told: "And, behold, on whatsoever this man doth set his heart, it shall not prosper!" If my resentment is awakened, it is sure to be where it dare not squeak; and if— . Pray that wisdom and bliss be the frequent visitors of—R. B. No. CCLVIII. TO G. THOMSON. [Mr. Thomson, criticizing the songs with the ear of a musician, excuses himself for pointing out what he deems defects-"the wren will oversee what has been overlooked by the eagle."] DUMFRIES, 1st Dec. 1792. YOUR alterations of my "Nannie, O!" are perfectly right. So are those of "My wife's a winsome wee thing :" your alteration of the second stanza is a positive improvement. Now, my dear Sir, with the freedom which characterises our correspondence, I must not, cannot, alter "Bonie Lesley." You are right, the word "Alexander" makes the line a little uncouth; but I think the thought is pretty. Of Alexander, beyond all other heroes, it may be said, in the sublime language of Scripture, that "he went forth conquering and to conquer." "For Nature made her what she is, And never made anither." (Such a person as she is.) 66 This is, in my opinion, more poetical than "Ne'er made sic anither." However, it is immaterial: make it either way. Caledonie," I agree with you, is not so good a word as could be wished, though it is sanctioned in three or four instances by Allan Ramsay; but I cannot help it. In short, that species of stanza is the most difficult that I have ever tried. R. B. No. CCLIX. FINTRY. December, 1792. SIR, I have been surprised, confounded, and distracted by Mr. Mitchell, the collector, telling me that he has received an order from your Board to inquire into my political conduct, and blaming me as a person disaffected to Government. Sir, you are a husband-and a father. You know what you would feel, to see the much-loved wife of your bosom, and your helpless, prattling little ones turned adrift into the world, degraded and disgraced from a situation in which they had been respectable and respected, and left almost without the necessary support of a miserable existence. Alas, Sir ! must I think that such, soon, will be my lot! and from the d-mned, dark insinuations of hellish, groundless envy too! I believe, Sir, I may aver it, and in the sight of Omniscience, that I would not tell a deliberate falsehood-no, not though even worse horrors, if worse can be, than those I have mentioned, hung over my head; and I say, that the allegation, whatever villain has made it, is a lie! To the British Constitution, on revolution principles, next after my God, I am most devoutly attached. You, Sir, have been much and generously my friend. Heaven knows how warmly I have felt the obligation, and how gratefully I have thanked you. Fortune, Sir, has made you powerful, and me impotent; has given you patronage, and me dependence. I would not for my single self call on your humanity; were such my insular, unconnected situation, I would despise the tear that now swells in my eye-I could brave misfortune, I could face ruin; for, at the worst," Death's thousand doors stand open: but, good God! the tender concerns that I have mentioned, the claims and ties that I see at this moment, and feel around me, how they unnerve Courage, and wither Resolution! To your patronage, as a man of genius, you have allowed me a claim; and your esteem, as an honest man, I know is my due to these, Sir, permit me to appeal; by these may I adjure you to save me from that misery which threatens to overwhelm me, and which, with my latest breath I will say it, I have not deserved.-R. B. No. CCLX. TO MRS. DUNLOP. DUMFRIES, 31st December, 1792 DEAR MADAM, A hurry of business, thrown in heaps by my absence, has until now prevented my returning my grateful acknowledgments to the good family of Dunlop, and you in particular, for that hospitable kindness which rendered the four days I spent under that genial roof four of the pleasantest I ever enjoyed. Alas, my dearest friend! how few and fleeting are those things we call pleasures! On my road to Ayrshire, I spent a night with a friend whom I much valued, a man whose days promised to be many; and on Saturday last we laid him in the dust! Jan. 2, 1793. I HAVE just received yours of the 30th, and feel much for your situation. However, I heartily rejoice in your prospect of recovery from that vile jaundice. As to myself, I am better, though not quite free of my complaint. You must not think, as you seem to insinuate, that in my way of life I want exercise. Of that I have enough; but occasional hard drinking is the devil to me. Against this I have again and again bent my resolution, and have greatly succeeded. Taverns I have totally abandoned : it is the private parties in the family way, among the hard-drinking gentle- | men of this country, that do me the mischief; but even this I have more than half given over. Mr. Corbet can be of little service to me at present; at least I should be shy of applying. I cannot possibly be settled as a supervisor for several years. I must wait the rotation of the list, and there are twenty names before mine. I might indeed get a job of officiating, where a settled supervisor was ill, or aged; but that hauls me from my family, as I could not remove them on such an uncertainty. Besides, some envious, malicious devil has raised a little demur on my political principles, and I wish to let that matter settle before I offer myself too much in the eye of my supervisors. I have set, henceforth, a seal on my lips as to these unlucky politics; but to you I must breathe my sentiments. In this, as in everything else, I shall show the undisguised emotions of my soul. War I deprecate; misery and ruin_to_thousands are in the blast that announces the destructive demon.-R. B. No. CCLXI. TO MRS. DUNLOP. 