influence over his mind, which might have preserved him, in this situation of his affairs, equally from despondency, and from dissipation. But Burns' temper spurned all control from his superiors in fortune. He resented, as an arrogant encroachment upon his independence, that tenor of conduct by which Mr Miller wished to turn him from dissolute conviviality, to that steady attention to the business of his farm, without which it was impossible to thrive in it. In the neighbourhood were other gentlemen occasionally addicted, like Burns, to convivial excess; who, while they admired the poet's talents, and were charmed with his licentious wit, forgot the care of his real interests in the pleasure which they found in his company, and in the gratification which the plenty and festivity of their tables appeared evidently to afford him. With these gentlemen, while disappointments and disgusts continued to multiply upon him in his present situation, he continued to diverge every day more and more into dissipation; and his dissipation tended to enhance whatever was disagreeable and perplexing in the state of his affairs.
He sunk, by degrees, into the boon-companion of mere excisemen; and almost every drunken fellow, who was willing to spend his money lavishly in the ale-house, could easily command the company of Burns. The care of his farm was thus neglected; waste and losses wholly consumed his little capital; he resigned his lease into the hands of his landlord; and retired with his family to the town of Dumfries, determining to depend entirely for the means of future support upon his income as an exciseman.
Yet during this unfortunate period of his life, which passed between his departure from Edinburgh to settle in Dumfries-shire, and his leaving the country in order to take up his residence in the town of Dumfries, the energy and activity of his intellectual powers appear to have been not at all impaired. He made a collection of Scottish songs, which were published, with the music, by a Mr Johnston, an engraver, in Edinburgh, in three small volumes, octavo.[1] In making this collection, he, in many instances, accommodated new verses to the old tunes, with admirable felicity and skill. He composed several other poems, such aS the tale of Tarn o' Shanter, the Whistle, Verses on a Wounded Hare, the pathetic Address to R * * * G * * * of F * * *, and some others which he afterwards permitted Mr Creech to insert in the fourth and fifth editions of his poems.[2]
He assisted in the temporary institution of a small subscription library, for the use of a number of the well-disposed peasants, in his neighbourhood. He readily aided, and by his knowledge of genuine Scottish phraseology and manners, greatly enlightened the antiquarian researches of the late ingenious Captain Grose. He still carried on an epistolary correspondence, sometimes gay, sportive, humorous, but always enlivened by bright flashes of genius, with a number of his old friends, and on a very wide diversity of topics.[3]
- ↑ Six thin volumes, containing the most complete body of Scottish song and music in existence entitled, the Scottish Musical Museum.
- ↑ Among the labours of this period of his life, and of the few remaining years, must be reckoned a hundred excellent songs, partly in Scotch and partly in English, which he contributed to the musical publication of Mr George Thomson, which resembled that of Johnston, but was more elegant and expensive, and contained accompaniments for the tunes by eminent modern musicians.
- ↑ Burns lent his muse on several occasions to aid the popular candidates in contested elections. In one poem, which was handed about in manuscript, relating to such an affair, he thus alluded to Dr Muirhead, minister of Ur, in Galloway, a fellow rhymer:
"Armorial bearings from the banks of Ur
An old crab apple rotten at the core."This hit applied very well, for Dr M. was a little, wind-dried, unhealthy looking mannikin, Very proud of his genealogy, and ambitious of being acknowledged on all occasions as the chief of At times, as it should
