No. XXVIII. To MR. BEUGO, ENGRAVER, EDINBURGH. Ellisland, Sept. 9, 1788. MY DEAR SIR, THERE is not in Edinburgh above the number of the graces whose letters would have given me so much pleasure as yours of the 3d instant, which only reached me yesternight. I am here on my farm, busy with my harvest; but for all that most pleasurable part of life called SOCIAL COMMUNICATION, I am here at the very elbow of existence. The only things that are to be found in this country in any degree of perfection, are stupidity and canting. Prose, they only know in graces, prayers, &c. and the value of these they estimate as they do their plaiding webs-by the ell! As for the muses, they have as much an idea of a rhinoceros as of a poet. For my old capricious but goodnatured hussy of a muse By By banks of Nith I sat and wept In midst thereof I hung my harp I am generally about half my time in Ayrshire with my darling Jean," and then I, at lucid intervals, throw my horny fist across my be-cobwebbed lyre, much in the same manner as an old wife throws her hand across the spokes of her spinning wheel. I will send you "The Fortunate Shepherdess" as soon as I return to Ayrshire, for there I keep it with other precious treasure. I shall send it by a careful hand, as I would not for any thing it should be mislaid or lost. I do not wish to serve you from any benevolence, or other grave Christian virtue; 'tis purely a selfish gratification of my own feelings whenever I think of you. is to say, * If your better functions would give you leisure to write me I should be extremely happy; that if you neither keep nor look for a regular correspondence. I hate the idea of being obliged to write a letter. I sometimes write a friend twice a week, at other times once a quarter. I am I am exceedingly pleased with your fancy in making the author you mention place a map of Iceland instead of his portrait before his works: 'Twas a glorious idea. Could you conveniently do me one thingWhenever you finish any head I could like to have a proof copy of it. I might tell you a long story about your fine genius; but as what every body knows cannot have escaped you, I shall not say one syllable about it. No. XXIX. To MISS CHALMERS, EDINBURGH. Ellisland, near Dumfries, Sept. 16, 1788. WHERE are you? and how are you? and is Lady M'Kenzie recovering her health? for I have had but one solitary letter from you. I will not think you have forgot me, Madam; and for my part "When thee Jerusalem I forget, "Skill part from my right hand!" My 66 My heart is not of that rock, nor my soul careless as that sea." I do not make my progress among mankind as a bowl does among its fellows -rolling through the crowd without bearing away any mark or impression, except where they hit in hostile collision. I am here, driven in with my harvest-folks by bad weather; and as you and your sister once did me the honor of interesting yourselves much a l'egard de moi, I sit down to beg the continuation of your goodness.-I can truly say that, all the exterior of life apart, I never saw two, whose esteem flattered the nobler feelings of my soul-I will not say, more, but, so much as Lady M'Kenzie and Miss Chalmers. When I think of you-hearts the best, minds the noblest, of human kind-unfortunate, even in the shades of life when I think I have met with you, and have lived more of real life with you in eight days, than I can do with almost any body I meet with in eight years-when I think on the improbability of meeting you in this world again -I could sit down and cry like a child!-If ever you honored me with a place in your esteem, I trust I can now plead more desert.I am secure against that crushing grip of iron poverty, which, alas! is less or more fatal to the native worth and purity of, I fear, the noblest souls; souls; and a late, important step in my life has kindly taken me out of the way of those ungrateful iniquities, which, however overlooked in fashionable license, or varnished in fashionable phrase, are indeed but lighter and deeper shades of VILLAINY. Shortly after my last return to Ayrshire, I married" my Jean." This was not in consequence of the attachment of romance perhaps ; but I had a long and much-loved fellow creature's happiness or misery in my determination, and I durst not trifle with so important a deposit. Nor have I any cause to repent it. If I have not got polite tattle, modish manners, and fashionable dress, I am not sickened and disgusted with the multiform curse of boarding-school affectation; and I have got the handsomest figure, the sweetest temper, the soundest constitution, and the kindest heart in the county. Mrs. Burns believes, as firmly as her creed, that I am le plus bel esprit, et le plus honnete homme in the universe; although she scarcely ever in her life, except the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, and the Psalms of David in metre, spent five minutes together on either prose or verse.I must except also from this last, a certain late publication of Scots poems, which she has perused very devoutly; and all the ballads in the country, |