--Happy thought that idea has
engendered
in my head!
Robert Forst
--these are a
nation's strength.
I know not how to apologize for the impertinent length of this epistle;
but one small request I must ask of you further--when you have honoured
this letter with a perusal, please to commit it to the flames. BURNS, in
whose behalf you have so generously interested yourself, I have here in
his native colours drawn _as he is_, but should any of the people in
whose hands is the very bread he eats, get the least knowledge of the
picture, _it would ruin the poor_ BARD _for ever_!
My poems having just come out in another edition, I beg leave to
present you with a copy, as a small mark of that high esteem and
ardent gratitude, with which I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your deeply indebted,
And ever devoted humble servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
CCLVI.
TO ROBERT AINSLIE, ESQ.
["Up tails a', by the light o' the moon," was the name of a Scottish
air, to which the devil danced with the witches of Fife, on Magus
Moor, as reported by a warlock, in that credible work, "Satan's
Invisible World discovered. "]
_April 26, 1793. _
I am d--mnably out of humour, my dear Ainslie, and that is the reason,
why I take up the pen to _you_: 'tis the nearest way (_probatum est_)
to recover my spirits again.
I received your last, and was much entertained with it; but I will not
at this time, nor at any other time, answer it. --Answer a letter? I
never could answer a letter in my life! --I have written many a letter
in return for letters I have received; but then--they were original
matter--spurt-away! zig here, zag there; as if the devil that, my
Grannie (an old woman indeed) often told me, rode on will-o'-wisp, or,
in her more classic phrase, SPUNKIE, were looking over my
elbow.
--Happy thought that idea has engendered in my head!
SPUNKIE--thou shalt henceforth be my symbol signature, and
tutelary genius! Like thee, hap-step-and-lowp, here-awa-there-awa,
higglety-pigglety, pell-mell, hither-and-yon, ram-stam,
happy-go-lucky, up-tails-a'-by-the-light-o'-the-moon,--has been, is,
and shall be, my progress through the mosses and moors of this vile,
bleak, barren wilderness of a life of ours.
Come then, my guardian spirit, like thee may I skip away, amusing
myself by and at my own light: and if any opaque-souled lubber of
mankind complain that my elfine, lambent, glim merous wanderings have
misled his stupid steps over precipices, or into bogs, let the
thickheaded blunderbuss recollect, that he is not Spunkie:--that
"SPUNKIE'S wanderings could not copied be:
Amid these perils none durst walk but he. "--
* * * * *
I have no doubt but scholar-craft may be caught, as a Scotchman catches
the itch,--by friction. How else can you account for it, that born
blockheads, by mere dint of _handling_ books, grow so wise that even
they themselves are equally convinced of and surprised at their own
parts? I once carried this philosophy to that degree that in a knot of
country folks who had a library amongst them, and who, to the honour
of their good sense, made me factotum in the business; one of our
members, a little, wise-looking, squat, upright, jabbering body of a
tailor, I advised him, instead of turning over the leaves, _to bind
the book on his back. _--Johnnie took the hint; and as our meetings
were every fourth Saturday, and Pricklouse having a good Scots mile to
walk in coming, and, of course, another in returning, Bodkin was sure
to lay his hand on some heavy quarto, or ponderous folio, with, and
under which, wrapt up in his gray plaid, he grew wise, as he grew
weary, all the way home. He carried this so far, that an old musty
Hebrew concordance, which we had in a present from a neighbouring
priest, by mere dint of applying it, as doctors do a blistering
plaster, between his shoulders, Stitch, in a dozen pilgrimages,
acquired as much rational theology as the said priest had done by
forty years perusal of the pages.
Tell me, and tell me truly, what you think of this theory.
Yours,
SPUNKIE.
* * * * *
CCLVII.
TO MISS KENNEDY.
[Miss Kennedy was one of that numerous band of ladies who patronized
the poet in Edinburgh; she was related to the Hamiltons of Mossgiel. ]
MADAM,
Permit me to present you with the enclosed song as a small though
grateful tribute for the honour of your acquaintance. I have, in these
verses, attempted some faint sketches of your portrait in the
unembellished simple manner of descriptive TRUTH.
nation's strength.
