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No. LXIII.

To PETER MILLER, Jun. Esq.* of Dalswinton:

Dumfries, Nov. 1794..

DEAR SIR,

YOUR offer is indeed truly generous, and most sincerely do I thank you for it; but in my present situation, I find that I dare not accept it. You well know my political sentiments; and were I an insular individual, unconnected with a wife and a family of children, with the most fervid enthusiasm I would have volunteered my services: I then could and would have despised all consequences that might have ensued.

My prospect in the excise is something; at least, it is encumbered as I am with the welfare, the very existence, of near half-a-score of helpless individuals, what I dare not sport with.

In the mean time they are most welcome to my Ode; only, let them insert it as a thing they have met with by accident and unknown to me.- -Nay, if Mr. Perry, whose honor, after your character of him I cannot doubt if he will give me an address and channel by which any thing will come safe from those

* In a conversation with his friend Mr. Perry, (the proprietor of "The Morning Chronicle,") Mr. Miller represented to that gentleman the insufficiency of Burns's salary to answer the imperious demands of a numerous family. In their sympathy for his misfortunes, and in their regret that his talents were nearly lost to the world of letters, these gentlemen agreed on the plan of settling him in London.

To accomplish this most desirable object, Mr. Perry, very spiritedly, made the Poet a handsome offer of an annual stipend for the exercise of his talents in his newspaper. Burns's reasons for refusing this offer are stated in the present letter.

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spies with which he may be certain that his correspondence is beset, I will now and then send him any bagatelle that I may write. In the present hurry of Europe, nothing but news and politics will be regarded; but against the days of peace, which Heaven send soon, my little assistance may perhaps fill up an idle column of a Newspaper. I have long had it in my head to try my hand in the way of little prose essays, which I propose sending into the world through the medium of some Newspaper; and should these be worth his while, to these Mr. Perry shall be welcome; and all my reward shall be, his treating me with his paper, which, by the bye, to any body who has the least relish for wit, is a high treat indeed.

With the most grateful esteem, I am ever,

Dear Sir, &c.

No. LXIV.

To GAVIN HAMILTON, Esq.

Dumfries.

MY DEAR SIR,

IT is indeed with the highest satisfaction that I congratulate you on the return of "days of ease, and nights of pleasure," after the horrid hours of misery, in which I saw you suffering existence when I was last in Ayrshire. I seldom pray for any body. "I'm baith dead sweer, and wretched ill o't." But most fervently do I beseech the great Director of this world, that you may live long and be happy, but that you may live no longer than while you are happy. It is needless for me to advise you to have a reverend care of your health. I know you will make it a point never, at one time, to drink more than a pint of wine; (I mean

an English pint,) and that you will never be witness to more than one bowl of punch at a time; and that cold drams you will never more taste. I am well convinced too, that after drinking, perhaps boiling punch, you will never mount your horse and gallop home in a chill, late hour-Above all things, as I understand you are now in habits of intimacy with that Boanerges of gospel powers, Father Auld,* be earnest with him

*The Rev. Wm. Auld, the then Minister of Mauchline. This man was of a morose and malicious disposition; he had quarrelled with Mr. Gavin Hamilton's father, and sought every occasion of revenging himself on the son. Burns dearly loved Gavin Hamilton, and could not view this conduct with indifference: besides, Father Auld in his religious tenets was highly calvinistic, dealing damnation around him with no sparing hand. He was also superstitious and bigotted in the extreme-Excellent marks for the poet! The following specimens of Father Auld will shew his desire to provoke and irritate Mr. Hamilton, and are a full display of the liberality of his sentiments in matters of religion.

He unwarrantably refused to christen Mr. Hamilton's child for the following reasons:—that Mr. Hamilton rode on Sundays that he had ordered a person to dig a few potatoes inhis garden on the Sabbath-day, (for which he was cited before the Kirk!) He also charged him with dining in a public house on a King's fast day, with two gentlemen, and that they were even heard to whistle and sing after dinner.-Moreover, which was the heaviest and most awful charge of all--he, Mr. Auld, heard Gavin Hamilton say, "D-mn it," in his own presence!

All this idle and vexatious folly tended, as might be expected, to alienate the mind of Mr. Hamilton both from the parson and his pulpit. Father Auld and his adherents charged him with neglect of religion and disrespect for its professors. The poet took his friend and patron's part, and repelled the attack by extolling Mr. Hamilton's elevation of sentiment, his readiness to forgive injuries, and, above all, his universal active benevolence. These excellent qualities Burns opposed to the fierceness, fanaticism, and monkish gloom of this class of priests. His sentiments on the subject are given in this letter with infinite address, and in a strain of sly, covert humour that he has seldom surpassed. He is equally sly, but more explicit in his poetical dedication of his works to Gavin Hamil. ton-In a copy, in the poet's writing, that I have seen, the

that he will wrestle in prayer for you, that you may see the vanity of vanities in trusting to, or even practising the carnal moral works of charity, humanity, generosity, and forgiveness; things which you practised so Aagrantly that it was evident you delighted in them; neglecting, or perhaps, prophanely despising the wholesome doctrine of "Faith without works, the only anchor of salvation."

A hymn of thanksgiving would, in my opinion, be highly becoming from you at present; and in my zeal for your well-being, I earnestly press it on you to be diligent in chanting over the two inclosed pieces of sacred poesy. My best compliments to Mrs. Hamilton and Miss Kennedy.

Yours in the L-d,

R. B.

No. LXV.

To Mr. SAMUEL CLARKE, Jun. Dumfries.

Sunday Morning.

DEAR SIR,

I WAS, I know, drunk last night, but I am sober this morning. From the expressions Capt. made use of to me, had I had nobody's welfare to care for but my own, we should certainly have come, according to the manners of the world, to the necessity of murdering one another about the business. The words were such as, generally, I believe, end in a brace of pistols; but I am still pleased to think that I did not

circumstance of riding on the Sabbath-day is thus neatly introduced.

"He sometimes gallops on a Sunday,
"An' pricks the beast as it were Monday.”

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ruin the peace and welfare of a wife and a family of children in a drunken squabble. Father, you know that the report of certain political opinions being mine, has already once before brought me to the brink of destruction. I dread lest last night's business may be misrepresented in the same way.-You, I beg, will take care to prevent it. I tax your wish for Mr. Burns's welfare with the task of waiting as soon as possible, on every gentleman who was present, and state this to him, and, as you please, shew him this letter. What, after all, was the obnoxious toast?" May our success in the present war be equal to the justice of our cause." -A toast that the most outrageous frenzy of loyalty cannot object to. I request and beg that this morning you will wait on the parties present at the foolish dispute. I shall only add, that I am truly sorry that a man who stood so high in my estimation as Mr. should use me in the manner in which I conceive he has done.*

* At this period of our Poet's life, when political animosity was made the ground of private quarrel, the following foolish verses were sent as an attack on Burns and his friends for their political opinions. They were written by some member of a club styling themselves the Loyal Natives of Dumfries, or rather by the united genius of that club, which was more distinguished for drunken loyalty, than either for respectability or poetical talent. The verses were handed over the table to Burns at a convivial meeting, and he instantly indorsed the subjoined reply.

The Loyal Natives' Verses.

Ye sons of sedition give ear to my song,

Let Syme, BURNS, and Maxwell, pervade every throng,
With, Craken the attorney, and Mundell the quack,

Send Willie the monger to hell with a smack.

Burns-extempore.

Ye true "Loyal Natives" attend to my song,
In uproar and riot rejoice the night long;
From envy and hatred your corps is exempt;
But where is your shield from the darts of contempt?

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