MY LORD, on. No. CLIV. TO THE SAME. And that other favourite one from Thomson's "What proves the hero truely GaEAT, Or, shall I quote you an author of your so quaintance? 66 -Whether DOING, SUFFERING, Or FORBEARING, You may do miracles by-PERSEVERING." LANGUAGE sinks under the ardour of my feelings, when I would thank your lordship for the honour you have done me in inviting me to make one at the coronation of the bust of Thomson. In my first enthusiasm in reading the card you did me the honour to write me, I overlooked every obstacle, and determined to go; but I fear it will not be in my power. A week Or two's absence, in the very middle of my har-friends we have are going on in the old way. I I have nothing new to tell you. The few vest, is what I much doubt I dare not venture sold my crop on this day se'night, and sold it above value. But such a scene of drunkenness very well. A guinea an acre, on an average, the roup was over, about thirty people engaged was hardly ever seen in this country. After in a battle, every man for his own hand, and fought it out for three hours. Nor was the indeed, but folks lying drunk on the floor, and scene much better in the house. No fighting, decanting, until both my dogs got so drunk by You will easily guess how I enjoyed the scene ; attending them, that they could not stand. I was no farther over than you used to sea Your lordship hints at an ode for the occasion but who would write after Collins? I read over his verses to the memory of Thomson, and despaired.—I got indeed to the length of three or four stanzas, in the way of address to the shade of the bard, on crowning his bust. I shall trouble your lordship, with the subjoined copy of them, which, I am afraid, will be bat too convincing a proof how unequal I am to the task. However, it affords me an opportunity of approaching your lordship, and declaring how sincerely and gratefully I have the ho nour to be, &c. (See p. 55.) me. Mrs. B. and family have been in Ayrshire these many weeks. Farewell! and God bless you, my dear Friend! No. CLV. TO MR. THOMAS SLOAN, CARE OF WH. KENNEDY, ESQ. MANCHESTER. Ellisland, Sept. 1, 1791. SIR, No. CLVI. FROM THE EARL OF BUCHAN.' Dryburgh Abbey, 18th September, 1791. MY DEAR SLOAN, YOUR address to the shade of Thomson has SUSPENSE is worse than disappointment, for been well received by the public; and though I that reason I hurry to tell you that I just now should disapprove of your allowing Pegasus to learn that Mr. Ballantine does not choose to in-ride with you off the field of your honourable terfere more in the business. I am truly sorry for it, but cannot help it. and useful profession, yet I cannot resist an impulse which I feel at this moment to suggest to You blame me for not writing you sooner, your muse, Harvest Home, as an excellent subbut you will please to recollect that you omit-ject for her grateful song, in which the peculiar ted one little necessary piece of information ;your address. However you know equally well, my hurried life, indolent temper, and strength of attachment. It must be a longer period than the longest life" in the world's hale and undegenerate days," that will make me forget so dear a friend as Mr. Sloan. I am prodigal enough at times, but I will not part with such a treasure as that. I can easily enter into the embarras of your present situation. You know my favourite quotation from Young "On Reason build RESOLVE! That column of true majesty in man." aspect and manners of our country might furnish an excellent portrait and landscape of Scotland, for the employment of happy moments of leisure and recess, from your more important occupations. Your Halloween, and Saturday Night, will remain to distant posterity as interesting pic tures of rural innocence and happiness in your native country, and were happily written in the dialect of the people; but Harvest Home being suited to descriptive poetry, except where colloquial, may escape disguise of a dialect which admits of no elegance or dignity of expression. Without the assistance of any god or goddess, and without the invocation of any foreign muse, you may convey in epistolary form the descrip No. CLVIIL TO MR. AINSLIE MY DEAR AINSLIE, tion of a scene. so gladdening and picturesque, with all the concomitant local position, landscape and costume; contrasting the peace, improvement, and happiness of the borders of the once hostile nations of Britain, with their former oppression and misery, and showing, in lively CAN you minister to a mind diseased? Can and beautiful colours, the beauties and joys of a you, amid the horrors of penitence, regret, rerural life. And as the unvitiated heart is na-morse, head-ache, nausea, and