My wife is my Jean, with whose story you are partly acquainted. I found I had a much-loved fellow-creature's happiness or misery among my hands, and I durst not trifle with so sacred a deposit. Indeed, I have not any reason to repent the step I have taken, as I have attached myself to a very good wife, and have shaken myself loose of every bad failing. I have found my book a very profitable business, and with the profits of it I have begun life pretty decently. Should fortune not favour me in farming, as I have no great faith in her fickle ladyship, I have provided myself in another resource, which, however some folks may affect to despise it, is still a comfortable shift in the day of misfortune. In the heyday of my fame, a gentleman, whose name, at least, I dare say you know, as his estate lies somewhere near Dundee, Mr. Graham of Fintry, one of the Commissioners of Excise offered me the commission, of an Excise officer. I thought it prudent to accept the offer; and, accordingly, I took my instructions, and have my commission by me. Whether I may ever do duty, or be a penny | the better for it, is what I do not know; but I have the comfortable assurance, that, come whatever ill fate will, I can, on my simple petition to the Excise-board, get into employ. We have lost poor uncle Robert this winter. He has long been very weak, and with very little alteration on him: he expired 3rd January. His son William has been with me this winter, and goes in May to be an apprentice to a mason. His other son, the eldest, John, comes to me, I expect, in summer. They are both remarkably stout young fellows, and promise to do well. His only daughter, His only daughter, Fanny, has been with me ever since her father's death, and I purpose keeping her in my family till she be quite woman grown, and fit for better service. She is one of the cleverest girls, and has one of the most amiable dispositions, I have ever seen. (84) All friends in this county and Ayrshire are well. Remember me to all friends in the north. My wife joins me in compliments to Mrs. B. and family. I am ever, my dear cousin, yours sincerely, NO. CLXII. R. B. TO MRS. DUNLOP. Ellisland, March 4th, 1789. HERE am I, my honoured friend, returned safe from the capital. To a man who has a To a man who has a When I must skulk into a corner, lest the rattling equipage of some gaping blockhead should mangle me in the mire, I am tempted to exclaim, "What merits has he had, or what demerit have I had, in some state of pre-existence, that he is ushered into this state of being with the sceptre of rule, and the key of riches in his puny fist, and I am kicked into the world, the sport of folly, or the victim of pride?" I have read somewhere of a monarch (in Spain I think it was) who was so out of humour with the Ptolemean system of astronomy, that he said, had he been of the Creator's council, he could have saved him a great deal of labour and absurdity. I will not defend this blasphemous speech; but often, as I have glided with humble stealth through the pomp of Princes' Street, it has suggested itself to me, as an improvement on the present human figure, that a man, in proportion to his own conceit of his consequence in the world, could have pushed out the longitude of his common size, as a snail pushes out his horns, or as we draw out a perspective. This trifling alteration, not to mention the prodigious saving it would be in the tear and wear of the neck and limb-sinews of many of his Majesty's liege-subjects, in the way of tossing the head and tiptoe strutting, would evidently turn out a vast advantage, in enabling us at once to adjust the ceremonials in making a bow, or making way to a great man, and that, too, within a second of the precise spherical angle of reverence, or an inch of the particular point of respectful distance, which the important creature itself requires; a measuring-glance at its towering altitude would determine the affair like instinct, You are right, Madam, in your idea of poor Mylne's poem, which he has addressed to me. The piece has a good deal of merit, but it has one great fault-it is by far too long. Besides, my success has encouraged such a shoal of ill-spawned monsters to crawl into public notice, under the title of Scottish poets, that the very term Scottish poetry borders on the burlesque. When I write to Mr. Carfrae, I shall advise him rather to try one of his deceased friend's English pieces. I am prodigiously hurried with my own matters, else I would have requested a perusal of all Mylne's poetic performances, When I received your letter I was transand would have offered his friends my cribing for * * * my letter to the assistance, in either selecting or correcting magistrates of the Canongate, Edinburgh, what would be proper for the press. What begging their permission to place a tombit is that occupies me so much, and perhaps stone over poor Fergusson, and their edict in a little oppresses my present spirits, shall consequence of my petition, but now I shall fill up a paragraph in some future letter. In send them to Poor Fergusson! If the meantime, allow me to close this epistle there be a life beyond the grave, which I with a few lines done by a friend of mine. trust there is; and if there be a good God I give you them, that, as presiding over all nature, which I am sure you have seen the original, you may guess there is-thou art now enjoying existence in whether one or two alterations I have ven- a glorious world, where worth of the heart tured to make in them be any real improve-alone is distinction in the man; where riches, * ment: deprived of all their pleasure-purchasing Like the fair plant that from our touch