I know not how to apologize for the impertinent length of this epistle;
but one small request I must ask of you further--when you have honoured
this letter with a perusal, please to commit it to the flames. BURNS, in
whose behalf you have so generously interested yourself, I have here in
his native colours drawn _as he is_, but should any of the people in
whose hands is the very bread he eats, get the least knowledge of the
picture, _it would ruin the poor_ BARD _for ever_!
My poems having just come out in another edition, I beg leave to
present you with a copy, as a small mark of that high esteem and
ardent gratitude, with which I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your deeply indebted,
And ever devoted humble servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
CCLVI.
TO ROBERT AINSLIE, ESQ.
["Up tails a', by the light o' the moon," was the name of a Scottish
air, to which the devil danced with the witches of Fife, on Magus
Moor, as reported by a warlock, in that credible work, "Satan's
Invisible World discovered. "]
_April 26, 1793. _
I am d--mnably out of humour, my dear Ainslie, and that is the reason,
why I take up the pen to _you_: 'tis the nearest way (_probatum est_)
to recover my spirits again.
I received your last, and was much entertained with it; but I will not
at this time, nor at any other time, answer it. --Answer a letter? I
never could answer a letter in my life! --I have written many a letter
in return for letters I have received; but then--they were original
matter--spurt-away! zig here, zag there; as if the devil that, my
Grannie (an old woman indeed) often told me, rode on will-o'-wisp, or,
in her more classic phrase, SPUNKIE, were looking over my
elbow.
--Happy thought that idea has engendered in my head!
SPUNKIE--thou shalt henceforth be my symbol signature, and
tutelary genius! Like thee, hap-step-and-lowp, here-awa-there-awa,
higglety-pigglety, pell-mell, hither-and-yon, ram-stam,
happy-go-lucky, up-tails-a'-by-the-light-o'-the-moon,--has been, is,
and shall be, my progress through the mosses and moors of this vile,
bleak, barren wilderness of a life of ours.
Come then, my guardian spirit, like thee may I skip away, amusing
myself by and at my own light: and if any opaque-souled lubber of
mankind complain that my elfine, lambent, glim merous wanderings have
misled his stupid steps over precipices, or into bogs, let the
thickheaded blunderbuss recollect, that he is not Spunkie:--that
"SPUNKIE'S wanderings could not copied be:
Amid these perils none durst walk but he. "--
* * * * *
I have no doubt but scholar-craft may be caught, as a Scotchman catches
the itch,--by friction. How else can you account for it, that born
blockheads, by mere dint of _handling_ books, grow so wise that even
they themselves are equally convinced of and surprised at their own
parts? I once carried this philosophy to that degree that in a knot of
country folks who had a library amongst them, and who, to the honour
of their good sense, made me factotum in the business; one of our
members, a little, wise-looking, squat, upright, jabbering body of a
tailor, I advised him, instead of turning over the leaves, _to bind
the book on his back. _--Johnnie took the hint; and as our meetings
were every fourth Saturday, and Pricklouse having a good Scots mile to
walk in coming, and, of course, another in returning, Bodkin was sure
to lay his hand on some heavy quarto, or ponderous folio, with, and
under which, wrapt up in his gray plaid, he grew wise, as he grew
weary, all the way home. He carried this so far, that an old musty
Hebrew concordance, which we had in a present from a neighbouring
priest, by mere dint of applying it, as doctors do a blistering
plaster, between his shoulders, Stitch, in a dozen pilgrimages,
acquired as much rational theology as the said priest had done by
forty years perusal of the pages.
Tell me, and tell me truly, what you think of this theory.
Yours,
SPUNKIE.
* * * * *
CCLVII.
TO MISS KENNEDY.
[Miss Kennedy was one of that numerous band of ladies who patronized
the poet in Edinburgh; she was related to the Hamiltons of Mossgiel. ]
MADAM,
Permit me to present you with the enclosed song as a small though
grateful tribute for the honour of your acquaintance. I have, in these
verses, attempted some faint sketches of your portrait in the
unembellished simple manner of descriptive TRUTH.
