Letter from Robert Burns to Alexander Cunningham, 10 September 1792
No! I will not attempt an apology. - Amid all my hurry of business,
riding the faces of the Publican & the Sinner on the merciless wheels
of the Excise; making ballads, & then drinking & singing
them; & over & above all, the correcting the Press-work of two
different Publications; still, still I might have stolen five
minutes to dedicate to one of the first of my Friends
Fellow-creatures.- I might have done, as I do at present,
snatched an hour near "witching time of night-" & scrawled a
page or two. - I might have congratulated my Friend on
his marriage; or I might have thanked the Caledonian
Archers for the honour they have done me (though, to do
myself justice, I intended to have done both in Rhyme
else I had done both long ere now. - ) Well then, here is
to your good health! for you must know, I have set a
nipperkin of Toddy by me, just by way of Spell, to
keep away the meikle horned Deil, or any of his subaltern
Imps who may be on their nightly rounds.-
But
"and I said, What shall I cry?" -- O, thou Spirit! what
eve thou art, or wherever thou makest thyself visible!
Be thou a Bogle by the eerie side of an auld thorn, in the
dreary glen through which the herd-callan maun bicker
in his gloamin-route frae the fauld! - Be thou
a Brownie, set, at dead of night, to thy task by the blazing
ingle; or in the solitary barn where the repercussions of
thy iron flail half affright thyself, as thou performest
the work of twenty of twenty the sons of men, ere the
cock-crowing summon thee to thy ample cog of the sub-
stantial brose! - Be thou a Kelpie, haunting
the ford, or ferry, in the starless night, mixing thy
laughing yell with the howling of the storm & the
roaring of the flood, as though viewest the perils & miseries
of Man on the foundering horse, or in the tumbling
boat! - Or, lastly, be thou a Ghost, paying thy nocturnal
visits to the hoary ruins of decayed Grandeur; or performing
thy mystic rites in the shadow of the time-worn Chures
while the Moon looks, without a cloud, on the silent,
ghastly dwellings of the dead around thee; or taking thy
stand by the bed-side of the Villain, or the Murderer, portraying
horrors of unveiled Hell, & terrible as the wrath of incensed
Deity!!!--- Come, thou Spirit, but not in these
horrid forms; come with the milder, gentle, easy inspirations
which thou breathiest round the wig of a prating advocate,
or the tête of a tea-bibbing Gossip, while their
tongues run at the light-horse gallop of clishmaclaiver
for ever & ever - come, & assist a poor devil who is
quite jaded in the attempt to share half an idea among
half a hundred words; to fill up four quarto pages,
while he has not got one single sentence of recollection
information, or remark, worth putting pen to paper
for! -
I feel, I feel the presence of Supernatural assistance!
Circled in the embrace of my elbow-chair, my breast
labours, like the blo bloated Sybil on her three-footed
stool, & like her too, labours with nonsense.- Nonsense,
auspicious name! - Tutor, Friend & Finger-post in
the mystic mazes of Law; the cadaverous paths
of Physic; & particularly in the sightless soaring’s of
School Divinity, who, leaving common Sense confounded
at his strength of pinion, Reason delirious with
eying
bottom of her well, cursing the hour that ever she offered
her scorned alliance to the wizard Power of Theologic
Vision - raves abroad on all the winds, "On Earth,
"Discord! A gloomy Heaven above, opening her jealous
"gates to the nineteen thousandth part of the tithe of
"mankind! And below, an inescapable & inexorable Hell, ex-
"-panding its leviathan jaws for the vast residue of
"Mortals!!!" O, doctrine! comfortable & healing to the
weary, wounded soul of man! - Ye sons & daughters of-
affliction, ye paunres[?] Misérables, to whom day brings no
pleasure, & night yields no rest, be comforted! 'Tis but
"one to nineteen hundred thousand, that your situation
"will mend in this world; " so, alas, the Experience of the Poor
& the Needy too truly affirmsl & 'tis nineteen hundred
thousand to one, by the dogmas of Theology that you
will be damned in eternally in the World to come!
But of all nonsense, Religious Nonsense is the
most nonsensical; so enough, & more than enough of
it.- Only, by the bye, will you, or can you tell me
my dear Cunningham, why a religious turn of mind
has
They are orderly; they may be just; nay, I have known
them merciful: but still your children of Sanctity move
among their fellow-creatures with a nostril snuffing
putrescence, & a food spurning filth, in short, with that
conceited dignity that your title's Douglases, Hamiltons,
Gordons, or any other of your Scots Lordlings of seven
centuries standing, display am when they accidentally
mix among the many - aproned sons of Mechanical
life - I remember, in my Plough-boy days, I could not
conceive it possible that a noble Lord could be a Fool, or
a godly Man could be a Knave.- How ignorant are
Plough-boys! - Nay, I have since discovered that a
godly woman may be a *****! - But hold - Here's
ye, again - this Rum is damn'd generous Antigua,
so a very unfit menstruum for scandal.
