Read The Canongate Burns Online
Authors: Robert Burns
The Canongate Burns (73 page)
in COWPER's POEMS Belonging to a Lady
First printed in
The Gentleman's Magazine
, April 1789.
Let dear Eliza pass the gliding hours,
By culling sweets from choice poetic flowers!
Of all those various beauties form'd to please,
There's none more choice, and none more sweet than these:
5
For truth with elegance is here display'd;
Descriptive Nature beauteously array'd:
Whether he trip, by Luna's silver sheen,
Whether bright Pheobus gild with genial ray
The blushing morning of the coming May;
10
Whether pourtray'd the shrub, or fragrant flower;
His soft, his lively portraits, you'll admire.
With gentle Thomson tracing wood and grove,
He paints recesses, sweet for heaven-born love;
Pope's softest numbers harmonize each line,
15
The fire of Dryden, Milton's thoughts sublime,
The lash of Churchill, Waller's warbling lays,
Sing loud their merit, loudly chant their praise.
Describ'd the humble cot, proud city's tower
The cloud-capt hill, the lovely vale or bower,
20
Still guided by the radiant son of Jove,
In Nature's walks, behold his fav'rite rove!
                                                               R.B.Â
Verses Written upon a Blank Leaf in COWPER's POEMS Belong
ing to a Lady
was printed in the April 1789 issue of
The Gentle
man's Magazine
(p. 353). It was recently brought to light after the discovery of a known Burns work in the same journal in 1794, also printed under his initials, âR.B.' An abridged version of
A Winter
Night
was printed under a new title,
Humanity:
An Ode
. Given that the publication of this work had never before been recorded and no search of the journal for missing work by Burns ever documented, the magazine was consequently scanned for such a possibility. The above poem and an epigram on the death of Dr Adam Smith (signed under the known Burns pen name, Agricola) were the result.
The controversial
Lines on Seeing the Royal Palace at Stirling in
Ruins
were first printed by Burns in a newspaper signed, âR.B.' So, we know he employed his initials in this manner. The case for Burns being the author of
Humanity:
An Ode
needs little argument because it is obviously a modified variant of
A Winter
Night
, printed in the 1787 Edinburgh edition. Indeed, if
A Winter
Night
had not already been in print, there could be no absolute certainty Burns wrote
Humanity:
An Ode
; despite the fact that we could not trace another active poet employing these initials in that period.
During 1789 Burns, still farming Ellisland, was the neighbour of Robert Riddell. Riddell was a contributor to
The Gentleman's
Magazine
as an antiquarian long before he met Burns. It is quite probable that Riddell, a subscriber to the magazine, suggested Burns seek publication in it.
While not a poem of any great literary significance, the verse is reasonably competent in its limited task of impressing a lady that the author is familiar with the poetry of Cowper. In contrasting Cowper with so many other, well-known English poets and the Scottish Thomson, it is slightly exhibitionist. Burns was, by 1789, fond of Cowper's verse, with a particular liking for the popular long poem,
The Task
, as glowingly mentioned to Mrs Dunlop (Letter 605). Indeed, the first literary comparison made in the poem (l. 12) is between Cowper and James Thomson, author of
The Seasons
. Burns compares these two poets in September 1788, in a letter to William Dunbar â â⦠Cowper's
Poems
, the best poet out of sight since Thomson' (Letter 274). Burns owned a copy of
The Lives of the
English
Poets
edited by Dr Johnson and was well acquainted with the poets listed (ll. 14â16). The poem rightly mentions the variegated literary influences of Thomson, Pope, Dryden, Churchill and Waller (ll. 12â16) in Cowper's verse. Having been so influenced himself, it is no surprise that Burns liked Cowper's somewhat evangelical-influenced poetry and in particular his stance against the slave trade which heavily permeated the popular radical press. Cowper, as Baird reveals, was an admirer of Burns. He told Samuel Rose, after poring over the Edinburgh edition:
I think them on the whole a very extraordinary production. He is, I believe the only poet these islands have produced in the lower rank of life since Shakespeare, (I should rather say since Prior,) who need not be indebted for any part of his praise to a charitable consideration of his origin, and the disadvantages under which he has laboured (John D. Baird, âTwo Poets of the 1780s: Burns and Cowper' in
Critical Essays on Robert Burns
, ed. Donald Low, (Routledge, London, 1975, p. 108).
