But to change the theme: I am still catering for Johnson's publication; and among others, I have brushed up the following old favourite song a little, with a view to your worship. I have only altered a word here and there; but if you like the humour of it, we shall think of a stanza or two to add to it.

No. CX.

TO BISHOP GEDDES.

Ellisland, near Dumfries, 3d Feb. 1789.

VENERABLE FATHER,

corrections of years can enable me to produce something worth preserving.

You will see in your book, which I beg your parden for detaining so long, that I have been tuning my lyre on the banks of Nith. Some larger poetic plans that are floating in my ima gination, or partly put in execution, I shall impart to you when I have the pleasure of meeting with you, which, if you are then in Edinburgh, I shall have about the beginning of March.

That acquaintance, worthy Sir, with which you were pleased to honour me, you must still allow me to challenge; for with whatever uaconcern I give up my transient connection with the merely great, I cannot lose the patronizing notice of the learned and the good, without the bitterest regret.

No. CXL.

TO MRS. DUNLOP.

As I am conscious that wherever I am you do me the honour to interest yourself in my welfare, it gives me pleasure to inforın you, that I am here at last, stationary in the serious business of life, and have now not only the retired | leisure, but the hearty inclination, to attend to those great and important questions-what I am? where I am? and for what I am destined? Ellisland, 4th March, 1789. In that first concern, the conduct of the man, HERE am I, my honoured friend, returned safe there was ever but one side on which I was from the capital. To a man, who has a home, habitually blameable, and there I have secured however humble or remote-if that home is like myself in the way pointed out by Nature and mine, the scene of domestic comfort the bustle Nature's God. I was sensible that, to so help-of Edinburgh will soon be a business of sickesless a creature as a poor poet, a wife and family ing disgust.. were incumbrances, which a species of prudence would bid him shun; but when the alternative was, being at eternal warfare with myself, on account of habitual follies, to give them no worse name, which no general example, no licentious wit, no sophistical infidelity would, to me, ever justify, I must have been a fool to have hesitated, and a madman to have made another choice.

"Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate you !”

When I must skulk into a corner, lest the rattling equipage of some gaping blockhead should mangle me in the mire, I am tempted to exclaim" what merits has he had, or what demerit have I had, in some state of pre-existence, that he is ushered into this state of being with the sceptre of rule, and the key of riches, in his puny fist, and I am kicked into the world, the In the affair of a livelihood, I think myself sport of folly, or the victim of pride?" I have tolerably secure: I have good hopes of my read somewhere of a monarch (in Spain I think farm; but should they fail, I have an excise it was), who was so out of humour with the commission, which on my simple petition, will, Ptolemean system of astronomy, that he said, at any time, procure me bread. There is a cer- had he been of the CREATOR'S council, he could tain stigma affixed to the character of an excise have saved him a great deal of labour and abofficer, but I do not intend to borrow honour surdity. I will not defend this blasphemous from any profession; and though the salary be speech; but often, as I have glided with humble comparatively small, it is great to any thing stealth through the pomp of Prince's Street, it that the first twenty-five years of my life taught me to expect.

has suggested itself to me, as an improvement on the present human figure, that a man, in proportion to his own conceit of his consequence in the world, could have pushed out the longitude of his common size, as a snail pushes out Thus, with a rational aim and method in life, his horns, or as we draw out a perspective. you may easily guess, my reverend and much- This trifling alteration, not to mention the prohonoured friend, that my characteristical trade digious saving it would be in the tear and wear is not forgotten. I am, if possible, more than of the neck and limb-sinews of many of his Maever an enthusiast to the muses. I am deter-jesty's liege subjects in the way of tossing the mined to study man and nature, and in that head and tiptoe strutting, would evidently turn view incessantly; and to try if the ripening and out a vast advantage, in enabling us at once to

adjust the ceremonials in making a bow, or making way to a great man, and that too within a second of the precise spherical angle of reverence, or an inch of the particular point of rcspectful distance, which the important creature itself requires; as a measuring-glance at its towering altitude would determine the affair like instinct.

towards the South, and having resided a short time at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, arrived in London, where he died of a putrid fever in the year 1790.]

DEAR SIR,

Longtown, Feb. 15, 1789. As I am now in a manner only entering into the world, I begin this our correspondence, with You are right, Madam, in your idea of poor a view of being a gainer by your advice, more Mylne's poem, which he has addressed to me. than ever you can be by any thing I can write The piece has a good deal of merit, but it has you of what I see, or what I hear, in the course one great fault-it is, by far, too long. Be-of my wanderings. I know not how it hapsidos, my success has encouraged such a shoal pened, but you were more shy of your counsel of ill-spawned monsters to crawl into public than I could have wished the time I staid with notice, under the title of Scottish Poets, that you: whether it was because you thought it the very term of Scottish Poetry borders on would disgust me to have my faults freely told the burlesque. When I write to Mr. C,me while I was dependant on you; or whether I shall advise him rather to try one of his de- it was because you saw that by my indolent disceased friend's English pieces. I am prodigi- position, your instructions would have no effect, ously hurried with my own matters, else II cannot determine; but if it proceeded from would have requested a perusal of all Mylne's any of the above causes, the reason of withholding poetic performances; and would have offered your admonition is now done away, for I now his friends my assistance in either selecting or stand on my own bottom, and that indolence, correcting what would be proper for the press. which I am very conscious of, is something What it is that occupies me so much, and per-rubbed off, by being called to act in life whether haps a little oppresses my present spirits, shall I will or not; and my inexperience, which I fill up a paragraph in some future letter. In the meantime allow me to close this epistle with a few lines done by a friend of mine .. I give you them, that as you have seen the original, you may guess whether one or two alterations I have ventured to make in them, be any real improvement.

