means proceeded from want of respect. I feel, and ever shall feel for you, the mingled sentiments of esteem for a friend, and reverence for a father.

I thank you, sir, with all my soul for your friendly hints, though I do not need them so much as my friends are apt to imagine. You are dazzled with newspaper accounts and distant reports; but in reality I have no great temptation to be intoxicated with the cup of prosperity. Novelty may attract the attention of mankind awhile; to it I owe my present éclat; but I see the time not far distant when the popular tide which has borne me to a height of which I am perhaps unworthy, shall recede with silent celerity, and leave me a barren waste of sand, to descend at my leisure to my former station. I do not say this in the affectation of modesty : I see the consequence is unavoidable, and am prepared for it. I had been at a good deal of pains to form a just, impartial estimate of my intellectual powers before I came here; I have not added, since I came to Edinburgh, anything to the account; and I trust I shall take every atom of it back to my shades, the coverts of my unnoticed early years.

In Dr Blacklock, whom I see very often, I have found what I would have expected in our friend-a clear head and an excellent heart.

By far the most agreeable hours I spend in Edinburgh must be placed to the account of Miss Lawrie and her pianoforte. I cannot help repeating to you and Mrs Lawrie a compliment that Mr Mackenzie, the celebrated Man of Feeling, paid to Miss Lawrie the other night at the concert. I had come in at the interlude, and sat down by him till I saw Miss Lawrie in a seat not very far distant, and went up to pay my respects to her. On my return to Mr Mackenzie, he asked me who she was: I told him 'twas the daughter of a reverend friend of mine in the west country. He returned, there was something very striking, to his idea, in her appearance. On my desiring to know what it was, he was pleased to say: She has a great deal of the elegance of a well-bred lady about her, with all the sweet simplicity of a country-girl.'

My compliments to all the happy inmates of St Margaret's. I am, my dear sir, yours most gratefully,

ROBERT BURns.

The Earl of Buchan was a very different person from his brother, Henry Erskine. With weak parts, he was continually led by vanity into conspicuous situations: above all, he delighted to be a patron, though penurious habits often raised a ludicrous contrast between his pretensions and his performances. He had (apparently on the 1st of February) sent Burns some of those advices which he thought his rank entitled him to offer to a person in the

situation of the Ayrshire Ploughman. following temperate and prudent answer:

Burns returned the

TO THE EARL OF BUCHAN.

MY LORD-The honour your lordship has done me, by your notice and advice in yours of the 1st instant, I shall ever gratefully remember

Praise from thy lips 'tis mine with joy to boast,

They best can give it who deserve it most.

Your lordship touches the darling chord of my heart, when you advise me to fire my Muse at Scottish story and Scottish scenes. I wish for nothing more than to make a leisurely pilgrimage through my native country; to sit and muse on those once hardcontended fields, where Caledonia, rejoicing, saw her bloody lion borne through broken ranks to victory and fame; and, catching the inspiration, to pour the deathless names in song. But, my lord, in the midst of these enthusiastic reveries, a long-visaged, dry, morallooking phantom, strides across my imagination, and pronounces these emphatic words:

'I, Wisdom, dwell with Prudence. Friend, I do not come to open the ill-closed wounds of your follies and misfortunes, merely to give you pain: I wish through these wounds to imprint a lasting lesson on your heart. I will not mention how many of my salutary advices you have despised; I have given you line upon line, and precept upon precept; and while I was chalking out to you the straight way to wealth and character, with audacious effrontery you have zigzagged across the path, contemning me to my face. You know the consequences. It is not yet three months since home was so hot for you, that you were on the wing for the western shore of the Atlantic, not to make a fortune, but to hide your misfortune.

'Now, that your dear-loved Scotia puts it in your power to return to the situation of your forefathers, will you follow these Will-o'-wisp meteors of fancy and whim, till they bring you once more to the brink of ruin? I grant that the utmost ground you can occupy is but half a step from the veriest poverty; but still it is half a step from it. If all that I can urge be ineffectual, let her who seldom calls to you in vain, let the call of pride, prevail with you. You know how you feel at the iron gripe of ruthless oppression: you know how you bear the galling sneer of contumelious greatness. I hold you out the conveniences, the comforts of life, independence, and character, on the one hand; I tender you servility, dependence, and wretchedness on the other. I will not insult your understanding by bidding you make a choice.'

This, my lord, is unanswerable. I must return to my humble station, and woo my rustic Muse in my wonted way, at the ploughtail. Still, my lord, while the drops of life warm my heart, gratitude

THE GUDEWIFE OF WAUCHOPE-HOUSE TO BURNS.

27

ÆT. 29.] to that dear-loved country in which I boast my birth, and gratitude to those her distinguished sons who have honoured me so much with their patronage and approbation, shall, while stealing through my humble shades, ever distend my bosom, and at times, as now, draw forth the swelling tear.

