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pay Charlotte a poetic compliment, if I
could hit on some glorious old Scotch air, in
number second. (44) You will see a small
attempt on a shred of paper in the book
but though Dr. Blacklock commended it very
highly, I am not just satisfied with it myself.
I intend to make it a description of some kind;
the whining cant of love, except in real pas-
sion, and by a masterly hand, is to me as
insufferable as the preaching cant of old
Father Smeaton, whig-minister at Kilmaurs.
Darts, flames, Cupids, loves, graces, and all
that farrago, are just a Mauchline
a senseless rabble.

I got an excellent poetic epistle yesternight from the old venerable author of "Tullochgorum, ""John of Badenyon," &c. (45). I suppose you know he is a clergyman. It is by far the finest poetic compliment I ever got. I will send you a copy of it.

NO. LXVII.

TO THE REV. JOHN SKINNER.

Edinburgh, October 25, 1787.

REVEREND AND VENERABLE SIR.Accept, in plain dull prose, my most sincere thanks for the best poetical compliment I ever received, I assure you, Sir, as a poet, you have conjured up an airy demon of vanity in my fancy, which the best abilities in your other capacity would be ill able to lay. I regret, and while I live I shall regret, that when I was in the north, I had not the pleasure of paying a younger brother's dutiful respect to the author of the best Scotch song ever Scotland saw-" Tullochgorum's my Delight!" The world may think slightingly of the craft of song-making, if they please; but, as Job says, "Oh that I go on Thursday or Friday to Dumfries, mine adversary had written a book!"-let to wait on Mr. Miller about his farms. Do them try. There is a certain something in tell that to Lady Mackenzie, that she may the old Scotch songs, a wild happiness of give me credit for a little wisdom. "I, thought and expression, which peculiarly Wisdom, dwell with Prudence." What a marks them, not only from English songs, blessed fire-side! How happy should I be but also from the modern efforts of songto pass a winter evening under their vene- wrights, in our native manner and language. rable roof; and smoke a pipe of tobacco, or The only remains of this enchantment, these drink water-gruel with them! With solemn, spells of the imagination, rest with you. lengthened, laughter-quashing gravity of Our true brother, Koss of Lochlee, was likephiz! What sage remarks on the good-for-wise "owre cannie"-" a wild warlock ”— nothing sons and daughters of indiscretion but now he sings among the "sons of the and folly! And what frugal lessons, as we morning." straitened the fire-side circle, on the uses of the poker and tongs!

Miss N. is very well, and begs to be remembered in the old way to you. I used all my eloquence, all the persuasive flourishes of the hand, and heart-melting modulation of periods in my power, to urge her out to Harvieston, but all in vain. My rhetoric seems quite to have lost its effect on the lovely half of mankind. I have seen the day -but this is a "tale of other years :"-On my conscience I believe that my heart has been so oft on fire that it is absolutely vitrified. I look on the sex with something like the admiration with which I regard the starry sky in a frosty December night. I admire the beauty of the Creator's workmanship; I am charmed with the wild but graceful eccentricity of their motions, and wish them good night. I mean this with respect to a certain passion dont j'ai eu l'honneur d'etre un miserable esclave: as for friendship, you and Charlotte have given me pleasure, permanent pleasure, "which the world cannot give, nor take away," I hope, and which will outlast the heavens and the earth. R. B.

I have often wished, and will certainly endeavour, to form a kind of common acquaintance among all the genuine sons of Caledonian song. The world, busy in low prosaic pursuits, may overlook most of us; but "reverence thyself." The world is not our peers, so we challenge the jury. We can lash that world, and find ourselves a very great source of amusement and happiness independent of that world.

There is a work going on in Edinburgh just now, which claims your best assistance. An engraver in this town has set about collecting and publishing all the Scotch songs, with the music, that can be found. Songs, in the English language, if by Scotchmen, are admitted, but the music must all be Scotch. Drs. Beattie and Blacklock are lending a hand, and the first musician in town presides over that department. I have been absolutely crazed about it, collecting old stanzas, and every information remaining respecting their origin, authors, &c., &c. This last is but a very fragment business; but at the end of his second number-the first is already published-a small account will be given of the authors, particularly to

preserve those of latter times. Your three claim a parental pang from my bardship. I songs, "Tullochgorum," "John of Badenyon," suppose it will appear in Johnson's second and "Ewie wi' the Crookit Horn," go in this number-the first was published before my second number. I was determined, before I acquaintance with him. My request isgot your letter, to write you, begging that "Cauld Kail in Aberdeen" is one intended you would let me know where the editions for this number, and I beg a copy of his of these pieces may be found, as you would | Grace of Gordon's words to it, which you wish them to continue in future times; and were so kind as to repeat to me. (47) You if you would be so kind to this undertaking may be sure we won't prefix the author's as send any songs, of your own or others, name, except you like, though I look on it as that you would think proper to publish, no small merit to this work that the names your name will be inserted among the other of so many of the authors of our old Scotch authors- "nil ye, will ye." One half of songs, names almost forgotten, will be inScotland already give your songs to other serted. I do not well know where to write authors. Paper is done. I beg to hear to you-I rather write at you; but if you from you; the sooner the better, as I leave will be so obliging, immediately on receipt of Edinburgh in a fortnight or three weeks. I this, as to write me a few lines, I shall peram, with the warmest sincerity, Sir, your obliged humble servant,

NO. LXVIII.