5th January, 1793. You see my hurried life, Madam; I can only command starts of time: however, I am glad of one thing; since I finished the other sheet, the political blast that threatened my welfare is overblown. I have corresponded with Commissioner Graham, for the Board had made me the subject of their animadversions; and now I have the pleasure of informing you that all is set to rights in that quarter. Now, as to these informers, may the devil be let loose to But, hold! I was praying most fervently in my last sheet, and I must not so soon fall a-swearing in this. Alas! how little do the wantonly or idly officious think what mischief they do by their malicious insinuations, indirect impertinence, or thoughtless blabbings. What a difference there is in intrinsic worth, candour, benevolence, generosity, kindness-in all the charities and all the virtuesbetween one class of human beings and another. For instance, the amiable circle I so lately mixed with in the hospitable hall of Dunloptheir generous hearts, their uncontaminated, dignified minds, their informed and polished understandings-what a contrast, when compared (if such comparing were not downright sacrilege) with the soul of the miscreant who can deliberately plot the destruction of an honest man that never offended him, and with a grin of satisfaction see the unfortunate being, his faithful wife, and prattling innocents, turned over to beggary and ruin! Your cup, my dear Madam, arrived safe. I had two worthy fellows dining with me the other day, when I, with great formality, produced my whigmeeleerie cup, and told them that it had been a family-piece among the descendants of William Wallace. This roused such an enthusiasm, that they insisted on bumpering the punch round in it; and, by and by, never did your great ancestor lay a Suthron more completely to rest, than for a time did your cup my two friends. Apropos, this is the season of wishing. May God bless you, my dear friend, and bless me, the humblest and sincerest of your friends, by granting you yet many returns of the season! May all good things atend you and yours, wherever they are scattered over the earth!-R. B. No. CCLXII. TO G. THOMSON. 26th January, 1793 I APPROVE greatly, my dear Sir, of your plans. Dr. Beattie's essay will of itself be a treasure. On my part, I mean to draw up an appendix to the Doctor's essay, containing my stock of anecdotes, &c. of our Scots songs. All the late Mr. Tytler's anecdotes I have by me, taken down, in the course of my acquaintance with him, from his own mouth. I am such an enthusiast, that in the course of my several peregrinations through Scotland I made a pilgrimage to the individual spot from which every song took its rise, "Lochaber" and the "Braes of Ballenden" excepted. So far as the locality, either from the title of the air or the tenor of the song, could be ascertained, I have paid my devotions at the particular shrine of every Scots muse. I do not doubt but you might make a very valuable collection of Jacobite songs, but would it give no offence? In the meantime, do not you think that some of them, particularly "The Sow's Tail to Geordie," as an air, with other words, might be well worth a place in your collection of lively songs? If it were possible to procure songs of merit, it would be proper to have one set of Scots words to every air, and that the set of words to which the notes ought to be set. There is a naïveté, a pastoral simplicity, in a slight intermixture of Scots words and phraseology, which is more in unison (at least to my taste, and, I will add, to every genuine Caledonian taste) with the simple pathos or rustic sprightliness of our native music, than any English verses whatever. The very name of Peter Pindar is an acquisition to your work. His "Gregory" is beautiful. I have tried to give you a set of stanzas in Scots, on the same subject, which are at your service. Not that I intend to enter the lists with Peter; that would be presumption indeed. My song, though much inferior in poetic merit, has, I think, more of the ballad simplicity in it.-R. B. No. CCLXIII. TO CLARINDA. [Poor Mrs. M'Lehose, finding her brutal husband's company quite unbearable, and her health breaking down, returned from Jamaica in August, 1792; but Burns did not know of it till some time afterwards.] I SUPPOSE, my dear Madam, that by your neglecting to inform me of your arrival in Europe-a circumstance that could not be indifferent to me, as indeed no occurrence relating to you can-you meant to leave me to guess and gather that a correspondence I once had the honour and felicity to enjoy is to be no more. Alas! what heavy-laden sounds are these "No more!" The wretch who has never tasted pleasure has never known woe what drives the soul to madness is the recollection of joys that are "no more!" But this is not language to the world: they do not understand it. But come, ye few-the children of feeling and sentiment !-ye whose trembling bosom-chords ache to unutterable anguish as recollection gushes on the heart!-ye who are capable of an attachment keen as the arrows of Death, and strong as the vigour of immortal being-come! and your ears shall drink a tale-But hush! I must not, cannot, tell it; agony is in the recollection, and frenzy in the recital! But, Madam, to leave the paths that lead to madness, I congratulate your friends on your return; and I hope that the precious health, which Miss P. tells me is so much injured, is restored or restoring. : I present you a book may I hope you will accept it? I daresay you will have brought your books with you. The fourth vol. of the "Scots Songs" is published. I will presume to send it you. Shall I hear from you? But first hear me. No cold language—no prudential documents : I despise advice and scorn control. If you are not to write such language, such sentiments, as you know I shall wish, shall delight to receive, I conjure you, by wounded pride, by ruined peace, by frantic disappointed passion, by all the many ills that constitute that sum of human woes, a broken heart!!! to me be silent for ever. R. B. No. CCLXIV. TO MR. CUNNINGHAM. 3d March, 1793. SINCE I wrote to you the last lugubrious sheet, I have not had time to write you farther. When I say that I had not time, that, as usual, means, that the three demons, indolence, business, and ennui, have so completely shared my hours among them, as not to leave me a five minutes' fragment to take up a pen in. Thank Heaven, I feel my spirits buoying upwards with the renovating year. Now I shall in good earnest take up Thomson's songs. I dare say | he thinks I have used him unkindly, and I must own with too much appearance of truth. Apropos, do you know the much-admired old Highland air called "The Sutor's Dochter ?" It is a first-rate favourite of mine, and I have written what I reckon one of my best songs to it. I will send it to you as it was sung with great applause in some fashionable circles by Major Robertson, of Lude, who was here with his corps. There is one commission that I must trouble you with. I lately lost a valuable seal, a present from a departed friend, which vexes me much. I have gotten one of your Highland pebbles, which I fancy would make a very decent one; and I want to cut my armorial bearing on it; will you be so obliging as inquire what will be the expense of such a business? I do not know that my name is matriculated, as the heralds call it, at all; but I have invented arms for myself,-so you know I shall be chief of the |