Apropos, how do you like, I mean really like, the
Married Life? - Ah, my Friend! Matrimony is
quite a different thing from what your love-sick
youths & sighing girls take it to be! - But marriage,
we
any of His Institutions. - I am a Husband of older
standing than you, & I shall give you my ideas of the
Conjugal State.- (En passant, you know I am no Latin
is not "Conjugal" derived from "Jugum" a yoke?) Well
the, the scale of Good wife-ship I divide into ten parts -
Good-Nature, four; Good-Sense, two; Wit, one; Personal
Charms, viz a sweet face, eloquent eyes, fine limbs, graceful
carriage, (I would^add a fine waist too, but that is so soon spoilt
you know) all these, one; as for the other qualities belonging
to, or attenoting on, a wife, such as, fortune, connections,
education, (I mean, education extraordinary) family-blood
divide the two remaining degrees among them as you please
only, remember that all these minor properties must
be expressed by fractions; for there is not any one
of them, in the aforesaid seale, entitled to the dignity
of an integer.-
- - - - - -- - - -
As for the rest of my fancies & reveries - How I lately met
with ^Miss Lesley Bailie, the most beautiful, elegant woman
in the world - How I accompanied her & her Father's
the loveliness of the works of God in such an unequalled display of
them - How in galloping home at night, I made a ballad on her of
which these two stanzas make a part.-
"Thou, bonie, Lesley, art a queen,
"Thy subjects we before thee;
"Thou, bonie Lesley, art divine,
"The hearts o' men adore thee.-
"The very Deil, he could na scathe
"Whatever wad belang thee!
"He'd look into thy bonie face,
"And say, I canna wrang thee" -
---------
Behold all these things are written in the Chronicles of my imaginations, & shall be read by thee,
my dear Friend, & by the beloved spouse, my other dear Friend, at a more convenient season.-
Now, to thee, & to thy before designed bosom-companion, be given the precious things
brought forth by the sun, & the precious things brought forth by the Moon, & the benignest
influences of the stars, & the living streams which flow from the fountains of
Life & by the tree of Life, forever & ever! Amen!!! ---
Rob.t Burns
Key details
- Archive number
- NTS/02/25/BRN/01/51
- Alt. number
- 3.6079.a
- Date
- 10 September 1792
- On display
- No
- Creator
- Burns, Robert (Author)
- Recipient
- Cunningham, Alexander
- Archive number
- NTS/02/25/BRN/01/51
- Alt. number
- 3.6079.a
- Date
- 10 September 1792
- On display
- No
- Creator
- Burns, Robert (Author)
- Recipient
- Cunningham, Alexander
Description
Letter from Robert Burns to Alexander Cunningham, dated Dumfries, 10 September 1792
a. Beginning of letter 'I will not attempt an apology
b. Contains address, seal, continuation of letter, and poem 'O saw ye bonie Lesley'
Includes an early draft of 339 "O saw ye bonie Lesley". 2 sheets [encapsulated]
On the first page, Burns describes how busy he has been, and his discomfort at not responding to the events of Cunningham's marriage and his own elevation to the 'Caledonian Archers'. He paints the picture of himself sitting down to write close to midnight, admitting that he has 'set a nipperkin of Toddy by me, just by way of a Spell to keep away the meikle horned Deil, or any of his subaltern Imps who may be on their nightly rounds'.
In page two, Burns struggles for a subject to write about, going off into a supernatural quest which has echoes of the drunken journey he pens for 'Tam O' Shanter' on his storm bound route from Ayr to Alloway. He asks of each spirit form, including Bogles, Brownies, Kelpies and Ghosts, for inspiration and lets his light-headed imagination create lurid scenes associated with each of the supernatural forms.
Page three finds Burns still on his supernatural quest for inspiration but then seeking a gentler inspiration suited to a 'prating Advocate' or a 'tea-bibbing Gossip' whose tittle-tattle ('clishmaclaiver') runs at a 'light-horse gallop'. Burns then admits to being 'a poor devil who is quite jaded in the attempt to share half an idea among half a hundred words; to fill up four quarto pages, while he has not got one single sentence of recollection, information, or remark, worth putting down on paper for!'.
Page four brings Burns's resolve for inspiration to the subject of Nonsense. Obscurely he mentions the disciplines of Law, Physics and Divinity as offenders. Settling on Divinity 'leaving Common Sense confounded', for the rest of the page he rambles on, failing to bring any clarity to the subject. He predicts little scope for redemption, offering odds of 'nineteen hundred thousand to one' against the poor and needy escaping eternal damnation 'by the dogmas of Theology'.
By page five Burns's toddy-driven pen determines that 'Religious Nonsense is the most nonsensical'. He rails against those 'children of Sanctity' who go about with their noses in the air which he associates with the titled classes looking down on 'the many-aproned sons of Mechanical life'. His final barb is left for 'godly women' in an uncharacteristic slight on the fair sex. Perhaps the rum is too good as his final toast in the paragraph suggests.
Burns's mood swiftly changes on this sixth page where he offers the newly-wedded Cunningham 'my ideas on the Conjugal state'. Here he lists a scale of worth associated with various components of 'Good-wife-ship'. The best qualities include good nature, good-sense, wit, and personal charms. He then explains how he has met Miss Leslie Bailie and has admired her loveliness to the extent that he was inspired to write a 'ballad on her'. The two stanzas are copied on the last page of the letter.
The final page includes early versions of the third and fourth verses of the poem 'O saw ye bonie Lesley' which Burns wrote after escorting her and her Father's family for fifteen miles during their journey in Dumfriesshire. He writes that he composed the ballad while riding home after seeing them off. He closes the letter wishing well to Cunningham and his wife, almost in the form of a prayer.
Archive information
Place of creation
Themes
Hierarchy
-
Letters from and to Robert Burns
(
a sub-fonds is a subdivision in the archival material)
- Letter from Robert Burns to Alexander Cunningham, 10 September 1792
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