THE following trifles are not the production of the Poet, who, with all the advantages of learned art, and, perhaps, amid the elegancies and idleness of upper life, looks down for a rural theme, with an eye to Theocritus or Virgil. To the author of this, these, and other celebrated names, their countrymen are, at least in their original language, a fountain shut up, and a book sealed. Unacquainted with the necessary requisites for commencing poet by rule, he sings the sentiments and manners he felt and saw in himself and his rustic compeers around him, in his and their native language. Though a rhymer from his earliest years, at least from the earliest impulse of the softer passions, it was not till very lately that the applause, perhaps the partiality, of friendship, awakened his vanity so far as to make him think any thing of his worth showing: and none of the following works were composed with a view to the press. To amuse himself with the little creations of his own fancy, amid the toil and fatigue of a laborious life; to transcribe the various feelings-the loves, the griefs, the hopes, the fears-in his own breast; to find some kind of counterpoise to the struggles of a world, always an alien scene, a task uncouth to the poetical mind--these were his motives for courting the Muses, and in these he found poetry to be its own reward.

Now that he appears in the public character of an author, he does it with fear and trembling. So dear is fame to the rhyming tribe, that even he, an obscure, nameless Bard, shrinks aghast at the thought of being branded as-an impertinent blockhead, obtruding his nonsense on the world; and, because he can make shift to jingle a few doggerel Scottish rhymes together, looking

upon himself as a poet, of no small consequence, forsooth!

It is an observation of that celebrated poet, Shenstone, whose divine elegies do honour to our language, our nation, and our species, that "Humility has depressed many a genius to a hermit, but never raised one to fame!" If any critic catches at the word genius, the author tells him, once for all, that he certainly looks upon himself as possessed of some poetic abilities, otherwise his publishing, in the manner he has done, would be a manoeuvre below the worst character which, he hopes, his worst enemy will ever give him. But to the genius of a Ramsay, or the glorious dawnings of the poor, unfortunate Fergusson, he, with equal unaffected sincerity, declares that, even in his highest pulse of vanity, he has not the most distant pretensions. These two justly admired Scottish poets he has often bad in his eye in the follow ing pieces; but rather with a view to kindle at their flame than for servile imitation.

To his Subscribers, the Author returns his most sincere thanks. Not the mercenary bow over a counter, but the heart-throbbing gratitude of the Bard, conscious how much he owes to benevolence and friendship for gratifying him, if he deserves it, in that dearest wish of every poetic bosom-to be distinguished. He begs his readers, particularly the learned and the polite, who may honour him with a perusal, that they will make every allowance for education and circumstances of life; but if, after a fair, candid, and impartial criticism, he shall stand convicted of dulness and nonsense, let him be done by as he would in that case do by others--let him be condemned, without mercy, to contempt and oblivion.

MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN:

A SCOTTISH BARD, proud of the name, and whose highest ambition is to sing in his country's service-where shall he so properly look for patronage as to the illustrious names of his native land; those who bear the honours and inherit the virtues of their ancestors? The Poetic Genius of my Country found me, as the prophetic bard Elijah did Elisha - at the PLOUGH; and threw her inspiring mantle over

me.

She bade me sing the loves, the joys, the rural scenes and rural pleasures of my native soil, in my native tongue: I tuned my wild, artless notes, as she inspired. She whispered me to come to this ancient Metropolis of Caledonia, and lay my Songs under your honoured protection: I now obey her dictates.

Though much indebted to your goodness, I do not approach you, my Lords and Gentlemen, in the usual style of dedication, to thank you for past favours: that path is so hackneyed by prostituted learning, that honest rusticity is ashamed of it. Nor do I present this Address with the venal soul of a servile author, looking for a continuation of those favours: I was bred to the plough, and am independent. I come to claim the common Scottish name with you, my illustrious Countrymen; and to tell the world

that I glory in the title. I come to congratulate my country, that the blood of her ancient heroes still runs uncontaminated; and that from your courage, knowledge, and public spirit, she may expect protection, wealth, and liberty. In the last place, I come to proffer my warmest wishes to the Great Fountain of Honour, the Monarch of the Universe, for your welfare and happiness.

