transcribe for you a stanza of an old Scottish this affair, if I succeed, I am afraid I shall but ballad, called The Life and Age of Man, be- too much need a patronizing friend. Propriety ginning thus, "'Twas in the sixteenth hunder year Of God and fifty three, Frae Christ was born, that bought us dear, of conduct as a man, and fidelity and attention as an officer, I dare engage for; but with any thing like business, except manual labour, I am totally unacquainted. 1 had an old grand-uncle, with whom my I had intended to have closed my late apmother lived a while in her girlish years; the pearance on the stage of life, in the character good old man, for such he was, was long blind of a country farmer; but after discharging ere he died, during which time, his highest en-some filial and fraternal claims, I find I could joyment was to sit down and cry, while only fight for existence in that miserable manther would sing the simple old song of The life ner, which I have lived to see throw a venera and Age of Man. ble parent into the jaws of a jail; whence death, the poor man's last and often best friend, rescu my mo It is this way of thinking-it is those melancholy truths, that make religion so precious to the poor, miserable children of men-If it is a mere phantom, existing only in the heated imagination of enthusiasm, "What truth on earth so precious as the lie!" ed him. I know, Sir, that to need your goodness is to have a claim on it; may I therefore beg your patronage to forward me in this affuir, till I be appointed to a division, where, by the help of rigid economy, I will try to support that inde pendence so dear to my soul, but which has My idle reasonings sometimes make me a lit-been too often so distant from my situation. tle sceptical, but the necessities of my heart al ways give the cold philosophizings the lie. Who looks for the heart weaned from earth; WHEN nature her great master-piece designed, the soul affianced to her God; the correspon- And fram'd her last, best work, the human mind, dence fixed with heaven; the pious supplica-Her eye intent on all the mazy plan, tion and devout thanksgiving, constant as the She form'd of various parts the various man. vicissitudes of even and morn; who thinks to meet with these in the court, the palace, in the glare of public life? No: to find them in their precious importance and divine efficacy, we must search among the obscure recesses of disappointment, affliction, poverty, and distress. : I am sure, dear Madam, you are now more than pleased with the length of my letters. I return to Ayrshire, middle of next week and it quickens my pace to think that there will be a letter from you waiting me there. I must be here again very soon for my harvest. No. XCIII. гo R. GRAHAM, OF FINTRY, Esq. AR, WHEN I had the honour of being introduced to you at Athole-house, I did not think so soon of asking a favour of you. When Lear, in Shakspeare, asks old Kent, why he wished to be in his service, he answers," Because you have that in your face which I could like to call master." For some such reason, Sir, do I now solicit your patronage. You know, I dare say, of an application I lately made to your Board to be admitted an officer of excise. have, according to form, been examined by a supervisor, and to-day I gave in his certificate, with a request for an order for instructions. In Then first she calls the useful many forth; Law, physics, politics, and deep divines : The order'd system fair before her stood, A mortal quite unfit for fortune's strife, But honest Nature is not quite a Turk, To lay strong hold for help on bounteous Gra- Pity the tuneful muses' hapless train, boon. The world were bless'd, did bless on them depend, Ah, that "the friendly e'er should want a friend!" Though, thanks to heaven, I dare even that last I trust, meantime, my boon is in thy gift: No. XCIV. TO MR. BEUGO, ENGRAVER, EDINBURGH. MY DEAR SIR, Ellisland, Sept. 9, 1798. THERE is not in Edinburgh above the number of the graces whose letters would have given me so much pleasure as yours of the 3d instant, which only reached me yesternight. I am here on my farm, busy with my harvest; but for all that most pleasurable part of life called SOCIAL COMMUNICATION, I am here at the very elbow of existence. The only things that are to be found in this country in any degree of perfection, are stupidity and canting. Prose, they only know in graces, prayers, &c. and the value of these they estimate as they do their plaiding webs-by the ell! As for the muses, they have as much an idea of a rhinoceros as of a poct. For my old capricious but Let prudence number o'er each sturdy son, good? By banks of Nith I sat and wept When Coila I thought on, In midst thereof I hung my harp The willow trees upon. I am generally about half my time in Ayrshire with my darling Jean," and then I, at lucid intervals, throw my horny fist across my becobwebbed lyre, much in the same manner as an old wife throws her hand across the spokes of her spinning wheel. I well send you "The Fortunate Shepherdess" as soon as