all the rest of the turally disposed to overflow in gratitude in the moment of prosperity, such a subject would furnish you with an amiable opportunity of perpetuating the names of Glencairn, Miller, and your other eminent benefactors; which from what I know of your spirit, and have seen of your poems and letters, will not deviate from the chastity of praise, that is so uniformly united to true taste and genius. I am, Sir, &c. No. CLVII. TO LADY E. CUNNINGHAM MY LADY, d-d hounds of hell, that beset a poor wretch, who has been guilty of the sin of drunkenness can you speak peace to a troubled soul? Miserable perdu that I am, I have tried every thing that used to amuse me, but in vain here must I sit a monument of the vengeance laid up in store for the wicked, slowly counting every chick of the clock as it slowly-slowly numbers over these lazy scoundrels of hours, who, d-a them, are ranked up before me, every one at his neighbour's backside, and every one with a burthen of anguish on his hack, to pour on my devoted head-and there is none to pity me. My wife scolds me! my business torments me, and my sins come staring me in the face, every one telling a more bitter tale than his fellow.When I tell you even. ... has lost its power to please, you will guess something of my hell within, and all around me-I began I WOULD, as usual, have availed myself of the Elibanks and Elibraes, but the stanza fell unprivilege your goodness has allowed me, of send- enjoyed, and unfinished from my listless tongue; ing you any thing I compose in my poetical at last I luckily thought of reading over an old way; but as I had resolved, so soon as the letter of yours, that lay by me in my book-case, shock of my irreparable loss would allow me, to and I felt something for the first time since I pay a tribute to my late benefactor, I determined opened my eyes, of pleasurable existence.to make that the first piece I should do myself Well-I begin to breathe a little, since I began the honour of sending you. Had the wing of to write you. How are you, and what are you my fancy been equal to the ardour of my heart, doing? How goes law? Apropos, for connecthe enclosed had been much more worthy your tion's sake do not address to me supervisor, for perusal; as it is, I beg leave to lay it at your that is an honour I cannot pretend to-I am on ladyship's feet. As all the world knows my the list, as we call it, for a supervisor, and will obligations to the late Earl of Glencairn, I would be called out by and bye to act one; but at wish to show as openly that my heart glows, present, I am a simple gauger, tho' t'other day I and shall ever glow, with the most grateful got an appointment to an excise division of L.25 sense and remembrance of his lordship's good-per ann. better than the rest. My present in ness. The sables I did myself the honour to come, down money, is L.70 per ann. wear to his lordship's memory, were not the "mockery of woe." Nor shall my gratitude perish with me :-If, among my children, I 1 have one or two good fellows here whom shall have a son that has a heart, he shall hand you would be glad to know. it down to his child as a family honour, and a family debt, that my dearest existence I owe to the noble house of Glencairn! I was about to say, my lady, that if you think the poem may venture to see the light, I would, in some way or other, give it to the world. The poem enclosed, is The Lament for James, SIR, Earl of Glencairn. No. CLIX. FROM SIR JOHN WHITEFOORD. Near Maybole, 16th Oct. 1791 ACCEPT of my thanks for your favour with the Lament on the death of my much esteemed friend, and your worthy patron, the perusal of which pleased and affected me much. The lines addressed to me are very flattering. I have always thought it most natural to suppose, (and a strong argument in favour of a fu ture existence) that when we see an honourable the discrimination of your heroes, and in giving and virtuous man labouring under bodily infir- each the sentiments and language suitable to his mities, and oppressed by the frowns of fortune character. And, lastly, you have much merit in this world, that there was a happier state be- in the delicacy of the panegyric which you have yond the grave; where that worth and honour contrived to throw on each of the dramatis perwhich were neglected here, would meet with sone, perfectly appropriate to his character. their just reward, and where temporal misfor- The compliment to Sir Robert, the blunt soltunes would receive an eternal recompense. Let dier, is peculiarly fine. In short, this composius cherish this hope for our departed friend; tion, in my opinion, does you great honour, and and moderate our