CHAPTER II
"O enviable early days,
When dancing thoughtless
pleasure's maze,
To care and guilt unknown!
How ill exchanged for riper times,
To feel the follies or the crimes
Of others—or my own ! "
As has
been already mentioned, William Burnes now quitted Mount Oliphant for
Lochlea, in the parish of Tarbolton, where, for some little space,
fortune appeared to smile on his industry and frugality. Robert and
Gilbert were employed by their father as regular labourers—he allowing
them £7 of wages each per annum, from which sum, however, the value of
any home-made clothes received by the youths was exactly deducted.
Robert Burns's person, inured to daily toil and continually exposed to
all varieties of weather, presented before the usual time every
characteristic of robust and vigorous manhood. He says himself that he
never feared a competitor in any species of rural exertion ; and
Gilbert Burns, a man of uncommon bodily strength, adds that neither he
nor any labourer he ever saw at work was equal to the youthful poet,
either in the cornfield or the severer tasks of the thrashing-floor.
Gilbert says that Robert's literary zeal slackened considerably after
their removal to Tarbolton. He was separated from his acquaintances of
the town of Ayr, and probably missed not only the stimulus of their
conversation, but the kindness that had furnished him with his supply,
such as it was, of books. But the main source of his change of habits
about this period was, it is confessed on all hands, the precocious
fervour of one of his own turbulent passions.
" In my
seventeenth year," says Burns, " to give my manners a brush, I went to
a country dancing-school. My father had an unaccountable antipathy
against these meetings ; and my going was, what to this moment I
repent, in opposition to his wishes. My father was subject to strong
passions ; from that instance of disobedience in me he took a sort of
dislike to me, which I believe was one cause of the dissipation which
marked my succeeding years.(13) I say
dissipation comparatively with the strictness, and sobriety, and
regularity of Presbyterian country life ; for though the Will-o-Wisp
meteors of thoughtless whim were almost the sole lights of my path,
yet early ingrained piety and virtue kept me for several years
afterwards within the line of innocence. The great misfortune of my
life was to want an aim. I saw my father's situation entailed on me
perpetual labour. The only two openings by which I could enter the
temple of fortune were the gate of niggardly economy or the path of
little chicaning bargain-making. The first is so contracted an
aperture, I could never squeeze myself into it ; the last I always
hated—there was contamination in the very entrance ! Thus abandoned of
aim or view in life, with a strong appetite for sociability, as well
from native hilarity as from a pride of observation and remark ; a
constitutional melancholy or hypochondriacism that made me fly
solitude 5 add to these incentives to social life my reputation for
bookish knowledge, a certain wild logical talent, and a strength of
thought something like the rudiments of good sense, and it will not
seem surprising that I was generally a welcome guest where I visited,
or any great wonder that, always where two or three met together,
there was I among them. But far beyond all other impulses of my heart
was un penchant four Tadorahle moitie du genre humain. My heart
was completely tinder, and was eternally lighted up by some goddess or
other: and, as in every other warfare in this world, my fortune was
various ; sometimes I was received with favour, and sometimes I was
mortified with a repulse. At the plough, scythe, or reap-hook I feared
no competitor, and thus I set absolute want at defiance ; and as I
never cared farther for my labours than while I was in actual
exercise, I spent the evenings in the way after my own heart. A
country lad seldom carries on a love adventure without an assisting
confidant. I possessed a curiosity, zeal, and intrepid dexterity that
recommended me as a proper second on these occasions, and I dare say I
felt as much pleasure in being in the secret of half the loves of the
parish of Tarbolton as ever did statesman in knowing the intrigues of
half the Courts of Europe."
(13) "I wonder," says Gilbert, "how Robert could attribute to our
father that lasting resentment of his going to a dancing-school
against his will, of which he was incapable. I believe the truth
was, that about this time he began to see the dangerous impetuosity
of my brother's passions, as well as his not being amenable to
counsel, which often irritated my father, and which he would
naturally think a dancing-school was not likely to correct. But he
was proud of Robert's genius, which he bestowed more expense on
cultivating than on the rest of the family—and he was equally
delighted with his warmth of heart and conversational powers. He
had, indeed, that dislike of dancing-schools which Robert mentions ;
but so far overcame it during Robert's first month of attendance
that he permitted the rest of the family that were fit for it to
accompany him during the second month. Robert excelled in dancing,
and was for some time distractedly fond of it."
