Dr Moore's answer to this letter was as follows:

CLIFFORD STREET, 10th June 1789.

DEAR SIR-I thank you for the different communications you have made me of your occasional productions in manuscript; all of which have merit, and some of them merit of a different kind from what appears in the poems you have published. You ought carefully to preserve all your occasional productions, to correct and improve them at your leisure; and when you can select as many of these as will make a volume, publish it either at Edinburgh or London by subscription: on such an occasion it may be in my power, as it is very much in my inclination, to be of service to you.

If I were to offer an opinion, it would be, that in your future productions you should abandon the Scottish stanza and dialect, and adopt the measure and language of modern English poetry.

The stanza which you use in imitation of Christ Kirk on the Green, with the tiresome repetition of 'that day,' is fatiguing to English ears, and I should think not very agreeable to Scottish.

All the fine satire and humour of your Holy Fair is lost on the English; yet, without more trouble to yourself, you could have conveyed the whole to them. The same is true of some of your other poems. In your Epistle to J. Smith, the stanzas from that beginning with this line, This life, so far's I understand,' to that which ends with, Short while it grieves,' are easy, flowing, gaily philosophical, and of Horatian elegance-the language is English, with a few Scottish words, and some of those so harmonious as to add to the beauty; for what poet would not prefer gloaming to twilight?

I imagine that, by carefully keeping, and occasionally polishing and correcting those verses which the Muse dictates, you will within a year or two have another volume as large as the first ready for the press; and this without diverting you from every proper attention to the study and practice of husbandry, in which I understand you are very learned, and which I fancy you will choose to adhere to as a wife, while poetry amuses you from time to time as a mistress. The former, like a prudent wife, must not shew ill-humour although you retain a sneaking kindness to this agreeable gipsy, and pay her occasional visits, which in no manner alienates your heart from your lawful spouse, but tends, on the contrary, to promote her interest.

I desired Mr Cadell to write to Mr Creech to send you a copy of Zeluco. This performance has had great success here; but I shall be glad to have your opinion of it, because I value your opinion, and because I know you are above saying what you do not think.

I beg you will offer my best wishes to my very good friend, Mrs Hamilton, who, I understand, is your neighbour. If she is as

happy as I wish her, she is happy enough. Make my compliments also to Mrs Burns; and believe me to be, with sincere esteem, dear sir, yours, &c.

TO MR WILLIAM BURNS.

ISLE, 25th March 1789.

I have stolen from my corn-sowing this minute to write a line to accompany your shirt and hat, for I can no more. Write me every opportunity-never mind postage. My head, too, is as addle as an egg this morning with dining abroad yesterday. I received yours by the mason. Forgive this foolish-looking scrawl of an epistle. I am ever, my dear William, yours, R. B.

P. S.-If you are not then gone from Longtown, I'll write you a long letter by this day se'ennight. If you should not succeed in your tramps, don't be dejected, or take any rash step-return to us in that case, and we will court Fortune's better humour. Remember this, I charge you.

It is a most creditable fact in Burns's life, that long before the time when the intellectual improvement of the humbler classes had become a national movement, he exerted himself to the utmost in that cause, as far as his own locality was concerned. Already, under the care of Captain Riddel and that of the poet, a parish library was about to be established in their neighbourhood. Burns took the trouble of selecting and purchasing books. For this purpose, he opened a correspondence with a trusty young bookseller named Hill, till lately the factotum of Creech, but now in business for himself. During his negotiations with Creech, Burns, while always feeling less and less favourably affected to the principal, had at the same time become more and more attached to the subaltern, by reason of his pleasant manners and geniality of nature. He now, therefore, regarded Hill as his bookseller for Edinburgh.

TO MR PETER HILL.

ELLISLAND, 2d April 1789.

I will make no excuse, my dear Bibliopolus (God forgive me for murdering language!), that I have sat down to write you on this vile paper, stained with the sanguinary scores of 'thae cursed horse-leeches o' the Excise.'

It is economy, sir; it is that cardinal virtue, prudence; so I beg you will sit down, and either compose or borrow a panegyric. If you are going to borrow, apply to our friend Ramsay, for the

1 Mr David Ramsay, of the Edinburgh Courant.

Dr Moore's answer to this letter was as follows:

CLIFFORD STREET, 10th June 1789.

DEAR SIR-I thank you for the different communications you have made me of your occasional productions in manuscript; all of which have merit, and some of them merit of a different kind from what appears in the poems you have published. You ought carefully to preserve all your occasional productions, to correct and improve them at your leisure; and when you can select as many of these as will make a volume, publish it either at Edinburgh or London by subscription: on such an occasion it may be in my power, as it is very much in my inclination, to be of service to you.

If I were to offer an opinion, it would be, that in your future productions you should abandon the Scottish stanza and dialect, and adopt the measure and language of modern English poetry.

The stanza which you use in imitation of Christ Kirk on the Green, with the tiresome repetition of that day,' is fatiguing to English ears, and I should think not very agreeable to Scottish.

6

All the fine satire and humour of your Holy Fair is lost on the English; yet, without more trouble to yourself, you could have conveyed the whole to them. The same is true of some of your other poems. In your Epistle to J. Smith, the stanzas from that beginning with this line, This life, so far's I understand,' to that which ends with, Short while it grieves,' are easy, flowing, gaily philosophical, and of Horatian elegance-the language is English, with a few Scottish words, and some of those so harmonious as to add to the beauty; for what poet would not prefer gloaming to twilight?

