John Milton, I wish thy soul better rest than I expect on my pillow to-night! Oh for a little of the cart-horse part of human nature! Good-night, my dearest Clarinda! SYLVANDER.

We have in this letter an explicit view of the poet's religious convictions. In addressing an orthodox lady, whose good opinion he was anxious to gain and keep, he would not understate his faith; yet we see that it is far from the orthodox standard. It does not admit the divinity of Christ, though regarding him as a divinely-commissioned being. It makes good works nearly allsufficient. At the same time Burns avows devout feelings and pious practices. Such had now been for several years the religious character and condition of our great poet; and he does not appear to have afterwards greatly changed his views. What might have been the difference had Burns been reared under a system more captivating to the imaginative part of our nature, and more easily to be reconciled to philanthropical feelings, it would be vain to conjecture. As it is, the orthodox Presbyterian Calvinist has the regret of viewing the vigorous intellect of Burns as one which wholly repudiated, and lived in direct antagonism with, that code of doctrine which has been so long and with so little variation maintained in Scotland.

In Clarinda's letter, written next morning, but not sent away till it was furnished with a postscript a day later, she speaks of her children, one of whom is ill, and requires her care: then she adverts to Fielding's Amelia, and says she could be equally forgiving to a penitent husband, if he did not treat herself with positive unkindness. She cannot imagine who is the fair one he alludes to in his last epistle. She first thought of his Jean, though uncertain if she possesses his 'tenderest, faithfulest friendship.' She cannot understand that bonny lassie-refusing him after such proofs of love. She admires him for his continued fondness towards her. Finally, she promises to fulfil her promise of giving him a nod at his window.

TO CLARINDA.

Thursday Noon [Jan. 10?] I am certain I saw you, Clarinda; but you don't look to the proper storey for a poet's lodging,

'Where Speculation roosted near the sky.'

I could almost have thrown myself over for very vexation. Why didn't you look higher? It has spoilt my peace for this day. To be so near my charming Clarinda ; to miss her look while it was search- ·

CLARINDA TO BURNS.

193

ing for me. I am sure the soul is capable of disease, for mine has convulsed itself into an inflammatory fever. I am sorry for your little boy: do let me know to-morrow how he is.

You have converted me, Clarinda (I shall love that name while I live there is heavenly music in it!) Booth and Amelia I know well. Your sentiments on that subject, as they are on every subject, are just and noble. To be feelingly alive to kindness and to unkindness' is a charming female character.

What I said in my last letter, the powers of fuddling sociality only know for me. By yours, I understand my good star has been partly in my horizon when I got wild in my reveries. Had that evil planet, which has almost all my life shed its baleful rays on my devoted head, been as usual in its zenith, I had certainly blabbed something that would have pointed out to you the dear object of my tenderest friendship, and, in spite of me, something more. Had that fatal information escaped me, and it was merely chance or kind stars that it did not, I had been undone! You would never have written me, except, perhaps, once more! Oh, I could curse circumstances! and the coarse tie of human laws which keeps fast what common sense would loose, and which bars that happiness itself cannot give—happiness which otherwise love and honour would warrant ! But hold-I shall make no more hairbreadth 'scapes.'

My friendship, Clarinda, is a liferent business. My likings are both strong and eternal. I told you I had but one male friend: I have but two female. I should have a third, but she is surrounded by the blandishments of flattery and courtship. Her I register in my heart's core by Peggy Chalmers: Miss Nimmo can tell you how divine she is. She is worthy of a place in the same bosom with my Clarinda. That is the highest compliment I can pay her. Farewell, Clarinda!

Remember

SYLVANDER.

In her answer of the evening of the same day, Clarinda deplores her inability to detect the poet's window. She chides him for his ravings, and entreats him to limit himself to friendship. She is proud of being ranked with Miss Chalmers; but wonders he does not include Miss Nimmo, who has a sincere regard for him. 'She has almost wept to me at mentioning your intimacy with a certain famous or infamous man in town [Nicol ?] I composed lines addressed to you some time ago, containing a hint upon the occasion. I had not courage to send them to you: if you say you will not be angry, I will yet.' This allusion, it will be found, calls forth the jealous irritability of the poet. She promises that her next letter shall be on her favourite theme-religion. Finally, she hints a wish that he could join her in a drive in the Fly' to Leith, whither she has to take her ailing child for the air.

TO CLARINDA.

Saturday Morning.

Your thoughts on religion, Clarinda, shall be welcome. You may perhaps distrust me when I say 'tis also my favourite topic; but mine is the religion of the bosom. I hate the very idea of a controversial divinity; as I firmly believe, that every honest, upright man, of whatever sect, will be accepted of the Deity. If your verses, as you seem to hint, contain censure, except you want an occasion to break with me, don't send them. I have a little infirmity in my disposition, that where I fondly love, or highly esteem, I cannot bear reproach.

Reverence thyself' is a sacred maxim, and I wish to cherish it. I think I told you Lord Bolingbroke's saying to Swift—' Adieu, dear Swift, with all thy faults I love thee entirely; make an effort to love me with all mine.' A glorious sentiment, and without which there can be no friendship! I do highly, very highly esteem you indeed, Clarinda-you merit it all! Perhaps, too, I scorn dissimulation! I could fondly love you: judge, then, what a maddening sting your reproach would be. 'Oh! I have sins to Heaven, but none to you!' With what pleasure would I meet you to-day, but I cannot walk to meet the Fly. I hope to be able to see you on foot, about the middle of next week.

