I am ever, dear Sir, yours sincerely, No. CXVIII. TO MR. CUNNINGHAM. Venus. It is, indeed, such an inestima- | the public papers, where you must have ble treasure, that where it can be had in seen it. its native heavenly purity, unstained by some one or other of the many shades of affectation, and unalloyed by some one or other of the many species of caprice, I declare to Heaven, I should think it cheaply purchased at the expense of every other earthly good! But as this angelic creature is, I am afraid, extremely rare in any station and rank of life, and totally denied to such an humble one as mine: we meaner mortals must put up with the next rank of female excellence-as fine a figure and face we can produce as any rank of life whatever; rustic, native grace; unaffected modesty, and unsullied purity; nature's mother wit, and the rudiments of taste; a simplicity of soul, unsuspicious of, because unacquainted with the crooked ways of a selfish, interested, disingenuous world; and the dearest charm of all the rest, a yielding sweetness of disposition, and a generous warmth of heart, grateful for love on our part, and ardently glowing with a more than equal return; these, with a healthy frame, a sound, vigorous constitution, which your higher ranks can scarcely ever hope to enjoy, are the charms of lovely woman in my humble walk of life. This is the greatest effort my broken arm has yet made. Do let me hear, by first post, how cher petit Monsieur comes on with his small-pox. May Almighty goodness preserve and restore him! DEAR SIR, No. CXVII. ΤΟ 11th June, 1791. LET me interest you, my dear Cunningham, in behalf of the gentleman who waits on you with this. He is a Mr. Clarke, of Moffat, principal school-master there, and is at present suffering severely under the ****** of one or two powerful individuals of his employers. He is accused of harshness to **** that were placed under his care. God help the teacher, if a man of sensibility and genius, and such as my friend Clarke, when a booby father presents him with his booby son, and insists on lighting up the rays of science in a fellow's head whose skull is impervious and inaccessible by any other way than a positive fracture with a cudgel: a fellow whom, in fact, it savours of impiety to attempt making a scholar of, as he has been marked a blockhead in the book of fate, at the Almighty fiat of his Creator. The patrons of Moffat school are the ministers, magistrates, and town-council of Edinburgh; and as the business comes now before them, let me beg my dearest friend to do every thing in his power to serve the interests of a man of genius and worth, and a man whom I particularly respect and esteem. You know some good fellows among the magistracy and council, * * * * I AM exceedingly to blame in not writing you long ago; but the truth is, that I am the most indolent of all human but particularly you have much to say beings and when I matriculate in the with a reverend gentleman, to whom you herald's office, I intend that my support- have the honour of being very nearly reers shall be two sloths, my crest a slow-lated, and whom this country and age worm, and the motto, "Deil tak the fore- have had the honour to produce. I need most!" So much by way of apology for not name the historian of Charles V.* not thanking you sooner for your kind I tell him, through the medium of his ne execution of my commission. phew's influence, that Mr. Clarke is a gentleman who will not disgrace even his patronage. I know the merits of the I would have sent you the poem: but somehow or other it found its way into * Dr. Robertson was uncle to Mr. Cunningham. Z. an ode suited to the occasion. Suppose Mr. Burns should, leaving the Nith, go across the country, and meet the Tweed at the nearest point from his farm-and, wandering along the pastoral banks of Thomson's pure parent stream, catch in Lord Buchan sitting on the ruins of Dryburgh. There the commendator will give him a hearty welcome, and try to light his lamp at the pure flame of native genius upon the altar of Caledonian virtue. This poetical perambulation of the Tweed, is a thought of the late Sir Gilbert Elliot's and of Lord Minto's, followed out by his accomplished grandson, the present Sir Gilbert, who having been with Lord Buchan lately, the project was renewed, and will, they hope, be executed in the man ner proposed. cause thoroughly, and say it, that my friend is falling a sacrifice to prejudiced ignorance, and******. God help the children of dependence! Hated and persecuted by their enemies, and too often, alas almost unexceptionably, received by their friends with disrespect and re-spiration on the devious walk, till he finds proach, under the thin disguise of cold civility and humiliating advice. O to be a sturdy savage, stalking in the pride of his independence, amid the solitary wilds of his deserts; rather than in civilized life; helplessly to tremble for a subsistence, precarious as the caprice of a fellow-creature! Every man has his virtues, and no man is without his failings; and curse on that privileged plain-dealing of friendship, which in the hour of my