R. B.

TO JAMES HOY, Esq.
GORDON CASTLE. (46)
Edinburgh, October 30th, 1787.

SIR. I will defend my conduct in giving you this trouble, on the best of Christian principles-" Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them." I shall certainly, among my legacies leave my latest curse to that unlucky predicament which hurried-tore me away from Castle Gordon. May that obstinate son of Latin prose [Nicol] be curst to Scotch mile periods, and damned to seven league paragraphs; while Declension and Conjugation, Gender, Number and Tense, under the ragged banners of Dissonance and Disarrangement, eternally rank against him in hostile array.

Allow me, Sir, to strengthen the small claim I have to your acquaintance, by the following request. An engraver, James Johnson, in Edinburgh, has, not from mercenary views, but from an honest Scotch enthusiasm, set about collecting all our native songs, and setting them to music, particularly those that have never been set before. Clarke, the well-known musician, presides over the musical arrangement, and Drs. Beattie and Blacklock, Mr. Tytler of Woodhouselee, and your humble servant to the utmost of his small power, assist in collecting the old poetry, or sometimes, for a fine air, make a stanza when it has no words. The brats, too tedious to mention,

haps pay you in kind, though not in quality. Johnson's terms are :—each number a handsome pocket volume, to consist of at least a hundred Scotch songs, with basses for the harpsichord, &c. The price to subscribers, 5s.; to non-subscribers, 6s. He will have three numbers, I conjecture.

My direction for two or three weeks will be at Mr. William Cruikshank's, St. James' Square, New Town, Edinburgh. I am, Sir, yours to command, R. B.

NO. LXIX.

TO THE SAME.
GORDON CASTLE.

Edinburgh, November 6th, 1787. DEAR SIR.-I would have wrote you immediately on receipt of your kind letter but a mixed impulse of gratitude and esteem whispered to me that I ought to send you something by way of return. When a poet owes anything, particularly when he is indebted for good offices, the payment that, usually recurs to him-the only coin indeed in which he is probably conversant-is rhyme. Johnson sends the books by the fly, as directed, and begs me to enclose his most grateful thanks; my return I intended should have been one or two poetic bagatelles which the world have not seen, or, perhaps, for obvious reasons, cannot see. These I shall send you before I leave Edinburgh. They may make you laugh a little, which, on the whole, is no bad way of spending one's precious hours and still more precious breath; at any rate, they will be, though a small, yet a very sincere, mark of my respectful esteem for a gentleman whose

farther acquaintance I should look upon as a peculiar obligation.

The duke's song, independent totally of his dukeship, charms me. There is I know not what of wild happiness of thought and expression peculiarly beautiful in the old Scottish song style, of which his Grace, old venerable Skinner, the author of "Tullochgorum," &c., and the late Ross, at Lochlee, of true Scottish poetic memory, are the only modern instances that I recollect, since Ramsay, with his contemporaries, and poor Bob Fergusson, went to the world of deathless existence and truly immortal song. The mob of mankind, that many-headed beast, would laugh at so serious a speech about an old song; but as Job says, "Oh that mine adversary had written a book!" Those who Those who think that composing a Scotch song is a trifling business, let them try.

I wish my Lord Duke would pay a proper attention to the Christian admonition"Hide not your candle under a bushel," but "Let your light shine before men." I could name half a dozen dukes that I guess are a devilish deal worse employed; nay, I question if there are half a dozen better: perhaps there are not half that scanty number whom Heaven has favoured with the tuneful, happy, and I will say, glorious gift. I am, dear Sir, your obliged humble servant, R. B.

NO. LXX.

TO ROBERT AINSLIE, Esq.,
EDINBURGH.

Edinburgh, Sunday Morning,
Nov. 23, 1787.

I BEG, my dear Sir, you would not make any appointment to take us to Mr. Ainslie's to-night. On looking over my engagements, constitution, present state of my health, some little vexatious soul concerns, &c., I find I can't sup abroad to-night. I shall be in to-day till one o'clock, if you have a leisure hour.