I return to Ayrshire, for there keep it with other precious treasure. I snar send it by a careful hand, as I would not for I do any thing it should be mislaid or lost. not wish to serve you from any benevolence, or other grave Christian virtue; 'tis purely a selfish gratification of my own feelings whenever I think of you. Ye wise ones, hence! ye hurt the social eye! If your better functions would give you le sure to write me I should be extremely happy; that is to say, if you neither keep nor look for a This is our poet's first epistle to Graham of Fintry. It is not equal to the second, but it contains too much of the characteristic vigour of its author to be suppressed. A little more knowledge of natural histo ry or of chemistry was wanted to enable him to execute the original conception correctly. regular correspondence. I hate the idea of being able phrase, are indeed but lighter and deeper obliged to write a letter. I sometimes write a shades of VILLAINY. friend twice a week, at other times ouce a quarter. I am exceedingly pleased with your fancy in making the author you mention place a map of Iceland instead of his portrait before his works: 'Twas a glorious idea. No. XCV. TO MISS CHALMERS, EDINBURGH. Shortly after my last return to Ayrshire, I married " my Jean." This was not in conse quence of the attachment of romance perhaps ; but I had a long and much-loved fellow-creature's happiness or misery in my determination, and I durst not trifle with so important a depo Could you conveniently do me one thing-sit. Nor have I any cause to repent it. If I Whenever you finish any head I could like to have not got polite tattle, modish manners, and have a proof copy of it. I might tell you a fashionable dress, I am not sickened and disgustlong story about your fine genius; but as what ed with the multiform curse of boarding-school every body knows cannot have escaped you, I affectation; and I have got the handsomest fishall not say one syllable about it. gure, the sweetest temper, the soundest constitution, and the kindest heart in the county. Mrs. Burns believes, as firmly as her creed, that I am le plus bel esprit, et le plus honnete homme in the universe; although she scarcely ever in her life, except the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, and the Psalms of David in metre, spent five minutes together on either prose or verse. I must except also from this last, a certain late publication of Scots poems, which she has perused very devoutly; and a!! the ballads in the country, as she has ( the partial lover! you will cry) the finest "woodnote wild" I ever heard.-I am the more particular in this lady's character, as I know she. I will henceforth have the honour of a share in your best wishes. She is still at Mauchline, as I am building my house; for this hovel that I shelter in, while occasionally here, is pervious to every blast that blows, and every shower that "My heart is not of that rock, nor my soul falls; and I am only preserved from being chillcareless as that sea." I do not make my pro-ed to death, by being suffocated with smoke. I gress among mankind as a bowl does among its do not find my farm that pennyworth I was fellows-rolling through the crowd without taught to expect, but I believe, in time, it may bearing away any mark or impression, except be a saving bargain. You will be pleased to where they hit in hostile collision. hear that I have laid aside idle eclat, and bind every day after my reapers. Ellisland, near Dumfries, Sept. 16, 1788. WHERE are you? and how are you? and is Lady M'Kenzie recovering her health? for I have had but one solitary letter from you. I will not think you have forgot me, Madam; and for my part "When thee Jerusalem I forget, Skill part from my right hand!" To save me from that horrid situation of at any time going down, in a losing bargain of a farm, to misery, I have taken my excise instructions, and have my commission in my pocket for any emergency of fortune. If I could set all before your view, whatever disrespect you in common with the world, have for this business, I know you would approve of my idea. I am here, driven in with my harvest-folks by bad weather; and as you and your sister once did me the honour of interesting yourselves much a l'egard de moi, I sit down to beg the continuation of your goodness.