THE following circumstance has, I believe, been omitted in the statistical account, transmitted to you, of the parish of Dunscore, in Nithsdale. I beg leave to send it to you, because it is new and may be useful. How far it is deserving of a place in your patriotic publication, you are the best judge.

To store the minds of the lower classes with useful knowledge, is certainly of very great importance, both to them as individuals, and to society at large. Giving them a turn for reading and reflection, is giving them a source of innocent and laudable amusement; and besides raises them to a more dignified degree in the scale of rationality. Impressed

with this idea, a gentleman in this parish, Robert Riddel, Esq. of Glenriddel, set on foot a species of circulating library, on a pian so simple as to be practicable in any corner of the country; and so useful, as to deserve the notice of every country gentleman, who thinks the improvement of that part of his own species, whom chance has thrown into the humble walks of the peasant and the artisan, a matter worthy of his attention.

Mr Riddel got a number of his own tenants, and farming neighbours, to form themselves into a society for the purpose of having a library among themselves. They entered into a legal engagement to abide by it for three years; with a saving clause or two, in case of removal to a distance, or of death. Each member, at his entry, paid five shillings, and at each of their meetings, which were held every fourth Saturday, sixpence more. With their entrymoney, and the credit which they took on the faith of their future funds, they laid in a tolerable stock of books at the commencement. What authors they were to purchase, was always decided by the majority. At every meeting, all the books, under certain fines and forfeitures, by way of penalty, were to be produced; and the members had their choice of the volumes in rotation. He whose name stood, for that night, first on the list, had his choice of what volume he pleased in the whole collection; the second had his choice after the first; the third after the second, and so on to

the last. At next meeting, he who had been first on the list at the preceding meeting, was last at this; he who had been second was first; and so on through the whole three years. At the expiration of the engagement, the books were sold by auction, but only among the members themselves and each man had his share of the common stock, in money or in books, as he chose to be a purchaser or not.

At the breaking up of this little society, which was formed under Mr Riddel's patronage, what with benefactions of books from him, and what with their own purchases, they had collected together upwards of one hundred and fifty volumes. It will easily be guessed, that a good deal of trash would be bought. Among the books, however, of this little library, were Blair's Sermons, Robertson's His tory of Scotland, Hume's History of the Stuarts, the Spectator, Idler, Adventurer,_ Mirror, Lounger, Observer, Man of Feeling, Man of the World, Chrysal, Don Quixote, Joseph Andrews, &c. A peasant who can read, and enjoy such books, is certainly a much superior being to his neighbour, who perhaps stalks beside his team, very little removed, except in shape, from the brute he drives.

Wishing your patriotic exertions their so much merited success, I am,

Sir,

'I inclose you a letter, written by Mr Burns as an addition to the account of Dunscore parish. It contains an account of a small library which he was so good, (at my desire) as to set on foot, in the barony of Monkland, or Friar's Carse, in this parish. As its utility has been felt, particularly among the younger class of people, I think, that if a similar plan were established, in the different parishes of Scotland, it would tend greatly to the speedy improvement of the tenantry, trades people, the whole charge of this small concern. He was treaand work people. Mr Burns was so good as to take surer, librarian, and censor to this little society, who will long have a grateful sense of his public spirit and exertions for their improvement and information. I have the honour to be, Sir John, Yours most sincerely,

To Sir John Sinclair, of Ulbster, Bart.

ROBERT RIDDEL

hypochondria pervading every atom of both body and soul. This farm has undone my enjoyment of myself. It is a ruinous affair on all hands. But let it go to ...! I'll fight it out and be off with it.

We have gotten a set of very decent players here just now. I have seen them an evening or two. David Campbell, in Ayr, wrote to me by the manager of the company, a Mr Sutherland, who is a man of apparent worth. On New-year-day evening I gave him the following prologue, which he spouted to his audience with applause.

No song nor dance I bring from yon great city, That queens it o'er our taste the more's the pity: Though, by the bye, abroad why will you roam? Good sense and taste are natives here at home; But not for panegyric I appear,

1 come to wish you all a good new year!
Old Father Time deputes me here before ye,
Not for to preach, but tell his simple story:
The sage grave ancient cough'd, and bade me say,
"You're one year older this important day,"
If wiser too-he hinted some suggestion,
But 'twould be rude, you know, to ask the ques-
tion;

And with a would-be roguish leer and wink,
He bade me on you press this one word-"THINK!"
Ye-sprightly youths, quite flush with hope and
spirit,

Who think to storm the world by dint of merit,
To you the dotard has a deal to say,
In his sly, dry, sententious, proverb way!
He bids you mind, amid your thoughtless rattle,
That the first blow is ever half the battle;
That though some by the skirt may try to snatch
him,

Yet by the forelock is the hold to catch him,
That whether doing, suffering, or forbearing,
You may do miracles by persevering.