You will think it romantic when I tell you, that I find the idea of your friendship almost necessary to my existence. You assume a proper length of face in my bitter hours of blue-devilism, and you laugh fully up to my highest wishes at my good things. I don't know, upon the whole, if you are one of the first fellows in God's world, but you are so to me. I tell you this just now, in the conviction that some inequalities in

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TO THE EARL OF GLENCAIRN,
Edinburgh, 1787.

MY LORD.I know your lordship will disapprove of my ideas in a request I am going to make to you; but I have weighed, long and seriously weighed, my situation, my hopes and turn of mind, and am fully fixed to my scheme, if I can possibly effectuate it. I wish to get into the Excise: I am told that your lordship's interest will easily procure me the grant from the commissioners; and your lordship's your lordship's patronage and goodness, which have already rescued me from obscurity, wretchedness and exile, embolden me to ask that interest. You have likewise put it in my power to save the little tie of home that sheltered an aged mother, two brothers, and three sisters, from destruction. There, my lord, you have bound me over to the highest gratitude.

My brother's farm is but a wretched lease, but I think he will probably weather out the remaining seven years of it; and after the assistance which I have given, and will give him, to keep the family together, I think, by my guess, I shall have rather better than two hundred pounds, and instead of seeking, what is almost impossible at present to find, a farm that I can certainly live by, with so small a stock, I shall lodge this sum in a banking-house, a sacred deposit, excepting only the calls of uncommon distress or necessitous old age.

These, my lord, are my views: I have resolved from the maturest deliberation; and now I am fixed, I shall leave no stone unturned to carry my resolve into execution. Your lordship's patronage is the strength of my hopes; nor have I yet applied to anybody else. Indeed, my heart sinks within me at the idea of applying to any other of the great who have honoured me with their countenance. I am ill qualified to dog the heels of greatness with the impertinence of solicitation, and tremble nearly as much at the thought of the cold promise as the cold denial; but to your lordship I have not only the honour, the comfort, but the pleasure of being your lordship's much obliged and deeply indebted humble servant,

R. B.

NO. LXXII.

TO CHARLES HAY, Esq., ADVOCATE, (ENCLOSING VERSES ON THE DEATH OF

LORD PRESIDENT.) (48)

NO. LXXIV.

TO MISS CHALMERS.

SIR. The enclosed poem was written in consequence of your suggestion, last time I had the pleasure of seeing you. It cost me an hour or two of next morning's sleep, but did not please me; so it lay by, an ill-di- two, whom so it lay by, an ill-digested effort, till the other day that I gave it a critic brush. These kind of subjects are much hackneyed; and, besides, the wailings of the rhyming tribe over the ashes of the great are cursedly suspicious, and out of all character for sincerity. These ideas damped my muse's fire; however, I have done the best I could, and, at all events, it gives me an opportunity of declaring that I have the honour to be, Sir, your obliged humble servant,

NO. LXXIII.

TO MISS M- -N.

R. B.

Saturday Noon, No. 2, St. James's Square,
New Town, Edinburgh.

HERE have I sat, my dear Madam, in the stony altitude of perplexed study for fifteen vexatious minutes, my head askew, bending over the intended card; my fixed eye insensible to the very light of day poured around; my pendulous goose-feather, Íoaded with ink, hanging over the future letter, all for the important purpose of writing a complimentary card to accompany your trinket.

Compliment is such a miserable Greenland expression, lies at such chilly polar distance from the torrid zone of my constitution, that I cannot, for the very soul of me, use it to any person for whom I have the twentieth part of the esteem every one must have for you who knows you.

As I leave town in three or four days, I can give myself the pleasure of calling on you only for a minute. Tuesday evening, some time about seven or after, I shall wait on you for your farewell commands.

Edinburgh, Nov. 21, 1787.

I HAVE one vexatious fault to the kindly welcome well-filled sheet which I owe to your and Charlotte's (49) goodness-it contains too much sense, sentiment and goodspelling. It is impossible that even you two, whom I declare to my God I will give credit for any degree of excellence the sex are capable of attaining-it is impossible you can go on to correspond at that rate; so, like those who, Shenstone says, retire because they have made a good speech, I shall, after a few letters, hear no more of you. I insist that you shall write whatever comes first: what you see, what you read, what you hear, what you admire, what you dislike, trifles, bagatelles, nonsense; fill up a corner, e'en put down a laugh at full length. Now, none of your polite hints about flattery; I leave that to your lovers, if you have or shall have any; though, thank Heaven, I have at last two girls who can be luxuriantly happy in their own minds and with one another, without that commonly necessary appendage to female bliss-A LOVER.

or to

Charlotte and you are just two favourite resting-places for my soul in her wanderings world. God knows, I am ill-fitted for the through the weary, thorny wilderness of this struggle: I glory in being a poet, and I want to be thought a wise man—I would fondly be generous, and I wish to be rich. After all, I am afraid I am a lost subject.

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Some folk hae a hantle o' fauts, and I'm but a ne'er-do-weel.”

