The Mr Crawford here alluded to was the Laird of Cartsburn, near Greenock; an open-hearted, worthy man, who, having studied the works of the Ayrshire bard, and heard of his personal character from Richard Brown, was pleased to indite a letter, pressing him to pay a visit to that part of Scotland. FROM THOMAS CRAWFORD, OF CARTSBURN, ESQ., TO ROBERT BURNS. CARTSBURN, 16th March 1788. MY DEAR SIR-For congeniality of mind entitles me to the freedom of this appellation, and never did I use it with more cordial sincerity. Through the medium of our mutual friend Brown, I hazard inviting you to the participation of an agreeable rural retirement, at a convenient distance from a town where there are many of your admirers (but indeed it is not distinguished by that from any town in Great Britain): a library I hope not ill chosen; a cellar not ill stored; a hearty cock of a landlord, whom his perhaps too partial friends regard as destitute neither of taste nor letters. He has reached his eighth lustre untrammelled by the matrimonial chain; and having neither wife nor ostensible child to disturb his tranquillity or divide his affection, he can offer you a whole heart. Halt!-this is going too far; for he is not so forlorn a wretch as to be without both a friend and a mistress— a Davie and a Jean; but this does not hinder his having a very warm place in that same heart (for though the fellow's person be little, his heart is large) most cordially at your service! How do you like the bill of fare? Not amiss, provided it be not a vapouring sign to a wretched ale-house-Good wine needs no "bush." Well-come try (I must pun), and welcome, and I hope you will find it deficient neither in spirit nor flavour; but this sage reflection of yours prevents my proceeding to raise your expectations too high. This much I will, however, in justice to myself add-namely, that if you should be disappointed, I shall be much more so. Shall I, then, be blest with your society? Answer me, my dear boy! But I forget myself: you are no classic-no Latin one, I meanthough certainly to be classed (allow me a jingle) among the first Caledonian classics. Tell me where you are. God knows I would gladly come for you in person; but as this is not in my power, will you allow me to send a servant and a horse for you? Do, my Burns, and bless me with your assent. Your hearty friend, dear T. CRAWFORD. This letter shews the kind of feeling with which Burns was hailed at his début by men of warm feelings and unsuspicious temper. At an ordinary time, nothing could have afforded the bard greater pleasure than to cultivate the friendship of so frank a good-fellow as Cartsburn; but the crisis was most unpropitious. Between Wednesday, 26th March, and the end of the week, he had travelled from Glasgow into Dumfriesshire, and attended to business there-a pretty rapid movement for those days. During his recent absence in Edinburgh, he must have received a succession of home letters, telling him, first, that twin infants were thrown upon his care; and next, that they had left this earthly scene. A composition of the Sunday, on his return from Dumfriesshire, reveals the depressed state of his mind at this crisis. TO MR ROBERT CLEGHORN. MAUCHLINE, 31st March 1788. Yesterday, my dear sir, as I was riding through a track of melancholy, joyless muirs, between Galloway and Ayrshire, it being Sunday, I turned my thoughts to psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs; and your favourite air, Captain O'Kean, coming at length into my head, I tried these words to it. You will see that the first part of the tune must be repeated. The small birds rejoice in the green leaves returning, I am tolerably pleased with these verses; but as I have only a sketch of the tune, I leave it with you to try if they suit the measure of the music. I am so harassed with care and anxiety about this farming project of mine, that my Muse has degenerated into the veriest prose-wench that ever picked cinders or followed a tinker. When I am fairly got into the routine of business, I shall trouble you with a longer epistle; perhaps with some queries respecting farming: at present, the world sits such a load on my mind, that it has effaced almost every trace of the poet in me. My very best compliments and good wishes to Mrs Cleghorn. R. B. Mr Cleghorn wrote in answer on the 27th April, expressing much gratification with the verses, and adding: 'I wish you would send me a verse or two more; and, if you have no objection, I would have it in the Jacobite style. Suppose it should be sung after the fatal field of Culloden by the unfortunate Charles.' Burns consequently added two verses, and called the whole The Chevalier's Lament. The deed that I dared, could it merit their malice, A king and a father to place on his throne? His right are these hills, and his right are these valleys, Burns was now settled in Ayrshire for his instructions as an exciseman, the order for which was issued to an officer at Torbolton on the 31st March.' It was his object to have this business accomplished before Whitsunday term (25th May), when he had to take possession of his farm in Dumfriesshire. He had, however, a sacred duty to perform towards the virtuous but unfortunate household at Mossgiel. Burns was a most faithfully attached son and brother; and he must have felt that, by reason of the various consequences of his imprudence, obligations had hitherto been on his side. Gilbert had been struggling on with the ungrateful soil of Mossgiel, and only sinking year after year deeper into debt. The following undated letter of Robert Burns seems to have been addressed to Mr Gavin Hamilton, at some period prior to the present, when a proposal had been made to relieve Gilbert by the poct becoming his guarantee to a considerable amount. Robert, at no time wanton in the management of money, or reckless about his own affairs, such as they were, refused the request. 