Read The Canongate Burns Online
Authors: Robert Burns
The Canongate Burns (113 page)
Tune: Chevy Chase
First printed in Cromek, 1808.
Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare,
       As ever trod on airn;
iron
But now she's floating down the Nith,
       And past the Mouth o' Cairn.
5
Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare,
       An' rode thro' thick an' thin;
But now she's floating down the Nith,
       And wanting even the skin.
Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare,
10
       And ance she bore a priest;
once
But now she's floating down the Nith,
       For Solway fish a feast.
Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare,
       An' the priest he rode her sair;
sore
15
And much oppress'd and bruis'd she was â
       As priest-rid cattle are.
William Nicol's mare was taken in by Burns at Ellisland to be restored to health. Having tried treating the animal and obtaining professional advice from a farrier, the beast died. Despite the tone of the poem, the animal-loving Burns was predictably hurt to lose Nicol's horse. His letter to Nicol on 9th February, 1790 catches precisely this mixture of irritation and distress:
That damned mare of yours is dead. I would freely have given her price to have saved her: she has vexed me beyond descriptionâ¦. I took every care of her in my power ⦠I drew her in the plough, one of three, for a poor week. I refused fifty-five shilling for her. I fed her up and had her in fine order for Dumfries fair; when four or five days before the fair, she was
seized with an unaccountable disorder in the sinews ⦠in short the whole vertebrae of the spine seemed to be diseased and unhinged ⦠every thing was done for her that could be done ⦠(Letter 390).
Burns described the
Elegy
to Nicol's mare as âbarbarous stanzas'. The name Peg Nicholson is one given to the mare by Burns after Margaret Nicholson who attacked and tried to stab George III in August 1786. (He had previously named his own horse Jenny Geddes after a woman who had thrown a stool at a leading Edinburgh cleric.) The âMouth o' Cairn' (l. 4) is a tributary of the river Nith.
First printed in Currie, 1800.
Mv wife's a wanton, wee thing,
My wife's a wanton, wee thing,
My wife's a wanton, wee thing,
     She winna be guided by me.
will not
5
She play'd the loon or she was married,
fool, before
She play'd the loon or she was married,
She play'd the loon or she was married,
      She'll do it again or she die.
She sell'd her coat and she drank it,
10
She sell'd her coat and she drank it,
She row'd hersell in a blanket,
rolled
      She winna be guided for me.
She mind't na when I forbade her,
not
She mind't na when I forbade her,
15
I took a rung and I claw'd her,
cudgel, beat
      And a braw gude bairn was she.
fine good child
This is a traditional song reworked by Burns. He sent it to George Thomson in 1792 but he did not include it in his printed collection until 1818; even then Thomson printed a version where he had the audacity to correct the lyric.
For Mrs. Sutherland's Benefit-Night,
Spoken at the Theatre, Dumfries, March 3rd, 1790
First printed in Oliver, Edinburgh; and in Stewart, Glasgow, 1800.
WHAT needs this din about the town o' Lon'on,
How this new Play an' that new Sang is comin?
song
Why is outlandish stuff sae meikle courted?
so much
Does Nonsense mend like Brandy â when imported â
5
Is there nae Poet, burning keen for Fame,
no
Will bauldly try to gie us Plays at hame?
boldly, give
For Comedy abroad he need na toil:
not
A Knave and Fool are plants of ev'ry soil:
Nor need he hunt as far as Rome or Greece,
10
To gather matter for a serious piece;
There's themes enow in Caledonian story
enough
Wad shew the Tragic Muse in a' her glory.
Is there no daring Bard will rise and tell
How glorious Wallace stood, how hapless fell?
15
Where are the Muses fled, that could produce
A
drama
worthy o' the name of Bruce?
How on
this
spot he first unsheath'd the sword
'Gainst mighty England and her guilty Lord,
And after mony a bloody, deathless doing,
20
Wrench'd his dear country from the jaws of Ruin!
O! for a Shakespeare or an Otway scene
To paint the lovely hapless Scottish Queen!
Vain ev'n th' omnipotence of Female charms,
'Gainst headlong, ruthless, mad Rebellion's arms.
25
She fell â but fell with spirit truly Roman,
To glut that direst foe, a
vengeful woman
;
A
woman
â tho' the phrase may seem uncivil,
As able â and as wicked â as the Devil!
One Douglas lives in Home's immortal page,
30
But Douglasses were heroes every age:
And tho' your fathers, prodigal of life,
A Douglas followed to the martial strife,
Perhaps, if bowls row right, and Right succeeds,
Ye yet may follow where a Douglas leads!
