The first step he took in the matter is fully expressed in an excerpt from the session-records of the parish of Canongate : Session-house within the parish of Canongate, the twenty-second day of February, One thousand seven hundred eighty-seven years; Sederunt of the Managers of the Kirk and Kirkyard Funds of Canongate; Which day, the treasurer to the said funds produced a letter from Mr Robert Burns, of date the 6th current, which was read and appointed to be engrossed in their sederunt-book, and of which letter the tenor follows: 'To the honourable bailies of Canongate, Edinburgh—Gentlemen, I am sorry to be told that the remains of Robert Fergusson, the so justly celebrated poet, a man whose talents for ages to come will do honour to our Caledonian name, lie in your church-yard among the ignoble dead, unnoticed and unknown. "Some memorial to direct the steps of the lovers of Scottish song, when they wish to shed a tear over the "narrow house" of the bard who is no more, is surely a tribute due to Fergusson's memory -a tribute I wish to have the honour of paying. 'I petition you then, gentlemen, to permit me to lay a simple stone over his revered ashes, to remain an unalienable property to his deathless fame. I have the honour to be, gentlemen, your very humble servant (sic subscribitur), ROBERT BURNS.' Therefore the said managers, in consideration of the laudable and disinterested motion of Mr Burns, and the propriety of his request, did, and hereby do, unanimously, grant power and liberty to the said Robert Burns to erect a headstone at the grave of the said Robert Fergusson, and to keep up and preserve the same to his memory in all time coming. Extracted forth of the records of the managers, by WILLIAM SPROTT, Clerk. TO [MR PETER STUART.] EDINBURGH [February 1787.] MY DEAR SIR-You may think, and too justly, that I am a selfish, ungrateful fellow, having received so many repeated instances of kindness from you, and yet never putting pen to paper to say thank you; but if you knew what a devil of a life my conscience has led me on that account, your good heart would think yourself too much avenged. By the by, there is nothing in the whole frame of man which seems to be so unaccountable as that thing called Conscience. Had the troublesome yelping cur powers efficient to prevent a mischief, he might be of use; but at the beginning of the business, his feeble efforts are to the workings of passion as the infant frosts of an autumnal morning to the unclouded fervour of the rising sun; and no sooner are the tumultuous doings of the wicked deed over, than, amidst the bitter native consequences of folly, in the very vortex of our horrors, up starts Conscience, and harrows us with the feelings of the damned." I have enclosed you, by way of expiation, some verse and prose, that, if they merit a place in your truly entertaining miscellany, you are welcome to. The prose extract is literally as Mr Sprott sent it me. The inscription on the stone is as follows: 'HERE LIES ROBERT FERGUSSON, POET. No sculptured marble here, nor pompous lay, "No storied urn, nor animated bust;" This simple stone directs pale Scotia's way To pour her sorrows o'er her Poet's dust.' On the other side of the stone is as follows: : '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.'1 Dr Currie printed this letter, without letting us know to whom it was addressed, only intimating that he was one of the ablest of our poet's correspondents.' The present editor has arrived by a chain of connected circumstances at the conclusion, that the person addressed was Peter Stuart, editor of the Star newspaper in London, a person very noted as a government writer in the daily press during the first decade of the present century. Stuart appears to have known Fergusson in his early youth, and to have entertained a warm admiration of his talents and amiable character. In his reply to this letter of Burns, 8th March, he indulges in a very absurd tirade against the poor Canongate magistrates, as if they had been concerned in starving the poet whose grave they now allowed Burns to adorn. This letter, however, is serviceable in informing us of the country rumour regarding Burns's position and doings in Edinburgh. Next week,' says the writer, 'I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you in Edinburgh, and, as my stay will be for eight or ten days, I wish you or **** would take a snug well-aired bedroom for me, where I may have the pleasure of seeing you over a morning cup of tea. But by all accounts it will be If this order of the managers was designed to set aside the ground from all future use as a part of the general place of sepulture, am sorry to remark that it has been, through inadvertence in some quarter, violated, as I was present some years ago when the remains of Mr John Inverarity, a