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Introduction
Burns’ fame as
a poet and song-writer is unquestioned, but hidden behind that fame lies
another Robert Burns. Not only was he a great Bard, but he was also a man
with a phenomenal ability to write letters, letters that reveal him to be a
man of erudition, as well as of great compassion.
He loved the
written word and wrote hundreds of letters to an assortment of people on a
wide range of subjects. His introduction into Edinburgh’s bourgeois society
opened up opportunities for him to correspond with people of good education
and allowed him to develop his writing technique as he wore out quill after
quill in his unending desire to commit his thoughts to paper.
This collection
of letters, arranged chronologically, offers an opportunity to discover the
inner Burns in his own words as he describes the many twists and turns in
his eventful, but tragically short life. They illustrate how his life
arched upwards from his poverty-stricken childhood, rising to his fame and
fortune before sliding downhill once again to poverty and ill-health. They
also show clearly how his character altered from being a pupil hungry to
learn, to that of a young man desperate to find true love, and of his many
liaisons in the pursuit of such, becoming eventually that of a hard-working
and conscientious husband and father, forced by circumstances to accept
employment within the establishment that he had so often mocked and scorned
in his poetic works.
Unfortunately
the great majority of letters received by Burns have been lost to us forever
owing to them having been stored in damp conditions. Only a few have
survived. However, one or two of his early biographers have included some in
their works, so we have access to a small number.
Just how did a
country lad from an extremely humble background become such a prolific
figure in the world of literature? What drove Robert Burns to see far beyond
the furrows of his plough and become one of the world’s finest wordsmiths?
To try to find
an answer to that question we will delve into the the early life of the Bard
and we start by referring to a letter, written not by Robert, but by his
brother Gilbert, sent to Dr James Currie after the death of the poet.
When my father
built his clay bigging, he put in two stone jambs, as they are called, and a
lintel, carrying up a chimney in his clay gable. The consequence was, that
as the gable subsided, the jambs remained firm, threw it off its centre; and
one very stormy morning, when my brother was nine or ten days old, a little
before daylight a part of the gable fell out, and the rest appeared so
shattered, that my mother, with the young poet, had to be carried through
the storm to a neighbours house, where they remained a week, till their own
dwelling was adjusted.’
This early episode in the life of the Bard was a
forerunner of the many storms he would face in his turbulent life. Gilbert
continued to supply Dr Currie with a biography of his brother’s early life
as he tells of the education given to Robert and himself by John Murdoch.
‘ With him we
learnt to read English tolerably well, and to write a little. He taught us,
too, the English grammar. I was too young to profit much from his lessons in
grammar, but Robert made some proficiency in it, a circumstance of
considerable weight in the unfolding of his genius and character, as he soon
became remarkable for the fluency and correctness of his expression, and
read the few books that came his way with much pleasure and improvement; for
even then he was a reader when he could get a book. Murdoch, whose library
at that time had no great variety in it, lent him the Life of Hannibal,
which was the first book he read (the school-books excepted), and almost
the only one he had the opportunity of reading while he was at school; for
the Life of Wallace, which he classes with it in one of his letters,
he did not see for some years afterwards when he borrowed it from the
blacksmith who shod our horses.’
Two years later, Murdoch left his school to take up work
elsewhere. Gilbert recounts a visit to their house.
‘Murdoch came
to spend the night with us, and to take his leave when he was about to go to
Carrick. He brought us a present and memorial of him, a small compendium of
English Grammar, and the tragedy of Titus Andronicus, and by the way
of passing the evening, he began to read the play aloud. We were all
attention for some time, till presently the whole party was dissolved in
tears. A female in the play (I have but a confused recollection of it) had
her hands chopt off, her tongue cut out, and then was insultingly desired to
call for water to wash her hands. At this, in an agony of distress, we with
one voice desired he would read no more. My father observed that if we would
not hear it out, it would be needless to leave the play with us. Robert
replied that if it was left he would burn it. My father was going to chide
him for this ungrateful return to his tutor’s kindness; but Murdoch
interfered, declaring that he liked to see so much sensibility; and he left
the School for Love, a comedy (translated, I think, from the French)
in its place.