It would be frivolous to speculate on the identity of the unknown young lady (âEliza') but it suffices that Burns knew of several such ladies, one being Elizabeth Burnett mentioned in
Address to Edin
burgh
. The missing line after l. 7 may be the result of a printer's error.
On the Tombstone in the Canongate Churchyard
Born Sept. 5th, 1750 Died Oct. 17th, 1774
First printed in
The Edinburgh Advertiser
, 7thâ11th August, 1789.
By special Grant of the Managers to Robert Burns, who erected this Stone, this Burial Place is to remain for ever sacred to the Memory of ROBERT FERGUSSON.
No sculptur'd Marble here, nor pompous lay,
  âNo storied Urn nor animated Bust;'
This simple stone directs pale SCOTIA'S way
  To pour her sorrow o'er the POET'S dust.Â
5
[She mourns, sweet tuneful youth, thy hapless fate:
  Tho' all the powers of song thy fancy fir'd,
Yet Luxury and Wealth lay by in State,
  And, thankless, starv'd what they so much admir'd.
This humble tribute with a tear he gives,
10
  A brother Bard, he can no more bestow:
But dear to fame thy Song immortal lives,
  A nobler monument than Art can show.]Â
Only the first of these stanzas, written in early 1787, was printed in
The Edinburgh Advertiser
of early August 1789; then subsequently featured in Currie, 1800. The final stanzas were entered in the
SCB
. They did not enter the canon until the notebook surfaced in the 1870s. Burns's headstone to Fergusson was not erected until August 1789. The newspaper printed the lines after the stone was erected. It was inscribed on Burns's behalf by an Edinburgh architect named Robert Burn. The dedicatory inscription on the stone is given as the subtitle.
The quote from Gray's
Elegy in a Country Churchyard
(l. 2) is not always so identified by previous editors. Given that the poet waited two years for the work to be finished, he deliberately took two years to pay for the headstone, costing
£
5.10 shillings (See Letters 81 and 495). Fergusson died, apparently insane, in the Edinburgh asylum.
First printed in
The Gentleman's Magazine
, September 1790.
Death
and
Hermes
of late in Elysium made boast,
That each would bring thither what earth valued most:
Smith's
Wealth of Nations Hermes
stole from his shelf;
DEATH
just won his cause â he took off Smith himself.Â
Agricola.
This epigram which was recently found in
The Gentleman's Ma
gazine
, September 1790, p. 843, is given here as a probable work of Burns for several reasons. The same pen-name (meaning a farmer) was employed by Burns the year previous in his
Ode on the Departed
Regency Bill
. There is no other occurrence of this pen-name by any poet during the entire 1780â1800 period. Contextually the evidence points to Burns. As his letters show, he was well read not only in Smith's
The Theory of Moral Sentiments
but also
The Wealth of
Nations
. The epigram reveals a mixture of respect and irony. Hermes, the God of commerce and communication, thinks Smith's best-known book is the greatest thing on earth but Death goes one step further and whisks off Smith himself.
the Celebrated Antiquary
First printed in
The Belfast Newsletter
, 18th May 1792.
The Devil got notice that GROSE was a-dying,
So whip! at the summons, old Satan came flying;
But when he approach'd where poor FRANCIS lay moaning,
And saw each bed-post with its burthen a-groaning,
Astonish'd! confounded! cry'd Satan, by God,
I'll want 'im, ere take such a damnable load. â
This was written at Ellisland in 1789 when the pendulous Grose was alive not, as implied by Mackay, after the death of Grose in 1791 at Dublin. After appearing in
The Belfast Newsletter
it was subsequently printed by Stuart, Glasgow, 1801.
