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sures to be derived from the perusal of books candidate's capacity of reading the English lancalculated to improve the mind and refine the guage with grace and propriety; to his undertaste, without any danger of becoming more un-standing thoroughly, and having a high relish happy in their situation, or discontented with it. for the beauties of English authors, both in poetry Nor do I think there is any danger of their be- and prose; to that good sense and knowledge coming less useful. There are some hours every of human nature which would enable him to acday that the most constant labourer is neither quire some influence on the minds and affections ▾ at work nor asleep. These hours are either ap- of his scholars; to the general worth of his chapropriated to amusement or to sloth. If a taste racter, and the love of his king and his country, for employing these hours in reading were cul- than to his proficiency in the knowledge of Latin tivated, I do not suppose that the return to la- and Greek. I would then have a sort of high bour would be more difficult. Every one will English class established, not only for the purallow, that the attachment to idle amusements, pose of teaching the pupils to read if that graceor even to sloth, has as powerful a tendency to ful and agreeable manner that might make them abstract men from their proper business, as the fond of reading, but to make them understand attachment to books; while the one dissipates what they read, and discover the beauties of the the mind, and the other tends to increase its author, in composition and sentiment. I would powers of self-government. To those who are have established in every parish a small circuafraid that the improvement of the minds of the lating library, consisting of the books which the common people might be dangerous to the state, young people had read extracts from in the color the established order of society, I would re-lections they had read at school, and any other mark, that turbulence and commotion are cer- books well calculated to refine the mind, improve tainly very inimical to the feelings of a refined the moral feelings, recommend the practice of mind. Let the matter be brought to the test virtue, and communicate such knowledge as of experience and observation. Of what de-might be useful and suitable to the labouring scription of people are mobs and insurrections classes of men. I would have the schoolmaster composed? Are they not universally owing to act as librarian, and in recommending books to the want of enlargement and improvement of his young friends, formerly his pupils, and letmind among the common people? Nay, let ting in the light of them upon their young minds, any one recollect the characters of those who he should have the assistance of the minister. formed the calmer and more deliberate associa- If once such education were become general, tions, which lately gave so much alarm to the the low delights of the public-house, and other government of this country. I suppose few of scenes of riot and depravity, would be contemnthe common people who were to be found ined and neglected, while industry, order, cleanlisuch societies, had the education and turn of ness, and every virtue which taste and indepenmind I have been endeavouring to recommend. dence of mind could recommend, would prevail Allow me to suggest one reason for endeavour-and flourish. Thus possessed of a virtuous and ing to enlighten the minds of the common peo-enlightened populace, with high delight I should ple. Their morals have hitherto been guarded consider my native country as at the head of all by a sort of dim religious awe, which from a the nations of the earth, ancient or modern. variety of causes seems wearing off. I think the Thus, Sir, have I executed my threat to the alteration in this respect considerable, in the fullest extent, in regard to the length of my letshort period of my observation. I have already ter. If I had not presumed on doing it more given my opinion of the effects of refinement of to my liking, I should not have undertaken it; mind on morals and virtue. Whenever vulgar but I have not time to attempt it anew; nor, if minds begin to shake off the dogmas of the re- I would, am I certain that I should succeed any ligion in which they have been educated, the better. I have learned to have less confidence progress is quick and immediate to downright in my capacity of writing on such subjects. infidelity and nothing but refinement of mind I am much obliged by your kind inquiries can enable them to distinguish between the pure about my situation and prospects. I am much essence of religion, and the gross systems which pleased with the soil of this farm, and with the men have been perpetually connecting it with. terms on which I possess it. I receive great In addition to what has already been done for encouragement likewise in building, enclosing, the education of the common people of this coun- and other conveniences, from my landlord Mr. try, in the establishment of parish schools, IG. S. Monteith, whose general character and wish to see the salaries augmented in some pro- conduct, as a landlord and country gentleman, portion to the present expense of living, and the I am highly pleased with. But the land is in earnings of people of similar rank, endowments such a state as to require a considerable immeand usefulness, in society; and I hope that the diate outlay of money in the purchace of maliberality of the present age will be no longer nure, the grubbing of brush-wood, removing of disgraced by refusing, to so useful a class of men, stones, &c. which twelve years' struggle with a such encouragement as may make parish schools farm of a cold ungrateful soil has but ill preparworth the attention of men fitted for the impor-ed me for. If I can get these things done, tant duties of that office. In filling up the va- however, to my mind, I think there is next to cancies, I would have more attention paid to the a certainty that in five or six years I shall be in