With Murdoch
now departed, William Burnes took over the task of educating his children
himself. Gilbert continues…..
‘Nothing could
be more retired than our general manner of living at Mount Oliphant; we
rarely saw anybody but the members of our own family. There were no boys of
our own age, or near it, in the neighbourhood. Indeed the greatest part of
the land in the vicinity was at that time possessed by shopkeepers, and
people of that stamp, who had retired from business, or who kept their farm
in the country at the same time that they followed business in town. My
father was for some time almost the only companion we had. He conversed
familiarly on all subjects with us, as if we had been men; and was at great
pains, as we accompanied him in the labours of the farm, to lead the
conversation to such subjects as might tend to increase our knowledge, or
confirm our virtuous habits.
He borrowed
Salmon’s Geographical Grammar for us, and endeavoured to make us
acquainted with the situation and history of the different countries in the
world; while, from a book-society in Ayr, he procured for us Derham’s
Physico and Astro-Theology, and Ray’s Wisdom of God in the Creation,
to give us some idea of astronomy and natural history. Robert read all
these books with an avidity and industry scarcely to be equalled. My father
had been a subscriber to Stackhouse’s History of the Bible, then
lately published by James Meuros in Kilmarnock; from this Robert collected a
competent knowledge of ancient history; for no book was so voluminous as to
slacken his industry, or so antiquated as to damp his researches. A brother
of my mother, who had lived with us some time, and had learnt some
arithmetic by our winter evening’s candle, went into a bookseller’s shop in
Ayr to purchase the Ready Reckoner, or Tradesman’s Sure Guide, and a
book to teach him write letters. Luckily, in place of the Complete Letter
Writer, he got by mistake a small collection of letters by the most
eminent writers, with a few sensible directions for attaining an easy
epistolary style. This book was to Robert of the greatest consequence. It
inspired him with a strong desire to excel in letter-writing, while it
furnished him with models by some of the first writers in our language
My brother was
about thirteen or fourteen, when my father, regretting that we wrote so ill,
sent us, week about, during a summer quarter, to the parish school of
Dalrymple, which, though between two and three miles distant, was the
nearest to us, that we might have an opportunity of remedying this defect.
About this time a bookish acquaintance of my father’s procured for us a
reading of two volumes of Richardson’s Pamela, which was the first
novel we read, and the only part of Richardson’s works my brother was
acquainted with, till towards the period of his commencing author. Till that
time, too, he remained unacquainted with Fielding, with Smollet (two volumes
of Ferdinand Count Fathom, and two volumes of Peregrine Pickle,
excepted), with Hume and Robertson, and almost all our authors of
eminence of the later times. I recollect, indeed, my father borrowed a
volume of English history from Mr Hamilton of Bourtree-hill’s gardener. It
treated of the reigns of James 1, and his unfortunate son Charles, but I do
not know who was the author; all that I remember of it is something of
Charles’s conversation with his children. About this time, Murdoch, our
former teacher, after having been in different places in the country, and
having taught a school some time in Dumfries, came to be the established
teacher of the English language in Ayr, a circumstance of considerable
consequence to us. The remembrance of my father’s former friendship, and his
attachment to my brother, made him do everything in his power for our
improvement. He sent us Pope’s Works, and some other poetry, the
first that we had the opportunity of reading, excepting what is contained in
the English Collection, and in the volume of the Edinburgh
Magazine for 1772; excepting also those Excellent new songs that
are hawked about the country in baskets, or exposed in stalls in the
streets.
The summer
after we had been at Dalrymple School, my father sent Robert to Ayr, to
revise his English grammar with his former teacher, He had only been there
one week when he was obliged to return, to assist at the harvest. When the
harvest was over, he went back to school, where he remained two weeks; and
this completes the account of his school education, excepting one summer
quarter, some time afterwards, that he attended the parish school of
Kirkoswald (where he lived with a brother of my mother’s) to learn
surveying.
The letter continues with a harrowing narrative of the
hardship and poverty that surrounded the Buns family.
