the cordial of the human heart, and I endeavour to cherish it as well as I can.

Let me hear from you as soon as convenient. Your work is a great one; and now that it is finished, I see, if we were to begin again, two or three things that might be mended; yet I will venture to prophesy, that to future ages your publication will be the text-book and standard of Scottish song and music.

I am ashamed to ask another favour of you, because you have been so very good already; but my wife has a very particular friend of hers, a young lady who sings well, to whom she wishes to present the Scots Musical Museum. If you have a spare copy, will you be so obliging as to send it by the very first fly, as I am anxious to have it soon? Yours ever, R. B.

On the day of the date of this letter, Burns was removed to Brow, a sea-bathing hamlet on the Solway, in the hope of improvement from bathing, country quarters, and riding.

[TO MR GEORGE THOMSON.

BROW, 4th July.

MY DEAR SIR-I received your songs; but my health is so precarious, nay, dangerously situated, that as a last effort I am here at sea-bathing quarters. Besides my inveterate rheumatism, my appetite is quite gone, and I am so emaciated as to be scarce able to support myself on my own legs. Alas! is this a time for me to woo the Muses? However, I am still anxiously willing to serve your work, and, if possible, shall try. I would not like to see another employed, unless you could lay your hand upon a poet whose productions would be equal to the rest. You will see my remarks and alterations on the margin of each song. My address is still Dumfries. Farewell, and God bless you! R. BURNS.]

The handwriting of the above is smaller and less steady than the other letters-like the writing of one who, in the interval, had become an old man.

Mrs Walter Riddel, being likewise in poor health, was now living at a place not far from the village, and hearing of Burns's arrival, she invited him to dinner, and sent her carriage to bring him to her house, for he was unable to walk. I was struck,' says this

In this humble and delicate manner did poor Burns ask for a copy of a work of which he was principally the founder, and to which he had contributed, gratuitously, not less than 184 original, altered, and collected songs! The editor has seen 180 transcribed by his own hand for the Museum.-CROMEK.

lady in a confidential letter to a friend written soon after, 'with his appearance on entering the room. The stamp of death was imprinted on his features. He seemed already touching the brink of eternity. His first salutation was: "Well, madam, have you any commands for the other world?" I replied, that it seemed a doubtful case which of us should be there soonest, and that I hoped he would yet live to write my epitaph. He looked in my face with an air of great kindness, and expressed his concern at seeing me look so ill, with his accustomed sensibility. At table, he ate little or nothing, and he complained of having entirely lost the tone of his stomach. We had a long and serious conversation about his present situation, and the approaching termination of all his earthly prospects. He spoke of his death without any of the ostentation of philosophy, but with firmness as well as feeling, as an event likely to happen very soon, and which gave him concern chiefly from leaving his four children so young and unprotected, and his wife in so interesting a situation-in hourly expectation of lying-in of a fifth. He mentioned, with seeming pride and satisfaction, the promising genius of his eldest son, and the flattering marks of approbation he had received from his teachers, and dwelt particularly on his hopes of that boy's future conduct and merit. His anxiety for his family seemed to hang heavy upon him, and the more perhaps from the reflection, that he had not done them all the justice he was so well qualified to do. Passing from this subject, he shewed great concern about the care of his literary fame, and particularly the publication of his posthumous works. He said he was well aware that his death would occasion some noise, and that every scrap of his writing would be revived against him to the injury of his future reputation: that letters and verses written with unguarded and improper freedom, and which he earnestly wished to have buried in oblivion, would be handed about by idle vanity or malevolence, when no dread of his resentment would restrain them, or prevent the censures of shrill-tongued malice, or the insidious sarcasms of envy, from pouring forth all their venom to blast his fame.

He lamented that he had written many epigrams on persons against whom he entertained no enmity, and whose characters he should be sorry to wound; and many indifferent poetical pieces, which he feared would now, with all their imperfections on their head, be thrust upon the world. On this account, he deeply regretted having deferred to put his papers in a state of arrangement, as he was now quite incapable of the exertion.' The lady

goes on to mention many other topics of a private nature on which he spoke. The conversation,' she adds, 'was kept up with great evenness and animation on his side. I had seldom seen his mind greater or more collected. There was frequently a considerable degree of vivacity in his sallies, and they would probably have had a greater share, had not the concern and dejection I could not disguise damped the spirit of pleasantry he seemed not unwilling to indulge.

'We parted about sunset on the evening of that day (the 5th of July 1796): the next day I saw him again, and we parted to meet no more!

TO MR CUNNINGHAM.