R. B.

During the first blaze of Burns's reputation in Edinburgh, several rhyming epistles were addressed to him publicly and privately generally of no other value than to shew how immensely he had stepped beyond all common bounds of success in cultivating the rustic Muse. One, however, from a Mrs Scott of Wauchope, in Roxburghshire, was neatly and effectively written, and to it Burns made a suitable reply.

THE GUDEWIFE OF WAUCHOPE-HOUSE TO BURNS.

My cantic, witty, rhyming ploughman,

I hafflins doubt it is na true, man,

That ус between the stilts was bred,

Wi' ploughmen schooled, wi' ploughmen fed
I doubt it sair, ye've drawn your knowledge.
Either frae grammar-school or college.
Guid troth, your saul and body baith
War better fed, I'd gie my aith,

Than theirs who sup sour milk and parritch,
And bummil through the single Carritch.
Whacver heard the ploughman speak,
Could tell gif Homer was a Greek?
He'd flee as soon upon a cudgel,

As get a single line of Virgil.

And then sae slee ye crack your jokes

O' Willie Pitt and Charlie Fox:

Our great men a' sac weel descrive,

And how to gar the nation thrive,

Ane maist wad swear ye dwalt amang them,

And as ye saw them, sae ye sang them.

But be ye ploughman, be ye peer,

Catechism

Ye are a funny blade, I swear;

And though the cauld I ill can bide,

Yet twenty miles and mair I'd ride

O'er moss and moor, and never grumble,

endure

Though my auld yad should gie a stumble,
To crack a winter night wi' thee,

And hear thy sangs and sonnets slee.

Oh gif I kenn'd but whare ye baide,

I'd send to you a marled plaid;

horse

resided

"Twad haud
your shouthers warm and braw,
And douce at kirk or market shaw;
Fra' south as weel as north, my lad,
A' honest Scotsmen lo'e the maud.

BURNS TO THE GUDEWIFE OF WAUCHOPE-HOUSE.

I mind it weel in early date,

When I was beardless, young, and blate,

And first could thrash the barn;

Or haud a yokin' at the pleugh;
And though forfoughten sair eneugh,
Yet unco proud to learn:

When first among the yellow corn
A man I reckoned was,

And wi' the lave ilk merry morn
Could rank my rig and lass,
Still shearing, and clearing,
The tither stookèd raw,
Wi' claivers, and haivers,
Wearing the day awa'.

E'en then, a wish, I mind its power-
A wish that to my latest hour

Shall strongly heave my breast-
That I, for poor auld Scotland's sake,
Some usefu' plan or beuk could make,
Or sing a sang at least.

The rough burr-thissle, spreading wide
Amang the bearded bear,

I turned the weeder-clips aside,
And spared the symbol dear:
No nation, no station,
My envy e'er could raise,
A Scot still, but blot still,

I knew nac higher praise.

But still the elements o' sang
In formless jumble, right and wrang,
Wild floated in my brain;
Till on that har'st I said before,
My partner in the merry core,

She roused the forming strain;
I see her yet, the sonsie quean,
That lighted up my jingle,
Her witching smile, her pauky een
That gart my heart-strings tingle:

bashful

fatigued

talk

I fired, inspired,

At every kindling keek,
But bashing, and dashing,
I feared aye to speak.

Health to the sex, ilk guid chiel says,
Wi' merry dance in winter days,
And we to share in common:
The gust o' joy, the balm of wo,
The saul o' life, the heaven below,
Is rapture-giving woman.

Ye surly sumphs, who hate the name,
Be mindfu' o' your mither;
She, honest woman, may think shame
That ye're connected with her.

Ye're wae men, ye 're nae men
That slight the lovely dears;

To shame ye, disclaim ye,

Ilk honest birkie swears.

For you, no bred to barn and byre,
Wha sweetly tune the Scottish lyre,
Thanks to you for your line:
The marled plaid ye kindly spare,
By me should gratefully be ware;
"Twad please me to the nine.
I'd be mair vauntie o' my hap,
Douce hingin' owre my curple,
Than ony ermine ever lap,
Or proud imperial purple.

Fareweel then, lang heal then,
And plenty be your fa',
May losses and crosses
Ne'er at your hallan ca'!

fools

woful

fellow

worn

rump

door

Meanwhile the preparation of the new edition was going rapidly on in the printing-office of William Smellie-a man who, like Creech, mingled literary labours with those attending one of the trades of literature. There was a vast fund of knowledge, shrewdness, and talent, under the rude exterior of Smellie. In his office, at the foot of the Anchor Close, he had done typographic duty for Gilbert Stuart, Robert Fergusson, Dr Robertson, Hugo Arnot, Adam Smith, and many others of the recent and living literati of Scotland, all of whom had been his personal friends. His son Alexander, who lately died at an advanced age, perfectly remembered the visits of the Ayrshire Ploughman to the composingroom, along which he would walk three or four times, cracking a