Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/535

 9* s. viii. DEC. 28, 1901.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

527

MICHAEL BRUCE AND BURNS (9 th S. vii 466 ; viii. 70, 148, 312, 388). The present phase of the Logan- Bruce authorship of the ' Ode to the Cuckoo ' has reached a very interesting point, although it simply commenced with a reference to Burns's oft-quoted lines

The best- laid schemes o' mice and men Gang aft a-gley,

which were supposed to have been suggested by the verse in 'The Musiad'of Michael Bruce : But evil fortune had decreed

(The foe of mice as well as men)

The royal mouse at last should bleed,

Should fall ne'er to arise again.

But there was a closer tie between Michael Bruce and Burns than this farfetched paral- lelism. Logan has been blamed for inserting in the little volume of 1770 "some poems, wrote by different authors," and dearly has this kindness to his deceased friend cost him. All its contents have been appropriated as belonging to Bruce by his later editors Baird, Mackelvie, Grosart, and Stephen, who, in their anxiety to enhance the reputation of Bruce, have ignored the claims of Logan to any part of the book. If Logan deserves blame for introducing other compositions, he may be said to have erred in good company. When Dr. Baird was preparing his edition of Bruce's poems, which appeared in 1796, six years after the subscription papers had been issued, he contented himself with merely reprinting Logan's preface and prefixing Lord Craig's eulogium on Bruce from the Mirror. Dr. Baird wrote from London to Robert Burns, 8 February, 1791, regarding "a new edition (long since talked of) of Michael Bruce's Poems," and solicited "the aid of your name and pen on behalf of this scheme." In his reply Burns said, " You shall have your choice of all the unpublished poems I have." But the project was abandoned in consequence of the opposition of "Dr. Doig and other worthy friends," who felt that " to conclude the volume with such poems as ' Alloway Kirk ' (better known afterwards as ' Tarn o' Shanter ') would be as great a violation of pro- priety, the Doctor says, as the exhibition of a farce after a tragedy. Cowper is certainly the first of the Moderns, and there -is a greater similarity in his

poetry. Had he been applied to, I am persuaded he would have been willing to do the publication a service." Hervey to Birrel, in Mackelvie's 'Bruce,' pp. 157-8.

It is thus evident that Logan only adopted a course which was believed to be justifiable in adding other poems "to make up a miscel- lany." In publishing his own volume in 1781 the only piece he transferred from the 1770 volume was the 'Ode to the Cuckoo,' on which some variations were made. In 1774,

however, another version of the 'Ode' had ippeared in Ruddiraan's Edinburgh M>t<i<i- nne with the initials "R. D." attached. In '.he following week (12 May, 1774) the editor charges B. M. with imposition in sending the little poem, which "proves a literary theft, ind is the production of a gentleman in this leighbourhood, already in print." Logan 'vas at this time resident in Leith. It is Relieved by Inquirer (Dr. A. M. Macdonald) to have been printed from one of the MS. copies

"said to have been circulating in East Lothian in or about 1767, before the Bruce MSS. came into Logan's possession, which was not till the succeed- ing summer, or probably as late as 1769." Scots Magazine, December, 1897, p. 36.

Logan's assumed connexion with Burns forms a curious episode in Scottish literature. In 1845 an abortive movement was made in the Free Church for the revision of the * Para- phrases.' In May, 1847, "a very precious and curious volume" was described in the Free Church Magazine, which, the writer says, " appears to be the MS. copy of the poems proposed for admission among the 'Para- phrases,' prepared for the use of the Convener of the Committee, Mr. James Brown." One great discovery was made by the writer of this article, to wit, that "not a few of the alterations adopted in the new ' Paraphrases ' are from the pen of Robert Burns, and are written in our volume by his own hand." A facsimile of one page of the MS. was pub- lished in that number, and is reproduced (facing p. 188) in Mr. Douglas J. Maclagan's excellent monograph on the * Scottish Para- phrases ' (Edinburgh, Elliot, 1889). At a meeting held subsequently "the MS. was carefully examined by such men as Principal Lee, David Laing, Hugh Miller, Robert Chambers, and others. From that meeting," says Mr. Maclagan, " the decree went forth that the writing in dispute was not that of Burns, but of Logan." " A variety of manu- scripts," we learn from the July number of the Free Church Magazine,

"both by Logan and Burns, were exhibited ; and Dr. Lee gave this deliverance regarding the volume : that, throughout, it was in the writing of Mr. Brown, and that the alterations were in the hands of Logan and Dr. Blair. On this last point Mr. Chambers fully concurred with him. The impres- sion was left on the minds of those present that there was no ground for doubting that the altera- tions were in Logan's handwriting. We concur in that opinion. Thus arose, and thus ended, the supposition a supposition which we have not un- frequently heard asserted as fact that to the author of ' Tarn o' Shanter ' and the * Cottar s Saturday Night' we are indebted for some of the 'Paraphrases.'"