grief for that loss we have I see not a line or a word in it which I could sustained; knowing that he cannot return to wish to be altered. us, but we may go to him. Remember me to your wife, and with every good wish for the prosperity of you and your family, believe me at all times, Your most sincere friend, No. CLX. FROM A. F. TYTLER, Esq. As to The Lament, I suspect, from some expressions in your letter to me, that you are more doubtful with respect to the merits of this piece than of the other, and I own I think you have reason; for although it contains some beautiful stanzas, as the first, "The wind blew hollow," &c. the fifth, "Ye scatter'd birds;" the thirteenth, "Awake thy last sad voice," &c. Yet it appears to me faulty as a whole, and inferior to several of those you have already published in the same strain. My principal objection lies against the plan of the piece. I think it was unnecessary and improper to put the lamentation in the mouth of a fictitious character, an Edinburgh, 27th Nov. 1791. aged bard.-It had been much better to have You have much reason to blame me for ne- lamented your patron in your own person, to glecting till now to acknowledge the receipt of have expressed your genuine feelings for his loss, a most agreeable packet, containing The Whis- and to have spoken the language of nature rather tle, a ballad; and The Lament; which reached than that of fiction on the subject. Compare me about six weeks ago in London, from whence this with your poem of the same title in your I am just returned. Your letter was forwarded printed volume, which begins, O thou pale to me there from Edinburgh, where, as I ob-Orb and observe what it is that forms the served by the date, it had lain for some days. charm of that composition. It is, that it speaks This was an additional reason for me to have the language of truth and of nature. The change answered it immediately on receiving it; but is, in my opinion, injudicious too in this respect, the truth was, the bustle of business, engage- that an aged bard has much less need of a paments and confusion of one kind or another, in tron and protector than a young one. I have which I found myself immersed all the time I thus given you, with much freedom, my opinion was in London, absolutely put it out of my of both the pieces. I should have made a very power. But to have done with apologies, letill return to the compliment you paid me, if I me now endeavour to prove myself in some de- had given you any other than my genuine sen→ gree deserving of the very flattering compliment timents. you pay me, by giving you at least a frank and candid, if it should not be a judicious criticism on the poems you sent me. The ballad of The Whistle is, in my opinion, truly excellent. The old tradition which you have taken up is the best adapted for a Bacchanalian composition of any I have ever met with, and you have done it full justice. In the first place, the strokes of wit arise naturally from the subject, and are uncommonly happy. For example, It will give me great pleasure to hear from you when you find leisure, and I beg you will believe me ever, dear Sir, yours, &c. No. CLXI. TO MISS DAVIES. It is impossible, Madam, that the generous "The bands grew the tighter the more they warmth and angelic purity of your youthful were wet." "Cynthia hinted she'd find them next morn." mind, can have any idea of that moral disease under which I unhappily must rank as the chief of sinners; I mean a torpitude of the moral powers that may be called, a lethargy of conscience.—In vain remorse rears her horrent crest, and rouses all her snakes; beneath the deadly fixed eye and leaden hand of indolence, their wildest ire is charmed into the torpor of the In the next place, you are singularly happy in bat, slumbering out the rigours of winter in the "Though Fate said a hero should perish in light, So up rose bright Phœbus and down fell the knight." chink of a ruined wall. Nothing less, Madam, could have made me so long neglect your obliging commands. Indeed I had one apology-the bagatelle was not worth presenting. Besides, so strongly am I interested in Miss D's fate! and welfare in the serious business of life, amid its chances and changes; that to make her the subject of a silly ballad, is downright mockery of these ardent feelings; 'tis like an impertinent jest to a dying friend. No. CLXIL TO MRS. DUNLOP Ellisland, 17th December, 1791. MANY thanks to you, Madam, for your good news respecting the little floweret and the mother plant. I hope my poetic prayers have been heard, and will be answered up to the warmest sincerity of their fullest extent; and Gracious Heaven! why this disparity be- then