BROW, Sea-bathing Quarters, 7th July 1796. MY DEAR CUNNINGHAM-I received yours here this moment, and am indeed highly flattered with the approbation of the literary circle you mention a literary circle inferior to none in the two kingdoms. Alas! my friend, I fear the voice of the bard will soon be heard among you no more. For these eight or ten months, I have been ailing, sometimes bedfast, and sometimes not: but these last three months I have been tortured with an excruciating rheumatism, which has reduced me to nearly the last stage. You actually would not know me if you saw me. Pale, emaciated, and so fecble as occasionally to need help from my chair-my spirits fled! fled!but I can no more on the subject; only the medical folks tell me that my last and only chance is bathing, and country quarters, and riding. The deuce of the matter is this: when an exciseman is off duty, his salary is reduced to £35 instead of £50. What way, in the name of thrift, shall I maintain myself, and keep a horse in country quarters, with a wife and five children at home, on £35? I mention this, because I had intended to beg your utmost interest, and that of all the friends you can muster, to move our Commissioners of Excise to grant me the full salary; I daresay you know them all personally. If they do not grant it me, I must lay my account with an exit truly en poëte-if I die not of discase, I must perish with hunger.

I have sent you one of the songs; the other my memory does not serve me with, and I have no copy here; but I shall be at home soon, when I will send it you. Apropos to being at home: Mrs Burns threatens in a week or two to add one more to my paternal charge, which, if of the right gender, I intend shall be introduced to the world by the respectable designation of Alexander Cunningham Burns. My last was James Glencairn, so you can have no objection to the company of nobility. Farewell! R. B.

TO MR GILBERT BURNS.

[Sunday], 10th July 1796.

DEAR BROTHER-It will be no very pleasing news to you to be told that I am dangerously ill, and not likely to get better. An inveterate rheumatism has reduced me to such a state of debility, and my appetite is so totally gone, that I can scarcely stand on my legs. I have been a week at sea-bathing, and I will continue there, or in a friend's house in the country, all the summer. God keep my wife and children; if I am taken from their head, they will be poor indeed. I have contracted one or two serious debts, partly from my illness these many months, partly from too much thoughtlessness as to expense when I came to town, that will cut in too much on the little I leave them in your hands. Remember me to my mother. Yours,

R. B.

For several months, Mrs Dunlop had maintained an obstinate silence towards Burns, notwithstanding his having frequently addressed her. The cause has not been explained, but may be surmised. The unfortunate poet now wrote to her for the last time.

TO MRS DUNLO P.

BROW, 12th July 1796.

MADAM-I have written you so often, without receiving any answer, that I would not trouble you again, but for the circumstances in which I am. An illness which has long hung about me, in all probability will speedily send me beyond that bourn whence no traveller returns. Your friendship, with which for many years you honoured me, was a friendship dearest to my soul. Your conversation, and especially your correspondence, were at once highly entertaining and instructive. With what pleasure did I use to break up the seal! The remembrance yet adds one pulse more to my poor palpitating heart. Farewell!!!

R. B.

Dr Currie states, that Burns had the pleasure of receiving an explanation of Mrs Dunlop's silence, and an assurance of the continuance of her friendship to his widow and children; but though her friendly attentions to the latter are undoubted, it was Mrs Burns's constant assertion, that there must have been a mistake as to her husband having received an explanation of Mrs Dunlop's silence in any form.

After a few days, sea-bathing seemed to have in some degree eased the pains of our bard, so that he once more began to entertain hopes of life. At this crisis, a sad stroke fell upon him,

in the form of a letter from a Dumfries solicitor, urging payment of an account, now ascertained to have amounted to £7, 4s., due, or overdue, to a draper for his volunteer uniform. It was generally believed of this tradesman by his contemporaries, that he would never have harassed the poor poet for the debt; indeed, it has been represented, that Mr Williamson (for such was his name)' had placed this and some other overdue accounts in the solicitor's hands, merely because it seemed the most convenient mode of collecting them; and it is the report of Burns's eldest son, that the letter addressed by Mr Matthew Penn to Burns, did not contain any threatening expressions. In Scotland, however, a letter from a writer is generally regarded as a menacing step on the part of a creditor; and so did it appear on the present occasion to Burns, whose mind was too gloomy and excitable to take calm views on any such matter. Struck with terror lest the worst extremities should be proceeded to, he bethought him of two friends who might be appealed to for the means of averting so dire a calamity.

TO MR JAMES BURNES,

WRITER, MONTROSE.

DUMFRIES, 12th July.

MY DEAR COUSIN-When you offered me money assistance, little did I think I should want it so soon. A rascal of a haberdasher, to whom I owe a considerable bill, taking it into his head that I am dying, has commenced a process against me, and will infallibly put my emaciated body into jail. Will you be so good as to accommodate me, and that by return of post, with ten pounds? Oh, James! did you know the pride of my heart, you would feel doubly for me! Alas! I am not used to beg. The worst of it is, my health was coming about finely. You know, and my physician assured me, that melancholy and low spirits are half my diseaseguess, then, my horrors since this business began. If I had it settled, I would be, I think, quite well in a manner. How shall I use the language to you-oh, do not disappoint me! but strong Necessity's curst command.

I have been thinking over and over my brother's affairs, and I fear I must cut him up; but on this I will correspond at another time, particularly as I shall [require] your advice.

1 Burns had been a debtor to Williamson on previous occasions, and does not appear to have been prompt in his payments. In March 1794, Messrs Brown and Williamson, clothiers, announced to Burns that they were dissolving their copartnery, and collecting the debts due to it. They enclosed an account for a balance of £7, 9s., due by him since the beginning of the preceding year.