moved with little ease or grace. Yet though a peasant, and labouring to express himself in a language alien to his lips, his letters yield not in interest to those of the ripest scholars of the age. He wants the colloquial ease of Cowper, but he is less minute and tedious: he lacks the withering irony of Byron, but he has more humour, and infinitely less of that "pribble prabble," which deforms the noble lord's correspondence and memoranda. Wilson has, perhaps, expressed the truest opinion of all our critics concerning the letters of Burns, though he certainly errs when he says that the Poet wrote many of them when tipsy-nay, intoxicated. He belonged, indeed, to days of hard drinking: Pitt sometimes reeled when he rose to discourse on the state of the nation: Fox, it is averred, loved the bottle, though he contrived to stand steady; and Sheridan, it is well known, perfumed his eloquence with wine. There is something like intoxication of feeling and sentiment in the letters of Burns; but in the wildest of them sense and genius predominate. "The letters of Burns," observes Wilson, " are said to be too elaborate, the expression more studied and artificial than belongs to that species of composition. Now the truth is, Burns never considered letter writing a species of composition' subject to certain rules of taste and criticism. That had never occurred to him, and so much the better. But hundreds, even of his most familiar letters, are perfectly artless, though still most eloquent compositions. Simple we may not call them, so rich are they in fancy, so overflowing in feeling, and dashed off every other paragraph with the easy boldness of a great master, conscious of his strength, even at times when, of all things in the world, he was least solicitous about display: while some there are so solemn, so sacred, so religious, that he who can read them with an unstirred heart, can have no trust, no hope, in the immortality of the soul." To this eloquent commendation, the heart of Scotland responds. Currie gives an account of the Poet's correspondence, which it would be unjust to omit or suppress. 66 "Of the following letters," he says, a considerable number were transmitted for publication by the individuals to whom they were addressed, but very few have been printed entire. It will easily be believed that in a series of letters written without the least view to publication, various passages were found unfit for the press, from different considerations. It will also be readily supposed that our Poet, writing nearly at the same time, and under the same feelings to different individuals, would sometimes fall into the same train of sentiment and forms of expression. To avoid, therefore, the tediousness of such repetitions, it has been found necessary to mutilate many of the individual letters, and sometimes to exscind parts of great delicacythe unbridled effusions of panegyric and regard. But though many of the letters are printed from originals furnished by the persons to whom they were addressed, others are printed from first draughts, or sketches, found among the papers of our Bard. Though, in general, no man committed his thoughts to his correspondents with less consideration or effort than Burns, yet it appears that in some instances he was dissatisfied with his first essays, and wrote out his communications in a fairer character, or perhaps in more studied language. In the chaos of his manuscripts, some of the original sketches were found and as these sketches, though less perfect, are fairly to be considered as the offspring of his mind, where they have seemed in themselves worthy of a place in this volume, we have not hesitated to insert them, though they may not always correspond exactly with the letters transmitted, which have been lost or withheld." Some Time, since the day in which Currie wrote, has removed sundry of the obstacles which influenced him in suppressing portions of the letters. passages omitted from personal considerations are now restored; nor has the editor hesitated to admit all excluded paragraphs which throw light on the studies or history of Burns, and add to our knowledge of him as a man and a poet.-[ED. No. I. TO WILLIAM BURNESS. HONOURED SIR: Irvine, Dec. 27th, 1781. I HAVE purposely delayed writing, in the hope that I should have the pleasure of seeing you on New-Year's day; but work comes so hard upon us, that I do not choose to be absent on that account, as well as for some other little reasons which I shall tell you at meeting. My health is nearly the same as when you were here, only my sleep is a little sounder, and on the whole I am rather better than otherwise, though I mend by very slow degrees. The weakness of my nerves has so debilitated my mind, that I dare neither review past wants, nor look forward into futurity; for the least anxiety or perturbation in my breast produces most unhappy effects on my whole frame. Sometimes, indeed, when for an hour or two my spirits are alightened, I glimmer a little into futurity; but my principal, and indeed my only pleasurable employment is looking backwards and forwards in a moral and religious way; I am quite transported at the thought, that ere long, perhaps very soon, I shall bid an eternal adieu to all the pains, and uneasiness, and disquietudes of this weary life; for I assure you I am heartily tired of it; and if I do not very much deceive myself, I could contentedly and gladly resign it. "The soul, uneasy, and confined at home, It is for this reason I am more pleased with the 15th, 16th, and 17th verses of the 7th chapter of Revelations, than with any ten times as many verses in the whole Bible, and would not exchange the noble enthusiasm with which they inspire me for all that this world has to offer. As for this world, I despair of ever making a figure in it. I am not formed for the bustle of the busy, nor the flutter of the gay. I shall never again be capable of entering into such scenes. Indeed I am altogether unconcerned at the thoughts of this life. I foresee that poverty and obscurity probably await me, and I am in some measure prepared, and daily preparing to meet them. I have but just time and paper to return you my grateful thanks for the lessons of virtue and piety you have given me, which were too much neglected at the time of giving them, but which I hope have been remembered ere it is yet too late. Present my dutiful respects to my mother, and my compliments to Mr. and Mrs. Muir; and with wishing you a merry New-Year's day, I shall conclude. I am, honoured sir, your dutiful ROBERT BURNESS. son, P.S. My meal is nearly out, but I am going to borrow till I get more. |