The Canongate Burns (146 page)

This is included by Henderson and Henley and appears again in Mackay without comment. It is, though, either missed or rejected by Kinsley, despite the extant manuscript. It may have been merely copied by Burns, but it does read as though Burns may have improved it. 

This
pastourelle dialogue
is apparently an old song,
possibly
altered by Burns. If this is so, it is questionable it should be in the canon. Mackay (1993) prints it saying it was ‘collected by Burns' and has ‘minor improvements' which he does not identify (p. 466). Kinsley says ‘whether he “improved” the verses is uncertain' (Vol. III, no. 384, p. 1407). Doubt ought to have made Kinsley place this work in his ‘Dubia' section. The current editors were unable to trace the old song to establish what improvements Burns made. Stanza four's rhyming of ‘hing' and ‘young' would be a remarkable oversight from Burns if it is his reworking. There are a few phrases which he may have written, but it cannot be given to Burns without further evidence.

This is unsigned in the S.M.M. A copy exists in the poet's holograph, but Kinsley and Mackay concur that it was merely collected by Burns without revision, implying that it is not by Burns, nor improved by him. Such a view should have it rejected from the canon, but both editors, surprisingly, accept it to the canon. However, its origin may be the old song
The Highlandman Speaking of
His Maggy and the Bannocks of Barley Meal
, written on the Duke of Argyll – if so, Burns has adapted the original.

This is rejected by Kinsley (1968), but accepted in Henley and Henderson (1896) and Mackay (1993). No editor has dated composition. It reads as a reaction to a national thanksgiving day declared in the national newspapers for a victory against the French army. If by Burns, it is futher proof of his anti-military views. Henley and Henderson are probably right that it is adapted from
Four Lines Put
in the Basin of the Tron Church on the Thanksgiving Day for Perth
and Preston, 17th June 1716:

The text in Scott Douglas is more Scottish than the Henley– Henderson and version printed by Mackay. Without extant manuscript authority, the most favourable comment is that Burns probably adapted the traditional verse.

This interesting and problematic poem first appeared in
The Glas
gow Herald
as dated above. It was published by a Dr George Neilson who claimed that the poem formed part of a small quarto volume to which Helen Craik was the principal contributor. She had befriended the poet through her father, William Craik of Arbigland and there is, in fact, a letter from Burns on 9th August, 1790 to her discussing her poetry which is obviously proximate to the date of this particular poem. Unfortunately the quarto volume has disappeared and the poem seems to have stirred neither comment nor controversy in the letter pages of
The Herald
. It is also the case that subsequent editors of Burns either knew nothing of it or decided it was unworthy of attention.

Fortunately Chris Rollie of Cumnock Burns Club has retrieved the poem and presented a cogent, detailed account of it as belonging to Burns at Strathclyde University's
Burns Now
Conference (January, 1999). As Neilson had done, Rollie pinpoints interesting parallels with Burns's other work. Of particular point is l. 19 of this poem which manifestly echoes ‘Angelic forms, high Heaven's peculiar care!' from the again proximate
Prologue spoken
at Dumfries Theatre
on 1st January, 1790. Rollie's search for internal linguistic ‘fingerprints' is detailed and largely convincing. The use for example of ‘Korah-like' (l. 23) appears on one other occasion in Burns's
Epistle to John Rankine
, written five years before.

The poem may, of course, be a forgery. If the copying of Burns's handwriting was a near cottage industry in the nineteenth century, some went further and fabricated poems. James Barke collected such forged works in the so-called Mavisgrove collection. Here is a characteristic sample:

Certainly the
Monody
is of a different order than this. If forged, the forger also went to an unusual degree of fabricating a biographical context. Neilson suggested an incident involving a David Campbell of Ayr and a carriage accident, ‘senseless iron and brass',
involving two actresses in Sutherland's Dumfries company. Rollie minutely examines this possibility from the local Dumfries press but finds no confirmation. He replaces Neilson's version with the interesting conjecture that the man referred to is David Staig, the long-term Provost of Dumfries, and his two daughters, Jessie and Lilias. This, as Rollie states, is deeply conjectural. Did, for example, Burns have such intimacy with the Staig family? However, as Rollie points out, Burns's poem about Jessie, written to Dr Maxwell in 1793, again echoes l. 19:

This is probably a light occasional Burns poem, the inevitably obscure occasion of which creates its difficulty. See Chris Rollie, ‘A Monody on the Fatal 29th December, 1789 – A Rediscovered Poem by Burns?',
B.C
., 1998, pp. 62–9.

This work, supposedly written by Burns in late July 1793 while at Kenmure Castle, is believed by Kinsley (see notes to K416) to be verses remembered by John Syme from the Galloway tour, not the original text written by Burns. The second version is given in the canon as probably authentic.

This is rejected by Henley and Henderson (1896) who describe it as ‘rubbish' Burns would not even transcribe (Vol IV, p. 108). Kinsley (K628) doubts its provenance, aware that it exists in manuscript at Alloway, on the reverse of a page containing a song by a Mrs Scott of Dumbarton. If from Burns, it reads more like an early unfinished fragment than a stanza copied by him.

This is not mentioned in any published edition of Burns. It is printed as a work by Burns in a songsheet collection among papers in the Mitchell Library Nineteenth Century Newspaper Cuttings Collection (ref. G52942). The headnote reads: ‘The last composition of the great Poet; as sung by Brother John Doherty (an old Mason of 83 years of age) at a meeting of Lodge No. 350, Omagh, Ireland, 1871'. The song supposedly turned up in 1871, but without manuscript. It is printed next to known works,
The Dumfries
Volunteers, To Mary In Heaven, Rantin' Rovin' Robin, O Tibbie I
Hae Seen the Day
and
Green Grow the Rashes O
. The lyrics are so bad that it is astounding they could be attributed to Burns. It is evidently a work from circa 1871 and fulfils Burns's worst fears about the parochialisation of his achievement.