I was Your kind letter, with your kind remem-importance, Mr. G. can do rae service of the brance of your god-son, came safe. This last, utmost importance in time to come. Madam, is scarcely what my pride can bear. born a poor dog; and however I may occasionAs to the little fellow, he is, partiality apart, ally pick a better bone than I used to do, I the finest boy I have of a long time seen. He know I must live and die poor; but I will inis now seventeen inonths old, has the small-pox dulge the flattering faith that my poetry will and measles over, has cut several teeth, and yet considerably outlive my poverty; and without never had a grain of doctor's drugs in his any fustain affectation of spirit, I can promise and bowels. affirm, that it must be no ordinary craving of the latter shall ever make me do any thing injurious to the honest fame of the former. Whatever may be my failings, for failings are a part of human nature, may they ever be those of a generous heart, and an independent mind. It is no fault of mine that I was born to dependence; nor is it Mr. G. -'s chiefest praise that he can command influence; but it his merit to bestow, not only with the kindness of a brother, but with the politeness of a gentleman; and I trust it shall be mine, to receive with thankfulness and remember with undiminished gratitude. I am truly happy to hear that the "little floweret" is blooming so fresh and fair, and that the "mother plant" is rather recovering her drooping head. Soon and well may her "cruel wounds" be healed! I have written thus far with a good deal of difficulty. When I get a Little abler you shall hear farther from, Madam, yours, &c. No. CLXII. TO LADY W. M. CONSTABLE, ACKNOWLEDGING A PRESENT OF A VALUABLE MY LADY, NOTHING less than the unlucky accident of having lately broken my right arm, could have prevented me, the moment I received your ladyship's elegant present by Mrs. Miller, from returning you my warmest and most grateful acknowledgments. I assure your ladyship, I shall set it apart; the symbols of religion shall only be more sacred. In the moment of poetic composition, the box shall be my inspiring genius. When I would breathe the comprehensive wish of benevolence for the happiness of others, shall recollect your ladyship; when I would interest my fancy in the distresses incident to humanity, I shall remember the unfortunate Mary No. CLXIII. TO MRS. GRAHAM, OF FINTRY. MADAM, No. CLXIV. FROM THE REV. (NOW PRINCIPAL) SIR, London, 8th February, 1791. I TROUBLE you with this letter, to inform you that I am in hopes of being able very soon to bring to the press a new edition (long since talked of) of Michael Bruce's Poems. The profits of the edition are to go to his mothera woman of eighty years of age-poor and helpless. scription; and it may be possible, I think, to The poems are to be published by submake out a 2s. 6d. or 3s. volume, with the assistance of a few hitherto unpublished verses, which I have got from the mother of the poet. But the design I have in view in writing to you, is not merely to inform you of these facts, it is to solicit the aid of your name and pen in support of the scheme. The reputation of Bruce is already high with every reader of classical taste, and I shall be anxious to guard against tarnishing his character, by allowing any new poems to appear that may lower it. For this purpose, the MSS. I am in possession of, have been submitted to the revision of some whose critical talents I can trust to, and I mean still to submit them to others. WHETHER it is that the story of our Mary, Queen of Scots, has a peculiar effect on the May I beg to know, therefore, if you will feelings of a poet, or whether I have, in the en- take the trouble of perusing the MSS.-of givclosed ballad, succeeded beyond my usual poetic ing your opinion, and suggesting what curtailsuccess, I know not: but it has pleased me be- ments, alterations, or amendments, occur to you yond any effort of my muse for a good while as advisable? And will you allow us to let it be past; on that account I enclose it particularly known, that a few lines by you will be added to you. It is true, the purity of my motives to the volume? may be suspected. I am already deeply indebt- I know the extent of this request.