ROBERT BURNS'S Common Place, or Scrap Book, BEGUN IN APRIL, 1783.* "OBSERVATIONS, HINTS, SONGS, SORAPS of POETRY, &c. by ROBERT BURNESS; a man who had little art in making money, and still less in keeping it; but was, however, a man of some sense, a great deal of honesty, and unbounded good-will to every creature, rational and irrational.-As he was but little indebted to scholastic education, and bred at a plough-tail, his performances must be strongly tinctured with his unpolished, rustic way of life; but as I believe they are really his own, it may be some entertainment to a curious observer of human nature to see how a ploughman thinks, and feels, under the pressure of love, ambition, anxiety, grief, with the like cares and passions, which however diversified by the modes, and manners * It has been the chief object in making this collection, not to omit any thing which might illustrate the character and feelings of the bard at different periods of his life.—Henĉe these "Observations" are given entire from his manuscript.A small portion appears in Dr. Currie's edition, but the reader will pardon the repetition of it here when he considers how, much so valuable a paper would lose by being given in fragments, and when he recollects that this volume may fall into the hands of those who have not the opportunity of referring to the large edition of the works. This remark will apply equally to the Journals and other pieces of which parts have before been published. E of life, operate pretty much alike, I believe, on all the species. "There are numbers in the world who do not want sense to make a figure, so much as an opinion of their own abilities to put them upon recording their observations, and allowing them the same importance which they do to those which appear in print." Shenstone. "Pleasing, when youth is long expired, to trace Ibid. April, 1783. Notwithstanding all that has been said against love respecting the folly and weakness it leads a young inexperienced mind into; still I think it in a great measure deserves the highest encomiums that have been passed upon it. If any thing on earth deserves the name of rapture or transport it is the feelings of green eighteen in the company of the mistress of his heart, when she repays him with an equal return of affection. August. There is certainly some connection between love, and music, and poetry; and therefore, I have always thought it a fine touch of nature, that passage in a modern love composition, "As tow'rds her cott he jogg'd long, Her name was frequent in his song." For my own part I never had the least thought or inclination of turning poet till I got once heartily in love, and then rhyme and song were, in a manner, the spontaneous language of my heart. The following composition was the first of my performances, and done at an early period of life, when my heart glowed with honest warm simplicity; unacquainted, and uncorrupted with the ways of a wicked world. The performance is, indeed, very puerile and silly; but I am always pleased with it, as it recalls to my mind those happy days when my heart was yet honest, and my tongue was sincere. The subject of it was a young girl who really deserved all the praises I have bestowed on her. I not only had this opinion of her thenbut I actually think so still, now that the spell is long since broken, and the enchantment at an end. Tune-I am a man unmarried. O once I lov'd a bonnie lass, And whilst that honor warms my breast I'll love my handsome Nell. Fal lal de ral, &c. As bonnie lasses I hae seen, A bonnie lass I will confess, Is pleasant to the e'e, But without some better qualities She 's no a lass for me. But Nelly's looks are blythe and sweet, And what is best of a', Her reputation is complete, And fair without a flaw. She dresses ay sae clean and neat, Both decent and genteel: And then there 's something in her gait A gaudy dress and gentle air 'Tis this in Nelly pleases me, Fal lal de ral, &c. Criticism on the foregoing song. Lest my works should be thought below criticism; or meet with a critic who, perhaps, will not look on them with so candid and favorable an eye; I am determined to criticise them myself. The first distich of the first stanza is quite too much in the flimsy strain of our ordinary street ballads; and on the other hand, the second distich is too much in the other extreme. The expression is a little awkward, and the sentiments too serious. Stanza the second I am well pleased with; and I think it conveys a fine idea of that amiable part of the sexthe agreeables; or what in our Scotch dialect we call a sweet sonsy lass. The third stanza has a little of the flimsy turn in it; and the third line has rather too serious a cast. The fourth stanza is a very indifferent one; the first line is, indeed, all in the strain of the second stanza, but the rest is mostly expletive. The thoughts in the fifth stanza come finely up to my favorite idea-a sweet sonsy lass: the last line, however,. halts a little. The same sentiments are kept up with equal spirit and tenderness in the sixth stanza; but the second and fourth lines ending with short syllables hurt the whole. The seventh stanza has several minute faults; but I remember I composed it in a wild enthusiasm of passion, and to this hour I never recollect it, but my heart melts, my blood sallies at the remembrance. September. I entirely agree with that judicious philosopher, Mr. Smith, in his excellent Theory of Moral Sentiments, that remorse is the most painful sentiment that can embitter the human bosom. Any ordinary pitch of fortitude may bear up tolerably well under those calamities, in the procurement of which we ourselves have had no hand; but when our own follies, or crimes, have made us miserable and wretched, to bear up with manly firmness, and at the same time have a proper penitential sense of our misconduct, is a glorious effort of self-command. Of all the numerous ills that hurt our peace, That press the soul, or wring the mind with anguish, Lives there a man so firm, who, while his heart O glorious magnanimity of soul! March, 1784. I have often observed, in the course of my experience of human life, that every man, even the worst, |