with- powers, return to their native sordid matter; draws, where titles and honours are the disregarded reveries of an idle dream: and where that heavy virtue, which is the negative consequence of steady dulness, and those thought Shrink, mildly fearful, even from applause, * seem. close, Mild as the maiden-blushing hawthorn blows, Fair as the fairest of each lovely kind, Your form shall be the image of your mind; Your manners shall so true your soul express, That all shall long to know the worth they guess; [love, Congenial hearts shall greet with kindred And even sick'ning Envy must approve. are the unavoidable aberrations of frail Adieu, my dear Sir! So soon as your MY DEAR SIR-The hurry of a farmer in this particular season, and the indolence of a poet at all times and seasons, will, I hope, plead my excuse for neglecting so long to answer your obliging letter of the 5th of August. That you have done well in quitting your laborious concern in * *, I do not doubt; the weighty reasons you mention, were, I hope, very, and deservedly indeed, weighty ones, and your health is a matter of the last importance; but whether the remaining proprietors of the paper have also done well, is what I much doubt. The *, so far as I was a reader, exhibited such a brilliancy of point, such an elegance of paragraph, and such a variety of intelligence, that I can hardly conceive it possible to continue a daily paper in the same degree of excellence: but if there was a man, who had abilities equal to the task, that man's assistance the proprietors have lost. NO. CLXIII. TO DR. MOORE. Ellisland, March 23rd, 1789 SIR-The gentleman who will deliver this is a Mr. Neilson, a worthy clergyman in my neighbourhood (86), and a very particular acquaintance of mine. As I have troubled him with this packet, I must turn him over to your goodness, to recompense him for it in a way in which he much needs your assistance, and where you can effectually serve him. Mr. Neilson is on his way for France, to wait on his Grace of Queensbury, on some little business of a good deal of importance to him, and he wishes for your instructions respecting the most eligible mode of travelling, &c. for him, when he has crossed the Channel. I should not have dared to take this liberty with you, but that I am told, by those who have the honour of your personal acquaintance, that to be a poor honest Scotchman is a letter of recommendation to you, and that to have it in your power to serve such a character, gives you much pleasure. The enclosed Ode is a compliment to the take dirty notes in a miserable vault of an memory of the late Mrs. Oswald of Au- | ale-cellar. chencruive. You probably knew her personally, an honour of which I cannot boast; but I spent my early years in her neighbourhood, and among her servants and tenants. I know that she was detested with the most heartfelt cordiality. However, in the particular part of her conduct which roused my poetic wrath, she was much less blameable. In January last, on my road to Ayrshire, I had put up at Bailie Whigham's, in Sanquhar, the only tolerable inn in the place. The frost was keen, and the grim evening and howling wind were ushering in a night of snow and drift. My horse and I were both much fatigued with the labours of the day, and just as my friend the Bailie and I were bidding defiance to the storm, over a smoking bowl, in wheels the funeral pageantry of the late great Mrs. Oswald, and poor I am forced to brave all the horrors of the tempestuous night, and jade my horse, my young favourite horse, whom I had just christened Pegasus, twelve miles farther on, through the wildest moors and hills of Ayrshire, to New Cumnock, the next inn. The powers of poesy and prose sink under me, when I would describe what I felt. Suffice it to say, that when a good fire at New Cumnock had so far recovered my frozen sinews, I sat down and wrote the enclosed Ode. I was at Edinburgh lately, and settled finally with Mr. Creech; and I must own, that at last he has been amicable and fair with me. NO. CLXV. TO MR. HILL. R. B. (87) Oh 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 nose!-lead 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, allpowerful 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 poet, 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 glori ous cause of lucre, I will do anything, be anything, but the horse-leach of private oppression, or the vulture of public robbery! But to descend from heroics. I want a Shakspeare; I want likewise an English dictionary-Johnson's, I suppose, is best. In these and all my prose commissions, the cheapest is always the best for me. There is a small debt of honour that I owe Mr. Robert Cleghorn, in Saughton Mills, my worthy friend, and your well-wisher. Please give him, and urge him to take it, the first time you see him, ten shillings' worth of any thing you have to sell, and place it to my account. The library scheme that I mentioned to you is already begun, under the direction of Captain Riddel. There is another in emulation of it going on at Closeburn, under the auspices of Mr. Monteath of Closeburn, which will be on a greater scale than ours. Captain Riddel gave his infant society a great many of his old books, else I had written you on that subject; but, one of these days, I shall trouble you with a commission for The Monkland Friendly Society." A copy of The Spectator, Mirror, and Lounger, Man of Feeling, Man of the World, Guthrie's Geographical Grammar, with some religious pieces, will likely be our first order. When I grow richer, I will write to you on gilt-post, to make amends for this sheet. At present every guinea has a five guinea