In a fortnight I move, bag and baggage, to Nithsdale; till then, my direction is at this place; after that period, it will be at Ellisland, near Dumfries. It would extremely oblige me were it but half a line, to let me know how you are, and where you are.-Can I be indifferent to the fate of a man, to whom I owe so much? A man whom I not only esteem but venerate.* My warmest good wishes and most respectful compliments to Mrs. Blacklock, and Miss Johnston, if she is with you. I cannot * Gratefully alluding to the Doctor's introduction of him to the literary circles of Edinburgh." There was perhaps, never one among all mankind," says Heron, in a spirited memoir of our Bard, inserted in the Edinburgh Magazine, "whom you might more truly have "called an Angel upon Earth, than Dr. Blacklock : "he was guileless and innocent as a child, yet endow"ed with manly sagacity and penetration; his heart "was a perpetual spring of overflowing benignity; his 66 feelings were all tremblingly alive to the sense of the sub"lime, the beautiful, the tender, the pious, the virtuous: "-Poetry was to him the dear solace of perpetual blind"ness; chearfulness, even to gaiety, was, notwithstanding "that irremediable misfortune, long the predominant co"lour of his mind: In his latter years, when the gloom << might otherwise have thickened around him, hope, faith, "devotion 1 I cannot conclude without telling you that I am more and more pleased with the step I took respecting "my Jean."-Two things, from my happy experience, I set down as apothegms in life. A wife's head is immaterial, compared with her heart-and-" Virtue's (for wisdom what poet pretends to it)-ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. Here follow the "The mother's lament for the loss of her son," and the song beginning, "The lazy mist hangs from the brow of the hill." Dr. Currie's Ed. Vol. 4, p. 290. "devotion the most fervent and sublime, exalted his mind "to Heaven, and made him maintain his wonted chearful"ness in the expectation of a speedy dissolution."— In the beginning of the Winter of 1786-87, Burns came to Edinburgh: By Dr. B. he was received with the most flattering kindness; and was earnestly introduced to every person of taste and generosity among the good old man's friends. It was little Blacklock had in his power to do for a brother poet-but that little he did with a fond alacrity, and with a modest grace. E. No. XXXIII. To MR. ROBERT AINSLIE. Ellisland, Jan. 6, 1789. MANY happy returns of the season to you, my dear Sir! May you be comparatively happy up to your comparative worth among the sons of men; which wish would, I am sure, make you one of the most blest of the human race. I do not know if passing a "Writer to the signet" be a trial of scientific merit, or a mere business of friends and interest. However it be, let me quote you my two favorite passages, which though I have repeated them ten thou sand times, still they rouse my manhood and steel my resolution like inspiration. On Reason build resolve, That column of true majesty in man. YOUNG. Hear, 1 Hear, Alfred, hero of the state, Thy genius heaven's high will declare; Is never, never to despair! Is never to despair! MASQUE OF ALFRED. I grant you enter the lists of life, to struggle for bread, business, notice, and distinction, in common with hundreds.-But who are they? Men, like yourself, and of that aggregate body, your compeers, seven tenths of them come short of your advantages natural and accidental; while two of those that remain either neglect their parts, as flowers blooming in a desart, or misspend their strength, like a bull goring a bramble bush. But to change the theme: I am still catering for Johnson's publication; and among others, I have brushed up the following old favorite song a little, with a view to your worship. I have only altered a word here and there; but if you like the humor of it, we shall think of a stanza or two to add to it. *. * * No. No. XXXIV. To MR. JAMES HAMILTON, GROCER, GLASGOW. DEAR SIR, Ellisland, May 26, 1789. I SEND you by John Glover, Carrier, the above account for Mr. Turnbull, as I suppose you know his address. I would fain offer, my dear Sir, a word of sympathy with your misfortunes; but it is a tender string, and I know not how to touch it. It is easy to flourish a set of high-flown sentiments on the subject that would give great satisfaction to a breast quite at ease; but as ONE observes, who was very seldom mistaken in the theory of life, "The heart knoweth its own sorrows, and a stranger intermeddleth not "therewith." Among some distressful emergencies that I have experienced in life, I ever laid this down as 1 |