While he was struggling with Creech and trying to keep Mossgiel afloat, Burns was constantly harried by the problem of his own future. The only two possibilities he could see were a farm of his own or a post in the Excise, and for a long time there seemed little chance of achieving either. He had no intention of trying again for public aid through his writing. One subscription might be regarded as a public tribute; a repetition would look like begging. Besides, his common sense told him that a second subscription would have little hope of success unless it came at a long interval after the first and for work of a different character. He had not exhausted his talents, but he had exhausted his novelty. For the rest of his life he steadfastly refused to accept payment for anything he wrote and actually gave away poems which make up two-thirds of the bulk of his collected works. His sole payment for ‘Tam o’ Shanter’ was a dozen copies of the proof-sheets; his payment for Creech’s second edition in 1793--which included ‘Tam’ and a score of other new poems--was twenty presentation copies grudgingly allowed him. His fondness for making gestures of gallant but unwise generosity can hardly be better illustrated than by his dealings with Creech over this edition. The publisher wrote to him in 1791, proposing a reissue of the work and asking Burns to contribute some new poems to it, but without suggesting payment for them. Burns told Cunningham that he had taken a damned revenge of Creech by ignoring his letter. Yet a few months later he relented, and after reminding Creech that the new poems were his own absolute property, turned them over to him without asking any payment except the twenty gift copies. Such a gesture might have shamed some publishers, but Creech merely accepted it as his right. In the same spirit Burns hotly resented George Thomson’s payment of £5 for his contributions to the first number of the _Select Scotish Airs_, and Thomson, like Creech, felt no compunction at accepting the poet’s quixotic generosity.