Last Letter From Burns Cherished By City Man

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28801, 23 January 1959, Page 8

Last Letter From Burns Cherished By City Man

A Christchurch man claims to have the last known letter of Robert Burns, national poet of Scotland. Bicentennial celebrations of Burns’s birth are being held next Sunday. The letter was written on June 26,. 1796, less than a month before Burns died on July 21, at the age of 37 years. . Much of the letter describes his own forebodings and refers, obliquely, to help given by the man who taught him to read and write, to whom the letter is addressed—"Mr James Clarke. Schoolmaster, Forfar.” The man who now owns the letter is a descendant of Mr Clarke; but will not reveal -his name “becausei while there is breath in my body and blood in my veins, nobody will ever get this from me and I don’t want to be pestered.” The relic is still in the oldfashioned frame which has been in the family for years. Between the two pages of the letter is the piece of notepaper with the address to Mr Clarke and the folds where it was shaped into an. envelope. Pictures of Burns and Burns Cottage. Alloway. Ayr. flank the three sheets. “That’s where this will end up,” the owner said, stabbing Burns Cottage with a forefinger. “I have seen the cottage and the Burns. Museum behind it Christies. of London have tried to buy this letter. Museums and Burns Societies have tried to borrow it. I have no offspring. So I think Burns Cottage will be its home. I just could not sell it. Nobody should make money out of Robbie Burns, who died a pauper. He says in this letter that he may be remembered by a few friends. The whole world remembers him and the whole world sings ‘Auld Lang Syne.’ If the Queen of England came to my home, it would not give me more pride than this letter”:— “My dear Clarke, “Still, still the victim of affliction. Were you to see the emaciated figure who now holds the pen to you, you would not know your old friend. “Whether I shall ever get about

again is only known to Him, the Great Unknown, whose creature I am. Alas, Clarke, j fear the worst. “As to my individual self, I am tranquil—l would despise myself if I were hot. But Burns’s poor widow and half a dozen of his dear little ones helpless orphans: there I am weak as a woman’s tear. “Enough of this. ’Tis half my disease. “I duly rec’d your last, including the note. It came extremely in time and I was much obliged to your punctuality. Again I must request you to do me the same kindness. Be so very good as, by return of post (underlined) to enclose me another note. I trust you can do it without much inconvenience and it will seriously oblige me. “If I must go, I have a few friends behind me whom I shall regret, while consciousness remains. I know I shall live in their remembrance. “Adieu, dear Clarke. That I shall ever see you again is, I am afraid, highly improbable. R. Burns.” “June 26th, 1796. “Dumfries.”