means. You know, that, at the wish of my late up, amid the wreck of misfortune and misery. friend, I made a collection of all my trifles in The ONE is composed of the different modificaverse which I had ever written. They are ma- tions of a certain noble, stubborn something in ny of them local, some of them puerile, and sil-man, known by the names of courage, fortitude, ly, and all of them unfit for the public eye. As magnanimity. The OTHER is made up of those I have some little fame at stake, a fame that I feelings and sentiments, which, however the trust may live, when the hate of those who sceptic may deny them, or the enthusiast dis"watch for my halting," and the contumelious figure them, are yet, I am convinced, original sneer of those whom accident has made my su-and component parts of the human soul; those periors, will, with themselves, be gone to the senses of the mind, if I may be allowed the regions of oblivion; I am uneasy now for the expression, which connect us with, and link fate of those manuscripts.-Will Mrs. have us to, those awful obscure realities an allthe goodness to destroy them, or return them to powerful and equally beneficent God; and a me? As a pledge of friendship they were be-world to come, beyond death and the grave. stowed; and that circumstance, indeed, was all The first gives the nerve of combat, while a ray their merit. Most unhappily for me, that me- of hope beams on the field;—the last pours the rit they no longer possess, and I hope that Mrs. balm of comfort into the wounds which time -'s goodness, which I well know, and ever can never cure. will revere, will not refuse this favour to a man whom she once held in some degree of estimation. With the sincerest esteem I have the honour to be, Madam, &c. No. CXCII. TO MR. CUNNINGHAM. A MIND DISEASED. I do not remember, my dear Cunningham, that you and I ever talked on the subject of religion at all. I know some who laugh at it, as the trick of the crafty FEW, to lead the undiscerning MANY; or at most as an uncertain obscurity, which mankind can never know any thing of, and with which they are fools if they give themselves much to do. Nor would I quarrel with a man for his irreligion, any more than I would for his want of a musical ear. I would regret that he was shut out from what, to me and to others were such superlative sources of enjoyment. It is in this point of view, and for this reason, that I will deeply imbue the 25th February, 1794. mind of every child of mine with religion. If CANST thou minister to a mind diseased? my son should happen to be a man of feeling, Canst thou speak peace and rest to a soul tossed sentiment, and taste, I shall thus add largely to on a sea of troubles, without one friendly star to his enjoyments. Let me flatter myself that this guide her course, and dreading that the next sweet little fellow who is just now running surge may overwhelm her? Canst thou give to about my desk, will be a man of a melting, ara frame, tremblingly alive to the tortures of sus-dent, glowing heart; and an imagination, depense, the stability and hardihood of the rock lighted with the painter, and rapt with the that braves the blast? If thou canst not do the poet. least of these, why wouldst thou disturb me in sweet evening, to inhale the balmy gales, and my miseries, with thy inquiries after me? Let me figure him, wandering out in a enjoy the growing luxuriance of the spring; himself the while in the blooming youth of life. He looks abroad on all nature, and through naFor these two months I have not been able to ture up to nature's God. His soul, by swift, lift a pen. My constitution and frame were, ab delighting degrees, is wrapt above this subluorigine, blasted with a deep incurable taint of nary sphere, until he can be silent no longer, hypochondria, which poisons my existence. Of and bursts out into the glorious enthusiasm of late a number of domestic vexations, and some Thomson. pecuniary share in the ruin of these times; losses which, though trifling, were yet what I" These, as they change, Almighty Father, these could ill bear, have so irritated me, that my Are but the varied God. The rolling year feelings at times could only be envied by a re- Is full of thee." probate spirit listening to the sentence that dooms it to perdition. And so on, in all the spirit and ardour of that charming hymu. Are you deep in the language of consolation? I have exhausted in reflection every topic of These are no ideal pleasures; they are real comfort. A heart at ease would have been