I imagine that, by carefully keeping, and occasionally polishing and correcting those verses which the Muse dictates, you will within a year or two have another volume as large as the first ready for the press; and this without diverting you from every proper attention to the study and practice of husbandry, in which I understand you are very learned, and which I fancy you will choose to adhere to as a wife, while poetry amuses you from time to time as a mistress. The former, like a prudent wife, must not shew ill-humour although you retain a sneaking kindness to this agreeable gipsy, and pay her occasional visits, which in no manner alienates your heart from your lawful spouse, but tends, on the contrary, to promote her interest.

I desired Mr Cadell to write to Mr Creech to send you a copy of Zeluco. This performance has had great success here; but I shall be glad to have your opinion of it, because I value your opinion, and because I know you are above saying what you do not think.

I beg you will offer my best wishes to my very good friend, Mrs Hamilton, who, I understand, is your neighbour. If she is as

happy as I wish her, she is happy enough. Make my compliments also to Mrs Burns; and believe me to be, with sincere esteem, dear sir, yours, &c.

TO MR WILLIAM BURNS.

ISLE, 25th March 1789.

I have stolen from my corn-sowing this minute to write a line to accompany your shirt and hat, for I can no more. Write me every opportunity-never mind postage. My head, too, is as addle as an egg this morning with dining abroad yesterday. I received yours by the mason. Forgive this foolish-looking scrawl of an epistle. I am ever, my dear William, yours, R. B.

P. S.-If you are not then gone from Longtown, I'll write you a long letter by this day se'ennight. If you should not succeed in your tramps, don't be dejected, or take any rash step-return to us in that case, and we will court Fortune's better humour. Remember

this, I charge you.

It is a most creditable fact in Burns's life, that long before the time when the intellectual improvement of the humbler classes had become a national movement, he exerted himself to the utmost in that cause, as far as his own locality was concerned. Already, under the care of Captain Riddel and that of the poet, a parish library was about to be established in their neighbourhood. Burns took the trouble of selecting and purchasing books. For this purpose, he opened a correspondence with a trusty young bookseller named Hill, till lately the factotum of Creech, but now in business for himself. During his negotiations with Creech, Burns, while always feeling less and less favourably affected to the principal, had at the same time become more and more attached to the subaltern, by reason of his pleasant manners and geniality of nature. He now, therefore, regarded Hill as his bookseller for Edinburgh.

TO MR PETER HILL.

ELLISLAND, 2d April 1789.

I will make no excuse, my dear Bibliopolus (God forgive me for murdering language!), that I have sat down to write you on this vile paper, stained with the sanguinary scores of 'thae cursed horse-leeches o' the Excise.'

It is economy, sir; it is that cardinal virtue, prudence; so I beg you will sit down, and either compose or borrow a panegyric. If you are going to borrow, apply to our friend Ramsay, for the

1 Mr David Ramsay, of the Edinburgh Courant.

assistance of the author of the pretty little buttering paragraphs of eulogium on your thrice-honoured and never-enough-to-be-praised MAGISTRACY-how they hunt down a housebreaker with the sanguinary perseverance of a blood-hound-how they outdo a terrier in a badger-hole in unearthing a resetter of stolen goods-how they steal on a thoughtless troop of night-nymphs as a spaniel winds the unsuspecting covey-or how they riot over a ravaged as a cat does o'er a plundered mouse-nest-how they new vamp old churches, aiming at appearances of piety; plan squares and colleges, to pass for men of taste and learning, &c. &c. &c.; while Old Edinburgh, like the doting mother of a parcel of rakehelly prodigals, may sing Hoolly and fairly, or cry Wae's me that e'er I saw ye! but still must put her hand in her pocket, and pay whatever scores the young dogs think proper to contract.

I was going to say-but this parenthesis has put me out of breath-that you should get that manufacturer of the tinselled crockery of magistratial reputations, who makes so distinguished and distinguishing a figure in the Evening Courant, to compose, or rather to compound, something very clever on my remarkable frugality; that I write to one of my most esteemed friends on this wretched paper, which was originally intended for the venal fist of some drunken exciseman, to take dirty notes in a miserable vault of an ale-cellar.

O Frugality! thou mother of ten thousand blessings-thou cook of fat beef and dainty greens! thou manufacturer of warm Shetland hose and comfortable surtouts! thou old housewife, darning thy decayed stockings with thy ancient spectacles on thy aged noselead me, hand me in thy clutching palsied fist, up those heights and through those thickets hitherto inaccessible and impervious to my anxious, weary feet-not those Parnassian crags, bleak and barren, where the hungry worshippers of fame are breathless, clambering, hanging between heaven and hell, but those glittering cliffs of Potosi, where the all-sufficient, all-powerful deity, Wealth, holds his immediate court of joys and pleasures; where the sunny exposure of Plenty, and the hot walls of Profusion, produce those blissful fruits of Luxury, exotics in this world, and natives of paradise! Thou withered sibyl, my sage conductress, usher me into thy refulgent, adored presence! The power, splendid and potent as he now is, was once the puling nursling of thy faithful care and tender arms! Call me thy son, thy cousin, thy kinsman, or favourite, and adjure the god by the scenes of his infant years no longer to repulse me as a stranger or an alien, but to favour me with his peculiar countenance and protection! He daily bestows his greatest kindness on the undeserving and the worthless--assure him that I bring ample documents of meritorious demerits! Pledge yourself for me, that, for the glorious cause of lucre, I will do anything, be anything but the horse-leech of private oppression, or the vulture of public robbery!