1 The letter of instruction by the Board of Excise to the officer who trained Burns for the duties of an exciseman, is given in Hogg and Motherwell's edition of the poet's works : 'MR JAMES FINDLAY, OFFICER, TORBOLTON. The Commissioners order, that you instruct the bearer, Mr Robert Burns, in the art of gauging, and practical dry gauging casks and utensils; and that you fit him for surveying victuallers, rectifiers, chandlers, tanners, tawers, maltsters, &c.; and when he has kept books regularly for six weeks at least, and drawn true vouchers and abstracts therefrom (which books, vouchers, and abstracts must be signed by your supervisor and yourself, as well as the said Mr Robert Burns), and sent to the Commissioners at his expense; and when he is furnished with proper instruments, and well instructed and qualified for an officer (then and not before, at your perils), you and your supervisor are to certify the same to the Board, expressing particularly therein the date of this letter; and that the above Mr Robert Burns hath cleared his quarters both for lodging and diet; that he has actually paid each of you for his instructions and examination; and that he has sufficient at the time to purchase a horse for his business.-I am your humble servant, A. PEARSON. EXCISE OFFICE, Edinburgh, 31st March 1788.' This officer was, through Burns's means, introduced to Miss Merkland, one of the six Mauchline belles, and a marriage took place between that pair in September this year. Mrs Findlay died in August 1851, at the age of eighty-six. Burns seems to have had a turn for causing marriage in others, before he was satisfactorily married himself. TO [MR GAVIN HAMILTON.] MOSSGIEL, Friday Morning. The language of refusal is to me the most difficult language on earth, and you are the man in the world, excepting one of Right Honourable designation,' to whom it gives me the greatest pain to hold such language. My brother has already got money, and shall want nothing in my power to enable him to fulfil his engagement with you; but to be security on so large a scale, even for a brother, is what I dare not do, except I were in such circumstances of life as that the worst that might happen could not greatly injure me. I never wrote a letter which gave me so much pain in my life, as I know the unhappy consequences: I shall incur the displeasure of a gentleman for whom I have the highest respect, and to whom I am deeply obliged. I am ever, sir, your obliged and very humble ROBERT BURNS. servant, Now, however, having realised the proceeds of his Poems, Burns advanced to Gilbert £180, to keep him afloat in his business, being, in all probability, about a moiety of the capital he himself possessed, or was likely for a long time to possess. In his letter of the ensuing January to Dr Moore, he says: 'I give myself no airs on this, for it was mere selfishness on my part; I was conscious that the wrong scale of the balance was pretty heavily charged, and I thought that throwing a little filial piety and fraternal affection into the scale in my favour, might help to smooth matters at the grand reckoning.' We learn indeed from Mrs Begg, that the money was understood in the family as lent to Gilbert without interest, as a provision due from Robert on behalf of his mother, on his marriage and consequent departure from the household throwing the future burden of her support upon the younger brother. It will be found that this loan had a somewhat curious and protracted history, bringing out some traits of self-sacrificing feeling and righteousness in the Burns family, such as, I am fain to think, are characteristic of homely society in Scotland, and constitute one of the chief glories of the Scottish name. TO MR WILLIAM DUNBAR, EDINBURGH. MAUCHLINE, 7th April 1788. I have not delayed so long to write you, my much respected friend, because I thought no further of my promise. I have long 1 The Earl of Glencairn ? since given up that kind of formal correspondence, where one sits down irksomely to write a letter, because we think we are in duty bound so to do. I have been roving over the country, as the farm I have taken is forty miles from this place, hiring servants and preparing matters; but most of all, I am earnestly busy to bring about a revolution in my own mind. As, till within these eighteen months, I never was the wealthy master of ten guineas, my knowledge of business is to learn; add to this, my late scenes of idleness and dissipation have enervated my mind to an alarming degree. Skill in the sober science of life is my most serious and hourly study. I have dropt all conversation and all reading (prose reading) but what tends in some way or other to my serious aim. Except one worthy young fellow, I have not one single correspondent in Edinburgh. You have, indeed, kindly made me an offer of that kind. The world of wits, and gens comme il faut which I lately left, and with whom I never again will intimately mix-from that port, sir, I expect your Gazette: what les beaux esprits are saying, what they are doing, and what they are singing. Any sober intelligence from my sequestered walks of life; any droll original; any passing remark, important forsooth, because it is mine; any little poetic effort, however embryoth; these, my dear sir, are all you have to expect from me. When I talk of poetic efforts, I must have it always understood that I appeal from your wit and taste to your friendship and good-nature. The first would be my favourite tribunal, where I defied censure; but the last, where I declined justice. I have scarcely made a single distich since I saw you. When I meet with an old Scots air that has any facetious idea in its name, I have a peculiar pleasure in following out that idea for a verse or two. I trust that this will find you in better health than I did last time I called for you. A few lines from you, directed to me at Mauchline, were it but to let me know how you are, will set my mind a good deal [at rest]. Now, never shun the idea of writing me, because perhaps you may be out of humour or spirits. I could give you a hundred good consequences attending a dull letter; one, for example, and the remaining ninety-nine some other time-it will always serve to keep in countenance, my much respected sir, your obliged friend and humble servant, R. B. TO MISS CHALMERS. MAUCHLINE, 7th April 1788. I am indebted to you and Miss Nimmo for letting me know Miss Kennedy. Strange! how apt we are to indulge prejudices in our judgments of one another! Even I, who pique myself on my skill |