an omnipotence in particular accidents and conjunctures of circumstances, which exalt us as he roes, or brand us as madmen, just as they are for or against us? Have you never a fair goddess that leads you a wild-goose chase of amorous devotion? Let me know a few of her qualities, such as, whether she be either black, or fair; plump, or thin; short, or tall, &c.; and choose your air, and I shall task my Muse to celebrate her. No. CI. TO DR. BLACKLOCK. Man, Mr. Publisher, is a strange, weak, inconsistent being. Who would believe, Sir, that, in this our Augustan age of liberality and refinement, while we seem so justly sensible and jealous of our rights and liberties, and animated with such indignation against the very memory of those who would have subverted them-that a certain people, under our national protection, should complain not against our monarch and a few favourite advisers, but against our WHOLE LEGISLATIVE BODY, for similar oppression, and almost in the very same terms, as our forefathers did of the House of Stuart! I will not, I canAs I hear nothing of your motions but that not enter into the merits of the cause, but I dare you are, or were, out of town, I do not know say the American Congress, in 1776, will be al- where this may find you, or whether it will find lowed to be as able and as enlightened as the you at all. I wrote you a long letter, dated English convention was in 1688; and that their from the land of matrimony, in June; but posterity will celebrate the centenary of their de- either it had not found you, or, what I dread liverance from us, as duly and sincerely as we more, it found you or Mrs. Blacklock in too do ours from the oppressive measures of the precarious a state of health and spirits, to take notice of an idle packet. wrong-headed House of Stuart, To conclude, Sir; let every man who has a tear for the many miseries incident to humanity, feel for a family illustrious as any in Europe, and unfortunate beyond historic precedent; and let every Briton (and particularly every Scotsman), who ever looked with reverential pity on the dotage of a parent, cast a veil over the fatal mistakes of the kings of his forefathers. No. C. REV. AND DEAR SIR, I have done many little things for Johnson, since I had the pleasure of seeing you; and I have finished one piece, in the way of Pope's Moral Epistles; but from your silence, I have every thing to fear, so I have only sent you two melancholy things, which I tremble lest they should too well suit the tone of your present feelings. 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 MR. JAMES JOHNSON, ENGRAVER, to the fate of a man, to whom I owe so much? I HAVE sent you two more songs.-If you have got any tunes, or any thing to correct, please send them by return of the carrier. I can easily see, my dear friend, that you will very probably have four volumes. Perhaps you may not find your account lucratively, in this business; but you are a patriot for the music of your country; and I am certain, posterity will look on themselves as highly indebted to your public spirit. Be not in a hurry; let us go on correctly; and your name shall be immortal. I am preparing a flaming preface for your third volume. I see every day, new musical publications advertised; but what are they? Gaudy, hunted butterflies of a day, and then vanish for ever: but your work will outlive the momentary neglects of idle fashion, and defy the teeth of time. This letter was sent to the publisher of the Edin burgh Evening Courant. 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 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." Adieu ! (Here follow "The mother's lament for the loss of her son," p. 200, and the song beginning." The lazy mist hangs from the brow of the hill," p. 234.) No. CII. TO MRS. DUNLOP. Ellisland, 17th December, 1788. MY DEAR HONOURED FRIEND, hobby horse, I cannot help inserting two other old stanzas, which please me mightily. Go fetch to me a pint o' wine, An' fill it in a silver tassie. (See Songs p. 218.) No. CIIL TO A YOUNG LADY, BALLAD ON HER, ENCLOSING THAT BALLAR. MADAM, YOURS, dated Edinburgh, which I have just read, makes me very unhappy. Almost "blind and wholly deaf," are melancholy news of human nature; but when told of a much loved and honoured friend, they carry misery in the sound. Goodness on your part, and gratitude on mine, began a tie, which has gradually and WHO HAD HEARD HE HAD BEEN MAKING A strongly entwisted itself among the dearest chords of my bosom; and I tremble at the omens of your late and present ailing habits December, 1788. and shattered health. You miscalculate matI UNDERSTAND my very worthy neighbour, ters widely, when you forbid my waiting on Mr. Riddel, has informed you that I have made There is someyou, lest it should hurt my worldly concerns. you the subject of some verses. My small scale of farming is exceedingly more thing so provoking in the idea of being the bursimple and easy than what you have lately den of a ballad, that I do not think Job or seen at Moreham Mains. But be that as it Moses, though such patterns of patience and may, the heart of the man, and the fancy of meekness, could have resisted the curiosity to the poet, are the two grand considerations for know what that ballad was: so my worthy which I live: if miry ridges, and dirty dung-friend has done me a mischief, which I dare say hills are to engross the best part of the func-he never intended; and reduced me to the unfortunate alternative of leaving your curiosity tions of my soul immortal, I had better been a rook or a magpie at once, and then I should ungratified, or else disgusting you with foolish not