I have found the excise business go on a great deal smoother with me
than I expected; owing a good deal to the generous friendship of Mr.
than I expected; owing a good deal to the generous friendship of Mr.
Robert Burns
" Come and see me one year; I shall see you at Port
Glasgow the next, and if we can contrive to have a gossiping between
our two bedfellows, it will be so much additional pleasure. Mrs.
Burns joins me in kind compliments to you and Mrs. Brown. Adieu!
I am ever, my dear Sir, yours,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXXVI.
TO R. GRAHAM, ESQ.
[The poet enclosed in this letter to his patron in the Excise the
clever verses on Captain Grose, the Kirk's Alarm, and the first ballad
on Captain Miller's election. ]
_9th December, 1789. _
SIR,
I have a good while had a wish to trouble you with a letter, and had
certainly done it long ere now--but for a humiliating something that
throws cold water on the resolution, as if one should say, "You have
found Mr. Graham a very powerful and kind friend indeed, and that
interest he is so kindly taking in your concerns, you ought by
everything in your power to keep alive and cherish. " Now though since
God has thought proper to make one powerful and another helpless, the
connexion of obliger and obliged is all fair; and though my being
under your patronage is to me highly honourable, yet, Sir, allow me to
flatter myself, that, as a poet and an honest man you first interested
yourself in my welfare, and principally as such, still you permit me
to approach you.
I have found the excise business go on a great deal smoother with me
than I expected; owing a good deal to the generous friendship of Mr.
Mitchel, my collector, and the kind assistance of Mr. Findlater, my
supervisor. I dare to be honest, and I fear no labour. Nor do I find
my hurried life greatly inimical to my correspondence with the muses.
Their visits to me, indeed, and I believe to most of their
acquaintance, like the visits of good angels, are short and far
between: but I meet them now and then as I jog through the hills of
Nithsdale, just as I used to do on the banks of Ayr. I take the
liberty to enclose you a few bagatelles, all of them the productions
of my leisure thoughts in my excise rides.
If you know or have ever seen Captain Grose, the antiquarian, you will
enter into any humour that is in the verses on him. Perhaps you have
seen them before, as I sent them to a London newspaper. Though I dare
say you have none of the solemn-league-and-covenant fire, which shone
so conspicuous in Lord George Gordon, and the Kilmarnock weavers, yet
I think you must have heard of Dr. M'Gill, one of the clergymen of
Ayr, and his heretical book. God help him, poor man! Though he is one
of the worthiest, as well as one of the ablest of the whole priesthood
of the Kirk of Scotland, in every sense of that ambiguous term, yet
the poor Doctor and his numerous family are in imminent danger of
being thrown out to the mercy of the winter-winds. The enclosed ballad
on that business is, I confess, too local, but I laughed myself at
some conceits in it, though I am convinced in my conscience that there
are a good many heavy stanzas in it too.
The election ballad, as you will see, alludes to the present canvass
in our string of boroughs. I do not believe there will be such a
hard-run match in the whole general election.
Glasgow the next, and if we can contrive to have a gossiping between
our two bedfellows, it will be so much additional pleasure. Mrs.
Burns joins me in kind compliments to you and Mrs. Brown. Adieu!
I am ever, my dear Sir, yours,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXXVI.
TO R. GRAHAM, ESQ.
[The poet enclosed in this letter to his patron in the Excise the
clever verses on Captain Grose, the Kirk's Alarm, and the first ballad
on Captain Miller's election. ]
_9th December, 1789. _
SIR,
I have a good while had a wish to trouble you with a letter, and had
certainly done it long ere now--but for a humiliating something that
throws cold water on the resolution, as if one should say, "You have
found Mr. Graham a very powerful and kind friend indeed, and that
interest he is so kindly taking in your concerns, you ought by
everything in your power to keep alive and cherish. " Now though since
God has thought proper to make one powerful and another helpless, the
connexion of obliger and obliged is all fair; and though my being
under your patronage is to me highly honourable, yet, Sir, allow me to
flatter myself, that, as a poet and an honest man you first interested
yourself in my welfare, and principally as such, still you permit me
to approach you.
I have found the excise business go on a great deal smoother with me
than I expected; owing a good deal to the generous friendship of Mr.
Mitchel, my collector, and the kind assistance of Mr. Findlater, my
supervisor. I dare to be honest, and I fear no labour. Nor do I find
my hurried life greatly inimical to my correspondence with the muses.
Their visits to me, indeed, and I believe to most of their
acquaintance, like the visits of good angels, are short and far
between: but I meet them now and then as I jog through the hills of
Nithsdale, just as I used to do on the banks of Ayr. I take the
liberty to enclose you a few bagatelles, all of them the productions
of my leisure thoughts in my excise rides.
If you know or have ever seen Captain Grose, the antiquarian, you will
enter into any humour that is in the verses on him. Perhaps you have
seen them before, as I sent them to a London newspaper. Though I dare
say you have none of the solemn-league-and-covenant fire, which shone
so conspicuous in Lord George Gordon, and the Kilmarnock weavers, yet
I think you must have heard of Dr. M'Gill, one of the clergymen of
Ayr, and his heretical book. God help him, poor man! Though he is one
of the worthiest, as well as one of the ablest of the whole priesthood
of the Kirk of Scotland, in every sense of that ambiguous term, yet
the poor Doctor and his numerous family are in imminent danger of
being thrown out to the mercy of the winter-winds. The enclosed ballad
on that business is, I confess, too local, but I laughed myself at
some conceits in it, though I am convinced in my conscience that there
are a good many heavy stanzas in it too.
The election ballad, as you will see, alludes to the present canvass
in our string of boroughs. I do not believe there will be such a
hard-run match in the whole general election.
