The Canongate Burns

by Robert Burns

  I fear it can’t be mended!

  And if a British Tinkler dare

  But shaw his bag and nails, man;

  O bid the meddling loun beware

  O’ shaving and South-Wales man.

  There Muir and Palmer, tinklers good

  As ever Scotia rear’d, man,

  Were banish’d owre the foaming flood,

  For daring to repair man.

  Then sith ye canna mak’ it staunch,

  Swith fling it out of doors, man.

  Ye’ll get a new ane frae the F——h

  Ane worth a score o’ yours, man.

  But tent me, much revered Bob,

  You err, and unco far man,

  For those, you Burke-like, call the mob,

  The very PEOPLE are man.

  So now I sing, God Save the King,

  And the Queen to keep him warm, sir;

  But may he high as Haman hing,

  Who dares oppose – REFORM, sir.

  That this specific charge was untrue has to be set against the general truth that Scotland did fail Ireland at its hour of need. See John Brims’s very fine ‘Scottish Radicalism and the United Irishman’ in The United Irishmen, Republicanism, Radicalism and Rebellion (Dublin: 1993), pp. 151–66.

  1 A high hill at the source of the Nith. R.B.

  2 A high hill at the confluence of the Nith and the Solway Firth. R.B.

  PART FIVE

  Anonymous and Pseudonymous Works

  Lines on Seeing the Royal Palace at Stirling

  in Ruins

  First printed in The Edinburgh Evening Courant, 5th October, 1787.

  Here Stewarts once in triumph reign’d,

  And laws for Scotland’s weal ordain’d;

  But now unroof’d their Palace stands,

  Their sceptre’s fall’n to other hands;

  5 Fallen indeed, and to the earth,

  Whence grovelling reptiles take their birth. —

  The injured STEWART-line are gone,

  A Race outlandish fill their throne;

  An idiot race, to honour lost;

  10 Who know them best despise them most. —

  R.B.

  These anti-Hanoverian lines were inscribed anonymously on a window in Stirling by Burns during his first tour into the Highlands in August 1787. They reappeared in The Edinburgh Evening Courant, 5th October 1787, thinly disguised by the poet’s initials ‘R. B.’ If the author’s identity was not patently obvious at this point, it was made public knowledge by James Maxwell, an elderly mediocre Paisley poet, deeply envious of the young bard’s success who published the lines and named Burns as the author. Maxwell used the opportunity to attack the poet in a pamphlet, Animadversions on Some Poets and Poetasters (Paisley, 1788). While accustomed to a degree of notoriety, at least in Ayrshire, this episode proved to be a mini-rehearsal of the graver trouble waiting ahead for Burns due to his bent for controversy. He wrote to Mrs McLehose on 27th January 1788: ‘I have almost given up the Excise idea. I have been just now to wait on a great Person … Why will Great people not only deafen us with the din of their equipage, and dazzle us with their fastidious pomp, but they must also be so very dictatorially wise? I have been question’d like a child about my matters, and blamed and schooled for my Inscription on Stirling window’ (Letter 189).

  During the early nineteenth century Motherwell tried to omitthese controversial lines from the canon by suggesting they were written by the bard’s touring companion, William Nicol. The poet’s somewhat vague title in the Glenriddell manuscript, Written by Somebody in the Window of an Inn at Stirling gave some credence to those who wished to deny his authorship. By 1834, as McGuirk remarks, Cunningham was too timid to publish the final anti-Hanoverian couplet. Acting as censor, Cunningham justifed his action thus: ‘What was improper in the days of Burns is not proper now’ (McGuirk, p. 245). Ll. 5–6 were added in the Glenriddell Manuscript and were probably not inscribed on the Stirling window.

  Elegy on the Year 1788

  First printed in The Caledonian Mercury, 10th January, 1789, under the pen

  name Thomas A. Linn.

  For Lords or kings I dinna mourn, do not

  E’en let them die — for that they’re born!

  But oh! prodigious to reflect,

  A Towmont, Sirs, is gane to wreck! 12 months, gone

  5 O Eighty-Eight, in thy sma’ space small

  What dire events hae taken place! have

  Of what enjoyments thou hast reft us! taken from

  In what a pickle thou hast left us!

