumpt for a great deal of idle metre. One of the most tolerable things I have done in that way is two stanzas I made to an air a musical gentleman of my acquaintance [Captain Riddell of Glenriddell] composed for the anniversary of his wedding-day, which happens on the 7th of November. Take it as follows: THE DAY RETURNS. The day returns, my bosom burns, While day and night can bring delight, Comes in between to make us part, It breaks my bliss-it breaks my heart! I shall give over this letter for shame, If I should be seized with a scribbling fit before this goes away, I shall make it another letter; and then you may allow your patience a week's respite between the two. I have not room for more than the old, kind, hearty farewell! To make some amends, mes chères mesdames, for dragging you on to this second sheet, and to relieve a little the tiresomeness of my unstudied and uncorrectible prose, I shall transcribe you some of my late poetic bagatelles; though I have, these eight or ten months, done very little that way. One day, in a hermitage on the banks of Nith, belonging to a gentleman in my neighbourhood, who is so good as give me a key at pleasure, I wrote as follows, supposing myself the sequestered, venerable inhabitant of the lonely mansion. R. B. In September, the house was approaching completion, and Burns was eager to inhabit at least a portion of it. He thus addressed the worthy joiner at Mauchline whom he had commissioned to prepare his household furniture: TO MR MORRISON, MAUCHLINE. ELLISLAND, September 22, 1788. MY DEAR SIR-Necessity obliges me to go into my new house even before it be plastered. I will inhabit the one end until the other is finished. About three weeks more, I think, will at farthest be my time, beyond which I cannot stay in this present house. If ever you wish to deserve the blessing of him that was ready to perish; if ever you were in a situation that a little kindness would have rescued you from many evils; if ever you hope to find rest in future states of untried being-get these matters of mine ready. My servant will be out in the beginning of next week for the clock. My compliments to Mrs Morrison. I am, after all my tribulation, dear sir, yours, R. B. Burns had been told by some of his literary friends, that it was a great error to write in Scotch, seeing that thereby he was cut off from the appreciation of the English public. He was disposed to give way to this hint, and henceforth to compose chiefly in English, or at least to try his hand upon the soft lyres of Twickenham and Richmond, in the hope of succeeding equally well as he had hitherto done upon the rustic reed of Scotland. It seems to have been a great mistake. The flow of versification and the felicity of diction for which Burns's Scottish poems and songs are remarkable, vanish when he attempts the southern strain. We see this well exemplified in a poem of the present |