ed to me a terrible combination. I close my eyes in misery, and open them without hope. I look on the vernal day, and say with poor Fergusson

"Say wherefore has an indulgent heaven Light to the comfortless and wretched given ?"

This will be delivered to you by a Mrs Hyslop, landlady of the Globe tavern here, which for these many years has been my howf, and where our friend Clarke and I have had many a merry squeeze. I am highly delighted with Mr Allan's etchings. "Woo'd and married and a'" is admirable! The grouping is beyond all praise. The expression of the figures, conformable to the story in the ballad, is absolutely faultless perfection. I next admire "Turnimspike." What I like least is, "Jenny said to Jockie." Besides the female being in her appearance・・・・・ if you take her stooping into the account, she is at least two inches taller than her lover. Poor Cleghorn! I sincerely sympathize with him! Happy I am to think that he has a well-grounded hope of health and enjoyment in this world. As for me-but that is a subject!

CHORUS.

Here's a health to ane I lo'e dear,
Here's a health to ane I lo'e dear;
Thou art sweet as the smile when fond lovers
meet,

And soft as the parting tear-Jessie!

Although thou maun never be mine,
Although even hope is denied!
'Tis sweeter for thee despairing
Than aught in the world beside-Jessie!
Here's a health, &c.

I mourn thro' the gay, gaudy day,
As, hopeless, I muse on thy charms;
But welcome the dream o' sweet slumber,
For then I am lock't in thy armis-Jessie !
Here's a healta, &c.

I guess by the dear angel smile,
I guess by the love-rolling e'e;
But why urge the tender confession
'Gainst fortune's fell cruel decree-Jessie!
Here's a health, &c. *

No. LXXXVI.

MR THOMSON to MR BURNS.

4th May, 1796.

I NEED not tell you, my good sir, what concern the receipt of your last gave me, and how much I sympathize in your sufferings. But do not, I beseech you, give yourself up to despondency, nor speak the language of despair. The vigour of your constitution, I trust, will soon set you on your feet again; and then, it is to be hoped, you will see the wisdom and the necessity of taking due care of a life so valuable to your family, to your friends, and to

the world.

Trusting that your next will bring agreeable accounts of your convalescence, and returning good spirits, I remain, with sincere regard, yours.

P. S.-Mrs Hyslop, I doubt not, delivered the gold seal to you in good condition.

No. LXXXVII.

MR BURNS to MR THOMSON.
MY DEAR SIR,

I ONCE mentioned to you an air which I have long admired, "Here's a health to them that's awa, hiney," but I forget if you took any notice of it. I have just been trying to suit it with verses; and I beg leave to recommend the air to your attention once more. I have only begun it.

No. LXXXVIII.

MR BURNS to MR THOMSON. THIS will be delivered by a Mr Lewars, a young fellow of uncommon merit. As he will be a day or two in town, you will have leisure, if you choose, to write me by him; and if you have a spare half hour to spend with him, I shall place your kindness to my account. I have no copies of the songs I have sent you, and I have taken a fancy to review them all, and possibly may mend some of them; so when you have complete leisure, I will thank you for either the originals, or copies.+ I had rather be the author of five well-written songs than of ten otherwise. I have great hopes that the genial influence of the approaching summer will set me to rights, but as yet I can. not boast of returning health. I have now reason to believe that my complaint is a flying gout: a sad business!

Do let me know how Cleghorn is, and remember me to him.

This should have been delivered to you a month ago. I am still very poorly, but should like much to hear from you.

* In the letter to Mr Thomson, the three first stanzas only are given, and Mr Thomson supposed our poet had never gone father. Among his MSS. was, however, found the fourth stanza, which completes this exquisite song, the last finished offspring of his muse.

+ It is needless to say, that this revisal Burna did not live to perform.

210

No. LXXXIX.

MR BURNS to MR THOMSON.

12th July, 1796.

AFTER all my boasted independence, curst necessity compels me to implore you for five pounds. A cruel・・・・ of a haberdasher, to whom I owe an account, taking it into his head that I am dying, has commenced a process, and will infallibly put me into jail. Do, for God's sake, send me that sum, and that by return of post. Forgive me this earnestness, but the horrors of a jail have made me half distracted. I do not ask all this gratuitously; for upon returning health, I hereby promise and engage to furnish you with five pounds worth of the neatest song genius you have seen. I tried my hand on Rothiemurchie" this morning. The measure is so difficult, that it is impossible to infuse much genius into the lines; they are on the other side. Forgive, forgive me!

SONG.

Tune-" Rothiemurchie." Fairest maid on Devon banks, Crystal Devon, winding Devon, Wilt thou lay that frown aside,

And smile as thou were wont to do.