When you go forth to waken the echoes, in the ancient and favourite amusement of your forefathers, may Pleasure ever be of your party : and may social Joy await your return! When harassed in courts or camps with the jostlings of bad men and bad measures, may the honest consciousness of injured worth attend your return to your native seats; and may domestic happiness, with a smiling welcome, meet you at your gates! May corruption shrink at your kindling indignant glance; and may tyranny in the ruler, and licentiousness in the people, equally find you an inexorable foe!

I have the honour to be,
With the sincerest gratitude and highest respect,
My Lords and Gentlemen,

Your most devoted humble Servant,
ROBERT BURNS.

IN Burns's own Memoranda, written in April | 1784, he says:-"As I am what the men of the world, if they knew such a man, would call a whimsical mortal, I have various sources of pleasure and enjoyment, which are, in a manner, peculiar to myself, or some here and there such out-of-the way person. Such is the peculiar pleasure I take in the season of WINTER, more than the rest of the year. This, I believe, may be partly owing to my misfortunes giving my mind a melancholy cast: but there is something even in the

"Mighty tempest, and the heavy waste,

Abrupt, and deep, stretch'd o'er the buried earth!" which raises the mind to a serious sublimity favourable to everything great and noble. There is scarcely any earthly object gives me more I do not know if I should call it pleasure -but something which exalts me something which enraptures me-than to walk in the sheltered side of a wood, or high plantation, in a cloudy winter-day, and hear the stormy wind howling among the trees, and raving over the plain. It is my best season for devotion: my mind is wrapt up in a kind of enthusiasm to Him, who, in the pompous language of the Hebrew bard, walks on the wings of the wind.' In one of these seasons, just after a train of misfortunes, I composed the following:"

Let others fear, to me more dear
Than all the pride of May:
The tempest's howl, it soothes my soul,
My griefs it seems to join;
The leafless trees my fancy please,
Their fate resembles mine!

III.

Thou Pow'r Supreme, whose mighty scheme,
These woes of mine fulfil,
Here, firm, I rest, they must be best,
Because they are Thy will!
Then all I want (O, do thou grant
This one request of mine!)
Since to enjoy thou dost deny,
Assist me to resign.

[The above is, with the exception of one or two songs, the earliest of all the Poet's compositions. According to Gilbert Burns, it was a juvenile production. It is, says Lockhart, “an admirably versified piece."]

THE

DEATH AND DYING WORDS

OF

Poor Mailie,

THE AUTHOR'S ONLY PET YOWE.
AN UNCO MOURNFU' TALE.

As Mailie, an' her lambs thegither,
Were ae day nibbling on the tether,
Upon her cloot she coost a hitch,
An' owre she warsl'd in the ditch:
There, groaning, dying, she did lie
When Hughoc he cam doytin by.
Wi' glowrin' e'en an' lifted han's,
Poor Hughoc like a statue stan's;
He saw her days were near-hand ended,
But, waes my heart! he could na mend it!
He gaped wide, but naething spak-
At length poor Mailie silence brak.

"O thou, whase lamentable face
Appears to mourn my woefu' case!
My dying words attentive hear,
An' bear them to my master dear.

A neibor-herd-callan. R. B.

"Tell him, if e'er again he keep
As muckle gear as buy a sheep,
O bid him never tie them mair
Wi' wicked strings o' hemp or hair!
But ca' them out to park or hill,
An' let them wander at their will;
So may his flock increase, and grow
To scores o' lambs, an' packs o' woo'!

"Tell him he was a master kin'
An' ay was guid to me and mine;
An' now my dying charge I gie him,
My helpless lambs I trust them wi' him.

