not cure him, but if you add a tankard of brown stout, and superadd a magnum of right Oporto, you will see his sorrows vanish like the morning mist before the summer sun. Candlish, the earliest friend, except my only brother, that I have on earth, and one of the worthiest fellows that ever any man called by the name of friend, if a luncheon of my cheese would help to rid him of some of his superabundant modesty, you would do well to give it him. David,' with his Courant, comes, too, across my recollection, and I beg you will help him. largely from the said ewe-milk cheese, to enable him to digest those bedaubing paragraphs with which he is eternally larding the lean characters of certain great men in a certain great town. I grant you the periods are very well turned; so, a fresh egg is a very good thing, but when thrown at a man in a pillory, it does not at all improve his figure, not to mention the irreparable loss of the egg. My facetious friend Dunbar I would wish also to be a partaker: not to digest his spleen, for that he laughs off, but to digest his last night's wine at the last field-day of the Crochallan corps.2 Among our common friends I must not forget one of the dearest of them-Cunningham. The brutality, insolence, and selfishness of a world unworthy of having such a fellow as he is in it, I know sticks in his stomach, and if you can help him to anything that will make him a little easier on that score, it will be very obliging. As to honest J S- -e, he is such a contented, happy man, that I know not what can annoy him, except, perhaps, he may not have got the better of a parcel of modest anecdotes which a certain poet gave him one night at supper, the last time the said poet was in town. Though I have mentioned so many men of law, I shall have nothing to do with them professedly -the faculty are beyond my prescription. As to their clients, that is another thing; God knows they have much to digest! The clergy I pass by; their profundity of erudition, and their liberality of sentiment; their total want of pride, and their detestation of hypocrisy, are so proverbially notorious as to place them far, far above either my praise or censure. 1 Printer of the Edinburgh Evening Courant. 2 A club of choice spirits. I was going to mention a man of worth whom I have the honour to call friend, the Laird of Craigdarroch; but I have spoken to the landlord of the King's-Arms inn here, to have at the next county meeting a large ewe-milk cheese on the table, for the benefit of the Dumfries-shire Whigs, to enable them to digest the Duke of Queensberry's late political conduct. I have just this moment an opportunity of a private hand to Edinburgh, as perhaps you would not digest double postage. R. B. CXXVIII. TO ROBERT GRAHAM, ESQ., OF FINTRAY. [The filial and fraternal claims alluded to in this letter were satisfied with about three hundred pounds, two hundred of which went to his brother Gilbert-a sum which made a sad inroad on the money arising from the second edition of his Poems.] 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 Shakspeare, asked Old Kent why he wished to be in his service, he answers, "Because you have that in your face which I would fain 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, ac cording 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 fidelity and attention as an officer, I dare engage for; but with anything 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 I HAVE not room, my dear friend, to answer all the particulars of your last kind letter. shall be in Edinburgh on some business very soon; and as I shall be two days, or perhaps three, in town, we shall discuss matters vivâ voce. My knee, I believe, will never be entirely well; and an unlucky fall this winter has made it still worse. I well remember the circumstance you allude to, respecting Creech's opinion of Mr. Nicol; but, as the first gentleman owes me still about fifty pounds, I dare not meddle in the affair. It gave me a very heavy heart to read such accounts of the consequence of your quarrel with that puritanic, rotten-hearted, hell-commissioned scoundrel A If, notwith standing your unprecedented industry in public, and your irreproachable conduct in private life, he still has you so much in his power, what ruin may he not bring on some others I could name ? Many and happy returns of seasons to you, with your dearest and worthiest friend, and the lovely little pledge of your happy union. May the great Author of life, and of every enjoyment that can render life delightful, make her that comfortable blessing to you both, which you so ardently wish for, and which, allow me to say, you so well deserve! Glance over the foregoing verses, and let me have your blots. Adieu. R. B. CXXX. TO MRS. DUNLOP. [The lines on the Hermitage were presented by the poet to several of his friends, and Mrs. Dunlop was among the number.] Mauchline, August 2, 1788. HONOURED MADAM, YOUR kind letter welcomed me, yesternight, to Ayrshire. I am, indeed, seriously angry with you at the quantum of your luckpenny; but, vexed and hurt as I was, I could not help laughing very heartily at the noble lord's apology for the missed napkin. I would write you from Nithsdale, and give you my direction there, but I have scarce an opportunity of calling at a post-office once in a fortnight. I am six miles from Dumfries, am scarcely ever in it myself, and, as yet, have little acquaintance in the neighbourhood. sides, I am now very busy on my farm, building a dwelling-house; as at present I am almost an evangelical man in Nithsdale, for I have scarce "where to lay my