Of the
same critical period of Burns's life his excellent brother writes as
follows: "The seven years we lived in Tarbolton parish—extending from
the seventeenth to the twenty-fourth of Robert's age—were not marked
by much literary improvement ; but during this time the foundation was
laid of certain habits in his character which afterwards became but
too prominent, and which malice and envy have taken delight to enlarge
on. Though, when young, he was bashful and awkward in his intercourse
with women, yet when he approached manhood, his attachment to their
society became very strong, and he was constantly the victim of some
fair enslaver. The symptoms of his passion were often such as nearly
to equal those of the celebrated Sappho. I never, indeed, knew that he
fainted, sunk, and died away ; but the agitations of his mind
and body exceeded anything of the kind I ever knew in real life. He
had always a particular jealousy of people who were richer than
himself, or who had more consequence in life. His love, therefore,
rarely settled on persons of this description. When he selected any
one out of the sovereignty of his good pleasure to whom he should pay
his particular attention, she was instantly invested with a sufficient
stock of charms out of the plentiful stores of his own imagination ;
and there was often a great dissimilitude between his fair captivator,
as she appeared to others, and as she seemed when invested with the
attributes he gave her. One generally reigned paramount in his
affections ; but as Yorick's affections flowed out toward Madame de L
.— at the remise door, while the eternal vows of Eliza were upon him,
so Robert was frequently encountering other attractions, which formed
so many under-plots in the drama of his love."
Thus
occupied with labour, love, and dancing, the youth, "without an aim,"
found leisure occasionally to clothe the sufficiently various moods of
his mind in rhymes. It was as early as seventeen, he tells us,(14)
that he wrote some stanzas which begin beautifully :
" I dream'd I lay where
flowers were springing
Gayly in the sunny beam;
Listening to the wild birds singing,
By a falling crystal stream. Straight the
sky grew black and daring,
Thro' the woods the whirlwinds rave,
Trees with aged arms were warring,
O'er the swelling drumlie wave.
Such was life's deceitful
morning," etc.
(14)
Reliques p242
On
comparing these verses with those on " Handsome Nell," the advance
achieved by the young bard in the course of two short years must be
regarded with admiration ; nor should a minor circumstance be entirely
overlooked, that in the piece which we have just been quoting there
occurs but one Scotch word. It was about this time also that he wrote
a ballad of much less ambitious vein, which, years after, he says, he
used to con over with delight, because of the faithfulness with which
it recalled to him the circumstances and feelings of his opening
manhood.
" My father was a farmer
upon the Carrick Border, And carefully he bred me up in decency and
order. He bade me act a manly part, tho' I had ne'er a farthing ;
For without an honest manly heart, no man was worth regarding.
Then out into the world
my course I did determine; The' to be rich was not my wish, yet to
be great was charming; My talents they were not the worst, nor yet
my education ; Resolved was I at least to try to mend my situation.
. . .
No help, nor hope, nor
view had I, nor person to befriend me ; So I must toil, and sweat,
and broil, and labour to sustain me. To plough and sow, to reap and
mow, my father bred me early ; For one, he said to labour bred, was
a match for fortune fairly.
Thus all obscure, unknown
and poor, thro' life I'm doom'd to wander; Till down my weary bones
I lay, in everlasting slumber. No view, nor care, but shun whate'er
might breed me pain or sorrow ; I live to-day, as well's I may,
regardless of to-morrow," etc.
These
are the only two of his very early productions in which we have
nothing expressly about love. The rest were composed to celebrate the
charms of those rural beauties who followed each other in the dominion
of his fancy, or shared the capacious throne between them ; and we may
easily believe that one who possessed, with his other qualifications,
such powers of flattering, feared competitors as little in the
diversions of his evenings as in the toils of his day.
The
rural lover in those districts pursues his tender vocation in a style
the especial fascination of which town-bred swains may find it
somewhat difficult to comprehend. After the labours of the day are
over, nay, very often after he is supposed by the inmates of his own
fireside to be in his bed, the happy youth thinks little of walking
many long Scotch miles to the residence of his mistress, who, upon the
signal of a tap at her window, comes forth to spend a soft hour or two
beneath the harvest moon ; or, if the weather be severe (a
circumstance which never prevents the journey from being
accomplished), amidst the sheaves of her father's barn. This " chappin'
out," as they call it, is a custom which parents commonly wink at, if
they do not openly approve the observance ; and the consequences are
far, very far, more frequently quite harmless than persons not
familiar with the peculiar manners and feelings of our peasantry may
find it easy to believe. Excursions of this class form the theme of
almost all the songs which Burns is known to have produced about this
period,—and such of these juvenile performances as have been preserved
are, without exception, beautiful. They show how powerfully his boyish
fancy had been affected by the old rural minstrelsy of his own
country, and how easily his native taste caught the secret of its
charm. The truth and simplicity of nature breathe in every line; the
images are always just, often originally happy ; and the growing
refinement of his ear and judgment may be traced in the terser
language and more mellow flow of each successive ballad.
The best
of his songs written at this time is that beginning :
" It was upon a Lammas
night,
When
corn rigs are bonnie,
Beneath the moon's
unclouded light,
I held
awa to Annie.
The time flew by wi' tentless heed,
Till, 'tween the late and early,
Wi' sma' persuasion she
agreed
To see me through the barley," etc.
The
heroine of this ditty was a daughter of the poet's friend, " rude,
rough, ready-witted Ranken."