I am interrupted-perhaps you are not sorry for it, you will tell me-but I wont anticipate blame. Oh Clarinda! did you know how dear to me is your look of kindness, your smile of approbation! you would not, either in prose or verse, risk a censorious remark.

'Curst be the verse, how well soe'er it flow,
That tends to make one worthy man my foe!'

SYLVANDER.

After a letter from Clarinda, which has been lost, Sylvander writes as follows:

TO CLARINDA.

You talk of weeping, Clarinda: some involuntary drops wet your lines as I read them. Offend me, my dearest angel! You cannot offend me you never offended me. If you had ever given me the least shadow of offence, so pardon me my God as I forgive Clarinda. I have read yours again; it has blotted my paper. Though I find your letter has agitated me into a violent headache, I shall take a chair and be with you about eight. A friend is to be with us at tea, on my account, which hinders me from coming sooner. Forgive, my dearest Clarinda, my unguarded expressions! For Heaven's sake, forgive me, or I shall never be able to bear my own mind!-Your unhappy SYLVANDER.

EPIGRAM ON ELPHINSTONE'S MARTIAL.

195

On a Saturday night, then, after eight o'clock, Burns and his enthusiastic lady-friend had their third meeting-the second which had taken place in her own house and without other company. In a letter addressed to him next day, she tells him that the evening had been to her 'one of the most exquisite she had ever experienced.' There had been no actual impropriety in her conduct; yet she did not feel at ease, because she knew that her present course of procedure would be painful to a friend to whom she was bound by the sacred ties of gratitude. Burns had seen her 'behind the scenes,' and must now know that she has faults. She means well, but is liable to be the victim of her sensibility. She agrees with him in preferring the religion of the bosom, but points out how poor a pretension to the acceptance of God can be made from a good life. One expression towards the conclusion of her letter is remarkable: 'Our last interview has raised you very high in mine [esteem.] I have met with few, indeed, of your sex who understood delicacy in such circumstances.' She adds 'I subscribe to Lord B.'s sentiment to Swift; yet some faults I shall still sigh over, though you style it reproach even to hint them.'

TO CLARINDA.

Monday Even. 11 o'clock.

Why have I not heard from you, Clarinda? To-day I expected it; and before supper, when a letter to me was announced, my heart danced with rapture: but behold, 'twas some fool, who had taken it into his head to turn poet, and made me an offering of the first fruits of his nonsense. 'It is not poetry, but prose run mad.' Did I ever repeat to you an epigram I made on a Mr Elphinstone, who has given a translation of Martial, a famous Latin poet? The poetry of Elphinstone can only equal his prose - notes. I was sitting in a merchant's shop of my acquaintance, waiting somebody; he put Elphinstone into my hand, and asked my opinion of it; I begged leave to write it on a blank leaf, which I did

TO MR ELPHINSTONE, &c.

Oh thou, whom poesy abhors!

Whom prose has turned out of doors!

Heard'st thou yon groan? proceed no further!

'Twas laurel'd Martial calling murther!

I am determined to see you, if at all possible, on Saturday evening. Next week I must sing

The night is my departing night,

The morn's the day I maun awa;
There's neither friend nor foe o' mine
But wishes that I were awa!

What I hae done for lack o' wit,
I never, never can reca';

I hope ye 're a' my friends as yet

Gude night, and joy be wi' you a'!

If I could see you sooner, I would be so much the happier; but I would not purchase the dearest gratification on earth, if it must be at your expense in worldly censure, far less inward peace!

I shall certainly be ashamed of thus scrawling whole sheets of incoherence. The only unity (a sad word with poets and critics!) in my ideas is CLARINDA. There my heart 'reigns and revels!'

'What art thou, Love? whence are those charms,

That thus thou bear'st an universal rule?

For thee the soldier quits his arms,

The king turns slave, the wise man fool.

In vain we chase thee from the field,

And with cool thoughts resist thy yoke:
Next tide of blood, alas! we yield,

And all those high resolves are broke!'

I like to have quotations for every occasion. They give one's ideas so pat, and save one the trouble of finding expression adequate to one's feelings. I think it is one of the greatest pleasures attending a poetic genius, that we can give our woes, cares, joys, loves, &c., an embodied form in verse, which to me is ever immediate ease. Goldsmith says finely of his Muse

"Thou source of all my bliss and all my wo;

Thou found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so.'

My limb has been so well to-day, that I have gone up and down stairs often without my staff. To-morrow I hope to walk once again on my own legs to dinner. It is only next street.

Adieu.
SYLVANDER.

The last letter of Clarinda having been received soon after the above epistle had been despatched, he writes again—

TO CLARINDA.

Tuesday Evening [Jan. 15?]

That you have faults, my Clarinda, I never doubted; but I knew not where they existed, and Saturday night made me more in the dark than ever. Oh Clarinda! why will you wound my soul by hinting that last night must have lessened my opinion of you? True I was 'behind the scenes' with you; but what did I see? A bosom glowing with honour and benevolence; a mind ennobled by genius, informed and refined by education and reflection, and exalted by native religion, genuine as in the climes of heaven; a heart formed for all the glorious meltings of friendship, love, and pity. These I saw : I saw the noblest immortal soul creation ever shewed me.

I looked long, my dear Clarinda, for your letter; and am vexed that you are complaining. I have not caught you so far wrong as in