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, of human kind-unfortunate, even in the shades of life-when I think I have met with you, and have lived more of real life with you in eight days, than I can do with almost any body I meet with in eight years-when I think on the improbability of meeting you in this world again—I could sit down and cry like a child!—— If 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 ungrateful iniquities, which, however overlooked in fashionable license, or varnished in fashionable phrase, are indeed but lighter and deeper shades of VIL

LAINY.

Shortly after my last return to Ayrshire, I married "my Jean." This was not in consequence 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 deposit. Nor have I any cause to repent it. If I have not got polite tattle, modish manners, and fashionable dress, I am not sickened and disgusted with the multiform curse of boarding-school affectation; and I have got the handsomest figure, 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

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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 all the ballads in the country, as she has (O 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 will henceforth have the honor 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 falls; and I am only preserved from being chilled to death, by being suffocated with smoke. I do not find my farm that pennyworth I was taught to expect, but I believe, in time, it may be a saving bargain. You will be pleased to hear that I have laid aside idle eclat, and bind every day after my reapers.

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 will make no apology, dear madam, for this egotistic detail: I know you and your sister will be interested in every circumstance of it. What signify the silly, idle gewgaws of wealth, or the ideal trumpery of greatness! When fellow partakers of the same nature fear the same God, have the same benevolence of heart, the same nobleness of soul, the same detestation at every thing dishonest, and the same scorn at every thing unworthy-if they are not in the dependance of al solute 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?

When I may have an opportunity of sending you this, Heaven only knows. Shenstone says, "When one is confined idle within doors by bad weather, the best

antidote against ennui is, to 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.

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I very lately, to wit, since harvest began, wrote a poem, not in imitation, but in the manner of Pope's Moral Epistles. It is only a short essay, just to try the strength of my Muse's pinion in that way. I will send you a copy of it, when once I have beard from you. 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 gentleman 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,
The blissful day we twa did meet, &c. .

Dr. Currie's Ed. Vol. 3, p. 289,

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, FAREWEL!

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 a Hermitage on the Banks of Nith, belonging to a gentle

* Capt. Riddel of Glenriddel.

man 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.*

Dr. Currie's Ed. Vol. 3, p. 289.

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No. XXX.

To Mrs. DUNLOP, of Dunlop.

Mauchline, 27th Sept. 1788.

I HAVE received twins, dear madam, more than once; but scarcely ever with more pleasure than when I received yours of the 12th instant. To make myself understood; I had wrote to Mr. Graham, inclosing my poem addressed to him, and the same post which favoured me with yours, brought me an answer from him. It was dated the very day he had received mine; and I am quite at a loss to say whether it was most polite or kind.

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 are the judicious observations of animated friendship, selecting the beauties of the

The poetic temperament is ever predisposed to sensations of the "horrible and awful." Burns, in returning from his visits at Glenriddel to his farm at Ellisland, had to pass through a little wild wood in which stood the Hermitage. When the night was dark and dreary it was his custom generally to solicit an additional parting glass to fortify his spirits and keep up his courage. This was related by a lady a near relation of Capt. Riddle's; who had frequent opportunities of seeing this salutary practice exemplified.

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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 forty-six 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."

Dr. Currie's Ed. Vol. 4, p. 388.

You will not send me your poetic rambles, but, you see I am no niggard of mine. Iam sure your impromp、 tu's give me double pleasure; what falls from your per, can neither be unentertaining in itself, nor indifferent

to me.

* From a letter which is printed in Dr. Currie's collection, it appears that Burns entertained no great respect for what may be styled technical criticism. He loved the man who judged of poetical compositions from the heart-but looked with an evil eye upon those who decided by the cold decisions of the head. This is evinced by the following anecdote.

At a private breakfast, in a literary circle at Edinburgh, to which he was invited, the conversation turned on the poetical merit and pathos of Gray's Elegy, a poem of which he was enthusiastically fond. A clergyman present, remarkable for his love of paradox and for his eccentric notions on every subject, distinguished himself by an injudicious and ill-timed attack on this exquisite poem, which Burns, with a generous warmth for the reputation of Gray, manfully defended. As this gentleman's remarks were rather general than specific,. Burns urged him to bring forward the passages which he thought exceptionable. He made several attempts to quote the poem, but always in a blundering inaccurate manner. Burns bore all this for a considerable time with his usual good nature and forbearance; till, at length, goaded by the" fastidious criticisms and wretched quibblings of his opponent, he roused himself, and with an eye flashing contempt and indignation, and with great vehemence of gesticulation, he thus addressed the old critic. "Sir,-I now perceive a man may. "be an excellent judge of poetry by square and rule, and after all,-be a dd blockhead!"

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