No. XLIX.

To R. GRAHAM, Esq. Fintray.

December, 1792.

SIR,

I HAVE been surprised, confounded, and distracted, by Mr. Mitchel, the collector, telling me that he has received an order from your Board to enquire into my political conduct, and blaming me as a person disaffected to Government. Sir, you are a husband— and a father. You know what you would feel, to see the much-loved wife of your bosom, and your helpless, prattling little ones, turned adrift into the world, degraded and disgraced from a situation in which they had been respectable and respected, and left almost without the necessary support of a miserable existence. Alas, Sir! must I think that such, soon, will be my lot! and from the d-mned, dark insinuations of hellish groundless envy too! I believe, Sir, I may aver it, and in the sight of Omniscience, that I would not tell a deliberate falsehood, no, not though even worse horrors, if worse can be, than those I have mentioned, hung over my head; and I say, that the allegation, whatever villain has made it, is a lie! To the British Constitu-` tion, on revolution principles, next after my God, I am most devoutly attached! You, Sir, have been much

and generously my friend. Heaven knows how warmly I have felt the obligation, and how gratefully I have thanked you.-Fortune, Sir, has made you powerful, and me impotent; has given you patronage, and me dependance. I would not, for my single self, call on your humanity; were such my insular, unconnected situation, I would despise the tear that now swells in my eye-I could brave misfortune, I could face ruin; for at the worst, "Death's thousand doors stand open;"

but, good God! the tender concerns that I have mentioned, the claims and ties that I see at this moment, and feel around me, how they unnerve Courage, and wither Resolution! To your patronage, as a man of some genius, you have allowed me a claim; and your esteem, as an honest man, I know is my due: To these, Sir, permit me to appeal; by these may I adjure you to save me from that misery which threatens to overwhelm me, and which, with my latest breath I will say it, I have not deserved.

No. L.

To Mr. T. CLARKE, Edinburgh.

July 16, 1792.

MR. BURNS begs leave to present his most respectful compliments to Mr. Clarke.-Mr. B. some time ago did himself the honor of writing Mr. C. respecting coming out to the country, to give a little musical instruction in a highly respectable family, where Mr. C. may have his own terms, and may be as happy as indolence, the Devil, and the gout will permit him. Mr. B. knows well how Mr. C. is engaged with another family; but cannot Mr. C. find two or three weeks to spare to each of them? Mr. B. is deeply impressed with, and awfully conscious of, the high inportance of Mr. C.'s time, whether in the winged moments of symphonious exhibition, at the keys of harmony, while listening Seraphs cease their own less delightful strains;-or in the drowsy hours of slumb'rous repose, in the arms of his dearly-beloved elbowchair, where the frowsy, but potent power of indolence, circumfuses her vapours round, and sheds her dews on, the head of her darling son.-But half a line conveying half a meaning from Mr. C. would make Mr. B、 the very happiest of mortals.

No. LI.

To Mrs. DUNLOP.

Dec. 31, 1792.

DEAR MADAM,

A HURRY of business, thrown in heaps by my absence, has until now prevented my returning my grateful acknowledgments to the good family of Dunlop, and you in particular, for that hospitable kindness. which rendered the four days I spent under that genial roof, four of the pleasantest I ever enjoyed.-Alas, my dearest friend! how few and fleeting are those things we call pleasures! On my road to Ayrshire, I spent a night with a friend whom I much valued; a man whose days promised to be many; and on Saturday last we laid hin in the dust!

I HAVE just received yours of the 30th, and feel much for your situation. However, I heartily rejoice in your prospect of recovery from that vile jaundice. As to myself I am better, though not quite free of my complaint. You must not think, as you seem to insinuate, that in my way of life I want exercise. Of that I have enough; but occasional hard drinking is the devil to me. Against this I have again and again bent my resolution, and have greatly succeeded. Taverns I have totally abandoned: it is the private parties in the family way, among the hard drinking gentlemen of this country, that do me the mischief-but even this I have more than half given over.*

* The following extract from a letter addressed by Mr.

Mr. Corbet can be of little service to me at present; at least I should be shy of applying. I cannot possib y be settled as a supervisor, for several years. I must wait the rotation of the list, and there are twenty names before mine.-I might indeed get a job of officiating, where a settled supervisor was ill, or aged; but that hauls me from my family, as I could not remove them on such an uncertainty. Besides, some envious, malicious devil has raised a little demur on my political principles, and I wish to let that matter settle before I offer myself too much in the eye of my supervisors. I have set henceforth a seal on my lips, as to these un

Bloomfield to the Earl of Buchan, contains so interesting an exhibition of the modesty inherent in real worth, and so philosophical, and at the same time so poetical an estimate of the different characters and destinies of Burns and its author, that I should deem myself culpable were I to withhold it from the public view.

E.

"The illustrious soul that has left amongst us the name of Burns, has often been lowered down to a comparison with me; but the comparison exists more in circumstances than in essentials. That man stood up with the stamp of superior intellect on his brow; a visible greatness: and great and patriotic subjects would only have called into action the powers of his mind, which lay inactive while he played calmly and exquisitely the pastoral pipe.

The letters to which I have alluded in my preface to the "Rural Tales," were friendly warnings, pointed with immediate reference to the fate of that extraordinary man. "Remember Burns," has been the watch-word of my friends. I do remember Burns; but I am not Burns! neither have I his fire to fan or to quench; nor his passions to control! Where then is my merit if I make a peaceful voyage on a smooth sea and with no mutiny on board? To a lady, (I have it from herself) who remonstrated with him on his danger from drink, and the pursuits of some of his associates, he replied, “ Madam, they would not thank me for my company, if I did not drink with them:-I must give them a slice of my constitution." How much to be regretted that he did not give them thinner slices of his constitution, that it might have lasted longer!"

London, 1802,

hucky politics; but to you, I must breathe my sentiments. In this, as in every thing else, I shall shew the undisguised emotions of my soul. War I deprecate: misery and ruin to thousands, are in the blast that announces the destructive demon. But *

* *

The remainder of this letter has been torn away by some barbarous hand.]

No. LII.

To PATRICK MILLER, Esq. of Dalswinton.

April, 1793.

SIR,

MY poems having just come out in another edition, will you do me the honor to accept of a copy? A mark of my gratitude to you, as a gentleman to whose goodness I have been much indebted; of my respect for you, as a patriot who, in a venal, sliding age, stands forth the champion of the liberties of my country; and of my veneration for you, as a man, whose benevolence of heart does honor to human nature.

There was a time, Sir, when I was your dependant: this language then would have been like the vile incense of flattery-I could not have used it.-Now that connection* is at an end, do me the honor to accept of this honest tribute of respect from, Sir,

Your much indebted humble Servant.

Alluding to the time when he held the farm of Ellisland, as tenant to Mr. M.