delights, and I ask what of the delights among charmed with my sentiments and reasonings; the sons of men are superior, not to say, equal but as to myself, I was like Judas Iscariot to them? And they have this precious, vast adpreaching the gospel; he might melt and mould dition, that conscious virtue stamps them for the hearts of those around him, but his own her own; and lays hold on them to bring herkept its native incorrigibility. self into the presence of a witnessing, judging, and approving God. Still there are two great pillars that bear us SUPPOSES HIMSELF TO BE WRITING FROM THE MADAM, TO THE EARL OF GLENCAIRN. MY LORD, WHEN you cast your eye on the name at the bottom of this letter, and on the title page of the book I do myself the honour to send your I DARE say this is the first epistle you ever lordship, a more pleasurable feeling than my vareceived from this nether world. I write you nity tells me, that it must be a name not entirefrom the regions of Hell, amid the horrors of ly unknown to you. The generous patronage the damned. The time and manner of my lea-of your late illustrious brother found me in the ving your earth I do not exactly know; as I lowest obscurity: he introduced my rustic muse took my departure in the heat of a fever of in- to the partiality of my country; and to him I toxication, contracted at your too hospitable owe all. My sense of his goodness, and the mansion; but on my arrival here, I was fairly anguish of my soul at losing my truly noble tried and sentenced to endure the purgatorial protector and friend, I have endeavoured to extortures of this infernal confine, for the space of press in a poem to his inemory, which I have ninety-nine years, eleven months, and twenty- now published. This edition i just from the nine days; and all on account of the improprie- press; and in my gratitude to the dead, and my ty of my conduct yesternight under your roof. respect for the living (fame belies you, my lord, Here am I, laid on a bed of pitiless furze, with if you possess, not the same dignity of man, my aching head reclined on a pillow of ever- which was your noble brother's characteristic piercing thorn, while an infernal tormentor, feature), I had destined a copy for the Earl of wrinkled, and old, and cruel, his name, I think, Glencairn. I learnt just now that you are in is Recollection, with a whip of scorpions, for- town:-allow me to present it to you. bids peace or rest to approach me, and keeps I know, my lord, such is the vile, venal conanguish eternally awake. Still, Madam, if I tagion which pervades the world of letters, could in any measure be reinstated in the good that professions of respect from an author, paropinion of the fair circle whom my conduct last ticularly from a poet, to a lord, are more than night so much injured, I think it would be an suspicious. I claim my by-past conduct, and alleviation to my torments. For this reason I my feelings at this moment, as exceptions to the trouble you with this letter. To the men of too just conclusion. Exalted as are the honours the company I will make no apology.-Your of your lordship's name, and unnoted as is the husband, who insisted on my drinking more obscurity of mine; with the uprightness of an than I chose, has no right to blame me; and honest man, I come before your lordship, with the other gentlemen were partakers of my guilt. an offering, however humble, 'tis all I have to But to you, Madam, I have much to apologize. Your good opinion I valued as one of the greatest acquisitions I had made on earth, and I was truly a beast to forfeit it. There was a Miss I too, a woman of fine sense, gentle and unassuming manners--do make, on my part, a miserable d-d wretch's best apology to her. A Mrs. G- a charming woman, did me the honour to be prejudiced in my favour; this makes me hope that I have not outraged her beyond all forgiveness.