No. 72. TO MRS. DUNLOP. Ellisland, 4th April, 1789. I NO sooner hit on any poetic plan or fancy, but I wish to send it to you; and if knowing and reading these give half the pleasure to you, that communicating them to you gives to me, I am satisfied. I have a poetic whim in my head, which I at present dedicate, or rather inscribe, to the Right Hon. C. J. Fox; but how long that fancy may hold, I cannot say. A few of the first lines I have just rough-sketched as follows: 'How wisdom and folly meet, mix, and unite,' &c.— On the 20th current I hope to have the honour of assuring you, in person, how sincerely I am, * * * No. 73. TO MR. CUNNINGHAM. Ellisland 4th May, 1789. SIR, YOUR duty-free favour of the 26th April I received two days ago; I will not say I perused it with pleasure; that is the cold compliment of ceremony; I perused it, Sir, with delicious satisfaction-In short it is such a letter, that not you, nor your friend, but the legislature, by express proviso in their postage laws, should frank. A letter informed with the soul of friendship is such an honour to human nature, that they should order it free ingress and egress to and from their bags and mails, as an encouragement and mark of distinction to super-eminent virtue. I have just put the last hand to a little poem which I think will be something to your taste. One morning lately, as I was out pretty early in the fields sowing some grass seeds, I heard the burst of a shot from a neighbouring plantation, and presently a poor little wounded hare came crippling by me. You will guess my indignation at the inhuman fellow who could shoot a hare at this season, when they all of them have young ones. Indeed there is something in that business of destroying for our sport individuals in the animal creation that do not injure us materially, which I could never reconcile to my ideas of virtue. 'Inhuman man! curse on thy barb'rous art,' &c. See poems, p. 151. Let me know how you like my poem. I am doubtful whether it would not be an improvement to keep out the last stanza but one altogether. C― is a glorious production of the author of man. You, he, and the noble Colonel of the CF are to me 'Dear as the ruddy drops which warm the breast.' I have a good mind to make verses on you all, to the tune of, Three gude fellows ayont the glen.' No. 74. TO MR. M'AULEY OF DUMBARTON. 4th June, 1789. DEAR SIR, THOUGH I am not without my fears respecting my fate, at that grand, universal inquest of right and wrong, commonly called The Last Day, yet I trust there is one sin, which that arch-vagabond, Satan, who I understand is to be king's evidence, cannot throw in my teeth, I mean ingratitude. There is a certain pretty large quantum of kindness for which I remain, and from inability, I fear must still remain, your debtor; but though unable to repay the debt, I assure you, sir, I shall ever warmly remember the obligation. It gives me the sincerest pleasure to hear, by my old acquaintance, Mr. Kennedy, that you are, in immortal Allan's language, 'Hale and weel, and living;' and that your charming family are well, and promising to be an amiable and respectful addition to the company of performers, whom the great Manager of the drama of Man is bringing into action for the succeeding age. With respect to my welfare, a subject in which you once warmly and effectively interested yourself, I am here in my old way, holding my plough, marking the growth of my corn, or the health of my dairy; and at times sauntering by the delightful windings of the Nith, on the margin of which I have built my humble domicile, praying for seasonable weather, or holding an intrigue with the Muses; the only gipseys with whom I have now any intercourse. As I am entered into the holy state of matrimony, I trust my face is turned completely Zion-ward; and as it is a rule with all honest fellows, to repeat no grievances, I hope that the little poetic licences of former days, will of course fall under the oblivious influence of some good-natured statute of celestial proscription. In my family devotion, which like a good presbyterian, I occasionally give to my household folks, I am extremely fond of the psalm, 'Let not the errors of my youth," &c. and that other, Lo, children are God's heritage," &c. in which last Mrs. Burns, who by the bye, has a glorious "wood-note wild" at either old song or psalmody, joins me with the pathos of Handel's Messiah. No. 75. TO MRS. DUNLOP. DEAR MADAM, Ellisland, 21st June, 1789. WILL you take the effusions, the mi serable effusions of low spirits, just as they flow from their bitter spring. I know not of any particular cause for this worst of all my foes besetting me, but for some time my soul has been beclouded with a thickening atmosphere of evil imaginations and gloomy presages. Monday Evening. give a ser I have just heard mon. He is a man famous for his benevolence, and I revere him; but from such ideas of my Creator, good Lord deliver me! Religion, my honoured friend, is surely a simple business, as it equally concerns the ignorant and the learned, the poor and the rich. That there is an incomprehensible Great Being, to whom I owe my existence, and that he must be intimately acquainted with the operations and progress of the internal machinery, and consequent outward deportment of this creature which he has made; these are, I think, self-evident propositions. That there is a real and eternal distinction between virtue and vice, and consequently that I am an accountable creature; that from the seeming nature of the human mind, as well as from the evident imper |