have been plagued with any ideas superior verses, the unfinished production of a random to breaking of clods, and picking up grubs; moment, and never meant to have met your ear. not to mention barn-door cocks or mallards, I have heard or read somewhere of a gentleman, who had some genius, much eccentricity, and very considerable dexterity with his pencil. In the accidental groups of life into which one is thrown, wherever this gentleman met with a character in a more than ordinary degree congenial to his heart, he used to steal a sketch of the face, merely, he said, as a nota bene to point out the agreeable recollection to his memory. What this gentleman's pencil was to him, is my muse to me; and the verses I do myself the honour to send you are a memento exactly of the same kind that he indulged in. creatures with which I could almost exchange lives at any time. If you continue so deaf, I am afraid a visit will be no great pleasure to either of us; but if I hear you are got so well again as to be able to relish conversation, look you to it, Madam, for I will make my threatenings good: I am to be at the new-year-day fair of Ayr, and by all that is sacred in the world, friend, I will come and see you. Your meeting, which you so well describe, with your old schoolfellow and friend, was truly interesting. Out upon the ways of the world! -They spoil these "social offsprings of the heart." Two veterans of the men of the world" would have met, with little more heartworkings than two old hacks worn out on the road. Apropos, is not the Scotch phrase, "Auld lang syne," exceedingly expressive. There is an old song and tune which has often thrilled through my soul. You know I am an enthusiast in old Scotch songs. I shall give you the verses on the other sheet, as I suppose Mr. Ker will save you the postage. of It may be more owing to the fastidiousness that I am so often tired, disgusted, and hurt my caprice, than the delicacy of my taste, with the insipidity, affectation, and pride of mankind, that when I meet with a person "after my own heart," I positively feel what an orthodox protestant would call a species of idolatry which acts on my fancy like inspiration, and I can no more desist rhyming on the impulse, than an Eolian harp can refuse its would be the consequence, though the object tones to the streaming air. A distich or two which hit my fancy were grey-bearded age; but where my theme is youth and beauty, a Light be the turf on the breast of the Hea- young lady whose personal charms, wit, and ven-inspired poet who composed this glorious sentiment, are equally striking and unaffected, fragment! There is more of the fire of native by heavens! though I had lived threescore years genius in it, than in half a dozen of modern a married man, and threescore years before I English Bucchanalians. Now I am on my low the very idea; and I am truly sorry that was a married man, my imagination would halthe enclosed stanzas have done such poor justies to such a subject, • Here follows the song of Auld lang syne, December, 1788. MR. MCKENZIE, in Mauchline, my very warm and worthy friend, has informed me how much you are pleased to interest yourself in my fate as a man, and, (what to me is incomparably dearer) my fame as a poet. I have, Sir, in one or two instances, been patronized by those of your character in life, when I was introduced to their notice by friends to them, heart for your happiness, and every one of that lovely flock, who stand to you in a filial relation. If ever calumny aim the poisoned shaft at them, may friendship be by to ward the blow! LETTERS, 1789. No. CV. FROM MR. G. BURNS. breakfast in the usual form, which naturally makes me call to mind the days of former years, and the society in which we used to begin them; and when I look at our family vicissitudes, "through the dark postern of time long elapsed," I cannot help remarking to you, my dear brother, how good the GoD of SEASONS is to us; and that however some clouds may seem to lower over the portion of time before us, we have great reason to hope that all will turn out well. Your mother and sisters, with Robert the and honoured acquaintances to me: but you are the first gentleman in the country whose benevolence and goodness of heart has interest- DEAR BROTHER, Mossgiel, 1st Jan. 1789. ed him for me, unsolicited and unknown. I I HAVE just finished my new-year's-day am not master enough of the etiquette of these matters to know, nor did I stay to inquire, whether formal duty bade, or cold propriety disallowed, my thanking you in this manner, as I am convinced, froin the light in which you kindly view me, that you will do me the justice to believe this letter is not the manœuvre of a needy, sharping author, fastening on those in upper life, who honour him with a little notice of him or his works. Indeed the situation of poets is generally such, to a proverb, as may, in some measure, palliate that prostitution of heart and talents they have at times been guilty of. I do not think prodigality is, by an means, a necessary concomitant of a poetic turn, but believe a careless, indolent inattention to economy, is almost inseparable from it; then there, must be in the heart of every bard of Nature's making, a certain modest sensibility, mixed with a kind of pride, that will ever keep him out of the way of those windfalls of fortune, which frequently light on hardy impudence and foot-licking servility. It is not easy to imagine a more helpless state than his, whose poetic fancy unfits him for the world, and whose character as a scholar, gives him some pretensions to the politesse of life-yet is as poor as I am. For my part, I thank Heaven, my star has been kinder; learning never elevated my ideas above the peasant's shed, and I have an independent fortune at the plough-tail. second, join me in the compliments of the sea- I am, dear brother, yours, No. CVI. TO MRS. DUNLOP. Ellisland, New-Year-Day Morning, 1789. THIS, dear Madam, is a morning of wishes, and would to GOD that I came under the aposthe James's description!