by Robert Burns
Henley and Henderson were not perceptive enough to see the genesis of the final lyric, from the original publication, through Urbani’s 1798 text to the intermediate Brash and Reid text, printed at Glasgow, circa 1801. The Brash and Reid print contains many of the peculair typographic stresses employed by Burns, evident among his manuscripts and it is the first publication to have the famous first verse in place as it is now known, although the text is rather more Scottish than the final version:
Wha wad for honest poverty,
Hing down his head an’ a’ that?
The coward slave we pass him by
And dare be poor for a’ that.
For a’ that, and a’ that,
Our toils obscure, and a’ that,
The RANK is but the GUINEA stamp,
The MAN’s the GOWD for a’ that.
In self-deprecatory mood Burns described the lyric to George Thomson as ‘… no Song; but will be allowed, I think, to be two or three pretty good prose thoughts, inverted into rhyme’ (Letter 651). He did not hide his authorship from Thomson, but probably trusted the song collector implicitly not to pass copies around. When Thomson eventually printed the song in 1805, it had been in Currie’s 1800 edition and was well known as a work of Burns, having surfaced in The Morning Chronicle, in late 1796 with the poet’s name ascribed. Even then, Thomson felt compelled to make a few of his own meddling changes to the text. The many variant texts are ample proof that Burns considered this one of his best songs and the final draft was the result of considerable textual re-appraisal.
For Daiches, the merits of this song, dedicated to the worthiness of ‘honest poverty’ and democratic rights, is apparent:
It is a rhetorical poem, testifying to the effect on Burns of the French revolution and its ideological currents, and it owes its popularity to its effectiveness as a series of slogans … it represents a legitimate and in its way impressive use of the poetic medium … The poem has a well contrived structure, moving from the generalization about ‘honest poverty’ through specific illustrations of the difference between virtue and social rank to a final climactic generalization which is at once a prayer and a prophecy (pp. 302–3).
Crawford rightly refers to the ‘revolutionary yearning for fraternity that underlies’ the song, with its theme, ‘a spontaneous and passionate democratic humanism’. Crawford quotes the introduction to Marshak’s Robert Burns in Translation, Moscow, 1957: ‘He was able to describe the finest and most truly human feelings and experiences of the simple people … not as a critic, but as a brother and friend’ (Crawford, p. 337). Interestingly, Crawford shows specific influences on the song from Thomas Paine’s The Rights of Man (Crawford, p. 365).
Due to the different texts of this marching revolutionary anthem it is certain that Burns produced the first text probably very late in 1794 and considering that the anonymous publication in August 1795 is of the first draft, he must have worked on the piece well into 1795 and possibly touched it up again early in 1796. Hence, the final draft would have been improved well after the composition of The Dumfries Volunteers.
A Prose Essay by Burns
To the Editor of The Morning Chronicle.
Printed 1st January, 1795.
It is a melancholy reflection, that in an age when the theory of Government and legislation has been so well developed by a long succession of celebrated writers, mankind still struggle with the imperfections experienced in more unenlightened days.
The People of France in endeavouring to unshackle themselves from the oppression of their Government, and trusting to the theories of philosophers, have fallen a prey to an oligarchy, who hold unbalanced every branch of government; this they have under-gone, although theory has often said that the same persons must not be Legislators and Judges, and the dread occasioned by the misfortunes of that country, induced the people of this to fall into the opposite extreme – the adoration of Regal Power.
The Alarmists have cried down all Reform in Parliament as dangerous, and Parliament has given into the hand of the Crown our dearest rights. Nothing now remains, but to renew that act of Henry VIII by which the King’s Proclamation may have the force of an Act of Parliament; for as the majority of our House of Commons is not elected by a majority of the People, nor by a majority of those, who, under the present system have a right to vote, we have no security for its speaking the sense of the People; and, like the Romans in the days of Augustus Caesar, are insulted, with the forms of a free Government, while, in some of the most important parts, the substance is lost.
To tell us that Reform is dangerous, is to say, my children, be good and don’t complain, you will have all you desire granted you at a more convenient time. Will anyone who knows the history of mankind assert, that any liberty or privilege we shall have lost, will be ever spontaneously restored, even by the wisest and best of Kings? During the prosperous reigns of Nerva, Trajan, and the Antonines, the Roman world was governed with wisdom and equity; but those Emperors, although they knew the miseries which the People had suffered under their predecessors, never put one bar on the omnipotence of their own authority; and the succession of Commodus shews, that though a good Prince need not be shackled, those shackles ought to exist, as no Sovereign, let him be ever so good and just, can become immortal but in the page of history.
It therefore is proper, that every man who has a love for his King and country, should wish to see the Government brought back to the spirit of its institution: because every free man should hold his privileges dear; and because, when he sees ministers endeavouring, under insidious pretexts, to increase the power of the Crown at the expense of those privileges, he should forsee the most terrible consequences; for either the Government must become absolutely despotic, or the bulk of mankind, not properly sensible of the fine texture, and intrinsic value of our Constitution, may one day join in a general cry against Kings, and overturn the regal part of the Government.
