side, to recall her accents, and to make them | friends of Job, of affliction-bearing memory, still vibrate in the ears of memory. To her 1 when they sat down with him seven days and am indebted for getting the enclosed notes. seven nights, and spake not a word. They are clothed with "thoughts that breathe, and words that burn." These, however, being in an unknown tongue to you, you must again have recourse to that same fertile imagination of yours to interpret them, and suppose a lover's description of the beauties of an adored mistress -why did I say unknown? The language of love is an universal one, that seems to have escaped the confusion of Babel, and to be understood by all nations. I am naturally of a superstitious cast, and as soon as my wonder-scared imagination regained its consciousness and resumed its functions, I cast about what this mania of yours might portend. My foreboding ideas had the wide stretch of possibility; and several events, great in their magnitude, and important in their consequences, occurred to my fancy. The downfal of the conclave, or the crushing of the cork rumps; a ducal coronet to Lord George G- and the protestant interest; or St. Peter's keys to . I am I rejoice to find that you were pleased with so many things, persons, and places in your northern tour, because it leads me to hope vou may be induced to revisit them again. That the old castle of K- -k, and its inhabitants, You want to know how I come on. were amongst these, adds to my satisfaction. I just in statu quo, or, not to insult a gentleman am even vain enough to admit your very flat-with my Latin," in auld use and wont." The tering application of the line of Addison's; at noble Earl of Glencairn took me by the hand any rate, allow me to believe that "friendship to-day, and interested himself in my concerns, will maintain the ground she has occupied" in with a goodness like that benevolent being, both our hearts, in spite of absence, and that, whose image he so richly bears. He is a when we do meet, it will be as acquaintance of stronger proof of the immortality of the soul, a score of years standing; and on this footing, than any that philosophy ever produced. A consider me as interested in the future course of mind like his can never dic. Let the worship. your fame, so splendidly commenced. Any communications of the progress of your muse will be received with great gratitude, and the fire of your genius will have power to warm, even us, frozen sisters of the north. ful squire, H. L. or the reverend Mass J. M. go into their primitive nothing. At best they are but ill-digested lumps of chaos, only one of them strongly tinged with bituminous particles and sulphureous effluvia. But my noble pa-etron, eternal as the heroic swell of magnanimi The friends of K-k and Kunite in cordial regards to you. cline to figure either in your idea, suppose some look on with princely eye at "the war of eleof us reading your poems, and some of us singing ments, the wreck of matter, and the crash of your songs, and my little Hugh looking at your worlds." When you in- ty, and the generous throb of benevolence, shall picture, and you'll seldom be wrong. We re inember Mr. N. with as much good will as we do any body, who hurried Mr. Burns from us. Farewell, Sir, I can only contribute the THE following fragments are all that now exwidow's mite to the esteem and admiration excited by your merits and genius, but this I give as she did, with all my heart-being sincerely E. R. vours, ΤΟ DEAR SIR, No. LIX. DALRYMPLE, Esq. OF Edinburgh, 1787. ist of twelve or fourteen of the finest letters No. LX. TO MISS MARGARET CHALMERS, (NOW MRS. HAY, OF EDINBURGH). Sept. 26, 1787. I SUPPOSE the devil is so elated with his success with you, that he is determined by a coup I SEND Charlotte the first number of the de main to complete his purposes on you all at songs; I would not wait for the second numonce, in making you a poet. I broke open the ber; I hate delays in little marks of friendletter you sent me; hummed over the rhymes; ship, as I hate dissimulation in the language of and, as I saw they were extempore, said to my- the heart. I am determined to pay Charlotte self they were very well but when I saw at a poetic compliment, if I could hit on some the bottom a name that I shall ever value with glorious old Scotch air, in number second." grateful respect, "I gapit wide but naething spak." I was nearly as much struck as the : Of the Scots Musical Museum. You will see a small attempt on a shred of paper in the book; but though Dr. Blacklock commended it very highly, I am not just satisfied with it myself. I intend to make it description of some kind: the whining cant of love, except in real passion, and by a masterly hand, is to me as insufferable as the preaching cant of old Father Smeaton, Whig-minister at Kilmaurs. Darts, flames, cupids, loves, graces, and all that farrago, are just a Mauchline .