Mrs. Henri will find her little darling the tween our wishes and our powers? Why is the representative of his late parent, in every thing most generous wish to make others blest, impo- but his abridged existence. tent and ineffectual-as the idle breeze that I have just finished the following song, which, crosses the pathless desert? In my walks of life to a lady the descendant of Wallace, and many I have met with a few people to whom how heroes of his truly illustrious line, and herself gladly would I have said-"Go, be happy! I the mother of several soldiers, needs neither preknow that your hearts have been wounded by face nor apology. the scorn of the proud, whom accident has placed above you-or worse still, in whose hand are, perhaps, placed many of the comforts of your life. But there! ascend that rock, Independence, and look justly down on their littleness of soul. Make the worthless tremble under your indignation, and the foolish sink before your contempt; and largely impart that happiness to others, which, I am certain, will give yourselves so much pleasure to bestow!" Why, dear Madam, must I wake from this delightful reverie, and find it all a dream? Why, amid my generous enthusiasm, must I find myself poor and powerless, incapable of wiping one tear from the eye of pity, or of adding one comfort to the friend I love!-Out upon the world! say I, that its affairs are administered so ill? They talk of reform;-good Heaven! what a reform would I make among the sons, and even the daughters of men!-Down, immediately, should go fools from the high places where misbegotten chance has perked them up, and through life should they skulk, ever haunted by their native insignificance, as the body marches accompanied by its shadow.-As for a much more formidable class, the knaves, I am at a loss what to do with them: Had I a world, there should not be a knave in it. But the hand that could give, I would liberally fill; and I would pour delight on the heart that could kindly forgive, and generously love. (Death Song. See p. 230) The circumstance that gave rise to the foregoing verses was, looking over, with a musical friend, M'Donald's collection of Highland airs; I was struck with one, an Isle of Skye tune, entitled Oran an Aoig, or, The Song of Death, to the measure of which I have adapted my stanzas. I have of late composed two or three other little pieces, which ere yon full orbed moon, whose broad impudent face now stares at old mother earth all night, shall have shrunk into a modest crescent, just peeping forth at dewy dawn, I shall find an hour to transcribe for you. A Dieu je vous commende ! I BELIEVE among all our Scots literati you have not met with Professor Dugald Stewart, who fills the moral philosophy chair in the University of Edinburgh. To say that he is a man of the first parts, and what is more, a man of Still the inequalities of his life are, among the first worth, to a gentleman of your general men, comparatively tolerable-but there is a de- acquaintance, and who so much enjoys the luxlicacy, a tenderness, accompanying every view ury of unencumbered freedom and undisturbed in which we can place lovely Woman, that are privacy, is not perhaps recommendation enough: grated and shocked at the rude, capricious dis-but when I inform you that Mr. Stewart's tinctions of fortune. Woman is the blood-royal principal characteristic is your favourite fes. of life: let there be slight degrees of precedency ture; that sterling independence of mind, which, among them-but let them be ALL sacred. though every man's right, so few men have the Whether this last sentiment be right or wrong, courage to claim, and fewer still the magnaniI am not accountable; it is an original compo-mity to support :-When I tell you, that unse nent feature of my mind. duced by splendour, and undisgusted by wretchedness, he appreciates the merits of the various actors in the great drama of life, merely as they On a market day in the town of Ayr, a farmer from Carrick, and consequently whose way lay by the very gate of Alloway kirk-yard, in order to cross the river Doon at the old bridge, which is about two or three hundred yards further on than the said gate, had been detained by his business, till by the time he reached Alloway it was the wizard hour, between night and morning. perform their parts-in short, he is a man after Another story which I can prove to be equalyour own heart, and I comply with his earnest ly authentic, was as follows:request in letting you know that he wishes above all things to meet with you. His house, Catrine, is within less than a mile of Sorn Castle, which you proposed visiting; or if you could transmit him the enclosed, he