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First printed in the Kilmarnock edition, 1786.

Thoughts, words, and deeds, the Statute blames with reason;

But surely Dreams were ne’er indicted Treason.

On reading, in the public papers, the Laureate’s Ode with the other parade of June 4th, 1786, the Author was no sooner dropt asleep, than he imagined himself transported to the Birth-day Levee; and, in his dreaming fancy, made the following Address: —

GUID-MORNIN to your MAJESTY!

May Heaven augment your blisses,

On ev’ry new Birth-day ye see,

A humble Poet wishes! (changed from Bardie in 1793)

5 My Bardship here, at your Levee,

On sic a day as this is, such

Is sure an uncouth sight to see,

Amang thae Birth-day dresses among they

Sae fine this day. so

10 I see ye’re complimented thrang, busily

By monie a lord an’ lady; many

‘God Save the King’ ’s a cuckoo sang song

That’s unco easy said ay: mighty

The Poets, too, a venal gang,

15 Wi’ rhymes weel-turn’d an’ ready, well-

Wad gar you trow ye ne’er do wrang, would make, think, wrong

But ay unerring steady,

On sic a day. such

For me! before a Monarch’s face,

20 Ev’n there I winna flatter; will not

For neither Pension, Post, nor Place,

Am I your humble debtor:

So, nae reflection on YOUR GRACE, no

Your Kingship to bespatter;

25 There’s monie waur been o’ the Race, many worse

And aiblins ane been better maybe one

Than You this day.

’Tis very true, my sovereign King,

My skill may weel be doubted; well

30 But Facts are chiels that winna ding, fellows, will not be upset

And downa be disputed: cannot

Your royal nest, beneath Your wing,

Is e’en right reft and clouted, torn & patched

And now the third part o’ the string,

35 An’ less, will gang about it go

Than did ae day. one

Far be’t frae me that I aspire from

To blame your Legislation,

Or say, ye wisdom want, or fire

40 To rule this mighty nation:

But faith! I muckle doubt, my SIRE, much

Ye’ve trusted ’Ministration

To chaps wha in a barn or byre who

Wad better fill’d their station,

45 Than courts yon day.

And now Ye’ve gien auld Britain peace, given old

Her broken shins to plaister; plaster

Your sair taxation does her fleece, sore

Till she has scarce a tester: sixpence

50 For me, thank God, my life’s a lease, a tenant farm lease

Nae bargain wearin faster, no

Or faith! I fear, that, wi’ the geese,

I shortly boost to pasture must

I’ the craft some day.

55 I’m no mistrusting Willie Pit,

When taxes he enlarges,

(An’ Will’s a true guid fallow’s get, good, breed

A Name not Envy spairges), bespatters

That he intends to pay your debt,

60 An’ lessen a’ your charges;

But, God sake! let nae saving fit no

Abridge your bonie Barges handsome

An’ Boats this day.

Adieu, my LIEGE! may Freedom geck sport

65 Beneath your high protection;

An’ may Ye rax Corruption’s neck,

And gie her for dissection! give

But since I’m here I’ll no neglect,

In loyal, true affection,

70 To pay your QUEEN, wi’ due respect,

My fealty an’ subjection

This great Birth-day.

Hail, Majesty most Excellent!

While Nobles strive to please Ye,

75 Will Ye accept a Compliment,

A simple Bardie gies Ye? gives

Thae bonie Bairntime, Heav’n has lent, that pretty brood

Still higher may they heeze Ye hoist

In bliss, till Fate some day is sent,

80 For ever to release Ye

Frae Care that day. from

For you, young Potentate o’ Wales,

I tell your Highness fairly,

Down Pleasure’s stream, wi’ swelling sails,

85I’m tauld ye’re driving rarely; told, unusually well

But some day ye may gnaw your nails,

An’ curse your folly sairly, sorely

That e’er ye brak Diana’s pales, break

Or rattl’d dice wi’ Charlie

90 By night or day.

Yet aft a ragged Cowte’s been known, colt

To mak a noble Aiver; make, old horse

So, ye may doucely fill a Throne, soberly

For a’ their clish-ma-claver: gossip

95 There, Him at Agincourt wha shone, who

Few better were or braver;

And yet, wi’ funny, queer Sir John,1

He was an unco shaver a great madcap

For monie a day. many

100 For you, right rev’rend Osnaburg,

Nane sets the lawn-sleeve sweeter, none, becomes

Altho’ a ribban at your lug ribbon, ear

Wad been a dress compleater: would

As ye disown yon paughty dog, proud

105 That bears the Keys of Peter,

Then swith! an’ get a wife to hug,

Or trowth, ye’ll stain the Mitre in truth

Some luckless day.

Young, royal TARRY-BREEKS, I learn,

110 Ye’ve lately come athwart her;

A glorious Galley, stem an’ stern

Weel rigg’d for Venus barter;2 well

But first hang out that she’ll discern

Your hymeneal Charter;

115 Then heave aboard your grapple-airn, grappling iron

An’, large upon her quarter,

Come full that day.