calamity cannot reach forth the helping hand, without at the same time pointing out those failings, and apportioning them their share in procuring my present distress. My friends, for such the world calls ye, and such ye think yourselves to be, pass by my virtues if you please, but do, also, spare my follies: the first will witness in my breast for themselves, and the last will give pain enough to the ingenuous mind without you. And since deviating more or less from the paths of propriety and rectitude must be incident to human nature, do thou, Fortune put it in my power, always from myself, and of myself, to bear the consequences of those errors! I do not want to be independent that I may sin, but I want to be independent in my sinning To return, in this rambling letter, to the subject I set out with, let me recommend my friend, Mr. Clarke, to your acquaintance and good offices; his worth entitles him to the one, and his gratitude will merit the other. I long much to hear from you-Adieu ! No. CXIX. FROM THE EARL OF BUCHAN. No. CXX. TO THE EARL OF BUCHAN. MY LORD, LANGUAGE sinks under the ardour o my feelings when I would thank your Lordship for the honour you have done me in inviting me to make one at the co ronation of the bust of Thomson. In my first enthusiasm in reading the card you did me the honour to write to 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 harvest is what I much doubt I dare not venture on. Your Lordship hints at an ode for the occasion: but who could 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. Ishall trouble your Lordship with the subjoined Dryburgh Abbey, 17th June, 1791. copy of them, which, I am afraid, will be LORD BUCHAN has the pleasure to in- but too convincing a proof how unequal vite Mr. Burns to make one at the coro-I am to the task. However, it affords nation of the bust of Thomson, on Ed- me an opportunity of approaching your man Hill, on the 22d of September; for Lordship, and declaring how sincerely which day, perhaps, his muse may inspire and gratefully I have the honour to be. &c. No. CXXI. FROM THE SAME. No. CXXII. Dryburgh Abbey, 16th September, 1791. SIR, TO LADY E. CUNNINGHAM. MY LADY, I WOULD, as usual, have availed myself of the privilege your goodness has al YOUR address to the shade of Thom-lowed me, of sending you any thing I son has been well received by the public; compose in my poetical way; but as I and though I should disapprove of your had resolved, so soon as the shock of my allowing Pegasus to ride with you off the irreparable loss would allow me, to pay field of your honourable and useful pro- a tribute to my late benefactor, I deter fession, yet I cannot resist an impulse mined to make that the first piece I should which I feel at this moment to suggest to do myself the honour of sending you. your Muse, Harvest Home, as an excel-Had the wing of my fancy been equal to lent subject for her grateful song, in which the peculiar aspect and manners of our country might furnish an excellent trait and landscape of Scotland, for the employment of happy moments of leisure and recess from your more important occupations. por peo me!-If, among my children, I shall have a son that has a heart, he shall hand 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 ardour of my heart, the enclosed had been much more worthy your perusal : as it is, I beg leave to lay it at your Ladyship's feet. As all the world knows my obligations to the Earl of Glencairn, I would wish to show as openly that my heart glows, and shall ever glow with the most grateful sense and remembrance of his Lordship's goodness. The sables I Your Halloween, and Saturday Night, did myself the honour to wear to his Lordwill remain to distant posterity as inter- ship's memory, were not the "mockery of esting pictures of rural innocence and hap-wo." Nor shall my gratitude perish with piness in your native country, and were happily written in the dialect of the ple; but Harvest Home, being suited to descriptive poetry, except, where colloquial, may escape the disguise of a dialect which admits of no elegance or dignity of expression. Without the assist-ance of any god or goddess, and without the invocation of any foreign Muse, you may convey in epistolary form the description 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 and beautiful colours, the beauties and joys of a rural life. And as the unvitiated heart is naturally disposed to overflow with gratitude in the moment of prosperity, such a subject would furnish you with an amiable opportunity of petuating 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, per I am Sir, &c. No. CXXIII. TO MR. AINSLIE.. MY DEAR AINSLIE, CAN you minister to a mind diseased? Can you, amid the horrors of penitence, regret, remorse, headache, nausea, and all the rest of the dd 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? * The poem enclosed is published,-See "The La ment for James Earl of Glencairn." Poems, p. 66 I have always thought it most natural to suppose (and a strong argument in favour of a future existence) that when we see an honourable and virtuous man labouring under