—I can truly say that, all the exterior of life apart, I never saw two, whose esteem flattered the nobler feelings of my soul-I will not say, more, but, so much as Lady M'Kenzie and Miss Chalmers. When I think of you-hearts the best, minds the noblest, I will make no apology, dear Madam, for this of human kind-unfortunate, even in the shades egotistic detail: I know you and your sister of life-when I think I have met with you, and will be interested in every circumstance of it. have lived more of real life with you in eight What signify the silly, idle gewgaws of wealth, days, than I can do with almost any body I meet or the ideal trumpery of greatness! When felwith in eight years-when I think on the im-low partakers of the same nature fear the same probability of meeting you in this world again God, have the same benevolence of heart, the I could sit down and cry like a child!If same nobleness of soul, the same detestation at ever you honoured me with a place in your esteem, I trust I can now plead more desert.I am secure against that crushing grip of iron poverty, which, alas! is less or more fatal to the native worth and purity of, I fear, the noblest souls; and a late, important step in my life has kindly taken me out of the way of those un. When I may have an opportunity of sending grateful iniquities, which, however overlooked you this, Heaven only knows. Shenstone says, in fashionable license, or varnished in fashion-" When one is confined idle within doors by bad every thing dishonest, and the same scorn every thing unworthy-if they are not in the dependance of absolute beggary, in the name of common sense are they not EQUALS? And if the bias, the instinctive bias of their souls run the same way, why may they not be FRIENDS? weather, the best antidote against ennui is, to than once; but scarce.y ever with more plea read the letters of, or write to one's friends;" in that case then, if the weather continues thus, I may scrawl you half a quire. sure than when I received yours of the 12th instant. To make myself understood; I had wrote to Mr. Graham, enclosing my poem adI very lately, to wit, since harvest began, dressed to him, and the same post which fawrote a poem, not in imitation, but in the man-voured me with yours, brought me an answer ner of Pope's Moral Epistles. It is only a short from him. It was dated the very day he had essay, just to try the strength of my Muse's pi- received mine; and I am quite at a loss to say nion in that way. I will send you a copy of it, whether it was most polite or kind. when once I have heard from you. I have likewise been laying the foundation of some pretty large poetic works: how the superstructure will come on I leave to that great maker and marrer of projects-TIME. Johnson's collection of Scots songs is going on in the third volume; and of consequence finds me a consumpt for a great deal of idle metre.-One of the most tolerable things I have done in that way, is, two stanzas that I made to an air, a musical gentle man of my acquaintance composed for the anniversary of his wedding-day, which happens on the seventh of November. Take it as follows: The day returns my bosom burns, I shall give over this letter for shame. If I should be seized with a scribbling fit, before this goes away, I shall make it another letter; and then you may allow your patience a week's respite between the two. I have not room for more than the old, kind, hearty, FAREWELL ! To make some amends, mes cheres Mesdames, for dragging you on to this second sheet; and to relieve a little the tiresomeness of my unstudied and uncorrectible prose, I shall transcribe you some of my late poetic bagatelles; though I have, these eight or ten months, done very little that way. One day, in an hermitage on the banks of Nith, belonging to a gentleman in my neighbourhood, who is so good as give me a key at pleasure, I wrote as follows; supposing myself the sequestered, venerable inhabitant of the lonely mansion. (Lines written in Friar's Carse Hermitage.†) Your criticisms, my honoured benefactress, are truly the work of a friend. They are not the blasting depredations of a canker-toothed, caterpillar critic; nor are they the fair statement of cold impartiality, balancing with unfeeling exactitude, the pro and con of an author's merits; they ate the judicious observations of animated friendship, selecting the beauties of the piece. I have just arrived from Nithsdale, and will be here a fortnight. I was on horseback this morning by three o'clock; for between my wife and my farm is just fortysix miles. As I jogged on in the dark, I was taken with a poetic fit, as follows: "Mrs. F- of C's lamentation for the death of her son; an uncommonly promising youth of eighteen or nineteen years of age." (Here follow the verses, entitled, "A Mother's Lament for the Loss of her Son.") You will not send me your poetic rambles, but, you see, I am no niggard of mine. I am sure your impromptu's give me double plessure; what falls from your pen, can neither be unentertaining in itself, nor indifferent to me. The one fault you found, is just; but I cannot please myself in an emendation. What a life of solicitude is the life of a parent! You interested me much in your young couple. I would not take my folio paper for this epistle, and now I repent it. I am so jaded with my dirty long journey that I was afraid to drawl into the essence of dulness with any thing larger than a quarto, and so I must leave out another rhyme of this morning's manufacture. I will pay the sapientipotent George most cheerfully, to hear from you ere I leave Ayrshire. No. XCVI. TO MRS. DUNLOP, OF DUNLOP. Mauchline, 27th Sept. 1788. Captain Riddel of Glenriddel. No. XCVII. TO MR. P. HILL. The poetic temperament is ever predisposed to Mauchline, 1st