-a senseless rabble. I got an excellent poetic epistle yesternight from the old, venerable author of Tullochgorum, John of Badenyon, &c. I suppose you know he is a clergyman. It is by far the finest poetic compliment I ever got. I will send you a copy of it. our family), I am determined, if my Dumfries business fail me, to return into partnership with him, and at our leisure take another farm in the neighbourhood. I assure you I look for high compliments from you and Charlotte on this very sage instance of my unfathomable, incomprehensible wisdom. Talking of Charlotte, I must tell her that I have to the best of my power, paid her a poetic compliment, now completed. The air is admirable: true old Highland. It was the tune of a Gaelic song which an Inverness lady sung me when I was there; and I was so charmed with it that I begged her to write me a set of it from her singing; for it had never been set before. I am fixed that it shall go in Johnson's next number; so Charlotte and you need not spend your precious time in contradicting me. I won't say the poetry is first-rate; though I am convinced it is very well: and, what is not always the case with compliments to ladies, it is not only sincere but just. "The Banks of the Devon.") I go on Thursday or Friday to Dumfries to wait on Mr. Miller about his farms.-Do tell that to Lady M'Kenzie, that she may give me credit for a little wisdom. "I wisdom dwell with prudence." What a blessed fire-side! How happy should I be to pass a winter even- (Here follows the song of ing under their venerable roof! and smoke a pipe of tobacco, or drink water-gruel with them! What solemn, lengthened, laughter-quashing gravity of phiz! What sage remarks on the good-for-nothing sons and daughters of indiscretion and folly! And what frugal lessons, as we straitened the fire-side circle, on the uses of the poker and tongs! Edinburgh, Nov. 21, 1787. I HAVE one vexatious fault to the kindlywelcome, well filled sheet which I owe to your Miss N. is very well, and begs to be remem- and Charlotte's goodness-it contains too much bered in the old way to you. I used all my sense, sentiment, and good-spelling. It is im eloquence, all the persuasive flourishes of the possible that even you two, whom I declare to hand, and heart-melting modulation of periods my God, I will give credit for any degree of in my power, to urge her out to Herveiston, excellence the sex are capable of attaining, it is but all in vain. My rhetoric seems quite to impossible you can go on to correspond at that have lost its effect on the lovely half of man- rate; so like those who, Shenstone says, retire kind. I have seen the day-but that is a "tale because they have made a good speech, I shall of other years."-In my conscience I believe after a few letters hear no more of you. I inthat my heart has been so oft on fire that it is sist that you shall write whatever comes first: absolutely vitrified. I look on the sex with what you see, what you read, what you hear, something like the admiration with which I re- what you admire, what you dislike, trifles, bag-" gard the starry sky in a frosty December night. atelles, nonsense; or to fill up a corner, e'en I admire the beauty of the Creator's workman- put down a laugh at full length. Now none ship; I am charmed with the wild but grace-of your polite hints about flattery: I leave that ful eccentricity of their motions, and wish to your lovers, if you have or shall have any ; them good night. I mean this with respect to though thank heaven I have found at last two a certain passion dont j'ai eu l'honneur d'etre un miserable esclave: as for friendship, you and Charlotte have given me pleasure, permanent pleasure," which the world cannot give, nor take away," I hope; and which will outlast the heavens and the earth. Without date. I HAVE been at Dumfries, and at one visit more shall be decided about a farm in that country. I am rather hopeless in it; but as my brother is an excellent farmer, and is, besides, an exceedingly prudent, sober man, (qualities which are only a younger brother's fortune in girls who can be luxuriantly happy in their own minds and with one another, without that commonly necessary appendage to female bliss, A LOVER. Charlotte and you are just two favourite resting places for my soul in her wanderings through the weary, thorny wilderness of this worldGod knows I am ill-fitted for the struggle: I glory in being a Poet, and I want to be thought a wise man-I would fondly be generous, and I wish to be rich. After all, I am afraid I am a lost subject. "Some folk hae a hantle o fauts, an' I'm but a ne'er-do-weel." Afternoon. To close the melancholy reflections at the end of last sheet, I shall just add a piece of devotion commonly known in Carrick, by the title of the "Wabster's grace." Some say we're thieves, and e'en sae are we, | banners of imagination, whim, caprice, and Edinburgh, Dec. 12, 1787. I AM here under the care of a surgeon, with a bruised limb extended on a cushion; and the tints of my mind vying with the livid horror preceding a midnight thunder-storm. A drunken coachman was the cause of the first, and incomparably the lightest evil; misfortune, bodily constitution, hell and myself, have formed Quadruple Alliance" to guarantee the other. a 46 passion; and the heavy-armed veteran regulars of wisdom, prudence and fore-thought, move so very, very slow, that I am almost in a state of perpetual warfare, and alas! frequent defeat. There are just two creatures that I would envy, a horse in his wild state traversing the forests of Asia, or an oyster on some of the desert shores of Europe. The one has not a wish without enjoyment, the other has neither wish nor fear. Edinburgh, March 14, 1788. I KNOW, my ever dear friend, that you will I got my fall on Saturday, and am getting slow-be pleased with the news when I tell you, I ly better. I have taken tooth and nail to the bible, and am got through the five books of Moses, and