-the prayer of a righteous man availeth much. In that case, Madam, you should welcome in a year full of blessings; every thing that obstructs or disturbs I was surprised to hear that any one, who tranquillity and self-enjoyment, should be repretended in the least to the manners of the moved, and every pleasure that frail humanity gentleman, should be so foolish, or worse, as to can taste, should be yours. I own myself so stoop to traduce the morals of such a one as I little a Presbyterian, that I approve of set times am, and so inhumanly cruel, too, as to meddle and seasons of more than ordinary acts of devowith that late most unfortunate, unhappy part tion, for breaking in on that habituated routine of my story. With a tear of gratitude, I thank of life and thought, which is so apt to reduce you, Sir, for the warmth with which you inter- our existence to a kind of instinct, or even posed in behalf of my conduct. I am, I ac-sometimes, and with some minds, to a state very knowledge, too frequently the sport of whim, little superior to mere machinery. caprice, and passion-but reverence to God, This day; the first Sunday of May ; a breezy, and integrity to my fellow-creatures, I hope I blue-skyed noon some time about the beginning, shall ever preserve. I have no return, Sir, to and a hoary morning and calm sunny day about make you for your goodness but one-a return the end, of autumn; these, time out of mind, which, I am persuaded, will not be unaccept- have been with me a kind of holiday. able-the honest, warm wishes of a grateful I believe I owe this to that glorious paper in the Spectator, "The Vision of Mirza;" a piece that struck my young fancy before I was capable of fixing an idea to a word of three syllables: "On the 5th day of the moon, which, according to the custom of my forefathers, I always keep holy, after having washed myself, and offered up my morning devotions, I ascended the high hill of Bagdat, in order to pass the rest of the day in meditation and prayer." that woe fell upon the head of mortal man, it fell upon him. He has left behind him a considerable number of compositions, chiefly poetical; sufficient, I imagine, to make a large octavo volume. In particular, two complete and regular tragedies, a farce of three acts, and some smaller poems on different subjects. It falls to my share, who have lived in the most intimate and uninterrupted friendship with him from my youth upwards, to transmit to you the verses be We know nothing, or next to nothing, of wrote on the publication of your incomparable the substance or structure of our souls, so can- poems. It is probable they were his last, as not account for those seeming caprices, in them, they were found in his scrutoire, folded up with that one should be particularly pleased with this the form of a letter addressed to you, and I imthing, or struck with that, which, on minds of agine, were only prevented from being sent by a different cast, makes no extraordinary im- himself, by that melancholy dispensation which pression. I have some favourite flowers in we still bemoan. The verses themselves I will spring, among which are the mountain daisy, not pretend to criticise when writing to a genthe hare-bell, the fox-glove, the wild-brier rose, tleman whom I consider as entirely qualified to the budding birch, and the hoary hawthorn, judge of their merit. They are the only verses that I view and hang over with particular de- he seems to have attempted in the Scottish light. I never hear the loud, solitary whistle style; and I hesitate not to say, in general, that of the curlew, in a summer noon, or the wild they will bring no dishonour on the Scottish mixing cadence of a troop of grey plover, in an muse ;-and' allow me to add, that if it is your autumnal morning, without feeling an elevation opinion they are not unworthy of the author, of soul like the enthusiasm of devotion or poe- and will be no discredit to you, it is the inclitry. Tell me, my dear friend, to what can this nation of Mr. Mylne's friends that they should be owing? Are we a piece of machinery, which, be immediately published in some periodical like the Æolian harp, passive, takes the impres- work, to give the world a specimen of what sion of the passing accident? Or do these work- may be expected from his performances in the ings argue something within us above the trod-poetic line, which, perhaps, will be afterwards den clod? I own myself partial to such proofs published for the advantage of his family. of those awful and important realities- GOD that made all things-man's immaterial and immortal nature-and a world of weal or woe beyond death and the grave. I must beg the favour of a letter from you, acknowledging the receipt of this, and to be allowed to subscribe myself with great regard, Sir, your most obedient servant, P. C IF you have lately seen Mrs. Dunlop, of Dunlop, you have certainly heard of the author of the verses which accompany this letter. He was a man highly respectable for every accomplishment and virtue which adorns the character of a man or a Christian. To a great degree of literature, of taste, and poetic genius, was added an invincible modesty of temper, which prevented, in a great degree, his figuring in life, and confined the perfect knowledge