35
As ye hae generous done, if a' the land
Would take the Muses' servants by the hand,
Not only hear â but patronise â defend them,
And where ye justly can commend â commend them;
And aiblins, when they winna stand the test,
maybe, will not
40
Wink hard and say, âThe folks hae done their best'.
have
Would a' the land do this, then I'll be caition,
surety
Ye'll soon hae Poets o' the Scottish nation,
have
Will gar Fame blaw until her trumpet crack,
make, blow
And warsle Time, an' lay him on his back.
thump
45
For us and for our Stage, should onie spier,
any ask
âWhase aught thae chiels maks a' this bustle here?'
whose, they fellows
My best leg foremost, I'll set up my brow,
We have the honor to belong to you!
We're your ain bairns, e'en guide us as ye like,
own children
50
But like guid mithers, shore before ye strike;
mothers, warn
And gratefu' still, I trust, ye'll ever find us:
For gen'rous patronage, and meikle kindness,
much
We've got frae a' professions, sorts an' ranks:
from
God help us â we're but poor â ye'se get but thanks!
you'll
This work appears first in 1800 in both Edinburgh and Glasgow, by two different printers. Burns presented a copy to the Dumfries Provost, David Staig, prior to the evening it was to be recited at the theatre, in a letter of 1st March, 1790, to ask his advice on its degree of political controversy:
⦠there is a dark stroke of Politics in the belly of the Piece, and like a faithful loyal Subject, I lay it before you, as the chief Magistrate of the country ⦠that if the said Poem be found to contain any Treason, or words of treasonable construction, or any Fama clamosa or Scandulum magnatum, against our Sovereign lord the King, or any of his liege Subjects, the said Prologue may not see the light (Letter 394).
In commenting on this letter to Staig, Kinsley remarks that âthe anxiety over a merely patriotic poem was obviously Sutherland's, as Burns's tone suggests' (Vol. 3, p. 1341). Burns's tone suggests no such thing. The hyperbolically ironic terminology of the letter is a joke pointed at the ambigious, contemporary definition of treason. Kinsley rightly detects that ll. 29â34 are the âdark stroke of Politics' but he seems not to understand that the second Douglas, after
Home's theatrical one, is âCitizen Douglas', that is to say Lord Daer, who was the potential leader of a Scottish republican movement (See
Extempore Verses on Dining with Lord Daer
). Thus, Burns, albeit with a degree of subtle disguise which has lasted over two hundred years, was having declaimed in 1790 from the Dumfries stage a wholly treasonable political proposal. Were Douglas in the audience during the performance this poem would have had an even more powerful political resonance, particularly to those attuned to its contemporary, subtle nuances.
Daer, one of the leading figures in the Scottish Friends of the People movement, from Jacobite stock, is also in a lineage of Burns's favourite Scottish heroes and heroines, Wallace, Bruce and Mary Queen of Scots. The lines on Bruce (ll. 150â20) are a kind of prelude to the darker Bruce poems of 1793 retrieved from
The Edinburgh
Gazetteer
. Some editors modify ll. 16â18 which tellingly emphasise that it was in Dumfries (âthis spot') that Bruce killed his main rival for the Scottish throne and thus began his crusade to free Scotland from English domination. (See the hitherto unpublished letter on this subject printed as an appendix to
The Ghost of Bruce
and
Scots
Wha Hae
.)
or
Epistle to Robert Graham of Fintry on
the Election for the Dumfries Burghs, 1790
A fragment of this first appears in
The Edinburgh Magazine
, May 1811.
FINTRY, my stay in worldly strife,
Friend o' my Muse, Friend o' my Life,
                  Are ye as idle 's I am?
Come then! wi' uncouth kintra fleg
country fling/kick
5
O'er Pegasus I'll fling my leg,
                  And ye shall see me try him. â
But where shall I gae rin or ride,
go, run
That I may splatter nane beside,
none
                  I wad na be uncivil:
would not
10
In mankind's various paths and ways
There's ay some doytin body strays,
stupid person
                  And I ride like the devil. â
Thus I break aff wi' a' my birr,
off, force
An' down yon dark, deep alley spur,
15
                  Where Theologies dander:
stroll
Alas! curst wi' eternal fogs,
And damn'd in everlasting bogs,
                  As sure's the Creed I'll blunder!
