ing your Mountain-daisy; perhaps it may not displease you. I have been trying to add to the number of your subscribers, but find many of my acquaintance are already among them. among them. I have only to add, that with every sentiment of esteem, and the most cordial good wishes, I am, Your obedient humble servant, J. MOORE. E 2 No. * The sonnet is as follows: WHILE SOON "the garden's flaunting flowers" decay, The "Mountain-daisy," cherish'd by the ray By genius in her native vigor nurst, On nature with impassion'd look he gazed; Then through the cloud of adverse fortune burst Indignant, and in light unborrow'd blazed. Scotia! from rude affliction shield thy bard, His heaven-taught numbers Fame herself will guard. E. No. XVI. TO THE Reverend G. LOWRIE, of NEWMILLS, NEAR KILMARNOCK. Edinburgh, 5th February, 1787. REVEREND AND DEAR SIR, WHEN I look at the date of your kind letter, my heart reproaches me severely with ingratitude in neglecting so long to answer it. I will not trouble you with any account, by .way of apology, of my hurried life and distracted attention: do me the justice to believe that my delay by no means proceeded from want of respect. I feel, and ever shall feel, for you, the mingled sentiments of esteem for a friend, and reverence for a father. I thank I thank you, Sir, with all my soul, for your friendly hints; though I do not need them so much as my friends are apt to imagine. You are dazzled with newspaper accounts and distant reports; but in reality, I have no great temptation to be intoxicated with the cup of prosperity. Novelty inay attract the attention of mankind awhile; to it I owe my present eclat; but I see the time not far distant, when the popular tide, which has borne me to a height of which I am, perhaps, unworthy, shall recede with silent celerity, and leave me a barren waste of sand, to descend at my leisure to my former station. I do not say this in the affectation of modesty; I see the consequence is unavoidable, and am prepared for it. I had been at a good deal of pains to form a just, impartial estimate of my intellectual powers before I came here; I have not added, since I came to Edinburgh, any thing to the account; and I trust I shall take every atom of it back to my shades, the coverts of my unnoticed, early years. In Dr. Blacklock, whom I see very often, I have found, what I would have expected in our friend, a clear head and an excellent heart. By far the most agreeable hours I spend in Edinburgh must be placed to the account of Miss Miss Lowrie and her piano forté. I cannot help repeating to you and Mrs. Lowrie a compliment that Mr. Mackenzie, the celebrated "Man of Feeling," paid to Miss Lowrie, the other night, at the concert. I had come in at the interlude, and sat down by him, till I saw Miss Lowrie in a seat not very distant, and went up to pay my respects to her. On my return to Mr. Mackenzie, he asked me who she was; I told him 'twas the daughter of a reverend friend of mine in the west country. He returned, there was something very striking, to his idea, in her appearance. On my desiring to know what it was, he was pleased to say, "She has a great deal of the elegance of a well-bred lady about her, with all the sweet simplicity of a country girl." My compliments to all the happy inmates of Saint Margaret's. I am, dear Sir, Yours most gratefully, ROBT. BURNS. No. No. XVII. To DR. MOORE. SIR, Edinburgh, 15th February, 1787. PARDON my seeming neglect in delaying so long to acknowledge the honour you have done me, in your kind notice of me, January 23d. Not many months ago I knew no other employment than following the plough, nor could boast any thing higher than a distant acquaintance with a country clergyman. Mere greatness never embarrasses me; I have nothing to ask from the great, and I do not fear their judgment: but genius, polished by learning, and at its proper point of elevation in the eye of the world, this of late I frequently meet with, and tremble at its approach. I scorn the affectation of seeming modesty to cover selfconceit. That I have some merit I do not deny; but I see with frequent wringings of heart |