No More Learning

[Thomson, it would appear by his answer to this letter, was at issue
with Burns on the subject-matter of simplicity: the former seems to
have desired a sort of diplomatic and varnished style: the latter felt
that elegance and simplicity were "sisters twin. "]

_April, 1793. _

MY DEAR SIR,

I had scarcely put my last letter into the post-office, when I took up
the subject of "The last time I came o'er the moor," and ere I slept
drew the outlines of the foregoing. [221] How I have succeeded, I leave
on this, as on every other occasion, to you to decide. I own my vanity
is flattered, when you give my songs a place in your elegant and superb
work; but to be of service to the work is my first wish. As I have often
told you, I do not in a single instance wish you, out of compliment to
me, to insert anything of mine. One hint let me give you--whatever Mr.
Pleyel does, let him not alter one iota of the original Scottish airs, I
mean in the song department, but let our national music preserve its
native features. They are, I own, frequently wild and irreducible to the
more modern rules; but on that very eccentricity, perhaps, depends a
great part of their effect.

R. B.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 221: Song CCXXXIV. ]

* * * * *




CCLV.


TO JOHN FRANCIS ERSKINE, ESQ. ,

OF M A R.
[This remarkable letter has been of late the subject of some
controversy: Mr. Findlater, who happened then to be in the Excise, is
vehement in defence of the "honourable board," and is certain that
Burns has misrepresented the conduct of his very generous masters. In
answer to this it has been urged that the word of the poet has in no
other thing been questioned: that in the last moments of his life, he
solemnly wrote this letter into his memorandum-book, and that the
reproof of Mr. Corbet, is given by him either as a quotation from a
paper or an exact recollection of the words used: the expressions,
"_not to think_" and be "_silent_ and _obedient_" are underlined. ]

_Dumfries, 13th April, 1793. _

SIR,

Degenerate as human nature is said to be, and in many instances,
worthless and unprincipled it is, still there are bright examples to
the contrary; examples that even in the eyes of superior beings, must
shed a lustre on the name of man.

Such an example have I now before me, when you, Sir, came forward to
patronize and befriend a distant, obscure stranger, merely because
poverty had made him helpless, and his British hardihood of mind had
provoked the arbitrary wantonness of power. My much esteemed friend,
Mr. Riddel of Glenriddel, has just read me a paragraph of a letter he
had from you. Accept, Sir, of the silent throb of gratitude; for words
would but mock the emotions of my soul.

You have been misinformed as to my final dismission from the Excise; I
am still in the service. --Indeed, but for the exertions of a gentleman
who must be known to you, Mr. Graham of Fintray, a gentleman who has
ever been my warm and generous friend, I had, without so much us a
hearing, or the slightest previous intimation, been turned adrift,
with my helpless family, to all the horrors of want. Had I had any
other resource, probably I might have saved them the trouble of a
dismission; but the little money I gained by my publication, is almost
every guinea embarked, to save from ruin an only brother, who, though
one of the worthiest, is by no means one of the most fortunate of men.

In my defence to their accusations, I said, that whatever might be my
sentiments of republics, ancient or modern, as to Britain, I abjured the
idea! --That a CONSTITUTION, which, in its original principles,
experience had proved to be every way fitted for our happiness in
society, it would be insanity to sacrifice to an untried visionary
theory:--that, in consideration of my being situated in a department,
however humble, immediately in the hands of people in power, I had
forborne taking any active part, either personally, or as an author, in
the present business of Reform.