Last, though not least in love, ye youthful fair,
Angelic forms, high Heaven's peculiar care!
To you old Bald-pate smooths his wrinkled brow,
And humbly begs you'll mind the important—
NOW!

To crown your happiness, he asks your leave,
And offers, bliss to give and to receive.

business that I have not written to you, madam, long ere now. My health is greatly better, and I now begin once more to share in satisfaction and enjoyment with the rest of my fellow-creatures.

Many thanks, my much esteemed friend, for your kind letters; but why will you make me run the risk of being contemptible and mercenary in my own eyes! When I pique myself on my independent spirit, I hope it is neither poetic licence, nor poetic rant; and I am so flattered with the honour you have done me, in making me your compeer in friendship and friendly correspondence, that I cannot without pain, and a degree of mortification, be reminded of the real inequality between our situations.

Not

Most sincerely do I rejoice with you, dear madam, in the good news of Anthony. only your anxiety about his fate, but my own esteem for such a noble, warm-hearted, manly young fellow, in the little I had of his acquaintance, has interested me deeply in his fortunes.

He

Falconer, the unfortunate author of the Shipwreck, which you so much admire, is no more. After weathering the dreadful catastrophe he so feelingly describes in his poem, and after weathering many hard gales of fortune, he went to the bottom with the Aurora frigate! I forget what part of Scotland had the honour of giving him birth, but he was the son of obscurity and misfortune.* was one of those daring adventurous spirits, which Scotland beyond any other country is remarkable for producing. Little does the fond mother think, as she hangs delighted over the sweet little leech at her bosom, where the poor fellow may hereafter wander, and what may be his fate. I remember a stanza in an old Scottish ballad, which, notwithstanding its rude simplicity, speaks feelingly to the heart:

"Little did my mother think,
That day she cradled me,
What land I was to travel in,

Or what death I should die."

Falconer was in early life a sea-boy, to use a word of Shakspeare, on board a man-of-war, in which capa

city he attracted the notice of Campbell, the author of

the satire on Dr Johnson, entitled Lexiphanes, then purser of the ship. Campbell took him as his servant, and delighted in giving him instruction; and when Falconer afterwards acquired celebrity, boasted of him as his scholar. The editor had this information from a surgeon of a man-of-war, in 1777, who knew both Campbell and Falconer, and who himselt perished soo after by shipwreck, on the coast of America,

Though the death of Falconer happened so lately as 1770 or 1771, yet in the biography prefixed by Dr An derson to his works, in the complete edition of the Poets of Great Britain, it is said, "Of the family, birthplace, and education of William Falconer, there are no memorials." On the authority already given, it may be mentioned, that he was a native of one of the towns on the coast of Fife, and that his parents, who had suffered some misfortunes, removed to one of the sea-ports of England, where they both died, soon after, of an epide. mic fever, leaving poor Falconer, then a boy, forlorn and destitute. In consequence of which he entered on board a man-of-war. These last circumstances are however less certain.

Old Scottish songs are, you know, a favour- | ite study and pursuit of mine; and now I am on that subject, allow me to give you two stanzas of another old simple ballad, which I am sure will please you. The catastrophe of the piece is a poor ruined female, lamenting her fate. She concludes with this pathetic wish:

"O that my father had ne'er on me smiled;

O that my mother had ne'er to me sung! O that my cradle had never been rock'd; But that I had died when I was young!

O that the grave it were my bed;

My blankets were my winding sheet; The clocks and the worms my bedfellows a'; And O sae sound as I should sleep!"

I do not remember in all my reading to have met with any thing more truly the language of misery, than the exclamation in the last line. Misery is like love; to speak its language truly, the author must have felt it.

I am every day expecting the doctor to give your little god-son* the small-pox. They are rife in the country, and I tremble for his fate. By the way, I cannot help congratulating you on his looks and spirit. Every person who sees him, acknowledges him to be the finest, handsomest child he has ever seen. myself delighted with the manly swell of his little chest, and a certain miniature dignity in the carriage of his head, and glance of his fine black eye, which promise the undaunted gallantry of an independent mind.

