35

covered her wonted health, is equal to Miss Burnet's. After the exercise of our riding to the Falls, Charlotte was exactly Dr. Donne's mistress:

"Her pure and eloquent blood

Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought, "That one would almost say her body thought."

Her eyes are fascinating; at once expressive of good sense, tenderness, and a noble mind.

I do not give you all this account, my good Sir, to flatter you. I mean it to reproach you. Such relations the first peer in the realm might own with pride; then why do you not keep up more correspondence with these so amiable young folks? I had a thousand questions to answer about you all: I had to describe the little ones with the minuteness of anatomy. They were highly delighted when I told them that John was so good a boy, and so fine a scholar,

D 2

+

*This is the "wee curlie Johnnie," mentioned in Burns's dedication to Gavin Hamilton, Esq. To this gentleman, and every branch of the family, the Editor is indebted for much information respecting the poet, and very gratefully acknowledges the kindness shewn to himself.

scholar, and that Willie was going on stifl very pretty; but I have it in commission to tell her from them that beauty is a poor silly bauble without she be good. Miss Chalmers I had left in Edinburgh, but I had the pleasure of meeting with Mrs. Chalmers, only Lady M'Kenzie being rather a little alarmingly ill of a sore-throat somewhat marr'd our enjoyment.

I shall not be in Ayrshire for four weeks. My most respectful compliments to Mrs. Hamilton, Miss Kennedy, and Doctor M'Kenzie. I shall probably write him from some stage or other.

I am ever, Sir,

Yours most gratefully.

* Now married to the Rev. John Tod, Minister of Mauchline,

The following fragments are all that now exist of twelve or fourteen of the finest letters that Burns ever wrote. In an evil hour, the originals were thrown into the fire by the late Mrs. Adair of Scarborough; the Charlotte so often mentioned in this correspondence, and the lady to whom "The Banks of the Devon" is addressed.

E.

No. XVIII.

To MISS MARGARET CHALMERS, (now Mrs. Hay, of Edinburgh.)

Sept. 26, 1787,

I SEND Charlotte the first number of the songs; I would not wait for the second number; I hate delays in little marks of friendship, as I hate dissimulation in the language of the heart. I am determined to pay Charlotte a poetic compliment, if I could hit on some glorious old Scotch air, in number second. 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 in

tend

Of the Scot's Musical Museum.

tend 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, Whigminister 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.

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 evening 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!

Miss N. is very well, and begs to be remem

bered

bered in the old way to you. I used all my elo. quence, all the persuasive flourishes of the hand, and heart-melting modulation of periods in my power, to urge her out to Herveiston, but all in vain. My rhetoric seems quite to have lost its effect on the lovely half of mankind. I have seen the day-but that is a "tale of other years." -In my conscience I believe that my heart has been so oft on fire that it is absolutely vitrified. I look on the sex with something like the admiration with which I regard the starry sky in a frosty December night. I admire the beauty of the Creator's workmanship; I am charmed with the wild but graceful eccentricity of their motions, and-wish them good night. I mean this with respect to 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