We may
let him carry on his own story. " A circumstance," says he,(15)
" which made some alteration on my mind and manners, was, that I spent
my nineteenth summer on a smuggling coast, a good distance from home,
at a noted school,(16) to learn
mensuration, surveying, dialling, etc., in which I made a good
progress. But I made a greater progress in the knowledge of mankind.
The contraband trade was at that time very successful, and it
sometimes happened to me to fall in with those who carried it on.
Scenes of swaggering riot and roaring dissipation were till this time
new to me; but I was no enemy to social life. Here, though I learnt to
fill my glass and to mix without fear in a drunken squabble, yet I
went on with a high hand with my geometry, till the sun entered Virgo,
a month which is always a carnival in my bosom, when a charming
fillette, who lived next door to the school, overset my
trigonometry, and set me off at a tangent from the sphere of my
studies. I, however, struggled on with my sines and cosines
for a few days more ; but stepping into the garden one charming noon
to take the sun's altitude, there I met my angel, like
'Proserpine, gathering flowers,
Herself
a fairer flower' —
It was
in vain to think of doing any more good at school. The remaining week
I staid, I did nothing but craze the faculties of my soul about her,
or steal out to meet her ; and the two last nights of my stay in this
country, had sleep been a mortal sin, the image of this modest and
innocent girl had kept me guiltless. I returned home very considerably
improved. My reading was enlarged with the very important addition of
Thomson's and Shenstone's works ; I had seen human nature in a new
phasis ; and I engaged several of my schoolfellows to keep up a
literary correspondence with me. This improved me in composition. I
had met with a collection of letters by the wits of Queen Anne's
reign, and I pored over them most devoutly ; I kept copies of any of
my own letters that pleased me ; and a comparison between them and the
composition of most of my correspondents nattered my vanity. I carried
this whim so far that, though I had not three farthings' worth of
business in the world, yet almost every post brought me as many
letters as if I had been a plodding son of day-book and ledger.
(15)
Letter to Dr. Moore.
(16)
This was the school of Kirkoswald.
" My
life flowed on much in the same course till the twenty-third year.
Vive l'amour, et vive la bagatelle, were my sole principles of
action. The addition of two more authors to my library gave me great
pleasure ; Sterne and Mackenzie—Tristram Shandy and The Man
of Feeling—were my bosom favourites. Poesy was still a darling
walk for my mind ; but it was only indulged in according to the humour
of the hour. I had usually half a dozen or more pieces on hand ; I
took up one or other, as it suited the momentary tone of the mind, and
dismissed the work as it bordered on fatigue. My passions, once
lighted up, raged like so many devils, till they found vent in rhyme j
and then the conning over my verses, like a spell, soothed all into
quiet."
Of the
rhymes of those days, few, when he wrote his letter to Moore, had
appeared in print. Winter, a Dirge, an admirably versified
piece, is of their number ; The Death of Poor Mailie,
Mailie's Elegy, and John Barleycorn, and one charming song
inspired by the Nymph of Kirkoswald, whose attractions put an end to
his trigonometry.
" Now westling winds, and
slaughtering guns,
Bring Autumn's pleasant weather ;
The moorcock springs, on
whirring wings,
Amang the blooming heather, . . .
—Peggy dear, the evening's clear,
Thick flies the skimming swallow;
The sky is blue, the fields in view
All fading green and yellow—
Come let us stray our
gladsome way," etc.
John
Barleycorn is a clever old ballad, very cleverly new-modelled and
extended ; but The Death and Elegy of Poor Mailie
deserve more attention. The expiring animal's admonitions touching the
education of the "poor toop lamb, her son and heir," and the " yowie
sillie thing," her daughter, are from the same peculiar vein of sly
homely wit, embedded upon fancy, which he afterwards dug with a bolder
hand in The Twa Dogs, and perhaps to its utmost depth in his
Death and Doctor Hornbook. It need scarcely be added that Poor
Mailie was a real personage, though she did not actually die until
some time after her last words were written. She had been
purchased by Burns in a frolic, and became exceedingly attached to his
person.
"Thro' all the town she
trotted by him ;
A lang half-mile she could descry him;
Wi' kindly bleat, when she did spy him,
She ran wi' speed,
A friend mair faithfu'
ne'er came nigh him,
Than Mailie dead."
These
little pieces are in a much broader dialect than any of their
predecessors. His merriment and satire were, from the beginning,
Scotch.
Notwithstanding the luxurious tone of some of Burns's verses produced
in those times, we are assured by himself (and his brother
unhesitatingly confirms the statement) that no positive vice mingled
in any of his loves until after he reached his twenty-third year. He
has already told us that his short residence " away from home" at
Kirkoswald, where he mixed in the society of seafaring men and
smugglers, produced an unfavourable alteration on some of his habits ;
but in 1781-2 he spent six months at Irvine ; and it is from this
period that his brother dates a serious change.
" As his
numerous connexions," says Gilbert, " were governed by the strictest
rules of virtue and modesty (from which he never deviated till his
twenty-third year), he became anxious to be in a situation to marry.
