another world more congenial to honest fellows beyond this. A world where these rubs and plagues of absence, distance, misfortunes, ill-health, &c., shall no more damp hilarity and divide friendship. This I know is your throng season, but half a page will much oblige, My dear sir, Yours sincerely. R. B. XXV. TO DR. ANDERSON. [The gentleman to whom this imperfect note is addressed was Dr. James Anderson, a well-known agricultural and miscellaneous writer, and the editor of a weekly miscellany called the Bee.] SIR, I AM much indebted to my worthy friend, Dr. Blacklock, for introducing me to a gentleman of Dr. Anderson's celebrity; but when you do me the honor to ask my assistance in your proposed publication, alas, sir! you might as well think to cheapen a little honesty at the sign of an advocate's wig, or humility under the Geneva band. I am a miserable hurried devil, worn to the marrow in the friction of holding the noses of the poor publicans to the grindstone of the excise! and, like Milton's Satan, for private reasons, am forced "To do what yet though damn'd I would abhor.” – and, except a couplet or two of honest execration R. B. XXVI. TO WILLIAM TYTLER, ESQ., OF WOODHOUSELEE. [William Tytler was the "revered defender of the beauteous —a man of genius and a gentleman.] Stuart". SIR, Lawn Market, August, 1790. ENCLOSED I have sent you a sample of the old pieces that are still to be found among our peasantry in the west. I had once a great many of these fragments, and some of these here entire; but as I had no idea then that any body cared for them, I have forgotten them. I invariably hold it sacrilege to add anything of my own to help out with the shattered wrecks of these venerable old compositions; but they have many, various readings. If you have not seen these before, I know they will flatter your true old-style Caledonian feelings; at any rate I am truly happy to have an opportunity of assuring you how sincerely I am, revered sir, Your gratefully indebted humble servant, R. B. XXVII. TO WILLIAM DUNBAR, W. S. [This letter was in answer to one from Dunbar, in which the witty colonel of the Crochallan Fencibles supposed the poet had been translated to Elysium to sing to the immortals, as his voice had not been heard of late on earth.] Ellisland, 17th January, 1791. I AM not gone to Elysium, most noble colonel, but am still here in this sublunary world, serving my God by propagating his image, and honoring my king by begetting him loyal subjects. Many happy returns of the season await my friend. May the thorns of care never beset his path! May peace be an inmate of his bosom, and rapture a frequent visiter of his soul! May the blood-hounds of misfortune never track his steps, nor the screech-owl of sorrow alarm his dwelling! May enjoyment tell thy hours, and pleasure number thy days, thou friend of the bard! "Blessed be he that blesseth thee, and cursed be he that curseth thee!!!" As a farther proof that I am still in the land of existence, I send you a poem, the latest I have composed. I have a particular reason for wishing you only to show it to select friends, should you think it worthy a friend's perusal; but if, at your first leisure hour, you will favor me with your opinion of, and strictures on the performance, it will be an additional obligation on, dear sir, your deeply indebted humble servant, XXVIII. TO MRS. GRAHAM, OF FINTRY. R. B. [The following letter was written on the blank leaf of a new edition of his poems, presented by the poet to one whom he regarded, and justly, as a patroness.] It is probable, madam, that this page may be read, when the hand that now writes it shall be mouldering in the dust; may it then bear witness, that I present you these volumes as a tribute of gratitude, on my part ardent and sincere, as your and Mr. Graham's goodness to me has been generous and noble! May every child of yours, in the hour of need, find such a friend as I shall teach every child of mine, that their father found in you. R. B. XXIX. TO COLONEL FULLARTON, OF FULLARTON. [This letter was first published in the Edinburgh Chronicle.] Ellisland, 1791. SIR, I HAVE just this minute got the frank, and next minute must send it to post, else I purposed to have sent you two or three other bagatelles, that might have amused a vacant hour about as well as "Six excellent new songs," or, the Aberdeen "Prognostication for the year to come." Ishall probably trouble you soon with another packet. About the gloomy month of November, when "the people of England hang and drown themselves," any thing generally is better than one's own thought. Fond as I may be of my own productions, it is not for their sake that I am so anxious to send you them. I am ambitious, covetously ambitious of being known to a gentleman whom I am proud to call my countryman: a gentleman who was a foreign ambassador as soon as he was a man, and a leader of armies as soon as he was a soldier; and that with an éclat unknown to the usual minions of a court, men who, with all the adventitious advantages of princely connexions and princely fortune, must yet, like the caterpillar, labor a whole lifetime before they reach the wished height, there to roost a stupid chrysalis, and doze out the remaining glimmering existence of old age. If the gentleman who accompanied you when you did me the honor of calling on me, is with you, I beg to be respectfully remembered to him. I have the honor to be, [Cromek informed me, on the authority of Mrs. Burns, that the handsome, elegant present" mentioned in this letter, was a common worsted shawl. February, 1796. MANY thanks, my dear sir, for your handsome, elegant present to Mrs. Burns, and for my remaining volume of P. Pindar. Peter is a delightful fellow, and a first favorite of mine. I am much pleased with your idea of publishing a collection of our songs in octavo, with etchings. I am extremely willing to lend every assistance in my power. The Irish airs I shall cheerfully undertake the task of finding verses for. I have already, you know, equipt three with words, |