a hopeful way of attaining a situation which I in February 1788, he received, as the profits of think is eligible for happiness as any one I his second publication, about £500, and with know; for I have always been of opinion, that that generosity, which formed a part of his naif a man, bred to the habits of a farming life, ture, he immediately presented Gilbert witn who possesses a farm of good soil, on such terms nearly the half of his whole wealth. Thus sueas enables him easily to pay all demands, is not coured, the deceased married a Miss Breckenridge, happy, he ought to look somewhere else than to and removed to a better farm (Dinning in Dumhis situation for the causes of his uneasiness. friesshire), but still reserved a seat at the famiI beg you will present my most respectfully board for his truly venerable mother, who died compliments to Mrs. Currie, and remember me a few years ago. While in Dinning, he was reto Mr. and Mrs. Roscoe, and Mr. Roscoe jun. commended to Lady Blantyre; and though our whose kind attentions to me, when in Liverpool, memory does not serve us precisely as to date, I shall never forget.-I am, dear Sir, your most he must have been an inhabitant of East Lothian, obedient, and much obliged humble servant, for very nearly a quarter of a century. Her GILBERT BURNS. Ladyship's affairs were managed with the greatest fidelity and prudence; the factor and his constituent were worthy of each other; and in a district distinguished for the skill, talents, and opulence of its farmers, no man was more respected then Mr. Gilbert Burns. His wife, who still survives, bore him a family of six sons and five daughters; but of these, one son, and four daughters, predeceased their father. His with enviable frugality, as a proof of which we means, though limited, were always managed what is called a classical education. may state that every one of his boys received

DEATH AND CHARACTER OF

GILBERT BURNS.

No. LXXI.

THE POET'S SCRAP-BOOK. what the title imports, really a thing of shreds THE Poet kept a Scrap-Book, which was and patches. In the following extracts, we have not been quite so sparing as Dr. Currie, whose extracts are above, nor so very profuse as Mr. Cromek, who, in his Reliques, has turned the book inside out.

THIS most worthy and talented individual died at Grant's Braes, in the neighbourhood of Haddington, and on the estate of Lady Blantyre, for whom he was long factor, on Sunday 8th April 1827, in the sixty-seventh year of his age. He had no fixed or formed complaint, but for several months preceding his dissolution, there was a gradual decay of the powers of nature; and the infirmities of age, combined with severe domestic affliction, hastened the release of as pure a spirit as ever inhabited a human bosom. On the 4th of January he lost a daughter who had long been the pride of the family hearth; and on the 26th of February following, his youngest son,-a youth of great promise, died in Edinburgh of typhus fever, just as he was about being licensed for the ministry. These repeated trials were too much for the excellent old man; the mind which, throughout a long and blameless life, had pointed unweariedly to its home in the skies, ceased as it were, to hold communion with things earthly, and on the recurrence of that hallowed morning, which, like his sire of old, he had been accustomed to sanctify, he expired without a groan or struggle, in peace, and even love with all mankind, and in humble confidence of a blessed immortality.MY FATHER WAS A FARMER. The early life of Mr. Gilbert Burns is intiTune-"The Weaver and his Shuttle, O." mately blended with that of the poet. He was eighteen months younger than Robert-posses- And carefully he bred me in decency and order, O; My Father was a Farmer upon the Carrick border, O, sed the same penetrating judgment, and, accord-He bade me act a manly part, though I had ne'er a ing to Mr. Murdoch, their first instructor, sur- For without an honest manly heart, no man was worth passed him in vivacity till pretty nearly the age of manhood. When the greatest of our bards was invited by Dr. Blacklock to visit Edinburgh, the subject of the present imperfect Memoir was struggling in the churlish farm of Mossgiel, and toiling late and early to keep a house over his aged mother, and unprotected sisters. In these circumstances, the poet's success was the first thing that stemmed the ebbing tide of the fortunes of his family. In settling with Mr. Creech

This sketch is by Mr. Macdiarmid, of the Dumfries Courier, in which Journal it first appeared.

chiefly in the way of maxims or observations The prose articles are they have less of worldly selfishness, and more caud: The poetical scraps are numerous such of the religious feeling, than those of Rochfouof them as are worth preserving, and have not already appeared amongst the poems, will be found below.

farthing, O,

regarding, O.