This was not likely to be the case while he remained a farmer, as the
stocking of a farm required a sum of money he saw no probability of
being master of for a great while. He and I had for several years
taken land of our father, for the purpose of raising flax on our own
account; and in the course of selling it, Robert began to think of
turning flax-dresser, both as being suitable to his grand view of
settling in life and as subservient to the flax-raising."(17)
(17) Mr. Silar assured Mr. Robert Chambers that this notion
originated with William Burnes, who thought of becoming entirely a
lint-farmer; and, by way of keeping as much of the profits as he
could within his family, of making his eldest son a flax-dresser.
Burns,
accordingly, went to a half-brother of his mother's, by name Peacock,
a flax-dresser in Irvine, with the view of learning this new trade,
and for some time he applied himself diligently ; but misfortune after
misfortune attended him. The shop accidentally caught fire during the
carousal of a New-Year's-Day morning, and Robert " was left, like a
true poet, not worth a sixpence." "I was obliged," says he, " to give
up this scheme ; the clouds of misfortune were gathering thick round
my father's head : and what was worst of all, he was visibly far gone
in a consumption ; and, to crown my distresses, a belle fille
whom I adored, and who had pledged her soul to meet me in the field of
matrimony, jilted me, with peculiar circumstances of mortification.(18)
The finishing evil that brought up the rear of this infernal file was
my constitutional melancholy being increased to such a degree, that
for three months I was in a state of mind scarcely to be envied by the
hopeless wretches who have got their mittimus—' Depart from Me, ye
cursed! '"
(18) Some letters referring to this affair are omitted in the "
General Correspondence" of Gilbert's edition; for what reason I know
not. They are surely as well worth preserving as many in the
collection, particularly when their early date is considered. The
first of them begins thus: "I verily believe, my dear E., that the
pure, genuine feelings of love are as rare in the world as the pure
genuine principles of virtue and piety. This, I hope, will account
for the uncommon style of all my letters to you. By uncommon I mean
their being written in such a serious manner, which, to tell you the
truth, has made me often afraid lest you should take me for some
zealous bigot, who conversed with his mistress as he would converse
with his minister. I don't know how it is, my dear; for though,
except your company, there is nothing on earth gives me so much
pleasure as writing to you, yet it never gives me those giddy
raptures so much talked of among lovers. I have often thought that
if a well-grounded affection be not really a part of virtue, 'tis
something extremely akin to it. Whenever the thought of my E. warms
my heart, every feeling of humanity, every principle of generosity
kindles in my breast. It extinguishes every dirty spark of malice
and envy, which are but too apt to invest me. I grasp every creature
in the arms of universal benevolence, and equally participate in the
pleasures of the happy, and sympathise with the miseries of the
unfortunate. I assure you, my dear, I often look up to the divine
Disposer of events with an eye of gratitude for the blessing which I
hope He intends to betow on me in bestowing you."
What follows is from Burns's letter in answer to that in which the
young woman intimated her final rejection of his vows. '' I ought in
good manners to have acknowledged the receipt of your letter before
this time, but my heart was so shocked with the contents of it that
I can scarcely yet collect my thoughts so as to write to you on the
subject. I will not attempt to describe what I felt on receiving
your letter. I read it over and over, again and again; and though it
was in the politest language of refusal, still it was peremptory: '
you were sorry you could not make me a return, but you wish me'
what, without you, I never can obtain—' you wish me all kind of
happiness.' It would be weak and unmanly to say that without you I
never can be happy ; but sure I am that, sharing life with you,
would have given it a relish that, wanting you, I never can taste."
In such excellent English did Burns woo his country maidens in at
most his twentieth year.
The
following letter, addressed by Burns to his father, three days before
the unfortunate fire took place, will show abundantly that the gloom
of his spirits had little need of-that aggravation. When we consider
by whom, to whom, and under what circumstances it was written, the
letter is every way a remarkable one :
" To Mr.
William Burness—Lochlea.
"HONOURED SIR,
" I HAVE
purposely delayed writing, in the hope that I should have the pleasure
of seeing you on New-year's day ; but work comes so hard upon us, that
I do not choose to be absent on that account, as well as for some
other little reasons, which I shall tell you at meeting. My health is
nearly the same as when you were here, only my sleep is a little
sounder ; and, on the whole, I am rather better than otherwise, though
I mend by very slow degrees. The weakness of my nerves has so
debilitated my mind, that I dare neither review past wants, nor look
forward into futurity; for the least anxiety or perturbation in my
breast produces most unhappy effects on my whole frame. Sometimes,
indeed, when for an hour or two my spirits are alightened, I glimmer a
little into futurity ; but my principal, and indeed my only
pleasurable employment, is looking backwards and forwards in a moral
and religious way. I am quite transported at the thought, that ere
long, perhaps very soon, I shall bid an eternal adieu to all the pains
and uneasiness, and disquietudes of this weary life ; for I assure you
I am heartily tired of it; and, if I do not very much deceive myself,
I could contentedly and gladly resign it.