October, 1788. sensations of the "horrible and awful." Burns, in returning from his visits at Glenriddel to his farm at I HAVE been here in this country about three Ellisland, had to pass through a little wild wood in days, and all that time my chief reading has which stood the Hermitage. When the night was been the "Address to Loch Lomond," you dark and dreary it was his custom generally to solicit an additional parting glass to fortify his spirits and were so obliging as to send to me. keep up his courage. This was related by a lady, a pannelled one of the author's jury, to determine near relation of Captain Riddel's, who had frequent his criminality respecting the sin of poesy, my opportunities of seeing this salutary practice exeinpli verdict should be " guilty! A poet of Nature's fied. Were I im Beneath the beaming sun," making!" It is an excellent method for im- pathless top," is a good expression; and the provement, and what I believe every poet does, surrounding view from it is truly great; the to place some favourite classic author, in his own walks of study and composition, before him, "Silver mist, as a model. Though your author had not mentioned the name, I could have, at half a glance, guessed his model to be Thomson. Will my brother poet forgive me, if I venture to hint, that his imitation of that immortal bard, is in two or three places rather more servile than such a genius as his required.-e. g. To soothe the madding passions all to peace, To soothe the throbbing passions into peace, is well described; and here, he has contrived to enliven his poem with a little of that passion which bids fair, I think, to usurp the modern muses altogether. I know not how far this episode is a beauty upon the whole, but the swain's wish to carry "some faint idea of the vision bright," to entertain her "partial listening ear," is a pretty thought. But, in my opinion, the most beautiful passages in the whole poem, are the fowls crowding, in wintry frosts, to Loch Lomond's " hospitable flood;" their wheeling round, their lighting, mixing, diving, &c. and I think the Address is, in simplicity, har- the glorious description of the sportsman. This mony, and elegance of versification, fully equal last is equal to any thing in the Seasons. The to the Seasons. Like Thomson, too, he has idea of "the floating tribes distant seem, far looked into nature for himself: you meet with glistering to the moon," provoking his eye as he no copied description. One particular criti-is obliged to leave them, is a noble ray of poetic cism I made at first reading: in no one instance genius. "The howling winds," the " hideous has he said too much. He never flags in his roar" of "the white cascades," are all in the progress, but like a true poet of Nature's mak- same style. ing, kindles in his course. His beginning is I forget that while I am thus holding forth, simple, and modest, as if distrustful of the with the heedless warmth of an enthusiast, I strength of his pinion; only, I do not altoge-am perhaps tiring you with nonsense. I must, ther like "Truth, The soul of every song that's nobly great." Fiction is the soul of many a song that is nobly great. Perhaps I am wrong: this may be but a prose criticism. Is not the phrase, in line 7, page 6, "Great lake," too much vulgarized by every-day language, for so sublime a poem ? "Great mass of waters, theme for nobler song," is perhaps no emendation. His enumeration of a comparison with other lakes, is at once harmonious and poetic. Every reader's ideas must sweep the "Winding margin of an hundred miles." however, mention, that the last verse of the sixteenth page is one of the most elegant compliments I have ever seen. I must likewise notice that beautiful paragraph, beginning, "The gleaming lake," &c. I dare not go into the particular beauties of the two last paragraphs, but they are admirably fine, and truly Ossianic. I must beg your pardon for this lengthened scrawl. I had no idea of it when I began-I should like to know who the author is; but, whoever he be, please present him with my grateful thanks for the entertainment he has afforded me. A friend of mine desired me to commission for him two books, Letters on the Religion essential to Man, a book you sent me before; and, The World Unmasked, or the Philosopher the greatest Cheat. Send me them by the first opportunity. The Bible you sent me is truly The perspective that follows mountains blue-elegant; I only wish it had been in two volumes. the imprisoned billows beating in vain-the wooded isles-the digression on the yew-tree"Ben Lomond's lofty cloud-enveloped head," &c. are beautiful. A thunder-storm is a subject | which has been often tried, yet our poet, in his grand picture, has interjected a circumstance, so far as I know, entirely original: "The gloom Deep seam'd with frequent streaks of moving fire." In his preface to the storm, "the glens how dark between," is noble highland landscape! The "rain plowing the red mould," too, is beautifully fancied. Ben Lomond's "lofty, No. XCVIII. TO MRS. DUNLOP, AT MOREHAM |