The Canongate Burns (108 page)

William Creech was the publisher of the 1787 Edinburgh edition. He purchased the poet's copyright and brought out the 1793 and 1794 editions of Burns for his own profit allowing the poet a few complimentary copies. This means Creech obtained Scotland's most popular poem
Tam O'Shanter
and other poems at no cost. Creech, a one-time member of the Crochallan Fencibles, lost his early Enlightenment-influenced radical ideals as the tumult of the 1790s ensued. He published most of the loyalist government propaganda during this period and his business thrived while radical publications such as
The Edinburgh Gazetteer
and
The Bee
were either persecuted or driven out of business. Mackay omits this poetic fragment from the 1993 edition, but includes the next piece on Smellie. Both are belived to have formed part of an early, proposed work
The Poet's Progress
which eventually formed
To Robert Graham of Fintry
, published in 1793. Ll. 7–8 do not appear in Kinsley.

William Smellie (1746–95) was a leading Edinburgh intellectual and a key member of the Crochallan Fencibles. He was the printer of the Edinburgh edition. His reputation for humorous verbal flyting was such that he is reputed to have verbally thrashed Burns on the poet's inauguration to the Fencibles Club. He published work on medicine and natural philosophy. He was more of a friend to Burns than Creech. Maria Riddell befriended the old man via the poet's introduction. His biographer mentions that most of the letters from Burns to Smellie were unfit for publication because of the caustic remarks on people still living. They were burned. As the above poetic fragment on Creech, this fragment is viewed as an early piece intended for
The
Poet's Progress
which ended up as the 1793poemtoGraham of Fintry.

 

This is undated and the identity of Elizabeth is unknown. Kinsley guesses that it may be Elizabeth Johnston, a friend of Dr Blacklock in Edinburgh. Like much of
The Rights of Woman
, this is a poem to set feminists' teeth on edge, with its apparent traditional view of erotic power being greater than democratic rights.

This was composed in 1788. The final stanza is more or less the same as in
Elegy to Matthew Henderson
. Due to this, it is viewed by most editors as a first draft for the Henderson poem. Craigdarroch was Alexander Fergusson of Craigdarroch (d. 1796), an advocate and justice given to bibulous disorder (see
The Whistle
). Black James (l. 7) is almost certainly not James Boswell as has been suggested.

When first printed after the poet's death, this was signed ‘Z', a letter previously employed by Burns to indicate a lyric he had altered somewhat from the original text. Speculation has continued over this world-famous lyric, prompted by Burns himself when he informed Mrs Dunlop that he merely took it down from the singing of an old man (Letter 290). Burns, however, often pretended that his own songs were traditional works. If Kinsley is right to assert that there is ‘no good evidence on which to question Burns's story that he got
Auld Lang Syne
from oral tradition' (Vol. III, p. 1291), then Kinsley should probably have dropped it from the canon. There is, though, some evidence that Burns was familiar with one or two previous versions. Henley and Henderson quote a broadside ballad which reads ‘On old long syne, my jo, / That thou canst never once reflect / On old long syne' (Vol. III, p. 408). A song of the same title, but a significantly different text, is printed by Ramsay in his
Tea
-
Table Miscellany
. They are considerably different from the final, reworked Burns text, which, in his first draft ll. 3–4 (II) ran ‘Let's hae a waught o' Malaga, For old long syne'. Daiches comments:

Cromek's (1808) claim that the poet told Johnson verses three and four were exclusively his own, is almost certainly true. Thus, it is comprehensively reworked from its original sources and contains what Burns called ‘more of the fire of native genius in it, than in half a dozen of modern English Bacchanalians' (Letter 290). Ironically, as the poet's best known song, it was not published during his lifetime.

 

This was included in a letter sent to Mrs Dunlop, 7th December, 1788 (Letter 290). The poet only gives the initials ‘J. H.' but most editors agree it is probably about John Hunter, Writer to the Signet, who later owned the estate of Doonholm, by Ayr.

These fragments were found in the poet's
SCB
and appear to have formed part of many such verses, given that pages 23–6 of the book are ripped out. They were introduced as follows: ‘The everlasting surliness of a lion, Saracen's head, &c. or the unchanging blandness of the Landlord welcoming a Traveller, on some Sign-Posts, would be no bad similies of the constant affected fierceness of a Bully, or the eternal simper of a Frenchman or a Fiddler.'

This was written to thank Mr John Taylor of Wanlockhead who used his influence with the local blacksmith to enable Burns and his
friend John Sloan to jump the blacksmith's queue and have their horses' shoes sharpened, to provide better grip on the icy roads. The travellers waited at Ramage's Inn. This event occurred in the winter of 1788–9. Burns had named his new horse, Pegasus.

This was sold in manuscript during May 1861, but did not appear until 1897 after the private owner from Newcastle allowed Henley and Henderson to copy the original. It is probably in imitation of Lopez de Vega's sonnet on sonnets, which was imitated by other writers, notably in Dodley's Collection (1758). (See Kinsley, Vol. III, p. 1294).