  The Spanish empire’s tint a head, lost, leader

  10 An’ my auld teethless Bawtie’s dead; old, dog

  The toolzie’s teugh ’tween Pitt and Fox, struggle’s tough

  An’ our gudewife’s wee birdie cocks; goodwife’s, small

  The tane is game, a bluidy devil, one, bloody

  But to the hen-birds unco civil; very

  15 The tither’s dour, has nae sic breedin’, other’s is stubborn, no

  But better stuff ne’er claw’d a midden! scratched, open dung heap

  Ye ministers, come mount the pupit, pulpit

  An’ cry till ye be haerse an’ roupet; hoarse, husky

  For Eighty-Eight he wished you weel, well

  20 An’ gied ye a’ baith gear an’ meal; gave, both, goods, food

  E’en mony a plack, an’ mony a peck, coin, sack of oats

  Ye ken yoursels, for little feck! know, return

  Ye bonie lasses, dight your een, wipe, eyes

  For some o’ you hae tint a frien’; have lost, friend

  25 In Eighty-Eight, ye ken, was taen know, taken

  What ye’ll ne’er hae to gie again. have, give

  Observe the vera nowte an’ sheep, very, cattle

  How dowff an’ dowie they creep; dull, weary

  Nay, even the yirth itsel’ does cry, earth

  30 For Embro’ wells are grutten dry. Edinburgh, wept

  O Eighty-Nine, thou’s but a bairn, child

  An’ no owre auld, I hope to learn! over old

  Thou beardless boy, I pray tak care,

  Thou now has got thy Daddy’s chair,

  35 Nae hand-cuff’d, mizzl’d, half-shackl’d Regent, no, muzzled

  But, like himsel, a full free agent.

  Be sure ye follow out the plan

  Nae war than he did, honest man! no worse

  As muckle better as ye can. much

  This was written on 1st January, 1789 and published in The Caledonian Mercury, January 1789, under the pen-name, Thomas A. Linn (probably taken from the song Tam Linn). It was also printed anonymously in Lloyd’s Evening Post, on 12th–14th January, 1789, where it may have been copied, as was common practice, by that paper.

  This is politically a wickedly reductive little poem, salted with sexual slyness. A panorama of 1788, where ‘great’ events (the death of Charles III of Spain (l. 9) and the Regency Bill Crisis) are brought down to the vernacular earth of Burns’s farmyard animals. Ll. 11–16 allude not only to the intensity of the quarrel between the still-favoured Pitt and Fox over the regency question but their utterly disparate sexuality. L. 30 alludes to the restriction of Edinburgh’s water supply due to the severe frost of the winter of 1788–9. Even by the standards of Burns’s anti-Hanoverianism, ll. 31–39 are stunning in that they brilliantly transpose the image of the metaphorically shackled Prince of Wales into the actual physical restraints now restraining his temporarily insane father.

  Ode to the Departed Regency Bill

  First printed in the London Star, 17th April, 1789, signed Agricola,

  Edinburgh.

  Daughter of Chaos’ doting years,

  Nurse of ten thousand hopes and fears;

  Whether thy airy, unsubstantial Shade

  (The rights of sepulture now duly paid)

  5 Spread abroad its hideous form

  On the roaring Civil Storm,

  Deafening din and warring rage

  Fact
ions wild with factions wage;

  Or underground, deep-sunk, profound,

  10 Among the demons of the earth,

  With groans that make the mountains shake,

  Thou mourn thy ill-starred, blighted birth;

  Or in the uncreated Void,

  Where seeds of future-being fight,

  15 With lightened step thou wander wide,

  To greet thy Mother — Ancient Night,

  And as each jarring, monster mass is past,

  Fond recollect what once thou wast:

  In manner due, beneath this sacred oak,

  20 Hear, Spirit hear! thy presence I invoke!

  By a Monarch’s heaven-struck fate!

  By a disunited State!

  By a generous Prince’s wrongs!

  By a Senate’s strife of tongues!

  25 By a Premier’s sullen pride,

  Louring on the changing tide!