-To all the other ladies please, present my humblest contrition for my conduct, and my petition for their gracious pardon. O all ye powers of decency and decorum! whisper to them that my errors, though great, were involuntary that an intoxicated man is Dr. Blacklock for introducing me to a gentleI AM much indebted to my worthy friend the vilest of beasts-that it was not in my na-man of Dr. Anderson's celebrity; but when you ture to be brutal to any one-that to be rude to do me the honour to ask my assistance in your woman, when in my senses, was impossible purposed publication, Alas, Sir! you might as with me-but give, of my grateful respect; and to beg of you, my lord,-'tis all I have to ask of you, that you will do me the honour to accept of it. SIR, I have the honour to be, &c. No. CXCV. TO DR. ANDERSON, AUTHOR OF THE LIVES OF THE POETS. well think to cheapen a little honesty at the sign of an Advocate's wig, or humility under the Geneva band. I am a miserable hurried Regret! Remorse! Shame! ye three hell-devil, worn to the marrow in the friction of hounds that ever dog my steps and bay at my heels, spare me ! spare me! Forgive the offences, and pity the perdition of, Madam, your humble slave. The original letter is in the possession of the Ho randum on the back of the letter, it appears to have nourable Mrs. Holland of Poynings. From a memobeen written in May 1794, holding the noses of the poor publicans to the grindstone of Excise; and like Milton's Satan, for private reasons, am forced I send you by my friend Mr. Wallace fortyone songs for your fifth volume; if we cannot finish it any other way, what would you think of Scots words to some beautiful Irish airs? "To do what yet tho' dam'd I would ab- In the meantime, at your leisure, give a copy hore ;" of the Museum to my worthy friend Mr. Peter Hill, bookseller, to bind for me, interleaved and except a couplet or two of honest execration with blank leaves, exactly as he did the laird of Glenriddel's, that I may insert every anecdote I can learn, together with my own criticisms and remarks on the songs.-A copy of this kind I shall leave with you, the editor, to publish at some after period, by way of making the Museum a book famous to the end of time, and you renowned for ever. No. CXCVI. TO MRS. DUNLOP I have got an Highland dirk for which I have great veneration; as it once was the dirk of Lord Balmerino. It fell into bad hands, who stripped it of the silver mounting, as well as the knife and fork. I have some thoughts of sending it to your care, to get it mounted anew. Castle Douglas, 5th June, 1794. HERE in a solitary inn, in a solitary village, am I set by myself, to amuse my brooding fancy as I may. Solitary confinement, you know, is Howard's favourite idea of reclaiming sinners; so let me consider by what fatality it happens that I have so long been exceeding sinful as to neglect the correspondence of the most valued friend I have on earth. To tell you that I have been in poor health, will not be excuse enough, though it is true. I am afraid I am about to that I am an amateur-will be allowed me. suffer for the follies of my youth. My medical friends threaten me with a flying gout; but I trust they are mistaken. I am just going to trouble your critical patience with the first sketch of a stanza I have been framing as I paced along the road. The subject is LIBERTY: You know, my honoured friend, how dear the theme is to me. I design it an irregular Ode for General Washington's birth-day. After having mentioned the degeneracy of other kingdoms, I come to Scotland thus: (See Poems, p. 77.) Thank you for the copies of my Volunteer Ballad.-Our friend Clarke has done indeed well! It is chaste and beautiful. I have not met with any thing that has pleased me so You know, I am no connoisseur; but much. No. CXCVIII. TO PETER MILLER, JUN, Esq.t DEAR SIR, You will probably have another scrawl from were I an insular individual, unconnected with me in a stage or two. a wife and a family of children, with the most fervid enthusiasm I would have volunteered my services: I then could and would have despised all consequences that might have ensued. My prospect in the Excise is something; at least, it is, encumbered as I am with the welfare, the very existence, of near half-a-score of helpless individuals, what I dare not sport with. In the mean time, they are most welcome to This is the manuscript book containing the remarks on Scottish songs and ballads, presented to the public, with considerable additions, in this volume. In a conversation with his friend Mr. Perry, (the proprietor of "The Morning Chronicle"), Mr. Miller represented to that gentleman the insufficiency of Burna's salary to answer the imperious demands of a numerous family. In their sympathy for his misfortunes, and in th ir regret that his talents were nearly lost to the world of letters, these gentlemen agreed on the plan of settling him in London. To accomplish this most desirable object, Mr. Perry, very spiritedly, made the poet a handsome offer of an annual stipend for the exercise of his talents in his newspaper. Burns's reasons for refusing this offer are stated in the present letter-CROMER. Yours in the Ld R. B. my Ode; only, let them insert it as a thing A hymn of thanksgiving would, in my opi they have met with by accident and unknown nion, be highly becoming from you at present; to me.