' The
soul, uneasy, and confined at home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.'
" It is
for this reason I am more pleased with the 15th, 16th, and 17th verses
of the 7th chapter of Revelations, than with any ten times as many
verses in the whole Bible, and would not exchange the noble enthusiasm
with which they inspire me for all that this world has to offer.(19) As
for this world, I despair of ever making a figure in it. I am not
formed for the
bustle of the busy, nor the nutter of the gay. I shall never again be
capable of entering into such scenes. Indeed, I am altogether
unconcerned at the thoughts of this life. I foresee that poverty and
obscurity probably await me, and I am in some measure prepared, and
daily preparing, to meet them. I have but just time and paper to
return you my grateful thanks for the lessons of virtue and piety you
have given me, which were too much neglected at the time of giving
them, but which I hope have been remembered ere it is yet too late.
Present my dutiful respects to my mother, and my compliments to Mr.
and Mrs. Muir; and, with wishing you a merry New-year's day, I shall
conclude.
"I am,
honoured Sir, your dutiful Son ,
"ROBERT
BURNS .
(19) The
verses of Scripture here alluded to are as follows : " 15. Therefore
are they before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His
temple; and He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell
among them. 16. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more;
neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. 17. For the Lamb
that is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead
them unto living fountains of waters, and God shall wipe away all
tears from their eyes."
"
P.S.—My meal is nearly out ; but I am going to borrow, till I get
more."
" This
letter," says Dr. Currie, " written several years before the
publication of his Poems, when his name was as obscure as his
condition was humble, displays the philosophic melancholy which so
generally forms the poetical temperament, and that buoyant and
ambitious spirit which indicates a mind conscious of its strength. At
Irvine, Burns at this time possessed a single room for his lodgings,
rented, perhaps, at the rate of a shilling a week. He passed his days
in constant labour as a flax-dresser, and his food consisted chiefly
of oatmeal, sent to him from his father's family. The store of this
humble, though wholesome, nutriment, it appears, was nearly exhausted,
and he was about to borrow till he should obtain a supply. Yet even in
this situation his active imagination had formed to itself pictures of
eminence and distinction. His despair of making a figure in the world,
shows how ardently he wished for honourable fame ; and his contempt of
life, founded on this despair, is the genuine expression of a youthful
and generous mind. In
such a state of reflection and of suffering, the imagination of Burns
naturally passed the dark boundaries of our earthly-horizon, and
rested on those beautiful representations of a better world, where
there is neither thirst, nor hunger, nor sorrow, and where happiness
shall be in proportion to the capacity of happiness."
Unhappily for himself and for the world, it was not always in the
recollections of his virtuous home and the study of his Bible that
Burns sought for consolation amidst the heavy distresses which "his
youth was heir to." Irvine is a small seaport ; and here, as at
Kirkoswald, the adventurous spirits of a smuggling coast, with all
their jovial habits, were to be met with in abundance. " He contracted
some acquaintance," says Gilbert, "of a freer manner of thinking and
living than he had been used to, whose society prepared him for
overleaping the bounds of rigid virtue, which had hitherto restrained
him."
I owe to
Mr. Robert Chambers (author of Traditions of Edinburgh) the following
note of a conversation which he had in June, 1826, with a respectable
old citizen of this town : " Burns was at the time of his residence
among us an. older-looking man than might have been expected from his
age— very darkly complexioned, with a strong dark eye,—of a thoughtful
appearance, amounting to what might be called a gloomy attentiveness ;
so much so, that when in company which did not call forth his
brilliant powers of conversation, he might often be seen, for a
considerable space together, leaning down on his palm, with his elbow
resting on his knee. He was in common silent and reserved ; but when
he found a man to his mind, he constantly made a point of attaching
himself to his company, and endeavouring to bring out his powers. It
was among women alone that he uniformly exerted himself, and uniformly
shone. People remarked even then that, when Robert Burns did speak, he
always spoke to the point, and in general with a sententious brevity.
His moody thoughtfulness, and laconic style of expression, were both
inherited from his father, who, for his station in life, was a very
singular person."
Burns
himself thus sums up the results of his residence at Irvine :
"From this adventure I learned something of a town life ; but the
principal thing which gave my mind a turn was a friendship I formed
with a young fellow, a very noble character, but a hapless son of
misfortune. He was the son of a simple mechanic ; but a great man in
the neighbourhood, taking him under his patronage, gave him a genteel
education, with a view of bettering his situation in life. The patron
dying just as he was ready to launch out into the world, the poor
fellow in despair went to sea ; where, after a variety of good and ill
fortune, a little before I was acquainted with him, he had been set
ashore by an American privateer, on the wild coast of Connaught,
stripped of everything. . . . His mind was fraught with independence,
magnanimity, and every manly virtue. I loved and admired him to a
degree of enthusiasm, and of course strove to imitate him. In some
measure I succeeded ; I had pride before, but he taught it to flow in
proper channels. His knowledge of the world was vastly superior to
mine ; and I was all attention to learn. He was the only man I ever
saw who was a greater fool than myself, where-woman was the presiding
star ; but he spoke with the levity of a sailor of illicit love—-which
hitherto I had regarded with horror. Here his friendship did me a
mischief. "
Professor Walker, when preparing to write his Sketch of the Poet's
Life, was informed by an aged inhabitant of Irvine that Burns's chief
delight while there was in discussing religious topics, particularly
in those circles which usually gather in a Scotch churchyard after
service. The senior added that Burns commonly took the high
Calvinistic side in such debates ; and concluded with a boast that "
the lad" was indebted to himself in a great measure for the gradual
adoption of " more liberal opinions."