of his character and talents to the small circle of his chosen friends. He was untimely taken from us, a few weeks ago, by an inflammatory fever, in the prime of life-beloved by all, who enjoyed his acquaintance, and lamented by all, who have any regard for virtue or genius. There is a woe pronounced in Scripture against the SIE, No. CVIII. TO DR. MOORE. Ellisland, near Dumfries, 4th Jan. 1789. As often as I think of writing to you, whien has been three or four times every week these six months, it gives me something so like the idea of an ordinary-sized statue offering at a conversation with the Rhodian Colossus, that my mind misgives me, and the affair always miscar ries somewhere between purpose and resolve. I have, at last, got some business with you, and business-letters are written by the style-book.I say my business is with you, Sir, for you never had any with me, except the business that benevolence has in the mansion of poverty. The character and employment of a poet were formerly my pleasure, but are now my person whom all men speak well of; if ever pride, I know that a very great deal of my late eclat was owing to the singularity of my of so much. I give myself no airs on this, for situation, and the honest prejudice of Scotsmen; it was mere selfishness on my part; I was conbut still, as I said in the preface to my first edi-scious that the wrong scale of the balance was tion, I do look upon myself as having some pre-pretty heavily charged, and I thought that tensions from Nature to the poetic character. I throwing a little filial piety, and fraternal affecnave not a doubt but the knack, the aptitude, to tion, into the scale in my favour, might help to earn the Muses' trade, is a gift bestowed by smooth matters at the grand reckoning. There Him" who forms the secret bias of the soul;" is still one thing would make my circumstances -but as I firmly believe, that excellence in the quite easy; I have an excise officer's commisprofession is the fruit of industry, labour, atten- sion, and I live in the midst of a country divition, and pains. At least I am resolved to try sion. My request to Mr. Graham, who is one my doctrine by the test of experience. Another of the commissioners of excise, was, if in his appearance from the press I put off to a very power, to procure me that division. If I were distant day, a day that may never arrive-but very sanguine, I might hope that some of my poesy I am determined to prosecute with all my great patrons might procure me a treasury warvigour. Nature has given very few, if any, of rant for supervisor, surveyor-general, &c. the profession, the talents of shining in every species of composition. I shall try (for until trial it is impossible to know), whether she has qualified me to shine in any one. The worst of Thus secure of a livelihood, "to thee, sweet No. CIX. TO MR. ROBERT AINSLIE. it is, by the time one has finished a piece, it has poetry, delightful maid,” I would consecrate my been so often viewed and reviewed before the future days. mental eye, that one loses, in a good measure, the powers of critical discrimination. Here the best criterion I know is a friend-not only of abilities to judge, but with good nature enough, like a prudent teacher with a young learner, to praise perhaps a little more than is exactly just, lest the thin-skinned animal fall into that most deplorable of all poetic diseases-heart-breaking despondency of himself. Dare I, Sir, already Ellisland, Jan. 6, 1789. immensely indebted to your goodness, ask the MANY happy returns of the season to you, additional obligation of your being that friend to my dear Sir! May you be comparatively happy me? I enclose you an essay of mine, in a walk up to your comparative worth among the sons of poesy to me entirely new; I mean the epistle of men; which wish would, I am sure, make addressed to R. G., Esq., or Robert Graham, of you one of the most blest of the human race. Fintry, Esq., a gentleman of uncommon worth, to whom I lie under very great obligations. The story of the poem, like most of my poems, is connected with my own story, and to give you the one, I must give you something of the other. I cannot boast of I believe I shall, in whole, L.100 copy-right included, clear about L.400 some little odds; and even part of this depends upon what the gentleman has yet to settle with me. I give you this information, because you did me the honour to interest yourself much in my welfare. 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 favourite passages, which though I have repeated them ten thousand times, still they rouse my manhood and steel my resolution like inspiration. On Reason build resolve, YOUNG. Hear, Alfred, hero of the state, MASQUE OF ALFRED. To give the rest of my story in brief, I have married"my Jean," and taken a farm; with I grant you enter the lists of life, to struggle the first step I have every day more and more for bread, business, notice, and distinction, in reason to be satisfied; with the last, it is rather common with hundreds.-But who are they? the reverse. I have a younger brother, who Men, like yourself, and of that aggregate body, supports my aged mother; another still younger your compeers, seven-tenths of them come short brother, and three sisters, in a farm. On my of your advantages natural and accidental; while last return from Edinburgh, it cost me about two of those that remain either neglect their L.180 to save them from ruin. Not that I parts, as flowers blooming in a desert, or mishave lost so much-I only interposed between spend their strength, like a bull goring a brammy brother and his impending fate by the loan ble bush. |