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PROPERTY FROM THE FORBES COLLECTION
BURNS, Robert (1759-1796). Autograph letter signed (“Robt. Burns”) to Peter Millar, Jr., n.p., n.d., with contemporary docket on verso dated “Nov. 1794.” 4 pages, folio, creases repaired (obscuring portions of a few lines).
Details
BURNS, Robert (1759-1796). Autograph letter signed (“Robt. Burns”) to Peter Millar, Jr., n.p., n.d., with contemporary docket on verso dated “Nov. 1794.” 4 pages, folio, creases repaired (obscuring portions of a few lines).
BURNS OFFERS TWO POEMS--“LITTLE TRIFLES” TO THE MORNING CHRONICLE—AND “A NEW SCOTS SONG” in this remarkable letter blending the literary, political, personal and playful. He declines Millar’s offer to write about the political convulsions rocking war-torn Europe, fearful it will cost him his job with the excise. “You well know my political sentiments,” he tells Millar, “& were I an insular individual, unconnected with a wife & a family of children, with the most fervid enthusiasm I would have volunteered my services: I then could & would have despised all consequences that might have ensued.” But “my prospect in the excise is something,” he says, and “encumbered as I am with the welfare, the very existence of near half-a-score of helpless individuals,” it is a livelihood “I dare not sport with. In the mean time, they are most welcome to my Ode; only let them insert it as a thing they have met with by accident, & unknown to me.” Burns thinks that “in the present hurry of Europe, nothing but news & politics will be regarded; but against the days of Peace, which Heaven send soon, my little assistance may perhaps fill up an idle column of a Newspaper.” He reveals a long-standing desire to contribute “prose essays” to Perry’s Morning Chronicle.
Turning back to poetry, he asks Millar, “How do you like the following clinch? Pinned to a lady’s coach: “If you rattle along like your mistress’s tongue, / Your speed will outrival the dart: / But, a fly for your load, you’ll break down on the road, / If your stuff be as rotten as her heart.” Almost every day I am manufacturing these trifles,” Burns says, and offers another “on a noted coxcomb.” Then he fills the final page with a postscript, setting out “A New Scots Song. Tune, The Sutors dochter”: ...Lassie, say, thou lo’es me; / Or if thou wilt na be my ain, / Say na thoult refuse me. / If it winna, canna be, / Thou for thine may chuse me...” This was part of his long-time (uncompensated) effort to collect as many Scots folk tunes as he possible. As for his political choice, Burns was right to be cautious. His known sympathies to radicalism in England and republicanism in France had already prompted an investigation by his superiors at the Excise. The offer he turns down here from the Morning Chronicle would have brought him a guinea a week. But the Excise carried a pension benefit, that supported his many dependents after his death in July 1796.
BURNS OFFERS TWO POEMS--“LITTLE TRIFLES” TO THE MORNING CHRONICLE—AND “A NEW SCOTS SONG” in this remarkable letter blending the literary, political, personal and playful. He declines Millar’s offer to write about the political convulsions rocking war-torn Europe, fearful it will cost him his job with the excise. “You well know my political sentiments,” he tells Millar, “& were I an insular individual, unconnected with a wife & a family of children, with the most fervid enthusiasm I would have volunteered my services: I then could & would have despised all consequences that might have ensued.” But “my prospect in the excise is something,” he says, and “encumbered as I am with the welfare, the very existence of near half-a-score of helpless individuals,” it is a livelihood “I dare not sport with. In the mean time, they are most welcome to my Ode; only let them insert it as a thing they have met with by accident, & unknown to me.” Burns thinks that “in the present hurry of Europe, nothing but news & politics will be regarded; but against the days of Peace, which Heaven send soon, my little assistance may perhaps fill up an idle column of a Newspaper.” He reveals a long-standing desire to contribute “prose essays” to Perry’s Morning Chronicle.
Turning back to poetry, he asks Millar, “How do you like the following clinch? Pinned to a lady’s coach: “If you rattle along like your mistress’s tongue, / Your speed will outrival the dart: / But, a fly for your load, you’ll break down on the road, / If your stuff be as rotten as her heart.” Almost every day I am manufacturing these trifles,” Burns says, and offers another “on a noted coxcomb.” Then he fills the final page with a postscript, setting out “A New Scots Song. Tune, The Sutors dochter”: ...Lassie, say, thou lo’es me; / Or if thou wilt na be my ain, / Say na thoult refuse me. / If it winna, canna be, / Thou for thine may chuse me...” This was part of his long-time (uncompensated) effort to collect as many Scots folk tunes as he possible. As for his political choice, Burns was right to be cautious. His known sympathies to radicalism in England and republicanism in France had already prompted an investigation by his superiors at the Excise. The offer he turns down here from the Morning Chronicle would have brought him a guinea a week. But the Excise carried a pension benefit, that supported his many dependents after his death in July 1796.