Tho' to be rich was not my wish, yet to be great was Then out into the world my course I did determine, 0, charming, O.

cation, O:

My/talents they were not the worst; nor yet my edu-
Resolv'd was I, at least to try, to mend my situation, O.

vour, O:

In many a way, and vain essay, I courted fortune's faSome cause unseen, still stept between, to frustrate each endeavour, O;

Sometimes by foes I was o'erpow'rd; sometimes by friends forsaken, O;

And when my hope was at the top, I still was worst mistaken, O.

Then sore harass'd, and tir'd at last, with fortune's | makes me yet shudder, I hung my harp on the vain delusion, O; I dropt my schemes, like idle dreams, and came to this willow trees, except in some lucid intervals, in one of which I composed the following. (Here follows the prayer in distress. p. 78.)-March 1784.

conclusion, O;

The past was bad, and the future hid; its good or ill

untryed, O;

But the present hour was in my pow'r, and so I would enjoy it, O.

No help, nor hope, nor view had I; nor person to be.

Religious Sentiment.-What a creature is man! A little alarm last night, and to-day, that I am mortal, has made such a revolution on my So I must toil, and sweat and broil, and labour to sus-spirits! There is no philosophy, no divinity,

friend me, O;

tain me, O,

To plough and sow, to reap and mow, my father bred

me early, O;

For one, he said, to labour bred, was a match for fortune fairly, O.

Thus all obscure, unknown, and poor, thro' life I'm doomed to wander, O,

Till down my weary bones I lay in everlasting slum

ber, O:

No view nor care, but shun whate'er might breed me pain or sorrow, O;

1 live to day, as well's I may, regardless of to-mor

row, O.

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But as daily bread is all I need, I do not much regard
her, O.

When sometimes by my labour I earn a little money,0,
Some unforeseen misfortune comes generally upon
me, 0;
Mischance, mistake, or by neglect, or my good-natur'd
folly, O;

But come what will, I've sworn it still, I'll ne'er be
melancholy, O.

All you who follow wealth and power with unremit-
ting ardour, O,
The more in this you look for bliss, you leave your
view the farther, O;

Had you the wealth Potosi boasts, or nations to adore

you, O,

A cheerful honest hearted clown I will prefer before you, O.

ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF
ROBERT RUISSEAUX.⭑

Now Robin lies in his last lair,
He'll gabble rhyme, nor sing nae mair,
Cauld poverty, wi' hungry stare,

Nae mair shall fear him;
Nor anxious fear, nor cankert care
E'er mair come near him.

To tell the truth, they seldom fash't him,
Except the moment that they crush't him;
For sune as chance or fate had husht 'em,
Tho' e'er sae short,
Then wi' a rhyme or song he lasht 'em,
And thought it sport.-

Tho' he was bred to kintra wark,

And counted was baith wight and stark,
Yet that was never Robin's mark

To mak a man;

But tell him, he was a learn'd clark,

Ye roos'd him then. †

that comes half so much home to the mind. I have no idea of courage that braves Heaven: 'Tis the wild ravings of an imaginary hero in Bedlam.

My favourite feature in Milton's Satan is his manly fortitude in supporting what cannot be remedied-in short, the wild, broken fragments of a noble, exalted mind in ruins. I meant no more by saying he was a favourite hero of mine.

I hate the very idea of a controversial divinity; as I firmly believe that every honest upright man, of whatever sect, will be accepted of the deity. I despise the superstition of a fanatic, but I love the religion of a man.

Nothing astonishes me more, when a little sickness clogs the wheel of life, than the thoughtless career we run in the hour of health.

None saith, where is God, my maker, that giveth songs in the night: who teacheth us more knowledge than the beasts of the field, and more understanding than the fowls of the

air.

"

My creed is pretty nearly expressed in the last clause of Jamie Dean's grace, an honest weaver in Ayrshire; "Lord grant that we may lead a gude life! for a gude life maks a gude end, at least it helps weel!"

A decent means of livelihood in the world, an approving God, a peaceful conscience, and one firm trusty friend; can any body that has these, be said to be unhappy?

The dignified and dignifying consciousness of an honest man, and the well grounded trust in approving heaven, are two most substantial sources of happiness.

Give me, my Maker, to remember thee! Give me to feel "another's woe;" and continue with me that dear-lov'd friend that feels with mine!

In proportion as we are wrung with grief, or distracted with anxiety, the ideas of a compassionate Deity, an Almighty Protector, are doubly dear.

