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verses those expressing the recollections of youth, and certainly the finest of the set-and oh how fine!-are by himself. So also of Go fetch to me a pint of wine, he afterwards acknowledged that only the first verse (four lines) was old, the rest his own. The old verse was probably the same with one which occurs near the close of a homely ballad, printed in Hogg and Motherwell's edition of Burns, as preserved by Mr Peter Buchan, who further communicates that the ballad was composed in 1636 by Alexander Lesly of Edin, on Doveran side, grandfather to the celebrated Archbishop Sharpe :

'Ye'll bring me here a pint of wine,

A server and a silver tassie,
That I may drink, before I gang,

A health to my ain bonnie lassie.'

The fact of Burns pitching upon this one fine stanza of an old ballad as a foundation for a new song, shews expressively the apt sense he had of all that was beautiful in poetry, and how ready his imagination was to take wing upon the slightest command.

TO MR JOHN TENNANT.

December 22, 1788.

I yesterday tried my cask of whisky for the first time, and I assure you it does you great credit. It will bear five waters, strong, or six, ordinary toddy. The whisky of this country is a most rascally liquor; and, by consequence, only drunk by the most rascally part of the inhabitants. I am persuaded, if you once get a footing here, you might do a great deal of business in the way of consumpt; and should you commence distiller again, this is the native barley country. I am ignorant if, in your present way of dealing, you would think it worth your while to extend your business so far as this country side. I write you this on the account of an accident, which I must take the merit of having partly designed to. A neighbour of mine, a John Currie, miller in Carse-mill-a man who is, in a word, a 'very' good man, even for a £500 bargain—he and his wife were in my house the time I broke open the cask. They keep a country public-house, and sell a great deal of foreign spirits, but all along thought that whisky would have degraded their house. They were perfectly astonished at my whisky, both for its taste and strength; and, by their desire, I write you to know if you could supply them with liquor of an equal quality, and what price. Please write me by first post, and direct to me at Ellisland, near Dumfries. If you could take a jaunt this way yourself, I have a spare spoon, knife and fork, very much at your service. My compliments to Mrs Tennant and all the good folks in Glenconner and Barquharry.

R. B.

LINES, &c.

LINES WRITTEN IN FRIARS' CARSE HERMITAGE.
Extended Copy.

Thou whom chance may hither lead,

Be thou clad in russet weed,

Be thou deckt in silken stole,

Grave these counsels on thy soul.

Life is but a day at most,

Sprung from night, in darkness lost;1
Hope not sunshine every hour,
Fear not clouds will always lower.

As youth and love with sprightly dance,
Beneath thy morning star advance,
Pleasure with her siren air

May delude the thoughtless pair;
Let Prudence bless Enjoyment's cup,
Then raptured sip, and sip it up.

As thy day grows warm and high,
Life's meridian flaming nigh,

Dost thou spurn the humble vale?

Life's proud summits would'st thou scale?

Check thy climbing step, elate,

Evils lurk in felon wait:

Dangers, evil-pinioned, bold,

Soar around each cliffy hold,

While cheerful peace, with linnet song,
Chants the lowly dells among.

As the shades of ev'ning close,
Beck'ning thee to long repose;
As life itself becomes disease,
Seek the chimney-nook of ease;
There ruminate with sober thought,

On all thou'st seen, and heard, and wrought,

And teach the sportive younkers round,

Saws of experience, sage and sound.

Say, man's true, genuine estimate,

The grand criterion of his fate,
Is not-art thou high or low?
Did thy fortune ebb or flow?2

1 In the shorter copy, an additional couplet is here inserted :

2 Variation

Day, how rapid in its flight!
Day, how few must see the night!

Say, man's true genuine estimate,
The grand criterion of their fate,
The important query of their state,

303

Did many talents gild thy span?
Or frugal nature grudge thee one?
Tell them, and press it on their mind,
As thou thyself must shortly find,
The smile or frown of awful Heav'n
To virtue or to vice is given.
Say, to be just, and kind, and wise,
There solid self-enjoyment lies;
That foolish, selfish, faithless ways
Lead to be wretched, vile, and base.

Thus resigned and quiet, creep
To the bed of lasting sleep;

Sleep, whence thou shalt ne'er awake,
Night, where dawn shall never break,
Till future life, future no more,
To light and joy the good restore,
To light and joy unknown before.