half way in Joshua. It is really a glorious book. I sent for my bookbinder to-day, and ordered him to get me an octavo bible in sheets, the best paper and print in town; and bind it with all the elegance of his craft. I would give my best song to my worst enemy, I mean the merit of making it, to have you and Charlotte by me. You are angelic creatures, and would pour oil and wine into my wounded spirit. I enclose you a proof copy of the " Banks of the Devon," which present with my best wishes to Charlotte. The "Ochil-hills," you shall probably have next week for yourself. None of your fine speeches ! have at last taken a lease of a farm. .Yester I night I completed a bargain with Mr. Miller, Edinburgh, Dec. 19, 1787. I BEGIN this letter in answer to yours of the 17th current, which is not yet cold since I read it. The atmosphere of my soul is vastly clearer than when I wrote you last. For the first time, yesterday I crossed the room on crutches. It would do your heart good too see my bardship, not on my poetic, but on my oaken stilts; throwing my best leg with an air! and with as much hilarity in my gait and countenance, as a May frog leaping across the newly harrowed ridge, enjoying the fragrance of the refreshed earth after the long-expected shower! Poor Miss K. is ailing a good deal this winter, and begged me to remember her to you the first time I wrote you. Surely woman, amiable woman, is often made in vain! Too delicately formed for the rougher pursuits of ambition; too noble for the dirt of avarice, and even too gentle for the rage of pleasure: formed indeed for and highly susceptible of enjoyment and rapture; but that enjoyment, alas! almost wholly at the mercy of the caprice, malevolence, stupidity, or wickedness of an animal at all times comparatively unfeeling, and often brutal. Mauchline, 7th April, 1788. I can't say I am altogether at my ease when I AM indebted to you and Miss Nimmo for I see any where in my path, that meagre, squa- letting me know Miss Kenedy. Strange! how lid, famine-faced spectre, poverty; attended as apt we are to indulge prejudices in our judghe always is, by iron-fisted oppression, and leer-ments of one another! Even I, who pique mying contempt; but I have sturdily withstood self on my skill in marking characters; because his buffetings many a hard-laboured day already, I am too proud of my character as a man, to be and still my motto is I DARE! My worst dazzled in my judgment for glaring wealth; and enemy is Moimême. I lie so miserably open to the inroads and incursions of a mischievous, ight-armed, well-mounted banditti, under the too proud of my situation as a poor man to be biassed against squalid poverty; I was unacquainted with Miss K.'s very uncommon worth. I am going on a good deal progressive in mon grand bút, the sober science of life. I have lately made some sacrifices for which, were I viva voce with you to paint the situation and recount the circumstances, you would applaud me. No date. SO get any thing to do. I wanted un bût, which is a dangerous, an unhappy situation. I got this without any hanging on, or mortifying licitation; it is immediate bread, and though poor in comparison of the last eighteen months of my existence, 'tis luxury in comparison of all my preceding life: besides, the commissioners are some of them my acquaintances, and all of them my firm friends. NO. LXI. TO MISS CHALMERS. Now for that wayward, unfortunate thing, myself. I have broke measures with and last week I wrote him a frosty, keen letter. He replied in terms of chastisement, and promised me upon his honour that I should have the account on Monday; but this is Tuesday, and yet I have not heard a word from him. God have mercy on me! a poor d-mned, in-MY DEAR MADAM, Edinburgh, Dec. 1787. cautious, duped, unfortunate fool! The sport, the miserable victim, of rebellious pride; hypochondriac imagination, agonizing sensibility, and bedlam passions! "I wish that I were dead, but I'm no like to die!" I had lately " a hairbreadth 'scape in th' imminent deadly breach" of love too. Thank my stars I got off heart-whole, "waur fleyd than hurt."-Interruption. I have this moment got a hint I JUST now have read yours. The poetic compliments I pay cannot be misunderstood. They are neither of them so particular as tc point you out to the world at large; and the circle of your acquaintances will allow all I have said. Besides I have complimented you chiefly, almost solely, on your mental charms, Shall I be plain with you? I will; so look to it. Personal attractions, Madam, you have much above par; wit, understanding, and worth, you I fear I am something possess in the first class. This is a cursed flat like undone—but I hope for the best. Come, way of telling you these truths, but let me hear stubborn pride and unshrinking resolution! ac- no more of your sheepish timidity. I know company me through this, to me, miserable the world a little. I know what they will say world! You must not desert me! Your friend-of my poems; by second sight I suppose; for ship I think I can count on, though I should I am seldom out in my conjectures; and you date my letters from a marching regiment. may believe me, my dear Madam, I would not Early in life, and all my life, I reckoned on a run any risk of hurting you by an ill-judged recruiting drum as my forlorn hope. Seriously though, life at present presents me with but a melancholy path: but-my limb will soon be sound, and