TO MR. CUNNINGHAM.
[Few of the last requests of the poet were effectual: Clarke, it is believed, did not send the second note he wrote for: Johnson did not send the copy of the Museum which he requested, and the Commissioners of Excise refused the continuance of his full salary.]
Brow, Sea-bathing quarters, 7th July, 1796.
My dear Cunningham,
I received yours here this moment, and am indeed highly flattered with the approbation of the literary circle you mention; a literary circle inferior to none in the two kingdoms. Alas! my friend, I fear the voice of the bard will soon be heard among you no more! For these eight or ten months I have been ailing, sometimes bedfast and sometimes not; but these last three months I have been tortured with an excruciating rheumatism, which has reduced me to nearly the last stage. You actually would not know me if you saw me—Pale, emaciated, and so feeble, as occasionally to need help from my chair—my spirits fled! fled! but I can no more on the subject—only the medical folks tell me that my last only chance is bathing and country-quarters, and riding.—The deuce of the matter is this; when an exciseman is off duty, his salary is reduced to 35l. instead of 50l.—What way, in the name of thrift, shall I maintain myself, and keep a horse in country quarters—with a wife and five children at home, on 35l.? I mention this, because I had intended to beg your utmost interest, and that of all the friends you can muster, to move our commissioners of excise to grant me the full salary; I dare say you know them all personally. If they do not grant it me, I must lay my account with an exit truly en poëte—if I die not of disease, I must perish with hunger.
I have sent you one of the songs; the other my memory does not serve me with, and I have no copy here; but I shall be at home soon, when I will send it you.—Apropos to being at home, Mrs. Burns threatens, in a week or two, to add one more to my paternal charge, which, if of the right gender, I intend shall be introduced to the world by the respectable designation of Alexander Cunningham Burns. My last was James Glencairn, so you can have no objection to the company of nobility. Farewell.
R. B.