-It is ed to Mr. G- -'s goodness; and, what in bold to make it. But I have this consolation, the usual ways of men, is of infinitely greater that though you see it proper to refuse it, you will not blame me for having maa see my apology in the motive. you will appellation), that by way of some balance, however trifling, in the account, I am fain to do any good that occurs in my very limited power to a fellow-creature, just for the selfish purpose of clearing a little the vista of retrospection. May I just add, that Michael Bruce is one in whose company, from his past appearance, you would not, I am convinced, blush to be found; and as I would submit every line of his that should now be published, to your own criticisms, you would be assured that nothing derogatory either to him or you, would be admitted in that appearance he may make in future. You have already paid an honourable tribute to kindred genius in Fergusson-I fondly hope that the mother of Bruce will experience your patronage. I wish to have the subscription papers circulated by the 14th of March, Bruce's birth-day; which, I understand, some friends in Scotland talk this year of observing-at that time it will be resolved, I imagine, to place a plain, humble stone over his grave. This, at least, I trust you will agree to do-to furnish, in a few couplets, an inscription for it. On those points may I solicit an answer as early as possible; a short delay might disappoint us in procuring that relief to the mother, which is the object of the whole. You will be pleased to address for me under cover to the Duke of Athole, London. P. S. Have you ever seen an engraving published here some time ago from one of your poems, "O thou Pule Orb." If you have not, I shall have the pleasure of sending it to you. No. CLXV. TO THE REV. G. BAIRD, IN ANSWER TO THE FOREGOING. poor your WHY did you, my dear Sir, write to me in such a hesitating style, on the business of Bruce? Don't I know, and have I not felt, the many ille, the peculiar ills that poetic flesh is heir to? You shall have your choice of all the unpublished poems I have; and had letter had my direction so as to have reached me sooner (it only came to my hand this ment), I should have directly put you out of suspense on the subject. I only ask, that some prefatory advertisement in the book, as well as the subscription bills, may bear, that the publication is solely for the benefit of Bruce's mother. I would not put it in the power of igno. rance to surmise, or malice to insinuate, that I mo SIR, No. CLXVI TO THE REV. ARCH. ALISON. Ellisland, near Dumfries, 14th Feb. 1791. You must, by this time, have set me down You as one of the most ungrateful of men. did me the honour to present me with a book which does honour to science and the intellectual powers of man, and I have not even so much as acknowledged the receipt of it. The fact is, you yourself are to blame for it. Flattered as have my opinion of the work, the old spiritual I was by your telling me that you wished to enemy of mankind, who knows well that vanity is one of the sins that most easily beset me, put it into my head to ponder over the performance with the look-out of a critic, and to draw up forsooth a deep learned digest of strictures on a composition, of which, in fact, until I read the book, I did not even know the first principles. I own, Sir, that at first glance, several of your propositions startled me as paradoxical. That the martial clangor of a trumpet had something in it vastly more grand, heroic, and sublime, than the twingle twangle of a Jews' harp; that the delicate flexure of a rose-twig, when the half-blown flower is heavy with the tears of the dawn, was infinitely more beautiful and elegant than the upright stub of a burdock; and that from something innate and independent of all association of ideas;-these I had set down as irrefragible, orthodox truths, until perusing your book shook my faith.-In short, Sir, except Euclid's Elements of Geometry, which I made a shift to unravel by my father's fire-side, in the winter evening of the first season I held the plough, I never read a book which gave me such a quantum of information, and added so much to my stock of ideas as your Essays on the Principles of Taste." One thing, Sir, you must forgive my mentioning as an uncommon merit in the work, I mean the language. To sounds something like a contradiction in terms; clothe abstract philosophy in elegance of style, but you have convinced me that they are quite compatible. clubbed a share in the work from mercenary late composition. The one in print is my first I enclose you some poetic bagatelles of my motives. Nor need you give me credit for any remarkable generosity in my part of the busi- essay in the way of telling a tale. ness. I have such a host of peccadilloes, fail ings, follies, and backslidings (any body but myself might perhaps give some of them a worse I am, Sir, &c. No. CLXVII. TO DR. MOORE. Ellisland, 28th February, 1791. sone are beings of some other world; and however they may captivate the unexperienced, romantic finey of a boy or a girl, they will ever, in proportion as we have made human nature our study, dissatisfy our riper minds. I Do not know, Sir, whether you are a sub- As to my private concerns, I am going on, a scriber to Grose's Antiquities of Scotland If mighty tax-gatherer before