head." Be brought tears in my eyes. There are some passages in your last that "The heart knoweth its own sorrows, and a stranger intermeddleth not therewith." The repository of these "sor rows of the heart" is a kind of sanctum sanctorum: and 'tis only a chosen friend, and that, too, at particular sacred times, who dares enter into them: "Heaven oft tears the bosom-chords You will excuse this quotation for the sake of the author. Instead of entering on this subject farther, I shall transcribe you a few lines I wrote in a hermitage, belonging to a gentleman in my Nithsdale neighbourhood. They are almost the only favours the muses have conferred on me in that country: Thou whom chance may hither lead.1 Since I am in the way of transcribing, the following were the production of yesterday as I jogged through the wild hills of New Cumnock. I intend inserting them, or something like them, in an epistle I am going to write to the gentleman on whose friendship my Excise hopes depend, Mr. Graham, of Fintray, one of 1 See Poems LXXXIX and XC the worthiest and most accomplished gentlemen press myself in the fulness of my heart, and not only of this country, but, I will dare to say | may, perhaps, be guilty of neglecting some of it, of this age. The following are just the first your kind inquiries; but not from your very crude thoughts "unhousel'd, unanointed, unan- old reason, that I do not read your letters. All neal'd:"your epistles for several months have cost me nothing, except a swelling throb of gratitude, or a deep-felt sentiment of veneration. * * * * Pity the tuneful muses' helpless train; The little fate bestows they share as soon; boon. Let Prudence number o'er each sturdy son, When Mrs. Burns, Madam, first found herself as women wish to be who love their lords," as I loved her nearly to distraction, we took steps for a private marriage. Her parents got the hint; and not only forbade me her company and their house, but, on my rumoured West Indian voyage, got a warrant to put me in jail, till I should find security in my aboutto-be paternal relation. You know my lucky reverse of fortune. On my éclatant return to Mauchline, I was made very welcome to visit my girl. The usual consequences began to be We own they're prudent, but who owns they're tray her; and, as I was at that time laid up a good? [This letter has been often cited, and very properly, as a proof of the strong attachment of Burns to one who was, in many respects, worthy.] Mauchline, August 10, 1788. MY MUCH HONOURED FRIEND, YOURS of the 24th June is before me. I found it, as well as another valued friend-my wife, waiting to welcome me to Ayrshire: I met both with the sincerest pleasure. When I write you, Madam, I do not sit down to answer every paragraph of yours, by echoing every sentiment, like the faithful Commons of Great Britain in Parliament assembled, answering a speech from the best of kings! I ex | cripple in Edinburgh, she was turned, literally turned out of doors, and I wrote to a friend to shelter her till my return, when our marriage was declared. Her happiness or misery were in my hands, and who could trifle with such a deposit ? I can easily fancy a more agreeable companion for my journey of life; but, upon my honour, I have never seen the individual instance. Circumstanced as I am, I could never have got a female partner for life, who could have entered into my favourite studies, relished my favourite authors, &c., without probably entailing on me at the same time expensive living, fantastic caprice, perhaps apish affectation, with all the other blessed boarding-school acquirements, which (pardonnez moi, Madame,) are sometimes to be found among females of the upper ranks, but almost universally pervade the misses of the would-be gentry. I like your way in your church-yard lucubrations. Thoughts that are the spontaneous result of accidental situations, either respecting health, place, or company, have often a strength, and always an originality, that would in vain be looked for in fancied circumstances and studied paragraphs. For me, I have often thought of keeping a letter, in progression by me, to send you when the sheet was written out. Now I talk of sheets, I must tell you, my reason for writing to you on paper of this kind is my pruriency of writing to you at large. A page of post is on such a dissocial, narrow-minded scale, [Mrs. Miller, of Dalswinton, was a lady of beauty and talent: she wrote verses with skill and taste. Her maiden name was Jean Lindsay.] Ellisland, 16th August, 1788. I AM in a fine disposition, my honoured friend, to send you an elegiac epistle; and want only genius to make it quite Shenstonian : "Why droops my heart with fancied woes forlorn? Why sinks my soul, beneath each wintry sky?" My increasing cares in this, as yet strange country-gloomy conjectures in the dark vista of futurity—consciousness of my own inability for the struggle of the world—my broadened mark to misfortune in a wife and children;-I could indulge these reflections till my humour should ferment into the most acid chagrin, that would corrode the very thread of life. To counterwork these baneful feelings, I have sat down to write to you; as I declare upon my soul I always find that the most sovereign balm for my wounded spirit. I was yesterday at Mr. Miller's to dinner for the first time. My reception was quite to my mind: from the lady of the house quite flattering. She sometimes hits on a couplet or two, impromptu. She repeated one or two to the admiration of all present. My suffrage as a professional man, was expected: I for once went agonizing over the belly of my conscience. Pardon me, ye my adored household gods, independence of spirit, and integrity of soul! In the course of conversation, "Johnson's Musical Museum," a collection of Scottish songs with the music, was talked of. We got a song on the harpsichord, beginning, "Raving winds around her blowing." 