nephew of Fergusson, were deposited in the grave of the poet. a matter of some difficulty to see you at all, unless your company is bespoke a week beforehand. There is a great rumour here concerning your intimacy with the Duchess of [Gordon], and other ladies of distinction. I am really told that "cards to invite fly by thousands each night," and if you had one, I suppose there would also be "bribes to your old secretary."'1 The keen sympathy felt by Burns for Fergusson was expressed on many occasions. Very soon after making the arrangements for the tombstone (March 19, 1787), he presented a copy of the works of the Edinburgh poet to a young lady, and wrote the following lines under the portrait which served for a frontispiece : [VERSES UNDER THE PORTRAIT OF FERGUSSON.] TO THE EARL OF GLENCAIRN. [EDINBURGH, February 1787.] MY LORD-I wanted to purchase a profile of your lordship, which I was told was to be got in town; but I am truly sorry to see that a blundering painter has spoiled a 'human face divine.' The enclosed stanzas I intended to have written below a picture or profile of your lordship, could I have been so happy as to procure one with anything of a likeness. As I will soon return to my shades, I wanted to have something like a material object for my gratitude; I wanted to have it in my power to say to a friend, there is my noble patron, my generous benefactor. Allow me, my lord, to publish these verses. I conjure your lordship, by the honest throe of gratitude, by the generous wish of benevolence, by all the powers and feelings which compose the magnanimous mind, do not deny me this petition. I owe much to your lordship: and, what has not in some other instances always been the case with mc, the weight of the obligation is a pleasing load. I trust I have a heart as independent as your lordship's, than which I can say nothing more: and I would not be beholden to favours that would crucify my feelings. Your dignified character 1 These are snatches of a singular ballad, then in full vogue among men of wit and pleasure. [1787. in life, and manner of supporting that character, are flattering to my pride; and I would be jealous of the purity of my grateful attachment, where I was under the patronage of one of the much-favoured sons of fortune. Almost every poet has celebrated his patrons, particularly when they were names dear to fame, and illustrious in their country; allow me, then, my lord, if you think the verses have intrinsic merit, to tell the world how much I have the honour to be, your lordship's highly indebted, and ever grateful humble servant, R. B. VERSES INTENDED TO BE WRITTEN BELOW A Whose is that noble, dauntless brow? And whose that generous princely mien Stranger, to justly shew that brow, Would take His hand, whose vernal tints Bright as a cloudless summer sun, Among the illustrious Scottish sons It would appear that the earl did not extend the desired permission, for the verses remained in manuscript till a recent period.1 In the new edition, Burns inserted a considerable number of pieces either excluded from the first, or written since. He now let Death and Dr Hornbook go forth, also the Ordination, and the Address to the Unco Guid, which various considerations had formerly induced him to repress. The Brigs of Ayr, Tam Samson's Elegy, and the Address to Edinburgh, were the principal new pieces which now appeared. He also included some juvenile pieces of less moment, as John Barleycorn, a translation of the First Psalm, and A Prayer under the Pressure of Violent Anguish, 1 The original is now shown at Dumfries, at the house in which Burns died. besides three or four songs. Perhaps we should include in this group a political ballad, entitled A Fragment, narrating, in the quaintly familiar language of a rustic, the events of, and connected with, the American war. A FRAGMENT. TUNE-Killiecrankie. When Guildford good our pilot stood, dash Then through the lakes Montgomery' takes, 3 1 General Richard Montgomery invaded Canada, autumn 1775, and took Montreal, the British commander, Sir Guy Carleton, retiring before him. In an attack on Quebec he was less fortunate, being killed by a storm of grape-shot in leading on his men at Cape Diamond. 2 Lowrie's Burn, a pseudonym for the St Lawrence. A passing compliment to the Montgomeries of Coilsfield, the patrons of the poet. * General Gage, governor of Massachusetts, was cooped up in Boston by General Washington during the latter part of 1775 and early part of 1776. In consequence of his inefficiency, he was replaced in October of that year by General Howe. General Howe removed his army from New York to Philadelphia in the summer of 1777. • Alluding to a razzia made by orders of Howe at Peekskill, March 1777, when a large quantity of cattle belonging to the Americans was destroyed. |