Burns Corner
SOME HAE MEAT AND CANNA EAT,
AND SOME WAD EAT THAT WANT IT;
BUT WE HAE MEAT AND WE CAN EAT,
SAE LET THE LORD BE THANKIT.
So runs the simple little grace as a pipe opener to Burns Suppers held annually right around the world. But did Burns in fact write the grace? Allan Cunningham (1784-1842), an early biographer of Burns, certainly claimed so, but Cunningham was such a charlatan that anything he wrote about Burns must be viewed with grave suspicion. What in fact he didn’t know about Burns he readily made up. In 1834, Cunningham, by then living in London published in eight volumes the life of Robert Burns plus his works, but it abounds with falsifications, Smyder’s verdict was: “This biography certainly pictures Burns more or less as he actually was but is absolutely unreliable as regards specific facts”.
Cunningham’s Works of Burns also was bogus with something approaching 10% of the contents Cunningham’s own poetry or poetry picked up from anonymous sources and all passed off as the works of Burns. The Selkirk Grace (claimed Cunningham) was written by Burns while on a visit to the Earl of Selkirk, hence the name. In truth Cunningham lifted the piece from an old Belfast newspaper, The Northern Star.
The Northern Star was a very radical newspaper and a vehicle for Ulster’s young and radical writers. One of the biggest contributors to its poetry corner was Sam Thomson, the bard of Carngranny. Thomson was an Antrim schoolmaster whose poetry was deeply influenced by Burns and indeed wrote quite a bit in the Ulster-Scots. In 1794 he visited Burns in Dumfries and on his return corresponded with him right up to the death of Burns in 1796. Thompson had a number of poems published by the Northern Star and, after its closure in 1797, by the Belfast Newsletter — all generally under a pseudonym.
So the question must be asked, did the grace picked up from the Northern Star by Cunningham truly belong to Thompson or Burns. Did the traditional opening to Burns Suppers first see the light of day in the hills and glens of Ayrshire? We may never know, but certainly some research is being carried out on this mystery.
Jim Heron
(Jim Heron is Secretary of the Harland and Wolff Burns Club and is a member of the Executive Council of the World Council of Burns Clubs.)