the Lord, and have you are, the enclosed poem will not be altoge-lately had the interest to get myself ranked on ther new to you. Captain Grose did me the the list of excise as a supervisor. I am not yet favour to send me a dozen copies of the proof-employed as such, but in a few years I shall fa!! sheet, of which this is one. Shou'd you have into the file of supervisorship by seniority. I read the piece before, still this will answer the have had an immense loss in the death of the principal end I have in view it will give me Earl of Glencairn; the patron from whom all another opportunity of thanking you for all your my fame and good fortune took its rise. Indegoodness to the rustic bard; and also of show-pendent of my grateful attachment to him, ing you, that the abilities you have been pleas-which was indeed so strong that it pervaded ed to commend and patronize are still employed my very soul, and was entwined with the thread in the way you wish. of my existence; so soon as the prince's friends : The Elegy on Captain Henderson, is a tri-had got in (and every dog, you know, has his bute to the memory of a man I loved much. day), my getting forward in the excise would Poets have in this the same advantage as Ro- have been an easier business than otherwise it man Catholics; they can be of service to their will be. Though this was a consummation de friends after they have past that bourne where voutly to be wished, yet, thank Heaven, I can all other kindness ceases to be of any avail. live and rhyme as I am; and as to my boys, Whether, after all, either the one or the other poor little fellows! if I cannot place them on be of any real service to the dead, is, I fear, very as high an elevation in life as I could wish, I problematical; but I am sure they are highly shall, if I am favoured so much of the Disposer gratifying to the living and as a very orthodox of events as to see that period, fix them on as text, I forget where in Scripture, says, "what-broad and independent a basis as possible. Asoever is not of faith, is sin;" so say I, what-mong the many wise adages which have been soever is not detrimental to society, and is of treasured up by our Scottish ancestors, this is positive enjoyment, is of God, the giver of all one of the best, Better be the head of the comgood things, and ought to be received and en-monulty, as the tail o' the gentry. joyed by his creatures with thankful delight. But I am got on a subject, which, however As almost all my religious tenets originate from interesting to me, is of no manner of consemy heart, I am wonderfully pleased with the quence to you; so I shall give you a short poem idea, that I can still keep up a tender inter- on the other page, and close this with assuring course with the dearly beloved friend, or still you how sincerely I have the honour to be, more dearly beloved mistress, who is gone to yours, &c. the world of spirits. The ballad on Queen Mary was begun while I was busy with Percy's Reliques of English Poetry. By the way, how much is every honest heart, which has a tincture of Caledonian prejudice, obliged to you for your glorious story of Buchanan and Targe. "Twas an unequivocal proof of your loyal gallantry of soul, giving Targe the victory. I should have been mortified to the ground if you had not. over, once more of many (Beauteous Rose-Bud, p. 56.) No. CLXVIII. EXTRACT OF A LETTER TO MR. CUNNINGHAM 12th March, 1791. I have just read times, your Zeluco. cil, as I went along, every passage that pleased Ir the foregoing piece be worth your stricme particularly above the rest; and one, or tures, let me have them. For my own part, a two, I think, which, with humble deference, I thing that I have just composed, always appears am disposed to think unequal to the merits of through a double portion of that partial medium the book. I have sometimes thought to tran- in which an author will ever view his own scribe these marked passages, or at least so much works. I believe, in general, novelty has someof them as to point where they are, and send thing in it that inebriates the fancy, and not them to you. Original strokes that strongly unfrequently dissipates and fumes away like depict the human heart, is your and Fielding's other intoxication, and leaves the poor patient, province, beyond any other novelist I have ever as usual, with an aching heart. A striking perused. Richardson indeed might perhaps be instance of this might be adduced, in the revoexcepted; but, unhappily, his draratis per- lution of many a hymneneal honeymoon. But her: she has vexed me beyond description. In-bound the said Nelson to the confession of faith, debted as I was to your goodness beyond what so fur as it was agreeable to reasor. and the I can ever repay, I eagerly grasped at your of- word of God! fer to have the