â
On Some Late Commemorations of the Poet Thomson
First published in T
he Edinburgh Gazetteer
, 23rd November, 1792.
DOST thou not rise, indignant Shade,
      And smile wi' spurning scorn,
When they wha wad hae starved thy life,
who would have
      Thy senseless turf adorn? â
5
They, wha about thee mak sic fyke
make such fuss
      Now thou art but a name,
Wad seen thee damn'd ere they had spar'd
would have
      Ae plack to fill thy wame. â
one farthing, belly
Helpless, alane, thou clamb the brae,
alone, climbed, hillside
10
      Wi' meikle, honest toil,
much
And claucht th' unfading garland there,
clutched
      Thy sair-won, rightful spoil. â
sore-
And wear it there! and call aloud,
      This axiom undoubted â
15
âWouldst thou hae Nobles' Patronage?'
have
      First learn to live without it!!!
âTo wham hae routh, more shall be given'
have plenty
      Is every Patron's faith;
But he, the friendless, needful wretch,
20
      Shall lose the mite he hath. âÂ
The above text is from
The Edinburgh Gazetteer
where it was printed under the pseudonym Thomas A. Rhymer. Despite appearing first in the Edinburgh newspaper in November 1792, it did not enter the canon until the 1820s.
Kinsley suggests that the poem was written at the same time as the previous English tribute to Thomson. The only reference to the poem comes in a panic-stricken letter to Robert Graham of Fintry of 5th January, 1793, where Burns tried desperately to disassociate himself from the political implications of his relationship with the soon-to-be incarcerated Captain Johnston, editor of the dissident
Edinburgh Gazetteer:
Of Johnston, the publisher of the
Edinburgh Gazetteer
, I know nothing. â One evening in company with four or five friends, we met with his prospectus which we thought manly and independent; & I wrote to him ordering his paper for us. If you think that I act improperly in allowing his Paper to come addressed to me, I shall immediately countermand it. â I never, so judge me, God! wrote a line of
prose
(our italics) for the Gazetteer in my life. â An occasional address, spoken by Miss Fontenelle on her benefit-night, here which I called, the Rights of Woman, I sent to the Gazetteer; as also some extempore stanzas on the Commemoration of Thomson: both of these I will subjoin for your perusal. â You will see that they have nothing whatever to do with Politics. â At the time I sent Johnson one of these poems, but which one I do not remember, I inclosed at the request of my warm & worthy friend, Robt. Riddell Esq: of Glendriddel, a prose Essay, signed Cato, written by him, & addressed to the delegates for the Country Reform, of which he was one for this Country. â With the merits or demerits, of that Essay I have nothing to do, farther than transmitting it in the same Frank, which Frank he had procured me (Letter 530).
In fact, on ordering
The Edinburgh Gazetteer
, Burns was driven by rampant enthusiasm for the edition he had acquired and, on behalf of four or five friends, suggests he will pay his subscription via Peter Hill, his Edinburgh bookseller friend. His enthusiasm for the newspaper is telling: âGo on, Sir! Lay bare with un-daunted heart & steady hand that horrid mass of corruption called Politics & State-Craft!' (
Letter
, 515). As we shall see, he did not stop contributing.
Nor is this bitter little poem devoid of political comment. It has little or nothing to do with Thomson, who, happily exiled, waxed fat in southern pastures. It is a compound of memories of Robert Fergusson's and his own grim Parnassian uphill struggle. The life of the true poet is seen as a particularly acute example of an aristocratic society gripped by injustice towards the poor. The last stanza pertinent to this theme echoes
Matthew
xiii.12; cf.
Mark
iv.25 and
Luke
viii.18. Further, the poem's retarded entry into the canon in the 1820s suggests a significant dissident content.