-Nay, if Mr. Perry, whose honour, af- and in my zeal for your well-being, I earnestly ter your character of him I cannot doubt; if press it on you to be diligent in chanting over he will give ine an address and channel by which the two enclosed pieces of sacred poesy. My any thing will come safe from those spies with best compliments to Mrs. Hamilton and Miss which he may be certain that his correspon- Kennedy. dence is beset, I will now and then send him any bagatelle that I may write. In the present hurry of Europe, nothing but news and politics will be regarded; but against the days of peace, which Heaven send soon, my little assistance may perhaps fill up an idle column of a Newspaper. I have long had it in my head to try my hand in the way of little prose essays, which I propose sending into the world through the medium of some Newspaper; and should these be worth his while, to these Mr. Perry shall be welcome; and all my reward shall be, his treating me with his paper, which, by the bye, to any body who has the least relish for wit, is a high treat indeed. With the most grateful esteem, I am ever, No. CXCIX. TO GAVIN HAMILTON, Esq. MY DEAR SIR, No. CC. TO MR. SAMUEL CLARKE, Jux. DEAR SIR, Sunday Morning. I was, I know, drunk last night, but I am sober this morning. From the expressions Capt. made use of to me, had I had nobody's welfare to care for but my own, we should certainly have come, according to the manners of the world, to the necessity of murdering one another about the business. The words were such as, generally, I believe, end in a brace of pistols; but I am still pleased to think that I did not ruin the peace and welfare of a wife and a family of children in a drunken squabble. Farther you know that the report of certain political opinions being mine, has already once Dumfries. before brought me to the brink of destruction. Ir is indeed with the highest satisfaction that I dread lest last night's business may be misI congratulate you on the return of "days of represented in the same way.-You, I beg, ease, and nights of pleasure," after the horrid will take care to prevent it. I tax your wish hours of misery, in which I saw you suffering for Mrs. Burns's welfare with the task of waitexistence when I was last in Ayrshire. I sel- ing as soon as possible, on every gentleman dom pray for any body. "I'm baith dead who was present, and state this to him, and, as sweer, and wretched ill o't." But most fervent- you please, shew him this letter. What, after ly do I beseech the great Director of this world, all, was the obnoxious toast? "May our suethat you may live long and be happy, but that cess in the present war be equal to the justice you may live no longer than while you are of our cause."-A toast that the most outragehappy. It is needless for me to advise you to ous frenzy of loyalty cannot object to. I request have a reverend care of your health. I know and beg that this morning you will wait on the you will make it a point never, at one time, to parties present at the foolish dispute. I shall drink more than a pint of wine; (I mean an only add, that I am truly sorry that a man who English pint), and that you will never be wit-stood so high in my estimation as Mr. —, ness to more than one bowl of punch at a time; should use me in the manner in which I conand that cold drams you will never more taste.ceive he has done. I am well convinced too, that after drinking, perhaps boiling punch, you will never mount your horse and gallop home in a chill, late hour. -Above all things, as I understand you are now in habits of intimacy with that Boanerges of gospel powers, Father Auld, be earnest with him that he will wrestle in prayer for you, that you may see the vanity of vanities in trusting to, or even practising the carnal moral works of charity, humanity, generosity, and forgiveness; things which you practised so flagrantly that it was evident you delighted in them; ne-Ye sons of sedition give ear to my song, glecting, or perhaps, prophanely despising the Let Syme, BURNS, and Maxwell, pervade every wholesome doctrine of "Faith without works, With, Cracken the attorney, and Mundell the quack, the only anchor of salvation." Send Willie the monger to hell with a smack. At this period of our Poet's life, when political animosity was made the ground of private quarrel, the following