.

Your form shall be the image of your mind:
Your manners shall so true your soul express,
That all shall long to know the worth they

daily feel, makes me wish for that advice which you are so able to give, and which I can only expect from you or Gilbert since the loss of the kindest and ablest of fathers.

The morning after I went from the Isle, I left Dumfries about five o'clock and came to Annan to breakfast, and staid about an hour; and I reached this place about two o'clock. I have got work here, and I intend to stay a month' or six weeks, and then go forward, as I wish to be at York about the latter end of summer, where I propose to spend next winter, and go on for London in the spring.

I have the promise of seven shillings a week from Mr. Proctor while I stay here, and sixpence more if he succeeds himself, for he has only new begun trade here. I am to pay four shillings per week of board wages, so that my neat income here will be much the same as in Dumfries.

The enclosed you will send to Gilbert with the first opportunity. Please send me the first Wednesday after you receive this, by the Carlisle waggon, two of my coarse shirts, one of iny best linen ones, my velveteen vest, and a neckcloth; write to me along with them, and direct to me, Saddler, in Longtown, and they will not miscarry, for I am boarded in the

LETTER FROM WILLIAM BURNS, THE waggoner's house. You may either let them

POET'S BROTHER.

be given in to the waggon, or send them to Coulthard and Gellebourn's shop and they will [THIS and three letters which follow hereafter, are forward them. Pray write me often while I the genuine and artless productions of the poet's stay here.-I wish you would send me a letter, younger Brother, WILLIAM BURNS, a young though never so small, every week, for they man, who after having served an apprentice- will be no expense to me, and but little trouble ship to the trade of a Saddler, took his road to you. Please to give my best wishes to my sis ter-in-law, and believe me to be your affectionate And obliged Brother, WILLIAM BURNS.

These beautiful lines, we have reason to believe, are the production of the lady to whom this letter is adressed.

P. S. The great coat you gave me at parting of the deceased; and to secure, in the most ef did me singular service the day I came here, and fectual manner, to those tender connections, merits my hearty thanks. From what has been whose right it is, the pecuniary reward of those said the conclusion is this; that my hearty merits.

thanks and my best wishes are all that you and

I Do not recollect that I have ever felt a se-I must turn him over to your goodness, to reverer pang of shame, than on looking at the date of your obliging letter, which accompanied Mr. Mylne's poem.

I am much to blame: the honour Mr. Mylne has done me, greatly enhanced in its value by the endearing, though melancholy circumstance, of its being the last production of his muse, deserved a better return.

compense him for it in a way in which he much needs your assistance, and where you can effectually serve him :-Mr. Nielson is on his way for France, to wait on his Grace of Queensberry, on some little business of a good deal of importance to him, and he wishes for your instructions respecting the most eligible mode of travelling, &c. for him, when he has crossed the Channel. I should not have dared to take this liberty with you, but that I am told, by those who have the honour of your personal acquaintance, that to be a poor honest Scotchman is a letter of recommendation to you, and that to have it in your power to serve such a character, gives you much pleasure.

I have, as you hint, thought of sending a copy of the poem to some periodical publication; but, on second thoughts, I am afraid that, in the present case, it would be an improper step. My success, perhaps as much accidental as merited, has brought an inundation of nonsense under the name of Scottish poetry. Subscription-bills for Scottish poems have so The enclosed ode is a compliment to the medunned, and daily do dun the public, that the mory of the late Mrs. —, of You very name is in danger of contempt. For these probably knew her personally, an honour of reasons, if publishing any of Mr. M.'s poems in which I cannot boast; but I spent my early a magazine, &c. be at all prudent, in my opinion years in her neighbourhood, and among her it certainly should not be a Scottish poem. The servants and tenants. I know that she was deprofits of the labours of a man of genius, are, I tested with the most heartfelt cordiality. Howhope, as honourable as any profits whatever; ever, in the particular part of her conduct which and Mr. Mylne's relations are most justly en-roused my poetic wrath, she was much less titled to that honest harvest, which fate has de-blameable. In January last, on my road to nied himself to reap. But let the friends of Mr. Mylne's fame (among whom I crave the honour of ranking myself), always keep in eye his respectability as a man and as a poet, and take no measure that, before the world knows any thing about him, would risk his name and character being classed with the fools of the times.

