to find them in their precious importance and divine efficacy, we must search among the obscure recesses of disappointment, affliction, poverty, and distress.

I am sure, dear madam, you are now more than pleased with the length of my letters. I return to Ayrshire, middle of next week: and it quickens my pace to think that there will be a letter from you waiting me there. I must be here again very soon for my harvest.

No. 56.

TO R. GRAHAM, ESQ. OF FINTRY.

SIR,

WHEN I had the honour of being introduced to you at Athole-house, I did not think so soon of asking a favour of you. When Lear, in Shakespeare, asks old Kent why he wished to be in his service, he answers, 'Because you have that in your face which I could like to call master.' For some such reason, Sir, do I now solicit your patronage. You know, I dare say, of an application I lately made to your board, to be admitted an officer of excise. I have according to form been examined by a supervisor, and to-day I gave in his certificate with a request for an order for instructions. In this affair, if I succeed, I am afraid I shall but too much need a patronizing friend. Propriety of conduct as a man, and fide

lity and attention as an officer, I dare engage for; but with any thing like business, except manual labour, I am totally unacquainted.

I had intended to have closed my late appearance on the stage of life, in the character of a country farmer; but after discharging some filial and fraternal claims, I find I could only fight for existence in that miserable manner, which I have lived to see throw a venerable parent into the jaws of a jail; whence death, the poor man's last and often best friend, rescued him.

I know, Sir, that to need your goodness is to have a claim on it; may I therefore beg your patronage to forward me in this affair, till I be appointed to a division, where, by the help of rigid economy, I will try to support that independence so dear to my soul, but which has been too often so distant from my situation.

No. 57.

TO MR. PETER HILL.

Mauchline, 1st October, 1788.

I HAVE been here in this country about three days, and all that time my chief reading has been the Address to Lochlomond,' you were so obliging as to send to me. Were I impannelled one of the author's jury, to determine his criminality respecting the sin of poesy, my

verdict should be 'Guilty! A poet of nature's making! It is an excellent method for improvement, and what I believe every poet does; to place some favourite classic author in his own walks of study and composition, before him, as a model. Though your author had not mentioned the name, I could have, at half a glance, guessed his model to be, Thomson. Will my brother poet forgive me, if I venture to hint, that his imitation of that immortal bard, is in two or three places rather more servile than such a genius as his required.-e. g.

To soothe the madding passions all to peace.

Address.

To soothe the throbbing passions into peace.

Thomson.

I think the Address is, in simplicity, harmony, and elegance of versification, fully equal to the Seasons. Like Thomson too he has looked into nature for himself: you meet with no copied description. One particular criticism I made at first reading; in no one instance has he said too much. He never flags in his progress, but like a true poet of nature's making, kindles in his course. His beginning is simple and modest, as if distrustful of the strength of his pinion; only, I do not altogether like

'Truth,

The soul of every song that's nobly great.'

Fiction is the soul of many a song that is nobly great. Perhaps I am wrong: this may be but a prose-criticism. Is not the phrase, in line 7, page

110

6, 'Great lake,' too much vulgarized by every day language, for so sublime a poem ?

'Great mass of waters, theme for nobler song,'

is perhaps no emendation. His enumeration of a comparison with other lakes, is at once harmonious and poetic. Every reader's ideas must sweep the

'Winding margin of an hundred miles.'

The perspective that follows mountains bluethe imprisoned billows beating in vain-the wooded isles-the digression on the yew-tree-Benlomond's lofty, cloud-enveloped head,' &c. are beautiful. A thunder-storm is a subject, which has been often tried, yet our poet, in his grand picture, has interjected a circumstance so far as I know entirely original.

"The gloom

Deep seemed with frequent streaks of moving fire.'

In his preface to the storm, the glens how dark between,' is noble highland landscape! The 'rain plowing the red mould,' too, is beautifully fancied. Ben-lomond's 'lofty, pathless top,' is a good expression; and the surrounding view from it is truly great: the

'Silver mist

Beneath the beaming sun,'

is well described; and here he has contrived to enliven his poem with a little of that passion which bids fair, I think, to usurp the modern muses altogether. I know not how far this episode is a beauty upon the whole, but the swain's

to carry some faint idea of the vision bright,'

to entertain her 'partial, listening ear,' is a pretty thought. But in my opinion the most beautiful passages in the whole poem, are the fowls crowding, in wintry frosts, to Lochlomond's 'hospitable flood; their wheeling round, their lighting, mixing, driving, &c.; and the glorious description of the sportsman. This last is equal to any in the Seasons. The idea of the floating tribes distant seen, far glistering to the moon,' provoking his eye as he is obliged to leave them, is a noble ray of poetic genius. The howling winds,' the 'hideous roar' of the white cascades,' are all in the same style.

I forget that while I am thus holding forth with the heedless warmth of an enthusiast, I am perhaps tiring you with nonsense. I must however mention, that the last verse of the sixteenth page is one of the most elegant compliments I have ever seen. I must likewise notice that beautiful paragraph, beginning, 'The gleaming lake,' &c. I dare not go into the particular beauties of the two last paragraphs, but they are admirably fine, and truly Ossianic.

I must beg your pardon for this lengthened scrawl. I had no idea of it when I began-I should like to know who the author is; but, whoever he be, please present him with my grateful thanks for the entertainment he has afforded me.

A friend of mine desired me to commission for him, two books, Letters on the Religion essential to Man, a book you sent me before; and The World unmasked, or the Philosopher the greatest Cheat. Send me them by the first opportunity.