1 The air was much admired: the lady of the house asked me whose were the words. "Mine, Madam-they are indeed my very best verses;" she took not the smallest notice of them! The old Scottish proverb says well, "king's caff is See Song LII. better than ither folks' corn." I was going to make a New Testament quotation about "casting pearls" but that would be too virulent, for the lady is actually a woman of sense and taste. After all that has been said on the other side of the question, man is by no means a happy creature. I do not speak of the selected few, favoured by partial heaven, whose souls are tuned to gladness amid riches and honours, and prudence and wisdom. I speak of the neglected many, whose nerves, whose sinews, whose days are sold to the minions of fortune. If I thought you had never seen it, I would transcribe for you a stanza of an old Scottish ballad, called, "The Life and Age of Man;” beginning thus: "'Twas in the sixteenth hunder year Of God and fifty-three, Frae Christ was born, that bought us dear, As writings testifie." I had an old grand-uncle, with whom my mother lived awhile in her girlish years; the good old man, for such he was, was long blind ere he died, during which time his highest enjoyment was to sit down and cry, while my mother would sing the simple old song of "the Life and Age of Man." It is this way of thinking; it is these melancholy truths, that make religion so precious to the poor, miserable children of men.—If it is a mere phantom, existing only in the heated imagination of enthusiasm, "What truth on earth so precious as a lie." My idle reasonings sometimes make me a heart little sceptical, but the necessities of my always give the cold philosophisings the lie. Who looks for the heart weaned from earth; the soul affianced to her God; the correspondence fixed with heaven; the pious supplication and devout thanksgiving, constant as the vicissitudes of even and morn; who thinks to meet with these in the court, the palace, in the glare of public life? No: 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. must be here again very soon for my harvest. R. B. 1 THERE is not in Edinburgh above the number of the graces whose letters would have given me so much pleasure as yours of the 3d instant, which only reached me yesternight. I am here on the farm, busy with my harvest; but for all that most pleasurable part of life called SOCIAL COMMUNICATION, I am here at the very elbow of existence. The only things that are to be found in this country, in any degree of perfection, are stupidity and canting. Prose they only know in graces, prayers, &c., and the value of these they estimate as they do their plaiding webs-by the ell! As for the muses, they have as much an idea of a rhinoceros as of a poet. For my old capricious but good natured huzzy of a muse "By banks of Nith I sat and wept When Coila I thought on, In midst thereof I hung my harp I am generally about half my time in Ayrshire with my "darling Jean," and then I, at lucid intervals, throw my horny fist across my becobwebbed lyre, much in the same manner as an old wife throws her hand across the spokes of her spinning-wheel. I will send you the "Fortunate Shepherdess" as soon as I return to Ayrshire, for there I keep it with other precious treasure. I shall send it by a careful hand, as I would not for anything it should be mislaid or lost. I do not wish to serve you from any benevolence, or other grave Christian virtue; 'tis purely a selfish gratification of my own feelings whenever I think of you. If your better functions would give you leisure to write me, I should be extremely happy; that is to say, if you neither keep nor look for a regular correspondence. I hate the idea of being obliged to write a letter. I sometimes write a friend twice a week, at other times once a quarter. [To this fine letter all the biographers of Burns are largely indebted.] Ellisland, near Dumfries, Sept. 16th, 1788. WHERE are you? and how are you? and is Lady Mackenzie recovering her health? for I have had but one solitary letter from you. I will not think you have forgot me, Madam; and for my part "When thee, Jerusalem, I forget, Skill part from my right hand!" My heart is not of that rock, nor my soul careless as that sea. "" I do not make my progress among mankind as a bowl does among its fellows-rolling through the crowd without bearing away any mark of impression, except where they hit in hostile collision. I am here, driven in with my harvest-folks by bad weather; and as you and your sister once did me the honour of interesting yourselves much à l'égard de moi, I sit down to beg the continuation of your goodness. I can truly say that, all the exterior of life apart, I never saw two, whose esteem flattered the nobler feelings of my soul-I will not say more, but so much as Lady Mackenzie and Miss Chalmers. When I think of you-hearts the best, minds the noblest of human kind-unfortunate even in the shades of life-when I think I have met with you, and have lived more of real life with you in eight days than I can do with almost any body I meet with in eight years-when I think on the improbability of meeting you in this world again-I could sit down and cry like a child! If ever you honoured me with a place in your esteem, I trust I can now plead more |