I shall struggle on. Edinburgh, Sunday. TO-MORROW, my dear Madam, 1 leave Edinburgh. A compliment. I wish to show to the world, the odds between a poet's friends and those of simple prosemen. More for your information both the piece go in. One of them, "Where braving all the winter's harms," is already setthe tune is Neil Gow's Lamentation for Abercarney; the other is to be set to an old Highland air in Daniel Dow's" collection of ancient Scots music; the name is Ha a Chaillich air mo Dheidh. My treacherous memory has forgot every circumstance about Les Incas, only I think you mentioned them as being in C possession. I shall ask him about it. I am afraid the song of " Somebody" will come too late-as I shall, for certain, leave town in a week for Ayrshire, and from that to Dumfries, but there my hopes are slender. I leave my direction in town, so any thing, wherever I am, will reach me. I have altered all my plans of future life. farm that I could live in, I could not find; and indeed, after the necessary support my brother and the rest of the family required, I could not venture on farming in that style suitable to my feelings. You will condemn me for the next I saw your's to — it is not too severe, step I have taken. I have entered into the ex-nor did he take it amiss. On the contrary, cise. I stay in the west about three weeks, and like a whipt spaniel, he talks of being with you then return to Edinburgh for six weeks instruc- in the Christmas days. Mr. has given tions; afterwards, for I get employ instantly, I him the invitation, and he is determined to acgo où il plait a Dien,-et mon Roi. I have cept of it. O selfishness! he owns in his sochosen this, my dear friend, after mature deli- ber moments, that from his own volatility of beration. The question is not at what door of inclination, the circumstances in which he is sifortune's palace shall we enter in; but what tuated and his knowledge of his father's dispodoors does she open to us? I was not likely to sition,-the whole affair is chimerical—yet he will gratify an idle penchant at the enormous, eruel expense of perhaps ruining the peace of No. LXIII. Edinburgh, Sunday Morning, the very woman for whom he professes the ge- TO MR. ROBERT AINSLIE, EDINBURgh. nerous passion of love! He is a gentleman in his mind and manners. tant pis!-He is a volatile school-boy: the heir of a man's fortune who well knows the value of two times I BEG, my dear Sir, you would not make two! any appointment to take us to Mr. Ainslie's toPerdition seize them and their fortunes, be-night. On looking over my engagements, confore they should make the amiable, the lovely the derided object of their purse-proud Saturday Noon, No. 2, St. James's Sqr. stitution, present state of my health, some little vexatious soul concerns, &c. I find I can't sup abroad to-night. I shall be in to-day ti!! one o'clock if you have a leisure hour. You will think it romantic when I tell you, that I find the idea of your friendship almost necessary to my existence.-You assume a proper length of face in my bitter hours of bluedevilism, and you laugh fully up to my highest wishes at my good things.-I don't know, upon the whole, if you are one of the first fellows in God's world, but you are so to me. I tell you this just now in the conviction that some inequalities in my temper and manner may perhaps sometimes make you suspect that I am not so warmly as I ought to be No. LXIV. Your friend. TO JOHN BALLANTINE, Esq. WHILE here I sit, sad and solitary, by the HERE have I sat, my dear Madam, in the stony attitude of perplexed study for fifteen vexatious minutes, my head askew, bending over the intended card; my fixed eye insensible to the very light of day poured around; my pen-side of a fire in a little country inn, and drying dulous goose-feather, loaded with ink, hanging over the future letter; all for the important purpose of writing a complimentary card to accompany your trinket. and tells me he is going to Ayr. By heavens! my wet clothes, in pops a poor fellow of a sodger say I to myself, with a tide of good spirits which the magic of that sound, Auld Toon 'Ayr, conjured up, I will send my last song to Mr. Ballantine. Here it is— Compliments is such a miserable Greenland expression; lies at such a chilly polar distance from the torrid zone of my constitution, that I cannot, for the very soul of me, use it to any (The first sketch of " Ye Banks and Bracs o' person for whom I have the twentieth part of the esteem, every one must have for you who knows you. As I leave town in three or four days, I can give myself the pleasure of calling for you only Bonnie Doon.") for a minute. Tuesday evening, sometime about BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. seven, or after, I shall wait on you, for your farewell commands. The hinge of your box, I put into the hands of the proper Connoisseur. The broken glass, likewise, went under review; but deliberative wisdom thought it would too much endanger the whole fabric. No. LXV. FROM THE POET TO DR. MOORE, GIVING A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE. Mauchline, 2d Aug. 1787. FOR some months past have been rambling over the country; but I am now confined with some lingering complaints, originating, as I take it, in the stomach. To divert my spirits a little in this miserable fog of ennui, I have taken a whim to give you a history of myself. My name has made some little noise in this coun |