It was
during the same period that the poet was initiated in the mysteries of
freemasonry, " which was," says his brother, "his first introduction
to the life of a boon companion." He was introduced to St. Mary's
lodge of Tarbolton by John Ranken, a very dissipated man, of
considerable talents, to whom he afterwards indited a poetical
epistle, which will be noticed in its place.
"
Rhyme," Burns says, " I had given up" (on going to Irvine) ; " but
meeting with Fergusson's Scottish Poems, I strung anew my
wildly-sounding lyre with emulating vigour." Neither flax-dressing nor
the tavern could keep him long from his proper vocation. But it was
probably this accidental meeting with Fergusson that in a great
measure finally determined the Scottish character of Burns's poetry ;
and, indeed, but for the lasting sense of this obligation, and some
natural sympathy with the misfortunes of Fergusson's life, it would be
difficult to account for the very high terms in which Burns always
mentions his productions.
Shortly
before he went to Irvine, he, his brother Gilbert, and some seven or
eight young men besides, all of the parish of Tarbolton, had formed
themselves into a society, which they called the Bachelors' Club ; and
which met one evening in every month for the purpose of mutual
entertainment and improvement. That their cups were but modestly
filled is evident, for the rules of the club did not permit any member
to spend more than threepence at a sitting. A question was announced
for discussion at the close of each meeting ; and at the next they
came prepared to deliver their sentiments upon the subject-matter thus
proposed. Burns and David Sillar (to whom the " Epistle to Davie, a
brother-poet," was addressed, and who subsequently published a volume
of verses not without merit) were employed by the rest to draw up the
regulations of the society ; and some stanzas prefixed to Sitter's
Scroll of Rules " first introduced Burns and him to each other as
brother rhymers." (20) Of the sort of questions discussed we may form
some notion from the minute of one evening, still extant in
Burns's handwriting : "QUESTION FOR HALLOWE'EN (NOV. II. 1780) :
Suppose a young man, bred a farmer, but 'without any fortune, has it
in his power to marry either of two women, the one a girl of large
fortune, but neither handsome in person, nor agreeable in
conversation, but who can manage the household affairs of a farm
well enough; the other of them a girl every way agreeable in person,
conversation, and behaviour, but without any fortune: which of them
shall he choose ? " Burns, as may be guessed, took the imprudent side
in this discussion. " On one solitary occasion," says he, " we
resolved to meet at Tarbolton in July, on the race-night, and have a
dance in honour of our society. Accordingly, we did meet, each one
with a partner, and spent the night in such innocence and merriment,
such cheerfulness and good humour, that every brother will long
remember it with delight."
(20) I
quote from a letter of Mr. Sillar, November 29th, 1828. The lines
were:
" Of birth and blood we do not boast,
No
gentry does our Club afford,
But
ploughmen and mechanics we
In Nature's
simple dress record:
Let nane e'er join us who
refuse
To aid the lads that hand the ploughs,
To choose their friends and wale their wives,
To
ease the labours of their lives," etc.
These
lines, therefore (hitherto ascribed to Burns), are in fact the lawful
property of Mr. Sillar
There
can be no doubt that Burns would not have patronised this sober
association so long, unless he had experienced at its assemblies the
pleasure of a stimulated mind ; and as little that to the habit of
arranging his thoughts, and expressing them in somewhat of a formal
shape, thus early cultivated, we ought to attribute much of that
conversational skill which, when he first mingled with the upper
world, was generally considered as the most remarkable of all his
personal accomplishments. Burns's associates of the Bachelors' Club
must have been young men possessed of talents and acquirements,
otherwise such minds as his and Gilbert's could not have persisted in
measuring themselves against theirs ; and we may believe that the
periodical display of the poet's own vigour and resources at these
club meetings and (more frequently than his brother approved) at the
Freemason lodges of Irvine and Tarbolton, extended his rural
reputation, and by degrees prepared persons not immediately included
in his own circle for the extraordinary impression which his poetical
efforts were ere long to create all over "The Carrick Border."
Mr.