errand with, my dear Sir, your faithful, poor, but honest friend, R. B. NO. CLXVI. TO MRS. DUNLOP. Ellisland, April 4th, 1789. I No sooner hit on any poetic plan or fancy, but I wish to send it to you; and if knowing and reading these give half the pleasure to you, that communicating them to you gives to me, I am satisfied. I have a poetic whim in my head, which I at present dedicate, or rather inscribe, to the Right. Hon. Charles James Fox; but how long that fancy may hold, I cannot say. A few of the first lines I have just rough sketched as follows: "SKETCH. How wisdom and folly meet, mix, and unite; How virtue and vice blend their black and their white; How genius, the illustrious father of fiction, Confounds rule and law, reconciles contradiction[bustle, I sing if these mortals, the critics, should I care not, not I, let the critics go whistle. But now for a patron, whose name and whose glory, At once may illustrate and honour my story. Thou first of our orators, first of our wits, Yet whose parts and acquirements seem mere lucky hits; [so strong, With knowledge so vast, and with judgment No man with the half of 'em e'er went far On the 20th current I hope to have the honour of assuring you honour of assuring you in person, how sincerely I am, yours, &c. R. B. NO. CLXVII. TO MRS. M'MURDO, DRUMLANRIG. (88) Ellisland, May 2nd, 1789. MADAM-I have finished the piece which had the happy fortune to be honoured with your approbation; and never did little Miss with more sparkling pleasure show her applauded sampler to partial Mamma, than I now send my poem to you and Mr. M'Murdo, if he is returned to Drumlanrig. You cannot easily imagine what thin-skinned animals, what sensitive plants, poor poets are. How do we shrink into the embittered corner of self-abasement, when neglected or condemned by those to whom we look up! and how do we, in erect importance, add another cubit to our stature, on being noticed and applauded by those whom we honour and respect! My late visit to Drumlanrig has, I can tell you, Madam, given me a balloon waft up Parnassus, where on my fancied elevation I regard my poetic self with no small degree of complacency. Surely, with all their sins, the rhyming tribe are not ungrateful creatures. I recollect your goodness to your humble guest-I see Mr. M'Murdo adding to the politeness of the gentleman the kindness of a friend, and my heart swells as it would burst, with warm emotions and ardent wishes! It may be it is not gratitude-it may be a mixed sensation. That strange, shifting, doubling animal, MAN, is so generally, at best, but a negative, often a worthless creature, that we cannot see real goodness and native worth, without feeling the bosom glow with sympathetic approbation. With every sentiment of grateful respect, I have the honour to be, Madam, your obliged and grateful humble servant, R. B NO. CLXVIII. TO MR. CUNNINGHAM. Ellisland, May 4th, 1789. MY DEAR SIR-Your duty-free favour of the 26th April I received two days ago; I me Dear as the ruddy drops which warm my heart. will not say I perused it with pleasure- Colonel of the Crochallan Fencibles are to that is the cold compliment of ceremony-I perused it, Sir, with delicious satisfaction; in short, it is such a letter, that not you, nor your friend, but the legislature, by express proviso in their postage laws, should frank. A letter informed with the soul of friendship | is such an honour to human nature, that they should order it free ingress and egress to and from their bags and mails, as an encouragement and mark of distinction to supereminent virtue. I have just put the last hand to a little poem, which I think will be something to your taste. One morning lately, as I was out pretty early in the fields, sowing some grass seeds, I heard the burst of a shot from a neighbouring plantation, and presently a poor little wounded hare came crippling by me. You will guess my indignation at the inhuman fellow who could shoot a hare at Inhuman man! curse on thy barb'rous art, To thee a home, or food, or pastime yield. The cold earth with thy blood-stain'd bosom The playful pair crowd fondly by thy side; Oft as by winding Nith, I, musing, wait The sober eve, or hail the cheerful dawn, I'll miss thee sporting o'er the dewy lawn, And curse the ruthless wretch, and mourn thy hapless fate. Let me know how you like my poem. I am doubtful whether it would not be an improvement to keep out the last stanza but one altogether. I have got a good mind to make verses on NO. CLXIX. TO MR. SAMUEL BROWN. Mossgiel, May 4th, 1789. DEAR UNCLE-This, I hope, will find you and your conjugal yoke-fellow in your good old way; I am impatient to know if the Ailsa fowling be commenced for this season yet, as I want three or four stones of feathers, and I hope you will bespeak them for me. It would be a vain attempt for me to enumerate the various transactions I have been engaged in since I saw you last, but NO. CLXX. TO RICHARD BROWN. Mauchline, May 1st, 1789. MY DEAR FRIEND-I was in the country by accident, and hearing of your safe arrival, I could not resist the temptation of wishing you joy on your return-wishing you would write to me before you sail again-wishing you would always set me down as your bosom friend-wishing you long life and prosperity, and that every good thing may attend you-wishing Mrs. Brown and your little ones I little ones as free of the evils of this world as is consistent with humanitywishing you and she were to make two at the ensuing lying-in, with which Mrs. B. threatens very soon to favour me—wishing I had longer time to write to you at Cruikshank is a glorious production of the author of man. You, he, and the noble |