foolish verses were sent as an attack on Burns and his friends for their political opinions. They were written by some member of a club styling themselves the Loyal Natives of Dumfries, or rather by the united genius of that club, which was more distinguished for drunken loyalty, than either for respectability or poetical talent. The verses were handed over the table to Burns at a convivial meeting, and he instantly indorsed the subjoined reply. The Loyal Natives' Verses. throng, No. CCI. TO MR. ALEXANDER FINDLATER, BIR, SUPERVISOR OF EXCISE, DUMFRIES. [ability and independence, is what I can ill brook and bear; but to be deprived of that most admirable oration of the Marquis of Lansdowne, when he made the great, though ineffectual at tempt, (in the language of the poet, I fear too true,)" to save a SINKING STATE"-this was ENCLOSED are the two schemes. I would a loss which I neither can, nor will forgive you. not have troubled you with the collector's one, -That paper, Gentlemen, never reached me; but for suspicion lest it be not right. Mr. Ers- but I demand it of you. I am a BRITON; and kine promised me to make it right, if you will must be interested in the cause of LIBERTY:have the goodnes to shew him how. As I have I am a MAN; and the RIGHTS of HUMAN NAHowever, no copy of the scheme for myself, and the alter-TURE cannot be indifferent to me. ations being very considerable from what it was do not let me mislead you: I am not a man in formerly, I hope that I shall have access to this that situation of life, which, as your subscriber, scheme I send you, when I come to face up my can be of any consequence to you, in the eyes new books. So much for schemes. And that of those to whom SITUATION OF LIFE ALONE no scheme to betray a FRIEND, or mislead is the criterion of MAN.-I am but a plain STRANGER; to seduce a YOUNG GIRL, or rob tradesman, in this distant, obscure country a HENROOST; to subvert LIBERTY, or bribe an town: but that humble domicile in which I shelter wife and children, is the CASTELLUM IXCISEMAN; to disturb the GENERAL ASSEMmy BLY, or annoy & GOSSIPPING; to overthrow the of a BRITON; and that scanty, hard-earned incredit of ORTHODOXY, or the authority of OLD come which supports them, is as truly my proSONGS; to oppose your wishes, or frustrate my perty, as the most magnificent fortune, of the hopes MAY PROSPER-is the sincere wish and most PUISSANT MEMBER of your HOUSE of prayer of ROBT. BURNS. No. CCIL a TO THE EDITORS OF THE MORNING NOBLES. These, Gentlemen, are my sentiments; and to them I subscribe my name: and were I a man of ability and consequence enough to address the PUBLIC, with that name should they appear. I am, &c. Ye true "Loyal Natives" attend to my song, This letter owes its origin to the following cir. cumstance. A neighbour of the Poet's at Dumfries, called on him and complained that he was greatly disappointed in the irregular delivery of the Paper of The Morning Chronicle. Burns asked, "Why do not you write to the Editors of the Paper?" Good God, Sir, can I presume to write to the learned Editors of a Newspaper?-Well, if you are afraid of writ ing to the Editors of a Newspaper I am not; and if you think proper, I'll draw up a sketch of a letter, which you may copy. Burns tore a leaf from his excise book and instantly produced the sketch which I have transcribed, and which is here printed. The poor man thanked him, and took the letter home. However, that caution which the watchfulness of his enemies had taught him to exercise, prompted him to the prudence of begging a friend to wait on the person for whom it was written, and request the favour to have it returned. This request was complied with, and the paper never appeared in print. No. CCIII. TO COL. W. DUNBAR. I AM not gone to Elysium, most noble Colonel, but am still here in this sublunary world, serving my God by propagating his image, and honouring my king by begetting him loyal subjects. Many happy returns of the season await my friend! May the thorns of care never beset his path! May peace be an inmate of his bosom, and rapture a frequent visitor of his soul! May the blood-hounds of misfortune never trace his steps, nor the screech-owl of sor. row alarm his dwelling! May enjoyment tell thy hours, and pleasure number thy days, thou friend of the Bard! Blessed be he that blesseth thee, and cursed be he that curseth thee! No. CCIV. TO MISS FONTENELLE, ACCOMPANYING A PROLOGUE TO BE SPOKEN MADAM, In such a bad world as ours, those who add to the scanty sum of our pleasures, are posi |