"O, bid him save their harmless lives,
Frae dogs, an' tods, an' butchers' knives!
But gie them guid cow-milk their fill,
Till they be fit to fend themsel;
An' tent them duly, e'en an' morn,
Wi' teats o' hay, an' rips o'corn.

"An' may they never learn the gaets
Of ither vile, wanrestfu' pets!
To slink thro' slaps, an' reave an' steal,
At stacks o' pease, or stocks o' kail.
So may they, like their great forbears,
For monie a year come thro' the sheers:
So wives will gi'e them bits o' bread,
An' bairns greet for them when they're dead.

"My poor toop-lamb, my son an' heir,
O, bid him breed him up wi' care!
An' if he live to be a beast,
To pit some havins in his breast!
An' warn him, what I winna name,
To stay content wi' yowes at hame:
An' no to rin an' wear his cloots,
Like ither menseless, graceless brutes.

"An' niest my yowie, silly thing,
Gude keep thee frae a tether string!
O, may thou ne'er forgather up
Wi' ony blastit, moorland toop,
But ay keep mind to moop an' mell
Wi' sheep o' credit like thysel'!

"And now, my bairns, wi' my last breath
I lea'e my blessin' wi' you baith:
An' when you think upo' your mither,
Mind to be kin' to ane anither.

"Now, honest Hughoc, dinna fail To tell my master a' my tale; An' bid him burn this cursed tether, An', for thy pains, thou'se get my blather." This said, poor Mailie turn'd her head, And clos'd her een amang the dead.

going out with our teams, and our two younger brothers to drive for us, at mid-day, when Hugh Wilson, a curious-looking, awkward boy, clad in plaiding, came to us with much anxiety in his face, with the information that the ewe had entangled herself in the tether, and was lying in the ditch. Robert was much tickled with Hughoc's appearance and postures on the occasion. Poor Mailie was set to rights, and when we returned from the plough in the evening, he repeated to me her Death and Dying Words,' pretty much in the way they now stand."

"The expiring animal's admonitions touching the education of the 'poor toop lamb, her son and heir, and the yowie silly thing' her daughter, are from the same peculiar vein of sly homely wit, embedded upon fancy, which he afterwards dug with a bolder hand in the 'Twa Dogs,' and perhaps to its utmost depth in his Death and Doctor Hornbook.' It need scarcely be added that poor Mailie was a real personage, though she did not actually die until some time after her last words were written."-LOCKHART.]

Or, if he wanders up the howe,
Her living image in her yowe
Comes bleating to him, owre the knowe,
For bits o' bread;
An' down the briny pearls rowe
For Mailie dead.

She was nae get o' moorland tips,
Wi' tawted ket, an' hairy hips;
For her forbears were brought in ships
Frae yont the Tweed:
A bonnier fleesh ne'er cross'd the clips
Than Mailie dead.*

Wae worth the man wha first did shape
That vile, wanchancie thing-a rape!
It maks guid fellows girn an' gape,
Wi' chokin' dread;
An' Robin's bonnet wave wi' crape,
For Mailie dead.

O, a' ye bards on bonnie Doon!
An' wha on Ayr your chanters tune!
Come, join the melancholious croon
O Robins reed!

His heart will never get aboon

His Mailie dead!

["The principle of love, which is the great characteristic of Burns, often manifests itself in a thinner disguise, in the shape of humour. Every where, in his sunny mood, a full buoyant flood of mirth runs through his mind, he rises to the high, and stoops to the low, and is brother and playmate to all nature. He has a bold and irresistible faculty of caricature; this is drollery rather than humour. A much tenderer sportfulness dwells in him than this, and comes forth here and there in evanescent and beautiful touches, as in his Address to the Mouse,' or "The Farmer's Auld Mare,' or in 'Poor Mailie,' which last may be reckoned his happiest effort of this kind." In these pieces there is a humour as fine as that of Sterne, and yet altogether different, original, peculiar,-in one word, the humour of Burns."-CARLISLE.]