I have been, this morning, taking a peep through, as Young finely says, "the dark postern of time long elapsed;" 'twas a rueful prosMelancholy.-There was a certain period of pect! What a tissue of thoughtlessness, weakmy life that my spirit was broke by repeated losses ness, and folly! My life reminded me of a ruinand disasters, which threatened, and indeed effect-ed temple. What strength, what proportion in ed, the utter ruin of my fortune. My body too some parts! What unsightly gaps, what proswas attacked by that most dreadful distemper, trate ruins in others! I kneeled down before a hypochondria, or confirmed melancholy: In the Father of Mercies, and said, "Father I this wretched state, the recollection of which have sinned against Heaven, and in thy sight, Ruisseaux-streams-a play on his own name. and am no more worthy to be called thy son," I rose, eased, and strengthened,

↑ Ye roos'd-ye prais'd.

LETTERS, 1788.

No. LXXII.

TO MRS. DUNLOP.

Edinburgh, 21st Jan. 1788. AFTER six weeks' confinement, I am beginning to walk across the room. They have been six horrible weeks; anguish and low spirits made me unfit to read, write, or think.

but you are sure of being respectable you can afford to pass by an occasion to display your wit, because you may depend for fame on your sense; or if you choose to be silent, you know you can rely on the gratitude of many and the esteem of all; but God help us who are wits or witlings by profession, if we stand not for fame there, we sink unsupported!

I am highly flattered by the news you tell me of Coila. I may say to the fair painter who does me so much honour, as Dr. Beattie I have a hundred times wished that one says to Ross the poet, of his Muse Scotia, from could resign life as an officer resigns a commis- which, by the bye, I took the idea of Coila: sion: for I would not take in any poor, igno-('Tis a poem of Beattie's in the Scots dialect, rant wretch, by selling out. Lately I was a which perhaps you have never seen.)

sixpenny private; and, God knows, a miserable soldier enough; now I march to the campaign, a starving cadet: a little more conspicuously wretched.

I am ashamed of all this; for though I do want bravery for the warfare of life, I could wish, like some other soldiers, to have as much fortitude or cunning as to dissemble or conceal my cowardice.

As soon as I can bear the journey, which will be, I suppose, about the middle of next week, I leave Edinburgh, and soon after I shall pay my grateful duty at Dunlop-house.

No. LXXIII.

EXTRACT OF A LETTER

TO THE SAME.

Edinburgh, 12th Feb. 1788. So things, in your late letters, hurt me: not that you say them, but that you mistake me. Religion, my honoured Madam, has not only been all my life my chief dependence, but my dearest enjoyment. I have indeed been the luckless victim of wayward follies; but, alas! I have ever been "more fool than knave." A mathematician without religion, is a probable character; an irreligious poet, is a monster.

MADAM,

No. LXXIV.

TO A LADY.

Mossgiel, 7th March, 1788. THE last paragraph in yours of the 30th February affected me most, so I shall begin my answer where you ended your letter. That I

am often a sinner with any little wit I have, I do confess but I have taxed my recollection to no purpose, to find out when it was employed against you. I hate an ungenerous sarcasm, a great deal worse than I do the devil; at least 28 Milton describes him; and though I may be, rascally enough to be sometimes guilty of it myself, I cannot endure it in others. You, my honoured friend, who cannot appear in any light,

"Ye shak your head, but o' my fegs,

Ye've set auld Scotia on her legs:
Lang had she lien wi' buffe and flegs,
Bombaz'd and dizzie,
Her fiddle wanted strings and pegs,
Waes me, poor hizzie."

No. LXXV.

TO MR. ROBERT CLEGHORN.

Mauchline, 31st March, 1788. YESTERDAY, my dear Sir, as I was riding through a track of melancholy joyless muirs, between Galloway and Ayrshire, it being Sunday, I turned my thoughts to psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs; and your favourite air, Captain O'Kean, coming at length in my head, I tried these words to it. You will see that the first part of the tune must be repeated.+

I am tolerably pleased with these verses, but as I have only a sketch of the tune, I leave it with you to try if they suit the measure of the music.

I am so harassed with care and anxiety, about this farming project of mine, that my muse has degenerated into the veriest prose-wench that ever picked cinders, or followed a tinker. When I am fairly got into the routine of business, I shall trouble you with a longer epistle; perhaps with some queries respecting farming; at present, the world sits such a load on my mind, that it has effaced almost every trace of the in me.

My very best compliments and good wishes to Mrs. Cleghora.

No. LXXVI.

