court the notice or the tables of the great, except where I have sometimes had a little matter to ask of them, or more often the pleasanter task of witnessing my gratitude to them, is what I never have done, and I trust never shall do, But with your ladyship I have the honor to be connected by one of the strongest and most endearing ties in the whole mortal world. Common sufferers, in a cause where even to be unfortunate is glorious, the cause of heroic loyalty! Though my fathers had not illustrious honors and vast properties to hazard in the contest, though they left their humble cottages only to add so many units more to the unnoted crowd that followed their leaders, yet what they could they did, and what they had they lost; with unshaken firmness and unconcealed political attachments, they shook hands with ruin for what they esteemed the cause of their king and their country. The language and the enclosed verses are for your ladyship's eye alone. Poets are not very famous for their prudence; but as I can do nothing for a cause which is now nearly no more, I do not wish to hurt myself.

[Of Lochmaben, the "Marjory of the mony Lochs" of the election ballads, Maxwell was at this time provost, a post more of honor than oflabor.]

DEAR PROVOST,

Ellisland, 20th December, 1787.

As my friend Mr. Graham goes for your good town to-morrow, I cannot resist the temptation to send you a few lines, and as I have nothing to say, I have chosen this sheet of foolscap, and begun as you see at the top of the first page, because I have ever observed, that when once people have fairly set out they know not where to stop. Now that my first sentence is concluded, I have nothing to do but to pray Heaven to help me on to another. Shall I write you on Politics or Religion, two master subjects for your sayers of nothing. Of the first I dare say by this time you are nearly surfeited: and for the last, whatever they may talk of it, who make it a kind of company concern, I never could endure it beyond a soliloquy. I might write you on farming, on building, on marketing, but my poor distracted mind is so torn, so jaded, so racked and bediveled with the task of the superlative damned to make one guinea do the business of three, that I detest, abhor, and swoon at the very word business, though no less than four letters of my very short sirname are in it.

Well, to make the matter short, I shall betake myself to a subject ever fruitful of themes; a subject the turtlefeast of the sons of Satan, and the delicious secret sugarplum of the babes of grace-a subject sparkling with all the jewels that wit can find in the mines of genius: and pregnant with all the stores of learning from Moses and Confucius to Franklin and Priestley-in short may it please your Lordship, I intend to write * * *

[Here the Poet inserted a song which can only be sung at times when the punch-bowl has done ils duty and wild wit is set free.]

If at any time you expect a field-day in your town, a day when Dukes, Earls, and Knights pay their court to

weavers, tailors and cobblers, I should like to know of it two or three days beforehand. It is not that I care three skips of a cur dog for the politics, but I should like to see such an exhibition of human nature. If you meet with that worthy old veteran in religion and good-fellowship, Mr. Jeffrey, or any of his amiable family, I beg you will give them my best compliments.

R. B.

XXIII.

TO MR. SUTHERLAND,

PLAYER,

ENCLOSING A PROLOGUE.

[When the farm failed, the poet sought pleasure in the play-house: he tried to retire from his own harassing reflections, into a world created by other minds.]

Monday Morning.

I was much disappointed, my dear sir, in wanting your most agreeable company yesterday. However, I heartily pray for good weather next Sunday; and whatever aerial Being has the guidance of the elements, may take any other half-dozen of Sundays he pleases, and clothe them with

Vapors, and clouds, and storms,

Until he terrify himself

At combustion of his own raising."

I shall see you on Wednesday forenoon.

greatest hurry,

In the

R. B.

XXIV.

TO WILLIAM DUNBAR, W. S.

[This letter was first published by the Ettrick Shepherd, in his edition of Burns: it is remarkable for this sentence, "I am resolved never to breed up a son of mine to any of the learned professions: I know the value of independence, and since I cannot give my sons an independent fortune, I shall give them an independent line of life." We may look round us and inquire which line of life the poet could possibly mean.]

Ellisland, 14th January, 1790.

SINCE we are here creatures of a day, since "a few summer days and a few winter nights, and the life of man is at an end," why, my dear much-esteemed sir, should you and I let negligent indolence, for I know it is nothing worse, step in between us and bar the enjoyment of a mutual correspondence? We are not shapen out of the common, heavy, methodical clod, the elemental stuff of the plodding selfish race, the sons of Arithmetic and Prudence: our feelings and hearts are not benumbed and poisoned by the cursed influence of riches, which, whatever blessing they may be in other respects, are no friends ́ to the nobler qualities of the heart: in the name of random sensibility, then, let never the moon change on our silence any more. I have had a tract of bad health most part of this winter, else you had heard from me long ere now. Thank Heaven, I am now got so much better as to be able to partake a little in the enjoyments of life.

Our friend Cunningham will, perhaps, have told you of my going into the Excise. The truth is, I found it a very

convenient business to have £50 per annum, nor have I yet felt any of those mortifying circumstances in it that I was led to fear.

Feb. 2.

I have not, for sheer hurry of business, been able to spare five minutes to finish my letter. Besides my farm business, I ride on my Excise matters at least two hundred miles every week. I have not by any means given up

the muses.
songs that I have contributed

You will see in the 3d vol. of Johnson's Scots

my

mite there.

I have

But, my dear sir, little ones that look up to you for paternal protection are an important charge. already two fine, healthy, stout little fellows, and I wish to throw some light upon them. I have a thousand reveries and schemes about them, and their future destiny. Not that I am a Utopian projector in these things. I am resolved never to breed up a son of mine to any of the learned professions. I know the value of independence; and since I cannot give my sons an independent fortune, I shall give them an independent line of life. What a chaos of hurry, chance, and changes, is this world, when one sits soberly down to reflect on it! To a father, who himself knows the world, the thought that he shall have sons to usher into it must fill him with dread; but if he have daughters, the prospect in a thoughtful moment is apt to shock him.

me say

I hope Mrs. Fordyce and the two young ladies are well. Do let me forget that they are nieces of yours, and let that I never saw a more interesting, sweeter pair of sisters in my life. I am the fool of my feelings and attachments. I often take up a volume of my Spenser to realize you to my imagination, and think over the social scenes we have had together. God grant that there may be