* This stanza, says Gilbert Burns, was, at first, as followsShe was nae get o' runted rams,

Wi' woo' like goats, an' legs like trams;
She was the flower o' Fairlee lambs,

A famous breed:

Now Robin, greetin', chows the hams
O' Mailie dead.

The taste of Burns evidently rejected the verse, because the concluding lines did not harmonize with the prevailing sentiment of the poem. "It were a pity," adds Gilbert, "that the Fairlee Lambs' should lose the honour once intended them."

[The hero of this Epistle is the well-known David Sillar, a scholar and a poet. He was a native of Tarbolton. became, in 1784, a schoolmaster at Irvine, and having, in the course of a long life, realized considerable property, he was appointed one of the magistrates of that town. He published a volume of poems, in the Scottish dialect, some of which displayed considerable talent. He was an early friend of Burns, by whom he was introduced into the Tarbolton Bachelor's Club, in May 1781. David Sillar died on the 2nd of May 1830, at the age of seventy.]

Ramsay.

["The old remembered beggar, even in my own time, like the baccoch, or travelling cripple of Ireland, was expected to merit his quarters by something beyond an exposition of his distresses. He was often a talkative, facetious fellow, prompt at repartee, and not withheld from exercising his power that way by any respect of persons, his patched cloak giving him the privilege of the ancient jester. To be a guid crack, that

"The Elegy' is a somewhat later production than the 'Death and Dying Words of Poor Mailie.'

Epistle to Dabie.

A BROTHER POET.†

[DAVID SILLAR, SCHOOLMASTER AND BARD.] January, 1784.

I.

WHILE winds frae off Ben Lomond blaw, And bar the doors wi' driving snaw,

And hing us owre the ingle,

I set me down to pass the time,
And spin a verse or twa o' rhyme,
In hamely westlin jingle.
While frosty winds blaw in the drift,
Ben to the chimla lug,

I grudge a wee the great folks' gift,
That live sae bien an' snug:

I tent less, and want less
Their roomy fire-side;
But hanker and canker

To see their cursed pride.

II.

It's hardly in a body's pow'r
To keep, at times, frae being sour,

To see how things are shar'd;
How best o' chiels are whiles in want,
While coofs on countless thousands rant,
And ken na how to wair't;
But, Davie, lad, ne'er fash your head,
Tho' we hae little gear,
We're fit to win our daily bread,
As lang 's we're hale and fier:
"Mair spier na, nor fear na,"‡
Auld age ne'er mind a feg,
The last o't, the warst o't,
Is only but to beg.§

is, to possess talents for conversation, was essential to the trade of a 'puir body' of the more esteemed class; and Burns, who delighted in the amusement their discourses afforded, seems to have looked forward with gloomy firmness to the possibility of himself becoming, one day or other, a member of their itinerant society. In his poetical works, it is alluded to so often as, perhaps, to indicate that he considered the consummation as not utterly impossible. Thus, in the fine dedication of his works to Gavin Hamilton, he

says,

And when I downa yoke a naig, Then, Lord be thankit, I can beg.' Again, in his Epistle to Davie, a brother poet, he states that, in their closing carcer,

'The last o't, the warst o't,
Is only but to beg.'

And after having remarked that

To lie in kilns and barns at e'en,

When banes are craz'd, and bluid is thin,
Is, doubtless, great distress;'

the bard reckons up, with true poetical spirit, that free enjoyment of the beauties of nature, which might counterhalance the hardship and uncertainty of the life even of a mendicant. In one of his prose letters, that to Mr. Murdoch, dated Jan. 15th, 1783, he details this idea yet more seriously, and dwells upon it as not ill adapted to his habits and powers. As the life of a Scottish mendicant of the eighteenth century seems to have been contemplated without much horror by Robert