I am

I thought to have sent you some rhymes, but time forbids. I promise you poetry until you are tired of it, next time I have the honour of assuring you how truly I am, &c.

No. XCIII.

FROM MR CUNNINGHAM.

28th January, 1790. IN some instances it is reckoned unpardonable to quote any one's own words; but the value I have for your friendship, nothing can more truly or more elegantly express, than

"Time but the impression stronger makes, As streams their channels deeper wear.

Having written to you twice without having heard from you, I am apt to think my letters have miscarried. My conjecture is only framed upon the chapter of accidents turning up against me, as it too often does, in the trivial, and I may with truth add, the more important affairs of life: but I shall continue occasionally to inform you what is going on among the circle of your friends in these parts. In these

• The bard's second son, Francis.

days of merriment, I have frequently heard your name proclaimed at the jovial boardunder the roof of our hospitable friend at Stenhouse Mills, there were no

"Lingering moments number'd with care.”

I saw your Address to the New-year in the Dumfries Journal. Of your productions I shall say nothing, but my acquaintances allege that when your name is mentioned, which every man of celebrity must know often happens, I am the champion, the Mendoza, against all snarling critics, and narrow minded reptiles, of whom a few on this planet do crawl.

With best compliments to your wife, and her black-eyed sister, I remain, yours, &c.

No. XCIV.

TO MR CUNNINGHAM.

Ellisland, 13th February, 1790. I BEG your pardon, my dear and much valued friend, for writing to you on this very unfashionable, unsightly sheet

"My poverty but not my will consents."

But to make amends, since of modish post I have none, except one poor widowed half sheet of gilt, which lies in my drawer among my plebeian foolscap pages, like the widow of a man of fashion, whom that unpolite scoun drel, Necessity, has driven from Burgundy and Pine-apple, to a dish of Bohea, with the scandal-bearing help-mate of a village priest; or a glass of whisky-toddy, with the ruby nosed yoke-fellow of a foot-padding exciseman-I make a vow to inclose this sheet-full of epistolary fragments in that my only scrap of giltpaper.

I am indeed your unworthy debtor for three friendly letters. I ought to have written to you long ere now, but it is a literal fact, I have scarcely a spare moment. It is not that I will not write to you; Miss Burnet is not more dear to her guardian angel, nor his grace the Duke of to the powers of

than my friend Cunningham to me. It is not that I cannot write to you; should you doubt it, take the following fragment which was intended for you some time ago, and be convinced that I can antithesize sentiment, and circumvolute periods, as well as any coiner of phrase in the regions of philology.

in the world, the victim of indolence, laden with fetters of ever-increasing weight.

What strange beings we are! Since we have a portion of conscious existence, equally capable of enjoying pleasure, happiness, and rapture, or of suffering pain, wretchedness, and misery, it is surely worthy of an inquiry, whether there be not such a thing as a science of life; whether method, economy, and fertility of expedients be not applicable to enjoyment; and whether there be not a want of dexterity in pleasure, which renders our little scantling of happiness still less; and a profuseness, an intoxication in bliss which leads to satiety, disgust, and self-abhorrence. There is not a doubt but that health, talents, character, decent competency, respectable friends, are real sub. stantial blessings; and yet do we not daily see those who enjoy many or all of these good things, contrive, notwithstanding, to be as unhappy as others to whose lot few of them have fallen. I believe one great source of this mistake or misconduct is owing to a certain stimulus, with us called ambition, which goads us up the hill of life, not as we ascend other eminences, for the laudable curiosity of view. ing an extended landscape, but rather for the dishonest pride of looking down on others of our fellow-creatures, seemingly diminutive, in humble stations, &c. &c.

Tuesday, 16th.

|

55

Ellisland, 2d March, 1790. Ar a late meeting of the Monkland Friendly Society, it was resolved to augment their library by the following books, which you are to send us as soon as possible:-The Mirror, The Lounger, Man of Feeling, Man of the World, (these for my own sake I wish to have by the first carrier) Knox's History of the Reformation; Rae's History of the Rebellion in 1715; any good History of the Rebellion in 1745; A Display of the Session Act and Testimony, by Mr GIBB; Hervey's Meditations; Beveridge's Thoughts; and another copy of Watson's Body of Divinity.

I wrote to Mr A. Masterton three or four months ago, to pay some money he owed me into your hands, and lately I wrote to you to the same purpose, but I have heard from neither one nor other of you.