Full well thou knowest I love thee dear,
Couldst thou to malice lend an ear!
O did not love exclaim, " Forbear!
Nor use a faithful lover so."
Fairest maid, &c.

Then come, thou fairest of the fair,
Those wonted smiles, O let me share;
And by that beauteous self I swear,
No love but thine my heart shall know.
Fairest maid, &c.*

* These verses, and the letter enclosing them, are

No. XC.

MR THOMSON to MR BURNS.

MY DEAR SIR, EVER since I received your melancholy letter 14th July, 1796. by Mrs Hyslop, I have been ruminating in what manner I could endeavour to alleviate your sufferings. Again and again I thought of a pecuniary offer, but the recollection of one of your letters on this subject, and the fear of offending your independent spirit, checked my for the frankness of your letter of the 12th, and resolution. I thank you heartily, therefore, with great pleasure inclose a draft for the very sum I proposed sending. Would I were the Chancellor of the Exchequer but for one day, for your sake.

to muster a volume of poetry? If too much Pray, my good sir, is it not possible for you trouble to you in the present state of your health, some literary friend might be found here, who would select and arrange from your manuscripts, and take upon him the task of Editor. In the meantime it could be advertised to be published by subscription? Do not shun this mode of obtaining the value of your labour; remember Pope published the Iliad by subscription. Think of this, my dear Burns, and do not reckon me intrusive with my advice. You are too well convinced of the respect and friendship I bear you, to impute any thing I say to an unworthy motive. Yours faithfully.

The verses to" Rothiemurchie" will answer finely. I am happy to see you can still tune your lyre.

written in a character that marks the very feeble state of their author. Mr Syme is of opinion that he could not have been in any danger of a jail at Dumfries, where certainly he had many firm friends, nor under any necessity of imploring aid from Edinburgh. But about this time his mind began to be at times unsettled, and the horrors of a jail perpetually haunted his imagination. He died on the 22d of this month.

DEAR SIR,

MOSSGIEL, 2d April, 1798. YOUR letter of the 14th of March I received in due course, but, from the hurry of the season, have been hitherto hindered from answering it. I will now try to give you what satisfaction I can in regard to the particulars you mention I cannot pretend to be very accurate in respect to the dates of the poems, but none of them, except Winter, a Dirge, (which was a juvenile production,) the Death and Dying Words of poor Mailie, and some of the songs, were composed before the year 1784. The circumstances of the poor sheep were pretty much as he has described them; he had, partly by way of frolic, bought a ewe and two lambs from a neighbour, and she was tethered in a field adjoining the house at Lochlie. He and I were 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.

Among the earliest of his poems was the Epistle to Davie. Robert often composed without any regular plan. When any thing made a strong impression on his mind, so as to rouse it to poetic exertion, he would give way to the impulse, and embody the thought in rhyme. If he hit on two or three stanzas to please him, he would then think of proper introductory, connecting, and concluding stan

zas; hence the middle of a poem was often first produced. It was, I think, in summer, 1784, when in the interval of harder labour, he and I were weeding in the garden (kailyard), that he repeated to me the principal part of this epistle. I believe the first idea of Robert's becoming an author was started on this occasion. I was much pleased with the epistle, and said to him I was of opinion it would bear being printed, and that it would be well received by people of taste; that I thought it at least equal, if not superior, to many of Allan Ramsay's epistles, and that the merit of these, and much other Scotch poetry, seemed to consist principally in the knack of the expression-but here, there was a strain or interesting sentiment, and the Scotticism of the language scarcely seemed affected, but appeared to be the natural language of the poet; that, besides, there was certainly some novelty in a poet pointing out the consolations that were in store for him when he should go a-begging. Robert seemed very well pleased with my criticism; and we talked of sending it to some magazine, but as this plan afforded no opportunity of knowing how it would take, the idea was dropped.

It was, I think, in the winter following, as we were going together with carts for coal to the family fire (and I could yet point out the particular spot), that the author first repeated to me the Address to the Deil. The curious idea of such an address was suggested to him, by running over in his mind the many ludicrous accounts and representations we have, from various quarters, of this august personage. Death and Dr Hornbook, though not published in the Kilmarnock edition, was produced early in the year 1785. The schoolmaster of Tarbolton parish, to eke up the scanty subsistence allowed to that useful class of men, had set up a shop of grocery goods. Having accidentally fallen in with some medical books, and become most hobby-horsically attached to the study of medicine, he had added the sale of a few medicines to his little trade. He had got a shop-bill printed, at the bottom of which, overlooking his own incapacity, he had advertised, that "Advice would be given in common disorders at the shop, gratis." Robert