  By dread Thurlow’s powers to awe,1

  Rhetoric, blasphemy and law!

  By the turbulent ocean,

  30 A Nation’s commotion!

  By the harlot-caresses

  Of borough-addresses!

  By days few and evil!

  Thy portion, poor devil!

  35 By Power, Wealth, Show! the Gods by men adored!

  By Nameless Poverty! their Hell abhorred!

  By all they hope! by all they fear!

  Hear!!! And Appear!!!

  Stare not on me, thou ghastly Power;

  40 Nor grim with chained defiance lour:

  No Babel-structure would I build

  Where, Order exil’d from his native sway,

  Confusion may the REGENT-sceptre wield,

  While all would rule and none obey:

  45 Go, to the world of Man relate

  The story of thy sad, eventful fate;

  And call Presumptuous Hope to hear,

  And bid him check his blind career;

  And tell the sore-prest Sons of Care,

  50 Never, never to despair. —

  Paint CHARLES’S speed on wings of fire,

  The object of his fond desire;

  Beyond his boldest hopes, at hand:

  Paint all the triumph of the Portland Band:2

  55 Mark! how they lift the joy-exulting voice;

  And how their numerous Creditors rejoice:

  But just as hopes to warm enjoyment rise,

  Cry CONVALESCENCE! and the vision flies. —

  Then next pourtray a dark’ning twilight gloom

  60 Eclipsing sad, a gay, rejoicing morn,

  While proud Ambition to th’ untimely tomb

  By gnashing, grim, despairing fiends is borne:

  Paint Ruin, in the shape of high Dundas

  Gaping with giddy terror o’er the brow;

  65 In vain he struggles, the Fates behind him press,

  And clamorous Hell yawns for her prey below:

  How fallen That, whose pride late scaled the skies!

  And This, like Lucifer, no more to rise!

  Again pronounce the powerful word;

  70 See Day, triumphant from the night, restored. —

  Then know this truth, ye Sons of Men!

  (Thus ends thy moral tale)

  Your darkest terrors may be vain,

  Your brightest hopes may fail. —

  This parodic, pacey Pindaric ode satirises the clashing rhetoric of manoeuvring politicians as they vied for position during the constitutional Regency crisis of 178°–9. When he sent the first complete version of the poem to Mrs Dunlop, Burns knew the risk he was taking: ‘I have this moment finished the following political Squib, and I cannot resist the temptation of sending you a copy of it – the only copy indeed that I will send to anybody except perhaps anonymously to some London Newspaper. — Politics is dangerous ground for me to tread on, and yet I cannot for the soul of me resist an impulse of anything like Wit’ (Letter 326). Thurlow (l. 27) refers to Edward Lord Thurlow (1731–1806). Portland (l. 54) is the Duke of Portland, who led an exodus of influencial Whigs to the Conserva-tives when Britain went to war with France in 1793. Dundas (l. 63) refers to Henry Dundas, Viscount Melville (1742–1811) whose power over Scottish affairs during this period was near total. Burns here displays his dislike of Dundas in a similar style to that which Shelley later used so well to satirise Lord Castlereagh. Charles (l. 51) is Charles James Fox, leader of the Whigs, who supported the Prince of Wales taking the throne from his father after George III was declared insane in late 1788. William Pitt favoured severe restrictions on the monarchy, fearing that the Prince, who supported the Whigs, would be placed on the throne. The King eventually recovered and continued his reign, bar certain aberrations, such as his speech about unparalleled peace and tranquillity in December 1792 when in reality the government tightened the sedition laws and declared Martial Law in a panic at the rise of reform societies throughout Britain. In a chaotic mixture of ambition and vanity, this episode provoked Burns burlesques from the supposed loyal subjects of George III as they clashed over who would benefit by the Prince’s succession.

  The consequence of London publication is explained in Professor Lucylle Werkmeister’s Robert Burns and the London Newspapers, in the Bulletin of the New York Public Library (Oct. 1961, Vol. 65, no. 8). Werkmeister quotes the Star’s editor Stuart’s introductory note:

  As the following fanciful verses contain the genuine energy and commanding spirit of POETRY, the printer is happy in communicating them to the PUBLIC, and he assures his readers,notwithstanding they appear under a fictitious signature, that they are the product of a GENIUS who ranks very highly in the REPUBLIC of LETTERS.