Mount Oliphant,
the farm my father possessed in the parish of Ayr, is almost the poorest
soil I know of in a state of cultivation. A stronger proof of this I cannot
give, than that, notwithstanding the extraordinary rise in the value of
lands in Scotland, it was, after a considerable sum laid out in improving it
by the proprietor, let a few years ago five pounds per annum lower than the
rent paid for it thirty years ago. My father, in consequence of this, soon
came into difficulties, which were increased by the loss of several of his
cattle by accidents and disease. To use the buffetings of misfortune we
could only oppose hard labour, and the most rigid economy. We lived very
sparingly. For several years butcher’s meat was a stranger in the house,
while all the members of the family exerted themselves to the utmost of
their strength, and rather beyond it, in the labours of the farm. My
brother, at the age of thirteen, assisted in thrashing the crop of corn, and
at fifteen was the principal labourer on the farm, for we had no hired
servant, male or female. The anguish of mind we felt at our tender years
under these straits and difficulties was very great. To think of our father
growing old (for he was now above fifty), broken down with the
long-continued fatigues of his life, with a wife and five other children,
and in a declining state of circumstances; these reflections produced in my
brother’s mind and mine sensations of the deepest distress. I doubt not but
the hard labour and sorrow of this period of his life was in a great measure
the cause of that depression of spirits with which Robert was so often
afflicted through his entire life afterwards. At this time he was almost
constantly afflicted in the evening with a dull headache, which, at a future
period of his life, was exchanged for a palpitation of the heart, and a
threatening of fainting and suffocation in his bed in the night-time.’
John Murdoch also communicated with Dr Currie regarding
the early education of the Burns boys.
‘My pupil,
Robert Burns, was then between six and seven years of age; his preceptor,
about eighteen. Robert and his younger brother, Gilbert had been grounded a
little in English before they were put under my care. They both made a rapid
progress in reading, and a tolerable progress in writing. In reading,
dividing words into syllables by rule, spelling without book, parsing
sentences, &c., Robert and Gilbert were generally at the upper end of the
class, even when ranged with boys far their seniors.’
Murdoch continues his letter
with a rather surprising statement.
‘Gilbert always
appeared to me to possess a more lively imagination, and to be more of the
wit, than Robert. I attempted to teach them a little church-music. Here they
were left far behind all the rest of the school. Robert’s ear, in
particular, was remarkably dull, and his voice untunable. It was long before
I could get them to distinguish one tune from another. Robert’s countenance
was generally grave, and expressive of a serious and contemplative mind.
Gilbert’s face said, “Mirth, with thee I mean to live;” and certainly, if
any person who knew the two boys had been asked which of them was the most
likely to court the Muses, he would surely never have guessed that Robert
had a propensity of that kind.’
It was
late in 1786 when Burns started to write letters on a regular basis and he
continued to do so until his death ten years later. The earlier ones are
slightly stiff and formal, then, as he gains recognition as a poet, they
become flamboyant as he sends them out in great numbers. Eventually however,
as he sinks into exhaustion through trying both to run a farm and ride some
200 miles per week on Excise duties, the letters become less numerous and
lose their flamboyance. Those written in the period leading up to his death
tell a tale of abject poverty and suffering, but continue to be written with
dignity and style.
The most famous of the letters written by Robert Burns
was undoubtedly the correspondence between him and Agnes McLehose, better
known to the world as Clarinda. As Agnes was a married woman, although
estranged from her husband, it would have been social suicide for each of
them to have been discovered to be corresponding regularly, so in order to
maintain their anonymity she became Clarinda and he Sylvander. Many of these
letters have survived through the years, in spite of nearly being cast aside
as worthless on her death. We are able to include some of the letters
written by Clarinda, and can share her emotional turmoil in her struggle to
maintain faith with her strict religious beliefs as she fought to keep their
affair on a platonic level.
In 1787 Burns wrote a very lengthy autobiographical
letter to Dr John Moore that offers an insight into his early life, so in
order to learn a little of the poet in his pre-fame days we will ignore its
chronological position and place it at the beginning. Although many aspects
of his early life have already been covered by Gilbert’s letter, this is how
Robert Burns recalled his childhood and youthful years The many letters that
follow are the nearest thing to a complete autobiography of Robert Burns
that we could ever hope for.
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