Q

was at a mason-meeting, in Tarbolton, when the "Dominie" unfortunately made too ostentatious a display of his medical skill. As ne parted in the evening from this mixture of pedantry and physic, at the place where he describes his meeting with Death, one of those floating ideas of apparition, he mentions in his letter to Dr Moore, crossed his mind; this set him to work for the rest of the way home. These circumstances he related when he repeated the verses to me next afternoon, as I was holding the plough, and he was letting the water off the field beside me. The Epistle to John Lapraik was produced exactly on the occasion described by the author. He says in that poem, On fasten e'en he had a rockin' (p. 144). I believe he has omitted the word rocking in the glossary. It is a term derived from those primitive times, when the countrywomen employed their spare hours in spinning on the rock, or distaff. This simple instrument is a very portable one, and well fitted to the social inclination of meeting in a neighbour's house; hence the phrase of going a-rocking, or with the rock. As the connection the phrase had with the implement was forgotten when the rock gave way to the spinning-wheel, the phrase came to be used by both sexes on social occasions, and men talk of going with their rocks as well as women.

It was at one of these rockings at our house, when we had twelve or fifteen young people with their rocks, that Lapraik's song, beginning--"When I upon thy bosom lean," was sung, and we were informed who was the author. Upon this Robert wrote his first epistle to Lapraik; and his second in reply to his answer. The verses to the Mouse and Mountain Daisy were composed on the occasions mentioned, and while the author was holding the plough: I could point out the particular spot where each was composed. Holding the plough was a favourite situation with Robert for poetic compositions, and some of his best verses were produced while he was at that exercise. Several of the poems were produced for the purpose of bringing forward some favourite sentiment of the author. He used to remark to me, that he could not conceive a more mortifying picture of human life, than a man seeking work. In casting about in his mind how this sentiment might be brought forward, the elegy, Man was made to Mourn, was composed. Robert had frequently remarked to me, that he thought there was something peculiarly venerable in the phrase, "Let us worship God," used by a decent sober head of a family introducing family worship. To this sentiment of the author the world is indebted for the Cotter's Saturday Night. The hint of the plan, and title of the poem, were taken from Fergusson's Farmer's Ingle. When Robert had not some pleasure in view in which I was not thought fit to participate, we used frequently to walk together when the weather was favourable on the Sunday after

noons (those precious breathing-times to the labouring part of the community), and enjoyed such Sundays as would make one regret to see their number abridged. It was in one of these walks that I first had the pleasure of hearing the author repeat the Cotter's Saturday Night. I do not recollect to have read or heard any thing by which I was more highly electrified. The fifth and sixth stanzas, and the eighteenth, thrilled with peculiar ecstasy through my soul. I mention this to you, that you may see what hit the taste of unlettered criticism. I should be glad to know, if the enlightened mind and refined taste of Mr Roscoe, who has borne such honourable testimony to this poem, agrees with me in the selection. Fergusson, in his Hallow Fair of Edinburgh, I believe, likewise furnished a hint of the title and plan of the Holy Fair. The farcical scene the poet there describes was often a favourite field of his observation, and the most of the incidents he mentions had actually passed before his eyes. It is scarcely necessary to mention, that the Lament was composed on that unfortunate passage in his matrimonial history, which I have mentioned in my letter to Mrs Dunlop, after the first distraction of his feelings had a little subsided. The Tale of Twa Dogs was composed after the resolution of publishing was nearly taken. Robert had had a dog, which he called Luath, that was a great favourite. The dog had been killed by the wanton cruelty of some person the night before my father's death. Robert said to me, that he should like to confer such immortality as he could bestow upon his old friend Luath, and that he had a great mind to introduce something into the book under the title of Stanzas to the Memory of a quadruped Friend: but this plan was given up for the Tale as it now stands. Cæsar was merely the creature of the poet's imagination, created for the purpose of holding chat with his favourite Luath. The first time Robert heard the spinet played upon was at the house of Di Lawrie, then minister of the parish of Loudon now in Glasgow, having given up the parish in favour of his son. Dr Lawrie has several daughters; one of them played; the father and mother led down the dance; the rest of the sisters, the brother, the poet, and the other guests, mixed in it. It was a delightful family scene for our poet, then lately introduced to the world. His mind was roused to a poetic enthusiasm, and the stanzas, p. 125, were left in the room where he slept. It was to Dr Lawrie that Dr Blacklock's letter was addressed, which my brother, in his letter to Dr Moore, mentions as the reason of his going to Edinburgh.

When my father feued his little property near Alloway-Kirk, the wall of the church-yard had gone to ruin, and cattle bad free liberty of pasture in it. My father, with two or three other neighbours, joined in an application to the town council of Ayr, who were superiors