Ye, lastly, bonie blossoms a’,

Ye royal Lasses dainty,

120 Heav’n mak you guid as weel as braw, good, well, fair

An’ gie you lads a-plenty: give

But sneer na British-boys awa! not, away

For Kings are unco scant ay, greatly scarce

An’ German-gentles are but sma’, small

125 They’re better just than want ay

On onie day. any

God bless you a’! consider now,

Ye’re unco muckle dautet; greatly fussed over

But ere the course o’ life be through,

130 It may be bitter sautet: salted

An’ I hae seen their coggie fou, have, plate full

That yet hae tarrow’t at it; shown reluctance

But or the day was done, I trow, believe

The laggen they hae clautet bottom, have scraped

135 Fu’ clean that day.

Byron must have read this with admiration; he himself never wrote anything funnier or, amidst the laughter, landed on the Hanoverians, he also so loathed, so many palpable hits. Describing it as a ‘dream’ allows Burns, as in the headquote, to claim its non-serious nature and intent. It also, of course, allows him direct, deadly access as ‘humble poet’ into the royal birthday levee.

George’s birthday on 4th June 1786 had been celebrated by the laureate, Thomas Warton with a Pindaric ode. Burns’s almost immediate response to this sycophantic work enabled him to insert the poem into the Kilmarnock edition. These were not the sentiments of a complicit ‘heaven taught ploughman’ and Mrs Dunlop was quick to warn him as to the commercial consequences of such satire. On 26th February 1787 she wrote to him urging that A Dream should be excluded from the second edition:

I ought to have told you that numbers at London are learning Scots to read your book, but they don’t like your address to the King, and say it will hurt the sale of the rest. Of this I am no judge. I can only say there is no piece … I would vote to leave out, tho’ several where I would draw my pen over the lines, or spill the ink glass over a verse. (Robert Burns and Mrs Dunlop, ed. William Wallace (London: 1898), p. 11)

Burns’s response was peremptory and unyielding:

Your criticisms, Madam I understand very well, and could have wished to have pleased you better. You are right in your guesses that I am not very amenable. Poets, much my superiors, have so flattered those who possessed the adventitious qualities of wealth and power that I am determined to flatter no created being, either in prose or verse, so help me God. I set as little by kings, lords, clergy, critics, &c as all these respectable Gentry do by my Bardship. I know what I may expect from the world, by and by, illiberal abuse and contemptuous neglect: but I am resolved to study the sentiments of a very respectable Personage, Milton’s Satan – Hail horrors! Hail infernal world!

I am happy, Madam, that some of my favourite pieces are distinguished by you’re particular approbation. For my DREAM which has unfortunately incurred your loyal dis-pleasure, I hope in four weeks time or less to have the honour of appearing, at Dunlop, in it’s defence in person (Letter 98).

It is hard to see what sort of convincing defence Burns could have mounted concerning the danger to his incipient poetic career with regard to the flagrantly disloyal, anti-Hanoverian elements of this poem. Beginning with the general weakened fiscal state of the nation resulting from the disastrously lost American war and Pitt’s subsequent punitive taxation policies and naval cuts (ll. 60–2) with an inverted political order where the lowest types are at the top of the government, Burns launches into a highly specific assault on the varied cupidities and promiscuities of what he consistently perceived as an irretrievably dysfunctional family of German upstarts. L. 26 contrasts the virtues of Charles Edward Stuart.

The treatment of the King and Queen is mild compared to that doled out to their children. Driven by infantile, Oedipal rage, the Prince of Wales, had flung himself into the grossly licentious world of whoring and gambling of ‘Charlie’ Fox’s opposing Whigs. Brilliantly, ironically, Burns (ll. 91–9) compresses an allusion to post-Falstaffian redemption to this Prince of Wales. The ploughman poet, tellingly, feels he needs to explain this reference to Henry IV to his cultivated audience. The ‘right rev’rend Osnaburg’ is Frederick Augustus (1763–1827) who was ‘elected’ to the bishopric of Asna-burg in Westphalia by his father, George III, in 1764. He added to this clerical distinction by taking up with Letita Derby, the ex-mistress of Rann the highwayman. The ‘Royal TARRY-BREEKS’ (l. 109) is another prodigally gifted son, Prince William (1765–1837), who became William IV in 1830. He had become naughtily, nautically involved with Sarah Martin, daughter of the commissioner of the Portsmouth dockyard. This encounter may have been derived from what Kinsley describes as the ‘ingenious model’ in Robert Sempill’s Ballat Maid Upoun Margaret Fleming, callit the Fleming Bark in Edinburgh, which was modernised in Ramsay’s The Ever Green (1724). Similar metaphors of dropped tackle and predatory boarding parties can also be found in Donne, followed by Pope.

Burns claims that his knowledge of this particular incident came from a newspaper. It is probable that most of this kind of information so came to him. Unlike Wordsworth, who was wholly averse to what he saw as such vulgar contemporary contaminants, Burns belongs to an earlier satirical tradition. He not only throve on journalistic gossip, but could transmute it, like Byron, into great poetry. He also refers warmly to Hogarth and the whole world of eighteenth-century political caricature had undoubtedly a strong influence on him, perhaps not yet fully appreciated. The King also had five daughters (ll. 118–126) who were, needless to say, not noted for their beauty, unlike their chronic constipation.

1 Sir John Falstaff, Vide Shakespeare. R.B.

2 Alluding to the Newspaper account of a certain royal Sailor’s Amour. R.B.