My dear friend, No. XVI. TO THE SAME. Mauchline, June 18, 1787. I am now arrived safe in my native country, after a very agreeable jaunt, and have the pleasure to find all my friends well. I breakfasted with your gray-headed, reverend friend, Mr. Smith; and was highly pleased both with the cordial welcome he gave me, and his most excellent appearance and sterling good sense. I have been with Mr. Miller at Dalswinton, and am to meet him again in August. From my view of the lands, and his reception of my bardship, my hopes in that business are rather mended; but still they are but slender. I am quite charmed with Dumfries folks-Mr. Burnside, the clergyman, in particular, is a man whom I shall ever gratefully remember; and his wife, Gude forgie me, I had almost broke the tenth commandment on her account. Simplicity, elegance, good sense, sweetness of disposition, good humour, kind hospitality, are the constituents of her manner and heart; in short-but if I say one word more about her, I shall be directly in love with her. I never, my friend, thought mankind very capable of any thing generous; but the stateliness of the patricians in Edinburgh, and the servility of my plebeian brethren, (who perhaps formerly eyed me askance), since I returned home, have nearly put me out of conceit altogether with my species. I have bought a pocket Milton, which I carry perpetually about with me, in order to study the sentiments-the dauntless magnanimity; the intrepid, unyielding independence, the desperate, daring, and noble defiance of hardship, in that great personage, Satan. 'Tis true, I have just now a little cash; but I am afraid the star that hitherto has shed its malignant, purpose-blasting rays full in my zenith; that noxious planet, so baneful in its influences to the rhyming tribe, I much dread it is not yet beneath my horizon.-Misfortune dodges the path of human life; the poetic mind finds itself miserably deranged in, and unfit for the walks of business; add to all, that thoughtless follies and hare-brained whims, like so many ignes fatui, eternally diverging from the right line of sober discretion, sparkle with step-bewitching blaze in the idly-gazing eyes of the poor heedless bard, till, pop, “he falls like Lucifer, never to hope again." God grant this may be an unreal picture with respect to me; but, should it not, I have very little dependance on mankind. I will close my letter with this tribute my heart bids me pay you-the many ties of acquaintance and friendship which I have, or think I have in life, I have felt along the lines, and, d-n them! they are almost all of them of such frail contexture, that I am sure they would not stand the breath of the least adverse breeze of fortune; but from you, my ever dear sir, I look with confidence for the apostolic love that shall wait on me" through good report and bad report," the love which Solomon emphatically says, " is strong as death." My compliments to Mrs. Nicol, and all the circle of our common friends. P. S. I shall be in Edinburgh about the latter end of July. No. XVII. To GAVIN HAMILTON, esq. My dear sir, Stirling, 28th Aug. 1787. Here am I on my way to Inverness. I have rambled over the rich, fertile carses of Falkirk and Stirling, and am delighted with their appear ance: richly waving crops of wheat, barley, &c. but no harvest at all yet, except in one or two places, an old wife's ridge.-Yesterday morning I rode from this town up the meandring Devon's banks to pay my respects to some Ayrshire folks at Harvieston. After breakfast, we made a party to go and see the famous Caudron-linn, a remarkable cascade in the Devon, about five miles above Harvieston; and after spending one of the most pleasant days I ever had in my life, I returned to Stirling in the evening. They are a family, sir, though I had not had any prior tie; though they had not been the brother and sisters of a certain generous friend of mine, I would never forget them. I am told you have not seen them these several years, so you can have very little idea of what these young folks are now. Your brother is as tall as you are, but slender rather than otherwise; and I have the satisfaction to inform you that he is getting the better of those consumptive symptoms, which I suppose you know were threatening him. His make, and particularly his manner, resemble you, but he will still have a finer face. (I put in the word still, to please Mrs. Hamilton.) Good sense, modesty, and at the same time a just idea of that respect that man owes to man, and has a right in his turn to exact, are striking features in his character; and, what with me is the alpha and the omega, he has a heart might adorn the breast of a poet! Grace has a good figure and the look of health and cheerfulness, but nothing else remarkable in her person. I scarcely ever saw so striking a likeness as is between her and your little Beennie; the mouth and chin particularly. She is reserved at first; but, as we grew better acquainted, I was delighted with the native frankness of her manner, and the sterling sense of her observation. Of Charlotte, I cannot speak in common terms of admiration: she is not only beautiful, but lovely. Her form is elegant; her features not regular, but they have the smile of sweetness and the settled complacency of good nature in the highest degree; and her complexion, now that she has happily recovered her wonted health, is equal to Miss Burnet's. After the ex ercise of our riding to the falls, Charlotte was exactly Dr. Dorne's mistress: "Her pure and eloquent blood Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought, Her eyes are fascinating; at once expressive of good sense, tenderness, and a noble mind. I do not give you all this account, my good sir, to flatter you. I mean it to reproach you. Such relations the first peer in the realm might own with pride; then why do you not keep up more correspondence with these so amiable young folks? I had a thousand questions to answer about you all: I had to describe the little ones with the minuteness of anatomy. They were highly delighted when I told them that John was so good a boy, and so fine a scholar, and that Williet was going on still very pretty; but I have it in commission to tell her from them, that beauty is a poor silly bauble without she be good. Miss Chalmers I had left in Edinburgh, but I had the pleasure of meeting with Mrs. Chalmers, only lady M'Kenzie being rather a little alarmingly ill of a sore throat somewhat marred our enjoyment. I shall not be in Ayrshire for four weeks. My most respectful compliments to Mrs. Hamilton, This is the "wee curlie Johnnie," mentioned in Burns's dedication to Gavin Hamilton, esq. To this gentleman, and every branch of the family, the editor is indebted for much information respecting the poet, and very gratefully acknowledges the kindness shown to himself, + Now married to the Rev. John Tod, minister of Mauchline. Miss Kennedy, and doctor M'Kenzie. I shall probably write him from some stage or other. I am ever, sir, Yours most gratefully. The following fragments are all that now exist ot twelve or fourteen of the finest letters tha Burns ever wrote. In an evil hour, the originals were thrown into the fire by the late Mrs. Adair of Harrowgate; the Charlotte so often mentioned in this correspondence, and the lady to whom "The Banks of the Devon" is addressed. E. No. XVIII. To Miss MARGARET CHALMERS, (now Mrs. Hay, of Edinburgh.) Sept. 26, 1787. I send Charlotte the first number of the songs, I would not wait for the second number; I hate delays in little marks of friendship, as I hate dissimulation in the language of the heart. I am determined to pay Charlotte a poetic compliment, if I could hit on some glorious old Scotch air, in number second. 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 description of some kind: the whining cant of love, except in real passion, 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 senseless rabble. -a I got an excellent poetic epistle yesternight from the old, venerable author of Tullochgorum, *Of the Scots Musical Museum. |