home; and perhaps it but poorly answers what might have been expected from such a scene. I have the honour to be, Madam, Your most obedient and very R. B. [In the life of the Poet, and in the note to the song which this letter accompanied, much has been said about "The Bonnie Lass of Ballochmyle." The best excuse which can well be offered for her silence and coldness, is that she lived to see how much she wronged her own fame and beauty in not accepting the honours which the muse had paid her, and to make such reparation as was in her power by regarding the original copy of the song as an heir-loom of the house of Alexander. The braes of Ballochmyle are now visited like the braes of Yarrow and the broom of the Cowden-Knowes, by poetic pilgrims, and the scene is eagerly pointed out where the Poet saw the fair vision which inspired him.-ED.] MADAM: No. XXIV. TO MRS. STEWART, OF STAIR. 1786. THE hurry of my preparations for going abroad has hindered me from performing my promise so soon as I intended. I have here sent you a parcel of songs, &c., which never made their appearance, except to a friend or two at most. Perhaps some of them may be no great entertainment to you, but of that I am far from being an adequate judge. The song to the tune of "Ettrick Banks" [The bonnie lass of Ballochmyle] you will easily see the impropriety of exposing much, even in manuscript. I think, myself, it has some merit both as a tolerable description of one of nature's sweetest scenes, a July evening; and one of the finest pieces of nature's workmanship, the finest indeed we know any thing of, an amiable, beautiful young woman ;* but I have no common friend to procure me that *Miss Alexander. permission, without which I would not dare to spread the copy. I am quite aware, Madam, what task the world would assign me in this letter. The obscure bard, when any of the great condescend to take notice of him, should heap the altar with the incense of flattery. Their high ancestry, their own great and god-like qualities and actions, should be recounted with the most exaggerated description. This, Madam, is a task for which I am altogether unfit. Besides a certain disqualifying pride of heart, I know nothing of your connexions in life, and have no access to where your real character is to be found-the company your compeers and more, I am afraid that even the most refined adulation is by no means the road to your good opinion. of One feature of your character I shall ever with grateful pleasure remember ;-the reception I got when I had the honour of waiting on you at Stair. I am little acquainted with politeness, but I know a good deal of benevolence of temper and goodness of heart. Surely did those in exalted stations know how happy they could make some classes of their inferiors by condescension and affability, they would never stand so high, measuring out with every look the height of their elevation, but condescend as sweetly as did Mrs. Stewart of Stair. R. B. [Mrs. Stewart of Stair, afterwards of Afton, was the first person of note who had the sagacity to discover in the Ayrshire ploughman a genius of the first order. Two or three of his songs were sufficient for this: it has already been related how his heart fluttered and his natural boldness forsook him as he walked through the rooms of the "towers of Stair" to see the fair owner for the first time. It is to be regretted that the political impetuosity of Burns, which increased much as he advanced in life, should have found vent in sarcastic sayings and sneering lampoons. Mrs. Stewart remonstated mildly with the Poet concerning these transgressions, and told him that they furnished many with a pretext for not aiding him in his views in life, and even threw suspicion on the principles of his steadiest friends. Something like a coolness followed this: but, though Burns was nettled, he omitted no opportunity of intimating, how much he felt indebted to her, for her early kindness and cheering condescension.-ED.] No. XXV. IN THE NAME OF THE NINE. Amen. WE, Robert Burns, by virtue of a warrant from Nature, bearing date the twenty-fifth day of January, Anno Domini one thousand seven hundred and fifty-nine,* Poet Laureat, and Bard in Chief, in and over the districts and countries of Kyle, Cunningham, and Carrick, of old extent, To our trusty and well-beloved William Chalmers and John M'Adam, students and practitioners in the ancient and mysterious science of confounding right and wrong. RIGHT TRUSTY : Be it known unto you that whereas in the course of our care and watchings over the order and police of all and sundry the manufacturers, retainers, and venders of poesy; bards, poets, poetasters, rhymers, jinglers, songsters, ballad-singers, &c. &c. &c. &c. male and female-We have discovered a certain nefarious, abominable, and wicked song or ballad, a copy whereof We have here inclosed; Our Will therefore is, that Ye pitch upon and appoint the most execrable individual of that most execrable species, known by the appellation, phrase, and *His birth-day. |