would with the greatest pleasure, meet you any where in the neighbourhood. I write to Ayrshire to inform Mr. Stewart that I have acquitted myself of my promise. Should your time and spirits permit your meeting with Mr. Stewart, 'tis well; if not, I hope you will forgive this liberty, and I have at least an opportunity of assuring you with what truth and respect, I am, Sir, Your great admirer, No. CLXIV. TO THE SAME. AMONG the many witch stories I have heard relating to Alloway kirk, I distinctly remember only two or three. Though he was terrified, with a blaze streaming from the kirk, yet as it is a well-known fact that to turn back on these occasions is running by far the greatest risk of mischief, he prudently advanced on his road. When he had reached the gate of the kirk-yard, he was surprised and entertained, through the ribs and arches of an old gothic window, which still faces the highway, to see a dance of witches merrily footing it round their old sooty blackguard master, who was keeping them all alive with the power of his bagpipe. The farmer stopping his horse to observe them a little, could plainly descry the faces of many old women of his acquaintance and neighbourhood. How the gentleman was dressed, tradition does not say; but the ladies were all in their smocks: and one of them hapUpon a stormy night, amid whistling squalls pening unluckily to have a smock which was of wind, and bitter blasts of hail; in short, on considerably too short to answer all the purpose such a night as the devil would choose to take of that piece of dress, our farmer was so tickled, the air in; a farmer or farmer's servant was that he involuntarily burst out, with a loud plodding and plashing homeward with his plough laugh, "Weel luppen, Maggy wi' the short irons on his shoulder, having been getting some sark!" and recollecting himself, instantly spurrepairs on them at a neighbouring smithy. His red his horse to the top of his speed. I need way lay by the kirk of Alloway, and being ra- not mention the universally known fact, that no ther on the anxious look out in approaching a diabolical power can pursue you beyond the place so well known to be a favourite haunt of middle of a running stream. Lucky it was for the devil and the devil's friends and emissaries, he was struck aghast by discovering through the horrors of the storm and stormy night, a light, which, on his nearer approach, plainly showed itself to proceed from the haunted edifice. Whether he had been fortified from above on his devout supplication, as is customary with people when they suspect the immediate presence of Satan; or whether, according to another custom, he had got courageously drunk at the smithy, I will not pretend to determine; but so it was that he ventured to go up to, nay into the very kirk. As good luck would have it his temerity came off unpunished. The members of the infernal junto were all out on some midnight business or other, and he saw nothing but a kind of kettle or caldron, depending from the roof, over the fire, simmering some heads of unchristened children, limbs of executed malefactors, &c. for the business of the night. It was, in for a penny, in for a pound, with the honest ploughman: so without ceremony he unhooked the caldron from off the fire, and pouring out the damnable ingredients, inverted it on his head, and carried it fairly home, where it remained long in the family, a living evidence of the truth of the story. the poor farmer that the river Doon was so near, for notwithstanding the speed of his horse, which was a good one, against he reached the middle of the arch of the bridge, and consequently the middle of the stream, the pursuing, vengeful hags, were so close at his heels, that one of them actually sprung to seize him; but it was too late, nothing was on her side of the stream but the horse's tail, which immediately gave way at her infernal grip, as if blasted by a stroke of lightning; but the farmer was beyond her reach. However, the unsightly, tail-less condition of the vigorous steed was to the last hour of the noble creature's life, an awful warning to the Carrick farmers, not to stay too late in Ayr markets. The last relation I shall give, though equally true, is not so well identified as the two former, with regard to the scene: but as the best authorities give it for Alloway, I shall relate it. On a summer's evening, about the time that nature puts on her sables to mourn the expiry of the chearful day, a shepherd boy belonging to a farmer in the immediate neighbourhood of Alloway kirk, had just folded his charge, and was returning home. As he passed the kirk, in the adjoining field, he fell in with a crew of |