David Sillar (21) gives an account of the beginning of his
own acquaintance with Burns and introduction into this Bachelors'
Club, which will always be read with much interest. " Mr. Robert Burns
was some time in the parish of Tarbolton prior to my acquaintance with
him. His social disposition easily procured him acquaintance ; but a
certain satirical seasoning with which he and all poetical geniuses
are in some degree influenced, while it set the rustic circle in a
roar, was not unaccompanied with its kindred attendant, suspicious
fear. I recollect hearing his neighbours observe, he had a great deal
to say for himself, but that they suspected his principles. He wore
the only tied hair in the parish : and in the church, his plaid, which
was of a particular colour, I think fillemot, he wrapped in a
particular manner round his shoulders. These surmises, and his
exterior, had such a magnetical influence on my curiosity, as made me
particularly solicitous of his acquaintance. Whether my acquaintance
with Gilbert was casual or premeditated, I am not now certain. By him
I was introduced, not only to his brother, but to the whole of that
family, where in a short time I became a frequent, and, I believe, not
unwelcome visitant. After the commencement of my acquaintance with
the bard, we frequently met upon Sundays at church, when, between
sermons, instead of going with our friends, or our lasses, to the inn,
we often took a walk in the fields. In these walks I have frequently
been struck with his facility in addressing the fair sex : many times,
when I have been bashfully anxious how to express myself, he would
have entered into conversation with them with the greatest ease and
freedom ; and it was generally a death-blow to our conversation,
however agreeable, to meet a female acquaintance. Some of the few
opportunities of a noontide walk that a country life allows her
laborious sons, he spent on the banks of the river, or in the woods,
in the neighbourhood of Stair, a situation peculiarly adapted to the
genius of a rural bard. Some book (generally one of those mentioned in
his letter to Mr. Murdoch) he always carried, and read, when not
otherwise employed. It was likewise his custom to read at table. In
one of my visits to Lochlea, in time of a sowens
supper,(22) he was so intent on
reading;
I think Tristram Shandy, that his spoon falling out of his hand, made
him exclaim in a tone scarcely imitable, ' Alas, poor Yorick !' Such
was Burns, and such were his associates, when I was admitted a member
of the Bachelors' Club."
(21) David Sillar, a native of Tarbolton, became in 1784 a schoolmaster at Irvine
; and having, in the course of a long life, realised considerable
property, still survives as chief magistrate of that town (1828).
(22) Sowens is a coarse flummery made of soured
oatmeal. {There's a recipe for this at the bottom of
Burn's Halloween
page!}
The
misfortunes of William Burnes thickened apace, as has already been
seen, and were approaching their crisis at the time when Robert came
home from his flax-dressing experiment at Irvine. I have been favoured
with copies of some letters addressed by the poet soon afterwards to
his cousin, Mr. James Burness, writer in Montrose, which cannot but
gratify every reader. They are worthy of the strong understanding and
warm heart of Burns; and, besides opening a pleasing view of the
manner in which domestic affection was preserved between his father
and the relations from whom the accidents of life had separated that
excellent person in boyhood, they appear to me, written by a young and
unknown peasant in a wretched hovel, the abode of poverty, care, and
disease, to be models of native good taste and politeness.
"
To Mr.
James Burness.
"
LOCHLEA, 21st June, 1783.
"DEAR
SIR,—My father received your favour of the 10th currt. ; and as he has
been for some months very poorly in health, and is in his own opinion,
and indeed in almost everybody's else, in a dying condition—he has
only, with great difficulty, written a few farewell lines to each of
his brothers-in-law. For this melancholy reason, I now hold the pen
for him, to thank you for your kind letter, and to assure you, sir,
that it shall not be my fault if my father's correspondence in the
North die with him. My brother writes to John Caird; and to him I must
refer you for the news of our family. I shall only trouble you with a
few particulars relative to the present wretched state of this
country. Our markets are exceedingly high; oatmeal l7d. and 18d. per
peck, and not to be got even at that price. We have indeed been pretty
well supplied with quantities of white peas from England and elsewhere
: but that resource is likely to fail us; and what will become of us
then, particularly the very poorest sort, Heaven only knows. This
country, till of
late, was flourishing incredibly in the manufacture of silk, lawn, and
carpet-weaving ; and we are still carrying on a good deal in that way,
but much reduced from what it was. We had also a fine trade in the
shoe way, but now entirely ruined, and hundreds driven to a starring
condition on account of it. Farming is also at a very low ebb with us.
Our lands, generally speaking, are mountainous and barren; and our
landholders, full of ideas of farming gathered from the English and
the Lothians, and other rich soils in Scotland, make no allowance for
the odds of the quality of land, and consequently stretch us much
beyond what, in the event, we will be found able to pay. We are also
much at a loss for want of proper methods in our improvements of
farming. Necessity compels us to leave our old schemes, and few of us
have opportunities of being well informed in new ones. In short, my
dear sir, since the unfortunate beginning of this American war, and
its as unfortunate conclusion, this country has been, and still is,
decaying very fast. Even in higher life, a couple of our Ayrshire
noblemen, and the major part of our knights and squires, are all
insolvent. A miserable job of a Douglas, Heron, and Co. Bank, which no
doubt you have heard of, has undone numbers of them; and imitating
English and French, and other foreign luxuries and fopperies, has
ruined as many more. There is a great trade of smuggling carried on
along our coasts, which, however destructive to the interests of the
kingdom at large, certainly enriches this corner of it; but too often
at the expense of our morals. However, it enables individuals to make,
at least for a time, a splendid appearance; but Fortune, as is usual
with her when she is uncommonly lavish of her favours, is generally
even with them at the last; and happy were it for numbers of them if
she would leave them no worse than when she found them.