Afternoon. To close the melancholy reflections at the end of the last sheet, I shall just add a piece of devotion, commonly known in Carrick by the title of the “ Wab

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ster's grace: Some say we're thieves, and e'en sae are we, Guid forgie us, and I hope sae will he! Some say we lie, and e'en sae do we ! -Up and to your looms, lads!

R. B.

NO. LXXV. TO THE SAME. Edinburgh, Dec. 12, 1787.

The hinge of your box I put into the hands of the proper connoisseur. The broken glass, likewise, went under review; but deliberate wisdom thought it would too much endanger I AM here under the care of a surgeon, the whole fabric. I am, dear Madam, with with a bruised limb extended on a cushion; all sincerity of enthusiasm, your very obedi- | and the tints of my mind vying with the R. B. | livid horror preceding a midnight thunder

ent servant,

storm. A drunken coachman was the cause of the first, and incomparably the lightest evil; misfortune, bodily constitution, hell, and myself, have formed a "quadruple alliance" to guarantee the other. I got my fall on Saturday, and am getting slowly better.

alas! frequent defeat. There are just two creatures I would envy; a horse in his wild state traversing the forests of Asia, or an oyster on some of the desert shores of Europe. The one has not a wish without enjoyment, the other has neither wish nor

I have taken tooth and nail to the Bible, | fear. and am got through the five books of Moses, and half way in Joshua. It is really a glorious book. I sent for my book-binder today, and ordered him to get me an octavo Bible in sheets, the best paper and print in town, and bind it with all the elegance of his craft.

I would give my best song to my worst enemy-I mean the merit of making it-to have you and Charlotte by me. You are angelic creatures, and would pour oil and wine into my wounded spirit.

I enclose you a proof copy of the "Banks of the Devon," which present with my best wishes to Charlotte. The "Ochil-hills" (50) you shall probably have next week for your self. None of your fine speeches! R. B.

NO. LXXVI.

TO THE SAME.
Edinburgh, Dec. 19th, 1787.

I BEGIN this letter in answer to your's of the 17th current, which is not yet cold since I read it. The atmosphere of my soul is vastly clearer than when I wrote you last. For the first time, yesterday I crossed the room on crutches. It would do your heart good to see my bardship, not on my poetic, but on my oaken stilts; throwing my best leg with an air! and with as much hilarity in my gait and countenance, as a May frog leaping across the newly harrowed ridge, enjoying the fragrance of the refreshed earth, after the long-expected shower!

I can't say I am altogether at my ease when I see anywhere in my path that meagre, squalid, famine-faced spectre, poverty; attended, as he always is, by iron-fisted oppression and leering contempt; but I have sturdily withstood his buffettings many a hard-laboured day already, and still my motto is-I DARE! My worst enemy is My worst enemy is moi même. I lie so miserably open to the inroads and incursions of a mischievous, light-armed, well-mounted banditti, under the banners of imagination, whim, caprice and passion; and the heavy-armed veteran regulars of wisdom, prudence and forethought move so very, very slow, that I am almost in a state of perpetual warfare, and,

NO. LXXVII. TO THE SAME.

R. B.

Edinburgh, Dec., 1787.

MY DEAR MADAM.-I just now have read yours. The poetic compliments I pay cannot be misunderstood. They are neither of them so particular as to point you out to the world at large; and the circle of your acquaintances will allow all I have said. Besides, I have complimented you chiefly, almost solely, on your mental charms. Shall I be plain with you? I will; so look to it. Personal attractions, Madani, you have much above par; wit, understanding and worth, you possess in the first class. This is a cursed flat way of telling you these truths, but let me hear no more of your sheepish timidity. I know the world a little. I know what they will say of my poems-by second sight, I suppose-for I am seldom out in my conjectures; and you may believe me, my dear Madam, I would not run any risk of hurting you by any ill-judged compliment. I wish to show the world the odds between a poet's friends and those of simple prosemen. More for your information, both the pieces go in. One of them, "Where braving angry Winter's Storms," is already set-the tune in Neil Gow's Lamentation for Abercairny; the other is to be set to an old Highland air in Daniel Dow's collection of ancient Scots music; the name is "Ha a Chaillich air mo Dheith." My treacherous memory has forgot every circumstance about Las Incas; only, I think you mentioned them as being in Creech's possession. I shall ask him about it. I am afraid the song of "Somebody" will come too late-as I shall for certain leave town in a week for Ayrshire, and from that to Dumfries, but there my hopes are slender. I leave my direction in town; so any thing, wherever I am, will reach me.

I saw yours to ; it is not too severe, nor did he take it amiss. On the contrary, like a whipt spaniel, he talks of being with you in the Christmas days. Mr.

has given him the invitation, and he is determined to accept of it. Oh selfish

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