mare with me. That I might Mrs. B. begs to be remembered most grateat least shew my readiness in wishing to be fully to you. Little Bobby and Frank are grateful, I took every care of her in my power. charmingly well and healthy. I am jaded to She was never crossed for riding above half a death with fatigue. For these two or three score of times by me or in my keeping. I drew months, on an average, I have not ridden less her in the plough, one of three, for one poor than two hundred miles per week. I have week. I refused fifty-five shillings for her, which done little in the poetic way. I have given Mr. was the highest bode I could squeeze for her. Sutherland two Prologues; one of which was I fed her up and had her in fine order for Dum-delivered last week. I have likewise strung ies fair; when four or five days before the fair, four or five barbarous stanzas, to the tune of .ne was seized with an unaccountable disorder Chevy Chase, by way of Elegy on your poor unin the sinews, or somewhere in the bones of the fortunate mare, beginning,neck; with a weakness or total want of power in her fillets, and in short the whole vertebræ of her spine seemed to be diseased and unhinged, and in eight and forty hours, in spite of the two best farriers in the country, she died and be d-mned to her! The farriers said that she had been quite strained in the fillets beyond cure before you had bought her, and that the poor devil, though she might keep a little flesh, had been jaded and quite worn out with fatigue and oppression. While she was with me, she was under my own eye, and I assure you, my much valued friend, every thing was done for her that could be done; and the accident has vexed me to the heart. In fact I could not pluck up spirits to write you, on account of the unfortunate business. "Peg Nicholson was a good Bay-mare,”— (see p. 77.) My best compliments to Mrs. Nicoll, and little Neddy, and all the family. I hope Ned is a good scholar, and will come out to gather nuts and apples with me next harvest. No. CXLIII. TO MR. CUNNINGHAM. Ellisland, 13th February, 1790. I BEG your pardon, my dear and much valued friend, for writing to you on this very unfashionable, unsightly sheet "My poverty but not my will consents." There is little new in this country. Our theatrical company, of which you must have heard, leave us in a week. Their merit and character are indeed very great, both on the stage and in private life; not a worthless creature among them; and their encouragement has been accordingly. Their usual run is from eighteen But to make amends, since of modish post I to twenty-five pounds a night; seldom less than have none, except one poor widowed half sheet the one, and the house will hold no more than of gilt, which lies in my drawer among my plethe other. There have been repeated instances beian foolscap pages, like the widow of a man of sending away six, and eight, and ten pounds of fashion, whom that unpolite scoundrel, Nein a night for want of room. A new theatre is cessity, has driven from Burgundy and Pineto be built by subscription; the first stone is to apple, to a dish of Bohea, with the scandalbe laid on Friday first to come. Three hun-bearing help-mate of a village priest; or a glass dred guineas have been raised by thirty subscri- of whisky-toddy, with the ruby-nosed yokebers, and thirty more might have been got if wanted. The manager, Mr. Sutherland, was introduced to me by a friend from Ayr; and a worthier or cleverer fellow I have rarely met with. Some of our clergy have slipt in by stealth now and then; but they have got up a farce of their own. You must have heard how the Rev. Mr. Lawson of Kirkmahoe, seconded not write to you; Miss Burnet is not more dear by the Rev. Mr. Kirkpatrick of Dunscore, to her guardian angel, nor his grace the Duke and the rest of that faction, have accused in formal process, the unfortunate and Rev. Mr. Heron of Kirkgunzeon, that in ordaining Mr. Nelson to the cure of souls in Kirkbean, he, the said Heron, feloniously and treasonably fellow of a foot-padding exciseman—I make a vow to enclose this sheet-full of epistolary fragments in that my only scrap of gilt-paper. I am indeed your unworthy debtor for three friendly letters. I ought to have written to you long ere now, but it is a literal fact, I have scarcely a spare moment. of It is not that I will than my It is not that I to the powers of friend Cunningham to me. cannot write to you; should you doubt it, take the following fragment which was intended for you some time ago, and be convinced that I can antithesize sentiment, and circumvolute periods, giving him a rather more resolute look, the plate could as well as any coiner of phrase in the regions of hot, at a trifling expense, be made to pass for "DA- philology NIEL IN THE LIONS' DEN!"