Stranger, go! Heav'n be thy guide!
Quod the Bedesman of Nithside!

This extended copy of the lines for Friars' Carse Hermitage was produced in December. We agree with Allan Cunningham in seeing in this second effort a proof of the comparative labour which Burns encountered in attempting to compose in pure English. The restricted religious views of the poet will be remarked.1

TO MR WILLIAM CRUIKSHANK.

ELLISLAND, [December,] 1788.

I have not room, my dear friend, to answer all the particulars of your last kind letter. I 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 viva 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

Is not, art thou high or low?
Did thy fortune ebb or flow?
Wast thou cottager or king,

Peer or peasant?-no such thing!

Did many talents, &c.

1 A pane of the hermitage window, on which he had inscribed some of the lines with a diamond, was removed on a change of proprietors, and being brought to sale at the death of an old lady in 1835, was purchased for five guineas.

GILBERT BURNS'S NEW-YEAR ADDRESS.

305

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, hellcommissioned scoundrel, A- If, notwithstanding 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.

On New-Year's morning 1789, Gilbert Burns thus affectionately addressed his brother:

MOSSGIEL, 1st Jan. 1789. DEAR BROTHER-I have just finished my New-Year's-day breakfast in the usual form, which naturally makes me call to mind the days of former years, and the society in which we used to begin them; and when I look at our family vicissitudes, 'through the dark postern of time long elapsed,' I cannot help remarking to you, my dear brother, how good the GOD of SEASONS is to us, and that, however some clouds may seem to lower over the portion of time before us, we have great reason to hope that all will turn out well.

Your mother and sisters, with Robert the second, join me in the compliments of the season to you and Mrs Burns, and beg you will remember us in the same manner to William the first time you see him. I am, dear brother, yours, GILBERT BURNS.

The poet on the same day thus addressed one of the most valued of his friends:

TO MRS DUNLOP.

ELLISLAND, New-year-day Morning, 1789. This, dear madam, is a morning of wishes, and would to God that I came under the apostle James's description!-the prayer of a righteous man availeth much. In that case, madam, you should welcome in a year full of blessings: everything that obstructs or disturbs tranquillity and self-enjoyment should be removed, and every pleasure that frail humanity can taste should be yours. I own myself so little a Presbyterian, that I approve set times and seasons of more than ordinary acts of devotion, for breaking in on that habituated routine of life and thought which is so apt to reduce our existence to a kind of instinct, or even sometimes, and with some minds, to a state very little superior to mere machinery.

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This day-the first Sunday of May-a breezy, blue-skied noon some time about the beginning, and a hoary morning and calm sunny day about the end, of autumn-these, time out of mind, have been with me a kind of holiday.

I believe I owe this to that glorious paper in the Spectator, The Vision of Mirza, a piece that struck my young fancy before I was capable of fixing an idea to a word of three syllables: On the 5th day of the moon, which, according to the custom of my forefathers, I always keep holy, after having washed myself and offered up my morning devotions, I ascended the high hill of Bagdad, in order to pass the rest of the day in meditation and prayer.'

We know nothing, or next to nothing, of the substance or structure of our souls, so cannot account for those seeming caprices in them that one should be particularly pleased with this thing, or struck with that, which, on minds of a different cast, makes no extraordinary impression. I have some favourite flowers in spring, among which are the mountain-daisy, the harebell, the foxglove, the wild-brier rose, the budding birch, and the hoary hawthorn, that I view and hang over with particular delight. I never hear the loud, solitary whistle of the curlew in a summer noon, or the wild mixing cadence of a troop of gray plovers, in an autumnal morning, without feeling an elevation of soul like the enthusiasm of devotion or poetry. Tell me, my dear friend, to what can this be owing? Are we a piece of machinery, which, like the Æolian harp, passive, takes the impression of the passing accident? Or do these workings argue something within us above the trodden clod? I own myself partial to such proofs of those awful and important realities-a God that made all things-man's immaterial and immortal nature-and a world of weal or wo beyond death and the grave! R. B.

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1 Charles III., king of Spain, died on the 13th of December 1788.

2 A generic familiar name for a dog in Scotland.

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