No More Learning

* * * * *




LXXIV.


TO DR. MOORE.

[Dr. Moore was one of the first to point out the beauty of the lyric
compositions of Burns. "'Green grow the Rashes,' and of the two
songs," says he, "which follow, beginning 'Again rejoicing nature
sees,' and 'The gloomy night is gathering fast;' the latter is
exquisite. By the way, I imagine you have a peculiar talent for such
compositions which you ought to indulge: no kind of poetry demands
more delicacy or higher polishing. " On this letter to Moore all the
biographies of Burns are founded. ]

_Mauchline, 2d August, 1787. _

SIR,

For some months past I have been rambling over the country, but I am
now confined with some lingering complaints, originating, as I take
it, in the stomach. To divert my spirits a little in this miserable
fog of ennui, I have taken a whim to give you a history of myself. My
name has made some little noise in this country; you have done me the
honour to interest yourself very warmly in my behalf; and I think a
faithful account of what character of a man I am, and how I came by
that character, may perhaps amuse you in an idle moment. I will give
you an honest narrative, though I know it will be often at my own
expense; for I assure you, Sir, I have, like Solomon, whose character,
excepting in the trifling affair of wisdom, I sometimes think I
resemble,--I have, I say, like him turned my eyes to behold madness
and folly, and like him, too, frequently shaken hands with their
intoxicating friendship. --After you have perused these pages, should
you think them trifling and impertinent, I only beg leave to tell you,
that the poor author wrote them under some twitching qualms of
conscience, arising from a suspicion that he was doing what he ought
not to do; a predicament he has more than once been in before.

I have not the most distant pretensions to assume that character which
the pye-coated guardians of escutcheons call a gentleman.
When at
Edinburgh last winter, I got acquainted in the herald's office; and,
looking through that granary of honours, I there found almost every
name in the kingdom; but for me,

"My ancient but ignoble blood
Has crept thro' scoundrels ever since the flood. "

POPE.

Gules, purpure, argent, &c. , quite disowned me.

My father was of the north of Scotland, the son of a farmer, and was
thrown by early misfortunes on the world at large; where, after many
years' wanderings and sojournings, he picked up a pretty large
quantity of observation and experience, to which I am indebted for
most of my little pretensions to wisdom--I have met with few who
understood men, their manners, and their ways, equal to him; but
stubborn, ungainly integrity, and headlong, ungovernable irascibility,
are disqualifying circumstances; consequently, I was born a very poor
man's son. For the first six or seven years of my life, my father was
gardener to a worthy gentleman of small estate in the neighbourhood of
Ayr. Had he continued in that station I must have marched off to be
one of the little underlings about a farm-house; but it was his
dearest wish and prayer to have it in his power to keep his children
under his own eye, till they could discern between good and evil; so,
with the assistance of his generous master, my father ventured on a
small farm on his estate. At those years, I was by no means a
favourite with anybody. I was a good deal noted for a retentive
memory, a stubborn sturdy something in my disposition, and an
enthusiastic idiot[175] piety. I say idiot piety, because I was then
but a child. Though it cost the schoolmaster some thrashings, I made
an excellent English, scholar; and by the time I was ten or eleven
years of age, I was a critic in substantives, verbs, and particles. In
my infant and boyish days, too, I owed much to an old woman who
resided in the family, remarkable for her ignorance, credulity, and
superstition. She had, I suppose, the largest collection in the
country of tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies,
brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, elf-candles,
dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantraips, giants, enchanted towers,
dragons, and other trumpery. This cultivated the latent seeds of
poetry; but had so strong an effect on my imagination, that to this
hour, in my nocturnal rambles, I sometimes keep a sharp look out in
suspicions places; and though nobody can be more sceptical than I am
in such matters, yet it often takes an effort of philosophy to shake
off these idle terrors. The earliest composition that I recollect
taking pleasure in, was The Vision of Mirza, and a hymn of Addison's
beginning, "How are thy servants blest, O Lord! " I particularly
remember one half-stanza which was music to my boyish ear--

"For though in dreadful whirls we hung
High on the broken wave--"

I met with these pieces in Mason's English Collection, one of my
school-books.