Ayrshire, I had put up at Bailie Wigham's in Sanquhar, the only tolerable inn in the place. The frost was keen, and the grim evening and howling wind were ushering in a night of snow and drift. My horse and I were both much fatigued with the labours of the day, and just as my friend the Bailie and I were bidding defiance I have, Sir, some experience of publishing; to the storm, over a smoking bowl, in wheels and the way in which I would proceed with the funeral pageantry of the late great Mrs. Mr. Mylne's poems, is this:-I would publish, and poor I am forced to brave all the in two or three English and Scottish public horrors of the tempestuous night, and jade my papers, any one of his English poems which horse, my young favourite horse, whom I had should, by private judges, be thought the most just christened Pegasus, twelve miles farther excellent, and mention it at the same time, as on, through the wildest muirs and hills of Ayrone of the productions of a Lothian farmer, of shire, to New Cumnock, the next inn. The respectable character, lately deceased, whose powers of poesy and prose sink under me, when poems his friends had it in idea to publish soon, I would describe what I felt. Suffice it to say, by subscription, for the sake of his numerous that when a good fire, at New Cumnock, had family:-not in pity to that family, but in jus- so far recovered my frozen sinews, I sat down tice to what his friends think the poetic merits and wrote the enclosed ode.

I was at Edinburgh lately, and settled finally | the glorious cause of LUCRE, I will do any thing, with Mr. Creech; and I must own, that, at be any thing-but the horse-leech of private last, he has been amicable and fair with me. oppression, or the vulture of public robbery !

But to descend from heroics,

No. CXV.

TO MR. PETER HILL.

Ellisland, 2d April, 1789. I WILL make no excuses, my dear Bibliopolus, (God forgive me for murdering language!) that I have sat down to write you on this vile paper.

It is economy, Sir; it is that cardinal virtue, prudence; so I beg you will sit down, and either compose or borrow a panegyric. If you are going to borrow, apply to

to compose, or rather to compound, something very clever on my remarkable frugality; that I write to one of my most esteemed friends on this wretched paper, which was originally in

tended for the venal fist of some drunken exciseman, to take dirty notes in a miserable vault of an ale-cellar.

There is

I want a Shakspeare; I want likewise an Eng
lish dictionary-Johnson's, I suppose, is best
In these and all my prose commissions, the
cheapest is always the best for me.
a small debt of honour that I owe Mr. Robert
Cleghorn, in Saughton Mills, my worthy friend,
and your well-wisher. Please give him, and
urge him to take it, the first time you see him,
ten shillings worth of any thing you have to
sell, and place it to my account.

The library scheme that I mentioned to you is already begun, under the direction of Captain Riddel. There is another in emulation of it going on at Closeburn, under the auspices of Mr. Monteith, of Closeburn, which will be on a greater scale than ours. Captain R. gave his infant society a great many of his old books, else I had written you on that subject; but, one of these days, I shall trouble you with a commission for "The Monkland Friendly Society"- -a copy of The Spectator, Mirror, and Lounger; Man of Feeling, Man of the World, Guthrie's Geographical Grammar, with some religious pieces, will likely be our first order.

My dear Sir,

Your faithful, poor, but honest friend,
R. B.

No. CXVI.

O Frugality! thou mother of ten thousand When I grow richer, I will write to you on blessings-thou cook of fat beef and dainty greens!-thou manufacturer of warm Shetland gilt post, to make amends for this sheet. At hose, and comfortable surtouts!-thou old present, every guinea has a five-guinea errand with housewife, darning thy decayed stockings with thy ancient spectacles on thy aged nose ;-lead me, hand me in thy clutching palsied fist, up those heights, and through those thickets, hitherto inaccessible, and impervious to my anxious weary feet :-not those Parnassian craggs, bleak and barren, where the hungry worship-| pers of fame are, breathless, clambering, hanging between heaven and hell; but those glittering cliffs of Potosi, where the all-sufficient, allpowerful deity, Wealth, holds his immediate court of joys and pleasures; where the sunny exposure of plenty, and the hot walls of profusion, produce those blissful fruits of luxury, I No sooner hit on any poetic plan or fancy, exotics in this world, and natives of paradise!— Thou withered sybil, my sage conductress, usher but I wish to send it to you; and if knowing me into the refulgent, adored presence!-The and reading these give half the pleasure to you, power, splendid and potent as he now is, was that communicating them to you gives to me, once the puling nursling of thy faithful care, I am satisfied.

TO MRS. DUNLOP.

Ellisland, 2d April, 1789.

and tender arms! Call me thy son, thy cousin, thy kinsman, or favourite, and adjure the god, by the scenes of his infant years, no longer to I have a poetic whim in my head, which I repulse me as a stranger, or an alien, but to favour me with his peculiar countenance and pro- at present dedicate, or rather inscribe, to the tection! He daily bestows his greatest kindness Right Hon. C. J. Fox; but how long that on the undeserving and the worthless-assure fancy may hold, I cannot say. A few of the him, that I bring ample documents of meritcri- first lines I have just rough-sketched, as folous demerits Pledge yourself for me, that, for lows:

DEAR SIR, Edinburgh, 2d June, 1789.

I TAKE the first leisure hour I could command, to thank you for your letter, and the copy of verses enclosed in it. As there is real poetic