In addition to the books I commissioned in my last, I want very much, An Index to the Excise Laws, or an abridgment of all the Statutes now in force, relative to the Excise, by Jellinger Symons: I want three copies of this book; if it is now to be had, cheap or dear, get it for me.

An honest country neighbour of mine wants, too, A Family Bible, the larger the better, but second-handed, for he does not choose to give above ten shillings for the book. I want likewise for myself, as you can pick them up, second-handed or cheap, copies of Otway's Dramatic Works, Ben Johnson's, Dryden's, Congreve's, Wycherley's, Vanbrugh's, Cibber's, or any Dramatic Works of the more modern-Macklin, Garrick, Foote, Colman, or A good copy too of Moliere, in Sheridan.

And now, to quit the dry walk of business, how do you do, my dear friend? and how is Mrs Hill? I trust if now and then not so elegantly handsome, at least as amiable, and sings as divinely as ever. My good-wife too has a charming “wood-note wild;" now could we four

I am out of all patience with this vile world, for one thing. Mankind are by nature benevolent creatures; except in a few scoundrelly instances, I do not think that avarice of the good things we chance to have, is born with us; but we are placed here amid so much nakedness, and hunger, and poverty, and want, that we are under a cursed necessity of studying selfishness, in order that we may EXIST! Still there are, in every age, a few souls, that all the wants and woes of life cannot debase to selfishness, or even to the necessary alloy of caution and prudence. If ever I am in danger of vanity, it is when I contemplate myself on this side of my disposition and character. God knows I am no saint; I have a whole host of follies and sins to answer for; but if I could, and I believe I do it as far as I can, I would wipe away all tears from all eyes. Adieu!

No. XCVI.
TO MRS DUNLOP.

Ellisland, 10th April, 1790.

I HAVE just now, my ever-honoured friend, enjoyed a very high luxury, in reading a paper of the Lounger. You know my national prejudices. I had often read and admired the Spectator, Adventurer, Rambler, and World; but still with a certain regret, that they were so thoroughly and entirely English. Alas! have I often said to myself, what are all the boasted advantages which my country reaps from the Union, that can counterbalance the annihilation of her independence, and even her very name! I often repeat that couplet of my favourite poet, Goldsmith

66 States of native liberty possest, Though very poor, may yet be very blest."

my conscience such ideas, as, "my country; her independence; her honour; the illustrious names that mark the history of my native land," &c.-I believe these, among your men of the world-men who in fact guide for the most part and govern our world, are looked on as so many modifications of wrongheadedness. They know the use of bawling out such terms, to rouse or lead THE RABBLE; but for their own private use, with almost all the able states men that ever existed, or now exist, when they talk of right and wrong, they only mean proper and improper; and their measure of conduct is, not what they OUGHT, but what they DARE. For the truth of this I shall not ransack the history of nations, but appeal to one of the ablest judges of men, and himself one of the ablest men that ever lived-the celebrated Earl of Chesterfield. In fact, a man who could thoroughly control his vices whenever they interfered with his interest, and who could completely put on the appearance of every virtue as often as it suited his purposes, is, on the Stanhopian plan, the perfect man; a man to lead nations. But are great abilities, complete without a flaw, and polished without a blemish, the standard of human excellence? This is certainly the staunch opinion of men of the world; but I call on honour, virtue, and worth, to give the Stygian doctrine a loud negative! However, this must be allowed, that, if you abstract from man the idea of an exist ence beyond the grave, then, the true measure of human conduct is proper and improper Virtue and vice, as dispositions of the heart, are in that case, of scarcely the import and value to the world at large, as harmony and discord in the modifications of sound; and a delicate sense of honour, like a nice ear for music, though it may sometimes give the possessor an ecstasy unknown to the coarser organs of the herd, yet, considering the harsh gratings, and inharmonic jars, in this ill-tuned state of being, it is odds but the individual would be as happy, and certainly would be as much respected by the true judges of society, as it would then stand, without either a good ear or a good heart.

You must know I have just met with the Mirror and Lounger for the first time, and I am quite in raptures with them: I should be glad to have your opinion of some of the papers. The one I have just read, Lounger, No. 61, has cost me more honest tears than any thing I have read of a long time. M.Kenzie has been called the Addison of the Scots, and in my opinion, Addison would not be hurt at the comparison. If he has not Addison's exquisite humour, he as certainly outdoes him in the tender and the pathetic. His Man of Feeling (but I am not counsel-learned in the laws of criticism,) I estimate as the first performance in its kind I ever saw. From what books, moral or even pious, will the susceptible young mind receive impressions more congenial to