I'll stain a band, or jaup a gown,
splash, clerical dress
20
Or rin my reckless, guilty crown
run
                  Against the haly door!
holy
Sair do I rue my luckless fate,
sore
When, as the Muse an' Deil wad hae't
would have it
                  I rade that road before. â
rode
25
Suppose I take a spurt and mix
Amang the wilds o' Politics
                  Electors and elected â
Where dogs at Court (sad sons o' bitches!)
Septennially a madness touches,
30
                  Till all the land's infected. â
All hail, Drumlanrig's haughty Grace,
1
Discarded remnant of a race
                  Once godlike â great in story!
Thy fathers' virtues all contrasted,
35
The very name of Douglas blasted,
                  Thine that inverted glory!
Hate, envy, oft the Douglas bore
But thou hast superadded more,
                  And sunk them in contempt;
40
Follies and crimes have stain'd the name;
But, Queensberry, thine the virgin claim,
                  From aught that's good exempt. â
I'll sing the zeal Drumlanrig bears,
Wha left the all-important cares
45
                  Of fiddlers, whores, and hunters;
And, bent on buying Borough-towns,
Came shaking hands wi' wabster-loons,
weavers
                  And kissing barefit bunters. â
barefoot harlots
Combustion thro' our Boroughs rode,
50
Whistling his roaring pack abroad
                  Of mad, unmuzzled lions;
As Queensberry BUFF AND BLUE unfurl'd,
whig colours
And Westerha' and Hopeton hurl'd
2
                  To every Whig defiance. â
55
But cautious Queensberry left the war,
Th' unmanner'd dust might soil his star,
                  Besides, he hated
Bleeding
:
But left behind him heroes bright,
Heroes in Cesarean fight
60
                  Or Ciceronian pleading. â
O, for a throat like huge Monsmeg,
a cannon at Edinburgh
To muster o'er each ardent Whig,
                  Beneath Drumlanrig's banner!
Heroes and heroines commix,
65
All in the field of Politics
                  To win immortal honor. â
McMurdo
3
and his lovely Spouse
(Th' enamour'd laurels kiss her brows)
                  Led on the Loves and Graces:
70
She won each gaping Burgess' heart,
While he, sub rosa, play'd his part
in secret
                  Among their wives and lasses.
Craigdarroch
4
led a light-arm'd Core,
Tropes, metaphors and figures pour,
75
                  Like Hecla streaming thunder:
an Icelandic volcano
Glenriddell
5
, skill'd in rusty coins,
antiquarian skills
Blew up each Tory's dark designs,
                  And bar'd the treason under. â
In either wing two champions fought;
80
Redoubted STAIG
6
, who set at nought
                  The wildest savage Tory:
While WELSH,
7
who ne'er yet flinch'd his ground,
High-wav'd his magnum-bonum round
                  With Cyclopean fury. â
85
Miller
8
brought up th' artillery ranks,
The many-pounders of the banks,
                  Resistless desolation!
While Maxwelton,
9
that baron bold,
'Mid LAWSON's
10
port entrench'd his hold,
90
                  And threaten'd worse damnation. â
To these what Tory hosts oppos'd,
With these what Tory warriors clos'd,
                  Surpasses my descriving:
Squadrons, extended long and large,
95
With furious speed rush to the charge,
                  Like furious devils driving. â
What Verse can sing, what Prose narrate,
The butcher deeds of bloody Fate
                  Amid this mighty tulzie;
conflict
100
Grim Horror girn'd, pale Terror roar'd,
scowled
As Murder at his thrapple shor'd;
throat, threatened
                  And Hell mix'd in the brulzie. â
brawl
As Highland craigs by thunder cleft,
crags
When lightnings fire the stormy lift,
sky
105
                  Hurl down with crashing rattle;
As flames among a hundred woods,
As headlong foam a hundred floods,
                  Such is the rage of Battle. âÂ
The stubborn Tories dare to die,
110
As soon the rooted oaks would fly
                  Before th' approaching fellers:
The Whigs come on like ocean's roar,
When all his wintry billows pour
                  Against the Buchan bullers. â
11
115
Lo, from the shades of Death's deep night
Departed Whigs enjoy the fight,
                  And think on former daring:
The muffled Murtherer of CHARLES
12
The Magna Charta flag unfurls,
120
                  All deadly gules it's bearing. â
blazoned red
Nor wanting ghosts of Tory fame;
Bold SCRIMGEOUR
13
follows gallant
                     GRAHAM,
14
                  Auld Covenanters shiver!
(Forgive, forgive! Much wrong'd Montrose!
125
Now, Death and Hell engulph thy foes,
                  Thou liv'st on high for ever).
