The Canongate Burns. Robert Burns
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An’ drink his health in auld Nanse Tinnock’s12 old
Nine times a-week,
125 If he some scheme, like tea an’ winnocks, windows
Wad kindly seek. would
Could he some commutation broach,
I’ll pledge my aith in guid braid Scotch, oath, good broad
He needna fear their foul reproach need not
130 Nor erudition,
Yon mixtie-maxtie, queer hotch-potch, mixed up
The Coalition.
Auld Scotland has a raucle tongue; old, rough
She’s just a devil wi’ a rung; bludgeon
135 An’ if she promise auld or young old
To tak their part,
Tho’ by the neck she should be strung,
She’ll no desert.
And now, ye chosen FIVE AND FORTY,
140 May still your Mither’s heart support ye; mother’s
Then, tho’ a Minister grow dorty, haughty
An’ kick your place,
Ye’ll snap your fingers, poor an’ hearty,
Before his face.
145 God bless your Honors, a’ your days,
Wi’ sowps o’ kail and brats o’ claes, sups of broth, coarse cloth
In spite o’ a’ the thievish kaes, jackdaws
That haunt St. Jamie’s! parliament
Your humble Bardie sings an’ prays,
150 While Rab his name is.
POSTSCRIPT
Let half-starv’d slaves in warmer skies,
See future wines, rich-clust’ring, rise;
Their lot auld Scotland ne’er envies, old
But, blythe and frisky,
155 She eyes her freeborn, martial boys
Tak aff their Whisky. drink down
What tho’ their Phoebus kinder warms, sun
While Fragrance blooms and Beauty charms!
When wretches range, in famish’d swarms,
160 The scented groves,
Or hounded forth, dishonor arms
In hungry droves.
Their gun’s a burden on their shouther; shoulder
They downa bide the stink o’ powther; do not, gun powder
165 Their bauldest thought’s a hank’ring swither boldest, uncertain doubt
To stan’ or rin,
Till skelp – a shot – they’re aff, a’ throw’ther, crack, off, pell-mell
To save their skin.
But bring a SCOTCHMAN frae his hill, from
170 Clap in his cheek a Highlan gill, gill (measure)
Say, such is royal GEORGE’S will,
An’ there’s the foe!
He has nae thought but how to kill no
Twa at a blow. two
175 Nae cauld, faint-hearted doubtings tease him; no cold
Death comes, wi’ fearless eye he sees him;
Wi’ bluidy han’ a welcome gies him; bloody hand, gives
An’ when he fa’s, falls
His latest draught o’ breathin lea’es him leaves
180 In faint huzzas.
Sages their solemn een may steek eyes, close
An’ raise a philosophic reek, smoke
An’ physically causes seek,
In clime an’ season;
185 But tell me Whisky’s name in Greek:
I’ll tell the reason.
SCOTLAND, my auld, respected Mither! old, mother
Tho’ whyles ye moistify your leather, moisten, vagina
Till whare ye sit on craps o’ heather crops
190 Ye tine your dam, lose your water
Freedom and whisky gang thegither, go together
Tak aff your dram! raise up your glass
The extended title which conveys the notion of self-mocking very minor prophetic biblical lamentation and political tract is given, by the parodic use in Milton, an added impulse to see the poem, despite its manifest political content, as laughing and lightweight. Surely the poet, unlike Adam for Eve, is not grieving for a fallen Scotland (Paradise Lost, Book IX, ll. 896–901)? The political, economic occasion for the poem was the Wash Act brought in by English pressure in 1784 to prevent what they considered preferential treatment to the Scottish distilling industry. This had not only severe effects on the Scottish whisky industry but was in breach of the terms of the Union and, for Burns, another symptom of the London Parliament’s, at best, indifference to Scottish needs. By the time the poem appeared the injustice seemed, as Burns’s footnote suggests, to have been corrected: ‘This was wrote before the Act anent the Scotch Distilleries of session 1786; for which Scotland and the Author return their most grateful thanks.’
In February, 1789, the matter flared up again. On this occasion Burns chose for the second time to send a pseudonymous letter to the Edinburgh Evening Courant on the 9th February. The occasion for his first letter had been his request for compassion for the fallen House of Stuart along with his risky defence of the American Revolution as akin to the British events of 1688. This second letter was signed John Barleycorn and purports, remarkably, to be written on behalf of the Scottish Distillers to William Pitt who, at the time of composition, appears to be about to fall from power due to the Regency Bill as an antidote to the King’s madness. The letter is based on the Scottish Distillers’ alleged mutual sense of falling with Pitt from power and prosperity to exclusion and poverty. There is also an extraordinary parallel made with King Nebuchadnezzar which is implicitly to be read as Burns’s own sense of sharing Pitt’s exile. The letter also repeats the poem’s allegations of political injustice to Scotland:
But turn your eyes, Sir, to the tragic scenes of our fate. An ancient nation that for many ages had gallantly maintained the unequal struggle for independence with her much more powerful neighbour, at last agrees to a union which should ever after make them one people. In consideration of certain circumstances, it was solemnly covenanted that the Former should always enjoy a stipulated alleviation of her share of the public burdens, particularly in that branch of the revenue known by the name of the Excise.
This just priviledge has of late given great umbrage to some invidious powerful individuals of the more potent half of the Empire, and they have spared no wicked pains, under insidious pretexts to subvert, what they yet too much dreaded the spirit of their ancient enemies openly to attack.
By this conspiracy we fell; nor did we alone suffer, our Country was deeply wounded. A number of, we will say it, respectable characters largely engaged in trade where we were not only useful but absolutely necessary to our Country in her dearest interest; we, with all that was near and dear to us, were sacrificed without remorse, to the Infernal Deity of Political Expediency (Letter, 311).
Burns’s