FROM MR. ROBERT CLEGHORN.

Saughton Mills, 27th April, 1788. MY DEAR BROTHER FARMER,

I was favoured with your very kind letter of

A lady was making a picture from the description of Coila in the Vision.

Here the bard gives the first stanza of the Chevalier's Lament.

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the 81st ult. and consider myself greatly obliged them twenty-four dutiful children to their pa to you, for your attention in sending me the rents, twenty-four useful members of society, song to my favourite air, Captain O'Kean. and twenty-four approven servants of their God! The words delight me much; they fit the tune "Light's heartsome," quo' the to a hair. I wish you would send me a verse wife when she was stealing sheep. You see or two more; and if you have no objection, I what a lamp I have hung up to lighten your would have it in the Jacobite style. Suppose paths, when you are idle enough to explore the it should be sung after the fatal field of Cullo- combinations and relations of my ideas. 'Tis den by the unfortunate Charles: Tenducci per- now as plain as a pike-staff, why a twenty-four sonates the lovely Mary Stuart in the song gun battery was a metaphor I could readily Queen Mary's Lamentation.-Why may not employ. I sing in the person of her great-great-great grandson ?*

Any skill I have in country business you may truly command. Situation, soil, customs of countries may vary from each other, but Farmer Attention is a good farmer in every place. I beg to hear from you soon. Mrs. Cleghorn joins me in best compliments.

I am, in the most comprehensive sense of the word, your very sincere friend,

ROBERT CLEGHORN.

No. LXXVII.

TO MR. JAMES SMITH,

AVON PRINTFIELD, LINLITHGOW.

Mauchline, April 28, 1788. BEWARE of your Strasburgh, my good Sir! Look on this as the opening of a correspondence like the opening of a twenty-four gun battery! There is no understanding a man properly, without knowing something of his previous ideas (that is to say, if the man has any ideas; for I know many who in the animal-muster, pass for men, that are the scanty masters of only one idea on any given subject, and by far the greatest part of your acquaintances and mine can barely boast of ideas, 1.25-1.5-1.75, or some such fractional matter), so to let you a little into the secrets of my pericranium, there is, you must know, a certain clean-limbed, handsome, bewitching young hussy of your acquaintance, to whom I have lately and privately given a matrimonial title to my corpus.

"Bode a robe and wear it,"

Now for business.-I intend to present Mrs. Burns with a printed shawl, an article of which I dare say you have variety: 'tis my first present to her since I have irrevocably called her mine, and I have a kind of whimsical wish to get her the said first present from an old and much valued friend of hers and mine, a trusty Trojan, on whose friendship I count myself possessed of a life-rent lease.

Look on this letter as a "beginning of sorrows;" I'll write you till your eyes ache with reading nonsense.

Mrs. Burns ('tis only her private designation), begs her best compliments to you.

MADAM,

No. LXXVIII.

TO MRS. DUNLOP.

Mauchline, 28th April, 1735 YOUR powers of reprehension must be great indeed, as I assure you they made my heart ache with penitential pangs, even though I was As I commence farmer at really not guilty. Whitsunday, you will easily guess I must be As I got the pretty busy; but that is not all. offer of the excise business without solicitation; and as it costs me only six months' attendance for instructions, to entitle me to a commission; which commission lies by me, and at any future period, on my simple petition, can be resumed; thought five and thirty pounds a-year was no bad dernier resort for a poor poet, if fortune in her jade tricks should kick him down from the little eminence to which she has lately helped him up.

I

Says the wise old Scots adage! I hate to preFor this reason, I am at present attending sage ill-luck; and as my girl has been doubly these instructions, to have them completed be kinder to me than even the best of women fore Whitsunday. Still, Madam, I prepared usually are to their partners of our sex, in simi- with the sincerest pleasure to meet you at the lar circumstances, I reckon on twelve times a Mount, and came to my brother's on Saturday brace of children against I celebrate my twelfth night, to set out on Sunday; but for some wedding day these twenty-four will give me nights preceding I had slept in an apartment, twenty-four gossippings, twenty-four christen- where the force of the winds and rain was only ings, (I mean one equal to two), and I hope by mitigated by being sifted through numberless the blessing of the God of my fathers, to make apertures in the windows, walls, &c. In consequence I was on Sunday, Monday, and part Our Poet took this advice. See poetry for the of Tuesday unable to stir out of bed, with all whole of that beautiful song-the Chevalier's Lament. the miserable effects of a violent cold,

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