Still o'er the field the combat burns,
The Tories, Whigs, give way by turns,
                  But Fate the word has spoken:
130
For Woman's wit, and strength of Man,
Alas! can do but what they can;
                  The Tory ranks are broken. â
O, that my een were flowing burns!
eyes
My voice, a lioness that mourns
135
                  Her darling cub's undoing!
That I might greet, that I might cry,
weep
While Tories fall, while Tories fly
                  From furious Whigs pursuing. â
What Whig but melts for good SIR JAMES!
15
140
Dear to his Country by the names,
                  Friend, Patron, Benefactor!
Not Pulteney's wealth can Pulteney
16
save;
And Hopeton falls, the generous, brave;
                  And STEWART
17
bold as Hector!
145
Thou, Pitt,
18
shalt rue this overthrow,
And Thurlow
19
growl this curse of woe,
                  And Melville
20
melt in wailing:
Now Fox and Sheridan
21
rejoice!
And Burke
22
shall shout, O Prince, arise!
150
                  Thy power is all-prevailing!
For your poor friend, the Bard, afar
He hears and sees the distant war,
                  A cool Spectator purely:
So, when the storm the forest rends,
155
The Robin in the hedge descends,
                  And, patient, chirps securely. â
Now, for my friends' and brethren's sakes,
And for my native LAND o' CAKES,
                  I pray with holy fire;
160
Lord, send a rough-shod troop o' Hell
O'er a', wad Scotland buy, or sell,
would
                  And grind them in the mire!!!
As is typical of so much of Burns's dissident political writings, this poem did not surface till 1811 in the pages of
The Edinburgh
Magazine
, although it was missing a few stanzas. Kinsley prints it without stanzas 2â5. In this version stanzas 2â4 are a retrospective of his career as satirist, which mixes anxiety with self-mockery, especially with the results of his assaults of âAuld Licht' Calvinism. Nor does his prospective political satire seem less likely to create problems for him as he surveys a world:
⦠Where dogs at Court (sad sons o' bitches!)
Septennially a madness touches,
                  Till all the land's infected.
Such sentiments would seem extremely ill judged in a poem adressed to his new Excise master. Burns, however, develops in tone,
genre and content, strategies for by-passing superior condemnation for his intrusion into matters far above his lowly civil position. He turns the election for the Dumfries Burghs (held every seven years) into a mixture of mock-epic and Hogarth derived cartoon. While the Tories are beaten, Burns's sympathies are, on the whole, with them. Thus he cannot be seen as attacking the Pitt government. He is also assuring Graham that his position, a robin nestled safe from the storm, is âA cool Spectator purely' (ll. 115â20). This, in fact, is partly true.
The occasion of the poem for Burns was one of happy conve-nience. At an earlier stage in the campaign, Burns had written to Provost Maxwell of Lochmaben that, âIf at any time you expect a Field-day in your town, a Day when Dukes, Earls and Knights pay their court to Weavers, Taylors and Coblers, I should like to know of it two or three days beforehand â It is not that I care three skips of a cur-dog for Politics, but I should like to see such an exhibition of Human Nature' (Letter 378). His creative wish was, indeed, granted. The Whig candidate was Captain Miller who was his landlord's son and the poet was summoned in support of Miller against the Tory candidate, Sir James Johnstone of Westerhall. He described the scene to Mrs Dunlop thus:
I have just got a summons to attend with my men-servants armed as well as we can, on Monday at one o'clock in the
morning
to escort Captn Miller from Dalswinton in to Dumfries to be a Candidate for our Boroughs which Chuse their Member that day. â The Duke of Queensberry & the Nithsdale Gentlemen who are almost all friends to the Duke's Candidate, the said Captn, are to raise all Nithsdale on the same errand. â The Duke of Buccleugh's, Earl of Hopetoun's people, in short, the Johnstons, Jardines, and all the clans of Annandale are to attend Sir James Johnston who is the other Candidate, on the same account. â This is no exaggeration. â On Thursday last, at chusing the Delegate for the boro' of Lochmaben, the Duke & Captn Miller's friends led a strong party, among others, upwards of two hundred Colliers from Sanquar Coal-works & Miners from Wanlock-head; but when they appeared over a hill-top within half a mile of Lochmaben, they found such a superior host of Annandale warriors drawn out to dispute the Day, that without striking a stroke, they turned their backs and fled with all the precipitation the horrors of blood & murther could inspire. â What will be the event, I know not. â I shall go to please my Landlord, & see the Combustion ⦠(Letter 403)