bodily infirmities, and oppressed by the frowns of fortune in this world, that there was a happier state beyond the grave; where that worth and honour, which were neglected here, would meet with their just reward; and where temporal misfortunes would receive an eternal recompense. Let us cherish this hope for our departed friend, and moderate our grief for that loss we have sustained, knowing that he cannot return to us, but we may go to him. Miserable perdu that I am! I have tried | me much. The lines addressed to me every thing that used to amuse me, but are very flattering. in vain here must I sit a monument of the vengeance laid up in store for the wicked, slowly counting every check of the clock as it slowly-slowly, numbers over these lazy scoundrels of hours, who d―d them, are ranked up before me, every one at his neighbour's backside, and every one with a burden of anguish on his back, 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 Elibanks and Elibraes, but the stanzas fell unenjoyed and unfinished from my listless tongue; at last I luckily thought of reading over an old letter of yours that lay by me in my book-case, and I felt something, for the first time since I opened my eyes, of pleasurable existence.-Well-I begin to breathe a little, since I began to write you. How are you? and what are you doing? How goes Law? A propos, for connexion's sake, do not address to me supervisor, for that is an honour I cannot pretend to-I am on the list, as we call it, for a supervisor, and will be called out by and by to act as one: but at present I am a simple gauger, though t'other day I got an appointment to an excise division of £25 per ann. better than the rest. My present income, down money, is £70 per ann. 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. CXXV. FROM A. F. TYTLER, ESQ. Edinburgh, 27th November, 1791. DEAR SIR, You have much reason to blame me for neglecting till now to acknowledge the receipt of a most agreeable packet, containing The Whistle, a ballad: and The Lament; which reached me about six weeks ago in London, from whence I am just returned. Your letter was forwarded to me there from Edinburgh, where, as I observed by the date, it had lain for some days. This was an additional reason for me to have answered it immediately on receiving it; but the truth was, the bustle of business, engagements, and confusion of one kind or another, in which I found myself immersed all the time I was in London, absolutely put it out of my power. But to have done with apologies, let me now endeavour to prove myself in some degree deserving of the very flattering compliment 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. In the next place, you are singularly happy in the discrimination of your heroes, and in giving each the sentiments and language suitable to his character. And, lastly, you have much merit in the delicacy of the panegyric which you have contrived to throw on each of the dramatis persona, perfectly appropriate to his character. The compliment to Sir Robert, the blunt soldier, is peculiarly fine. In short, this composition, in my opinion, does you great honour, and I see not a line or word in it which I could wish to be altered. thus given you, with much freedom, my opinion of both the pieces. I should have made a very ill return to the compliment you paid me, if I had given you any other than my genuine sentiments. 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. CXXVI. TO MISS DAVIES. Ir is impossible, Madam, that the gene rous warmth and angelic purity of your youthful mind can have any idea of that moral disease under which I unhappily must rank as the chief of sinners; I mean a turpitude 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 bat, slumbering out the rigours of winter in the 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. 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 Gracious Heaven! why this disparity the plan of the piece. I think it was un-between our wishes and our powers? necessary and improper to put the lamentation in the mouth of a fictitious character, an aged bard.—It had been much better to have lamented your patron in your own person, to have expressed your genuine feelings for the loss, and to have spoken the language of nature, rather than that of fiction, on the subject. Com-ed by the scorn of the proud, whom acpare this with your poem of the same title in your printed volume, which begins, O thou pale Orb; and observe what it is that forms the charm of that composition. It is that it speaks the language of truth and of nature. The change is, in my opinion injudicious too in this respect, that an aged bard has much less need of a natron and a protector than 2 young one. I have Why is the most generous wish to make others blessed, impotent and ineffectualas the idle breeze that crosses the pathless desert? In my walks of life I have met with a few people to whom how gladly would I have said-"Go be happy!" I know that your hearts have been wound cident has placed above you-or worse still, in whose hands 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 cer |