[This
singular
letter was sent by Burns, it is believed, to a critic,
who had taken him to task about obscure language, and imperfect
grammar.
who had taken him to task about obscure language, and imperfect
grammar.
Robert Forst
Do let me
hear, by first post, how _cher petit Monsieur_ comes on with his
small-pox. May almighty goodness preserve and restore him!
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXVI.
TO ----.
[That his works found their way to the newspapers, need have
occasioned no surprise: the poet gave copies of his favorite pieces
freely to his friends, as soon as they were written: who, in their
turn, spread their fame among their acquaintances. ]
_Ellisland, 1791. _
DEAR SIR,
I am exceedingly to blame in not writing you long ago; but the truth
is, that I am the most indolent of all human beings; and when I
matriculate in the herald's office, I intend that my supporters shall
be two sloths, my crest a slow-worm, and the motto, "Deil tak the
foremost. " So much by way of apology for not thanking you sooner for
your kind execution of my commission.
I would have sent you the poem; but somehow or other it found its way
into the public papers, where you must have seen it.
I am ever, dear Sir,
Yours sincerely,
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXVII.
TO ----.
[This singular letter was sent by Burns, it is believed, to a critic,
who had taken him to task about obscure language, and imperfect
grammar. ]
_Ellisland, 1791. _
Thou eunuch of language: thou Englishman, who never was south the
Tweed: thou servile echo of fashionable barbarisms: thou quack,
vending the nostrums of empirical elocution: thou marriage-maker
between vowels and consonants, on the Gretna-green of caprice: thou
cobler, botching the flimsy socks of bombast oratory: thou blacksmith,
hammering the rivets of absurdity: thou butcher, imbruing thy hands in
the bowels of orthography: thou arch-heretic in pronunciation: thou
pitch-pipe of affected emphasis: thou carpenter, mortising the awkward
joints of jarring sentences: thou squeaking dissonance of cadence:
thou pimp of gender: thou Lion Herald to silly etymology: thou
antipode of grammar: thou executioner of construction: thou brood of
the speech-distracting builders of the Tower of Babel; thou lingual
confusion worse confounded: thou scape-gallows from the land of
syntax: thou scavenger of mood and tense: thou murderous accoucheur of
infant learning; thou _ignis fatuus_, misleading the steps of
benighted ignorance: thou pickle-herring in the puppet-show of
nonsense: thou faithful recorder of barbarous idiom: thou persecutor
of syllabication: thou baleful meteor, foretelling and facilitating
the rapid approach of Nox and Erebus.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXVIII.
TO MR. CUNNINGHAM.
[To Clarke, the Schoolmaster, Burns, it is said, addressed several
letters, which on his death were put into the fire by his widow,
because of their license of language. ]
_11th June, 1791. _
Let me interest you, my dear Cunningham, in behalf of the gentleman
who waits on you with this. He is a Mr. Clarke, of Moffat, principal
schoolmaster there, and is at present suffering severely under the
persecution of one or two powerful individuals of his employers. He is
accused of harshness to boys that were placed under his care. God help
the teacher, if a man of sensibility and genius, and such is my friend
Clarke, when a booby father presents him with his booby son, and
insists on lighting up the rays of science, in a fellow's head whose
skull is impervious and inaccessible by any other way than a positive
fracture with a cudgel: a fellow whom in fact it savours of impiety to
attempt making a scholar of, as he has been marked a blockhead in the
book of fate, at the almighty fiat of his Creator.
The patrons of Moffat-school are, the ministers, magistrates, and
town-council of Edinburgh, and as the business comes now before them,
let me beg my dearest friend to do everything in his power to serve
the interests of a man of genius and worth, and a man whom I
particularly respect and esteem.
hear, by first post, how _cher petit Monsieur_ comes on with his
small-pox. May almighty goodness preserve and restore him!
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXVI.
TO ----.
[That his works found their way to the newspapers, need have
occasioned no surprise: the poet gave copies of his favorite pieces
freely to his friends, as soon as they were written: who, in their
turn, spread their fame among their acquaintances. ]
_Ellisland, 1791. _
DEAR SIR,
I am exceedingly to blame in not writing you long ago; but the truth
is, that I am the most indolent of all human beings; and when I
matriculate in the herald's office, I intend that my supporters shall
be two sloths, my crest a slow-worm, and the motto, "Deil tak the
foremost. " So much by way of apology for not thanking you sooner for
your kind execution of my commission.
I would have sent you the poem; but somehow or other it found its way
into the public papers, where you must have seen it.
I am ever, dear Sir,
Yours sincerely,
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXVII.
TO ----.
[This singular letter was sent by Burns, it is believed, to a critic,
who had taken him to task about obscure language, and imperfect
grammar. ]
_Ellisland, 1791. _
Thou eunuch of language: thou Englishman, who never was south the
Tweed: thou servile echo of fashionable barbarisms: thou quack,
vending the nostrums of empirical elocution: thou marriage-maker
between vowels and consonants, on the Gretna-green of caprice: thou
cobler, botching the flimsy socks of bombast oratory: thou blacksmith,
hammering the rivets of absurdity: thou butcher, imbruing thy hands in
the bowels of orthography: thou arch-heretic in pronunciation: thou
pitch-pipe of affected emphasis: thou carpenter, mortising the awkward
joints of jarring sentences: thou squeaking dissonance of cadence:
thou pimp of gender: thou Lion Herald to silly etymology: thou
antipode of grammar: thou executioner of construction: thou brood of
the speech-distracting builders of the Tower of Babel; thou lingual
confusion worse confounded: thou scape-gallows from the land of
syntax: thou scavenger of mood and tense: thou murderous accoucheur of
infant learning; thou _ignis fatuus_, misleading the steps of
benighted ignorance: thou pickle-herring in the puppet-show of
nonsense: thou faithful recorder of barbarous idiom: thou persecutor
of syllabication: thou baleful meteor, foretelling and facilitating
the rapid approach of Nox and Erebus.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXVIII.
TO MR. CUNNINGHAM.
[To Clarke, the Schoolmaster, Burns, it is said, addressed several
letters, which on his death were put into the fire by his widow,
because of their license of language. ]
_11th June, 1791. _
Let me interest you, my dear Cunningham, in behalf of the gentleman
who waits on you with this. He is a Mr. Clarke, of Moffat, principal
schoolmaster there, and is at present suffering severely under the
persecution of one or two powerful individuals of his employers. He is
accused of harshness to boys that were placed under his care. God help
the teacher, if a man of sensibility and genius, and such is my friend
Clarke, when a booby father presents him with his booby son, and
insists on lighting up the rays of science, in a fellow's head whose
skull is impervious and inaccessible by any other way than a positive
fracture with a cudgel: a fellow whom in fact it savours of impiety to
attempt making a scholar of, as he has been marked a blockhead in the
book of fate, at the almighty fiat of his Creator.
The patrons of Moffat-school are, the ministers, magistrates, and
town-council of Edinburgh, and as the business comes now before them,
let me beg my dearest friend to do everything in his power to serve
the interests of a man of genius and worth, and a man whom I
particularly respect and esteem.