-CROMEK. On Friday first to come-a Scotticism. MY DEAR CUNNINGHAM, December, 1789. | man; but like electricity, phlogiston, &c. the Where are you? And what are you doing? subject is so involved in darkness, that we want Can you be that son of levity, who takes up a data to go upon. One thing frightens me much; friendship as he takes up a fashion; or are you, that we are to live for ever, seems too good news That we are to enter into a new like some other of the worthiest fellows in the to be true. world, the victim of indolence, laden with fetters scene of existence, where, exempt from want of ever-increasing weight. and pain, we shall enjoy ourselves and our friends without satiety or separation-how much should I be indebted to any one who could fully assure me that this was certain ! rence. My time once more expired. I will write God bless him and all to Mr. Cleghorn soon. his concerns! And may all the powers that preside over conviviality and friendship, be present with all their kindest influence, when the bearer wish I of this, Mr. Syme, and you meet! could also make one.-I think we should be What strange beings we are! Since we have a portion of conscious existence, equally capable of enjoying pleasure, happiness, and rapture, or of suffering pain, wretchedness, and misery, it surely worthy of an inquiry, whether there be not such a thing as a science of life; whether method, economy, and fertility of expedients be not applicable to enjoyment; and whether there be not a want of dexterity in pleasure, which renders our little scantling of happiness still less; and a profuseness, an intoxication in bliss which leads to satiety, disgust, and self-abhorThere is not a doubt but that health, talents, character, decent competency, respectable friends, are real substantial blessings; and Finally, brethren, farewell! Whatsoever yet do we not daily see those who enjoy many things are lovely, whatsoever things are gentle, or all of these good things, contrive, notwith-whatsoever things are charitable, whatsoever standing, to be as unhappy as others to whose things are kind, think on these things, and lot few of them have fallen. I believe one great think on source of this mistake or misconduct is owing to a certain stimulus, with us called ambition, which goads us up the hill of life, not as we ascend other eminences, for the laudable curiosity of viewing an extended landscape, but rather for the dishonest pride of looking down on others of our fellow-creatures, seemingly diminutive, in humble stations, &c. &c. Sunday, 14th February, 1790. GOD help me! I am now obliged to join Night to day, and Sunday to the week." ROBERT BURNS. No. CXLIV. TO MR. PETER HILL. Ellisland, 2d March, 1790. Ar a late meeting of the Monkland Friendly Society, it was resolved to augment their library by the following books, which you are to send us as soon as possible :- The Mirror, The Lounger, Man of Feeling, Man of the World, (these for my own sake I wish to have by the first carrier) Knox's History of the Reformation; Rae's History of the Rebellion in 1715; If there be any truth in the orthodox faith of any good History of the Rebellion in 1745; these churches, I am past redemption, A Display of the Secession Act and Testimoand what worse, to all eternity. Iny, by Mr. GIBB; Hervey's Meditations; Beam deeply read in Boston's Fourfold State, veridge's Thoughts; and another copy of WatMarshall on Sanctification, Gutherie's Trial of son's Body of Divinity. a Saving Interest, &c. but "There is no balm in Gilead, there is no physician there," for me; so I shall e'en turn Arminian, and trust to "Sincere, though imperfect obedience." Tuesday, 16th. LUCKILY for me I was prevented from the discussion of the knotty point at which I had just made a full stop. All my fears and cares I wrote to Mr. A. Masterton three or four months ago, to pay some money he owed me into your hauds, and lately I wrote to you to the same purpose, but I have heard from neither one nor other of you. In addition to the books I commissioned in my last, I want very much, An Index to the Excise Laws, or an abridgment of all the Statutes now in force, relative to the Excise, by Jellinger Symons: I want three copies of this book; if it is now to be had, cheap or dear, get An honest country neighbour of are of this world: if there is another, an honest it for me. man has nothing to fear from it. I hate a man mine wants, too, A Family Bible, the larger that wishes to be a Deist, but I fear, every fair, the better, but second-handed, for he does not unprejudiced inquirer must in some degree be a choose to give above ten shillings for the book. sceptic. It is not that there are any very stag-I want likewise for myself, as you can pick gering arguments against the immortality of them up, second-handed or cheap, copies of |