" My
mother sends you a small present of a cheese ; 'tis but a very little
one, as our last year's stock is sold off ; but if you could fix on
any correspondent in Edinburgh or Glasgow, we would send you a proper
one in the season. Mrs. Black promises to take the cheese under her
care so far, and then to send it to you by the Stirling carrier.
" I
shall conclude this long letter with assuring you, that I
shall be very happy to hear from you, or any of our friends in your
country, when opportunity serves. My father sends you, probably for
the last time in this world, his warmest wishes for your welfare and
happiness ; and my mother and the rest of the family desire to enclose
their compliments to you, Mrs. Burness, and the rest of your family,
along with,
" Dear
Sir, your affectionate cousin,
" ROBERT
BURNESS."
In the
second of these letters the poet announces the death of his father. It
is dated Lochlea, February 17th, 1784.
" DEAR
COUSIN,—I would have returned you my thanks for your kind favour of
the 13th Dec. sooner, had it not been that I waited to give you an
account of that melancholy event, which, for some time past, we have
from day to day expected. On the 13th currt. I lost the best of
fathers. Though, to be sure, we have had long warning of the impending
stroke, still the feelings of nature claim their part ; and I cannot
recollect the tender endearments and parental lessons of the best of
friends and the ablest of instructors, without feeling what perhaps
the calmer dictates of reason would partly condemn. I hope my father's
friends in your country will not let their connection in this place
die with him. For my part I shall ever with pleasure—with
pride—acknowledge my connection with those who were allied by the
ties of blood and friendship to a man whose memory I will ever honour
and revere. I expect, therefore, my dear sir, you will not neglect any
opportunity of letting me hear from you, which will ever very much
oblige,
"My dear
cousin, yours sincerely,
"ROBERT
BURNESS."
Among
other evils from which the excellent William Burness thus escaped was
an affliction that would, in his eyes, have been severe. Our youthful
poet had not, as he confesses, come unscathed out of the society of
those persons of " liberal opinions " with whom he consorted in Irvine
; and he expressly attributes
to their lessons the scrape into which he fell soon after "he put his
hand to the plough again." He was compelled, according to the then all
but universal custom of rural parishes in Scotland, to do penance in
church, before the congregation, in consequence of the birth of an
illegitimate child ; and whatever may be thought of the propriety of
such exhibitions, there can be no difference of opinion as to the
culpable levity with which he describes the nature of his offence, and
the still more reprehensible bitterness with which, in his Epistle to Ranken,(23) he inveighs against the clergyman, who, in rebuking him, only
performed what was then a regular part of the clerical duty, and a
part of it that could never have been at all agreeable to the worthy
man whom he satirises under the appellation of "Daddie Auld."
The
Poet's Welcome to an Illegitimate Child was composed on the same
occasion—a piece in which some very manly feelings are expressed,
along with others which it can give no one pleasure to contemplate.
There is a song in honour of the same occasion, or a similar one about
the same period, The rantin' Dog the Daddie o't, which exhibits the
poet as glorying, and only glorying, in his shame.
When I
consider his tender affection for the surviving members of his own
family, and the reverence with which he ever regarded the memory of
the father whom he had so recently buried, I cannot believe that Burns
has thought fit to record in verse all the feelings which this
exposure excited in his bosom. " To wave," in his own language, " the
quantum of the sin," he who, two years afterwards, wrote The Cottar's
Saturday Night, had not, we may be sure, hardened his heart to the
thought of bringing additional sorrow and unexpected shame to the
fireside of a widowed mother. But his false pride recoiled from
letting his jovial associates guess how little he was able to drown
the whispers of the still small 'voice; and the
fermenting bitterness of a mind ill at ease within itself escaped (as
may be too often traced in the history of satirists) in the shape of
angry sarcasms against others, who, whatever their private errors
might be, had at least done him no wrong.
It is
impossible not to smile at one item of consolation which Burns
proposes to himself on this occasion :
" The
mair they talk, I'm kend the better;
E'en let
them clash !"
This is
indeed a singular manifestation of " the last infirmity of noble
minds."
(23) There
is much humour in some of the verses; as,
"'Twas ae night lately, in my fun,
I
gaed a roving wi' my gun,
An
brought a paitrick to the grun',
A bonnie hen,
And, as the twilight was begun,
Thought
nane wad ken," etc.