  The same issue of Stuart’s Star boasted in notes ‘TOCORRESPONDENTS’ they would print a ‘Love Sonnet by Mr. Burns, the Darling Poet of Caledonia, tomorrow’. Werkmeister goes on to quote Burns who was, at this juncture, unaware that Stuart had meddled with the poem to suit his own political views:

  I have had my usual luck in receiving your paper. – They have all come to hand except the two which I most wanted, the 17th and 18th, in which I understand my verses are. – So it has been with me always. – A damned Star has almost all my life usurped my zenith, and squinted out the cursed rays of its malign influences (Letter 339).

  As Werkmeister remarks, the ‘damned star’ was the editor himself. Differing in politics from Burns, Stuart re-wrote some passages he did not agree with and deleted other passages. What Burns did not know was that the Portland Whigs were subsidising Stuart so that he amended the poem to serve their cause. Thus, for example, in ll. 51–4 Fox became Pitt and the Portland Band became the Tories. To hide his deceit, he stopped Burns from receiving a copy for 17th April. This was, as Werkmeister explains, the same newspaper that printed the ridiculous verse on the Duchess of Gordon’s dancing and attributed them to Burns, knowing full well they were not his composition. (Werkmeister totally discredits the notion that they were written by the semi-literate Henry Dundas and suggests that they were the work of someone on Stuart’s staff in order to ridicule Dundas.) Stuart managed to stay on the right side of Burns by accident, since a friend of Burns misled him into believing that the guilty newspaper was the London Gazetteer, which innocently copied the nonsense from Stuart’s Star. Burns eventually found out that the Ode had been considerably changed (‘mangled’, Letter 379) from the text he sent to London. While the image ‘Daughter of Chaos’ derives from Pope’s The Dunciad, I, ll. 11–16, the language and sentiment is influenced more by Milton’s Paradise Lost, II, ll. 894–7.

  The pen-name ‘Agricola’, revealingly and perhaps deliberately so, means a farmer. Burns may have also picked this name given that the Roman general Agricola is supposed to have encamped a few miles to the north of Ellisland prior to the building of Hadrian’s wall. The poem, on publication, was printed as a work sent from an Edinburgh poet, not a Dumfries one.

  1 Edward, Lord Thurlow (1731–1806). Lord Chancellor for the Fox–North Coalition in 1778, who was asked to return to
this post by Pitt.

  2 Whigs led by William Cavendish Bentick (1738–1809), the 3rd Duke of Portland. He had been the First Lord of the Treasury under the Fox–North Coalition.

  Ode, Sacred to the Memory of Mrs. Oswald Of Auchencruive

  First printed in the London Star, 7th May, 1789, under the name Tim Nettle.

  Dweller in yon dungeon dark,

  Hangman of creation, mark!

  Who in widow weeds appears,

  Laden with unhonoured years,

  5 Noosing with care a bursting purse,

  Baited with many a deadly curse?

  Strophe

  View the wither’d beldam’s face —

  Can thy keen inspection trace

  Aught of Humanity’s sweet melting grace?

  10 Note that eye,’ tis rheum o’erflows,

  Pity’s flood there never rose.

  See those hands, ne’er stretch’d to save,

  Hands that took — but never gave.

  Keeper of Mammon’s iron chest,

  15 Lo, there she goes, unpitied and unblest,

  She goes, but not to realms of everlasting rest!

  Antistrophe

  Plunderer of Armies! lift thine eyes,

  (A while forbear, ye torturing fiends),

  Seest thou whose step, unwilling, hither bends?

  20 No fallen angel, hurl’d from upper skies;

  ’Tis thy trusty quondam Mate,

  Doom’d to share thy fiery fate,

  She, tardy, hell-ward plies.

  Epode

  And are they of no more avail,

  25 Ten thousand glittering pounds a year?

  In other worlds can Mammon fail,

  Omnipotent as he is here?

  O, bitter mockery of the pompous bier!

  While down the wretched vital part is driven!