The present time seems to be the crisis which is to determine whether England is to remain a free country or not. At this moment you and I are subject to be seized and confined without having a right to demand a trial; for when a Minister can send his marechausée1 into your house, and take you in silence to a dungeon, what security can you have against a transportation to some distant region? This has not been the case as yet, but what does the annihilation of your dearest privileges tend to but this; will not our children, perhaps, be subject to such an iron sceptre?
This prospect of our future condition, whether we be overwhelmed by tyranny, or become the victims of anarchy, is alarming to men who value, and who understand the British Constitution. Ministers continually warn us to dread innovations, while we daily see the encroachments made on the free part of the Government, which, although they have not yet been called by that name, are not to be stopped by having the word innovation retaliated on them. I will briefly declare what reflection I have made on the subject of our Government, and if I am guilty of errors, shall hope to stand corrected through the medium of your paper.
The spirit of the British Constitution seems to consist in this: That the House of Commons are the deputies of the separate districts of this island, who meet to deliberate for the common good; while the House of Peers, forming the Aristocratical part of the Constitution, may be a check on the Tribune of the People, and, at the same time, constitute the highest Court of Judicature; from the Crown, we are insured in the quick execution of our laws, and we blend with the advantages of a Republic, all those of a Monarchy. But when the servants of the Crown are at the same time permitted to be Tribunes of the People; when the vassals of Nobles enjoy the same pre-eminence, on what do the bulk of this nation rest the bulwark of their liberty? The same parliament that has continued the suspension of the Habeus Corpus may establish a Committee of the House of Commons to take cognizance of cases of High Treason; the Tribunal of the Star Chamber may be renewed; and should that be the case, how are we to help ourselves, when so great a military force exists in these
kingdoms.
Our present situation is critical: we are involved in a war without properly knowing why! Do we propose ourselves to re-establish the regal authority in France? That were a vain hope, all our Allies have nearly abandoned us. Do we wish to defend Holland? The Dutch are better disposed towards France than towards us. What object do we propose by the war? the Minister acquires great patronage, and he is thus enabled to keep his place, at the public expense, and by the lives of his fellow-subjects. How many have already been the victims of his ambition; and he tranquilly holds his place, though he knows that his countrymen daily bleed to keep him there? This might, one would think, better become a Roberspierre; but before we feel abhorrence at the cruelty of the Convention, let us ask ourselves, Whether those who vote for the continuance of the war be not as unfeeling? What signifies it to the sufferers, whether they fall by the guillotine of Roberspierre, or by the massacres which the Great Catherine and the King of Prussia have committed for the sake of good order, Religion, &c. Will Poland feel any better effects from those, than France from the former? Does not the same hold good with regard to the subjects we daily lose on the Continent?
The true medium between anarchy and tyranny ought to be strictly kept in view, for extremities touch; and therefore, so far from its being dangerous to reform our Parliament, we ought to rouse from the present infatuation, and before it is too late, before every trace of our Constitution be effaced, bring it back to those principles on which it is established: that is, make the theory and practice tally better together.
A. Briton
Burns promised to send radical material to the London Whig newspaper The Morning Chronicle in a letter of mid-March 1794. Replying to an offer of full-time work on the literary staff of this, the main Whig Opposition newspaper, conveyed to him on behalf of James Perry, the editor, by Captain Patrick Miller Jnr., Burns promised to supply not only occasional poetry, but:
… little Prose Essays, which I propose sending into the world through the medium of some Newspaper; & should these be worth his while, to these Mr. Perry shall be welcome; & all my reward shall be, his treating me with his Paper, which, by the bye, to any body who has the least relish for Wit, is a high treat indeed (Letter 620B).
A thorough search of The Morning Chronicle archives, looking specifically at anonymous and pseudonymous prose, has revealed this essay as being in all probability the result of his promise.
The essay appears in The Morning Chronicle, 1st January, 1795, printed over the pen-name ‘A. Briton’, a signature we know Burns exclusively employed in 1788 (See notes for Lines on Ambition). There are, also, contextual pointers which suggest this is his composition.
Wishing not to miss any issues of the paper, Burns, revealingly, wrote to the newspaper sometime in January 1795, to complain that specific copies of the newspaper had not been sent to him. The January 1795 letter begins:
You will see by your subscribers’ list, that I have now been about nine months one of that number. – I am sorry to inform you, that in that time, seven or eight of your Papers either have never been sent me, or else have never reached me. – To be deprived of any one Number of the first Newspaper in Britain, for information, ability & independence, is what I can ill brook and bear; but to be deprived of that most admirable oration of the Marquis of Landsdowne, when he made the great, though ineffectual attempt, (in the language of the Poet, I fear too true) ‘to save a SINKING STATE’ – this was a loss, which I neither can, nor will forgive you. That paper, Gentlemen, never reached me; but I demand it of you. – I am a BRITON; and must be interested in the cause of LIBERTY: I am a MAN and the RIGHTS OF HUMAN NATURE cannot be indifferent to me…. that humble domicile in which I shelter my wife and children, is the CASTELLUM of a BRITON … (Letter 654).
It was roughly nine months since Burns requested a free subscription, in exchange for poetry or prose. Letter 620B is dated approximately for mid-March 1794 and Letter 654 is dated roughly for January 1795. So, if Burns had kept his side of the bargain, it appears he was disappointed to have missed several issues of the newspaper. Yet, the letter is far more than merely a reader’s request for missed issues. Burns almost scolds the editor, demanding that he receive a back copy of the newspaper. He does not tell the editor which issue he wants, that is, the date or dates of the daily newspaper (s) he missed. What jumps out of the page is the fact that Burns tells the Editor quite categorically that he is ‘a BRITON’, a description that occurs twice for emphasis and is spelt out in large, bold letters. ‘A. Briton’ is, of course, the signature employed under the new essay.
The newspaper demanded by Burns is one containing a speech by the Marquis of Landsdowne. Landsdowne, a Whig, spoke in the House of Lords on 30th December, 1794. The debate is covered on 31st December, 1794 and 1st January, 1795 in The Morning Chronicle. The debate in the House of Lords and the House of Commons centred on the King’s speech. William Wilberforce added an amendment to the debate, moving a motion to negotiate peace with the French. The Marquis’s speech is elaborate, powerful and anti-war; it dwells on the increased losses of British troops on the Continent and the fact that the allies arraigned against France were in disarray. The final note on the debate refers to ‘the abstract of the operations of the French Armies, read by the Marquis of Landsdowne’. Biographical studies have missed the fact that Burn praised and aligned himself with the Marquis’s passionate anti-war, anti-Pitt speech. Moreover, the political views outlined by Landsdowne are found in a more developed, elaborate and lucid essay under the psedonymn ‘A. Briton’ in the same newspaper. So, in Letter 654 Burns, declaring himself loudly to be ‘a BRITON’ demanded a copy of the newspaper in which the actual ‘A. Briton’ essay appeared, 1st January, 1795.
When Letter 654 appeared in Cromek in 1808, it was supposedly left unsigned. Finding the fair copy of the letter Cromek guessed it was not sent by Burns to London, neglecting the fact that Burns often made copies of his letters. Indeed, Cromek further estimated that the letter must have been written on behalf of a Dumfries friend, unaware that the poet had joined the free subsciption list nine months previous. There is no reason to doubt the recorded letter is both by Burns and from Burns. The original was probably forwarded to the London newspaper. It remains unknown if the issue for 1st January, 1795 was sent to Burns. Contextual evidence, therefore, before examining textually the new prose essay, suggests that Burns is probably the author.
A textual examination of the new prose essay finds many echoes in the letter Burns wrote in April 1793, to Erskine of Mar:
Does any man tell me, that my feeble efforts can be of no service; & that it does not belong to my humble station to meddle with the concerns of a PEOPLE? – I tell him, that it is on such individuals as I, that for the hand of support and the eye of intelligence, a Nation has to rest … the titled, tinsel Courtly throng may be its feathered ornament, but the number of those who are elevated enough in life, to reason & reflect; yet low enough to keep clear of the venal contagion of a Court; these are a Nation’s strength (Letter 558).
He goes on to pinpoint flaws in the British body politic:
I would say that there existed a system of corruption between the Executive Power & the Representative part of the Legislature, which boded no good for our glorious Constitution; & which every patriotic Briton must wish to see amended (Letter 558).
The phrase ‘every patriotic Briton’ might be expected from an author who had already signed his name ‘A. Briton’, but such a description is also central to the radical legacy inherited by Burns from Addison and other writers of the Commonwealth school. That such were still his views in the Spring of 1793 is important in considering the sentiments and the pen-name of the new 1795 essay. To Erskine, Burns went on in a vein similar to the new prose:
I have three sons, whom, I see already, have brought with them into the world souls ill qualified to inhabit the bodies of Slaves … the little independent Britons in whose veins runs my own blood? (Letter 558).
Here, eve
n the poet’s sons are ‘independent Britons’. Burns’s fear is that if political oppression steadily increases or conversely, liberties are further eroded, his children might eventually suffer. The new essay comments on this topic ‘will not our children, perhaps, be subject to such an iron sceptre?’ An early manuscript of Scots Wha Hae expresses this very sentiment ‘Do you hear your children cry / Were we born in chains to lie?’ The letter to Erskine thus displays the poet’s determination not to be silenced by his employers and asserts his right to be independent in his views.
Further textual similarities occur. Having described the calculated manoeuvring of Pitt and his colleagues as ‘invidious powerful individuals … under insidious pretexts to subvert’ [our italics] political opponents, in a letter of February 1789, signed John Barleycorn (Letter 311), we find this same language blaming ‘ministers endeavouring, under insidious pretexts [our italics], to increase the power of the Crown’ in the new prose. Also in setting out his case in the first newspaper letter he signed ‘A. Briton’, Burns is didactic and succinct, ‘The simple state of the case, Mr. Printer, seems to me to be this’ (Letter 283) which is very like the language of the new letter which reads ‘The spirit of the British Constitution seems to consist in this: That the House of Commons are…’. While there were obviously various conventions expected in writing a letter to the press during this period, it is quite evident that his piece does contain many of the stylistic mannerisms and nuances of Burns’s prose.
