Mr. 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. has given him the invitation, and he is determined to accept of it. O selfishness! he owns, in his sober moments, that from his own volatility of inclination, the circumstances in which he is situated, and his knowledge of his father's disposition,-the whole affair is chimerical-yet he will gratify an idle penchant at the enormous, eruel expense, of perhaps ruining the peace of the very woman for whom he professes the generous passion of love! He is a gentleman in his mind and manners. Tant pis!-He is a volatile school-boy: the heir of a man's fortune, who well knows the value of two times two! Perdition seize them and their fortunes, before they should make the amiable, the lovely the derided object of their purse-proud contempt. I am doubly happy to hear of Mrs.'s recovery, because I really thought all was over with her. There are days of pleasure yet awaiting her. "As I cam in by Glenap, I met with an aged woman; No. XXII. To Mr. MORISON*, wright, Mauchline. My dear sir, Ellisland, Jan. 22, 1788. Necessity obliges me to go into my new house, even before it be plaistered. I will inhabit the one end until the other is finished. About three *This article refers to chairs, and other article of furniture which the poet had ordered. weeks more, I think, will at farthest be my time, beyond which I cannot stay in this present house. If ever you wished to deserve the blessing of him that was ready to perish; if ever you were in a situation that a little kindness would have rescued you from many evils; if ever you hope to find rest in future states of untried being ;-get these matters of mine ready. My servant will be out in the beginning of next week for the clock. My compliments to Mrs. Morison, I am, after all my tribulation, Dear sir, Yours. No. XXIII. To Mr. JAMES SMITH, Avon Printfield, Lin lithgow. Mauchline, April 28, 1788. Beware of your Strasburgh, my good sir! Look on this as the opening of a correspondence like the opening of a twenty-four gun battery! There is no understanding a man properly, without knowing something of his previous ideas, (that is to say, if the man has any ideas; for I know many, who, in the animal muster, pass for men, that are the scanty masters of only one idea on any given subject, and by far the greatest part of your acquaintances and mine can barely boast of ideas, 1.25-1.5-1.75, or some such fractional matter); so to let you a little into the secrets of my pericranium, there is, you must know, a certain clean-limbed, handsome, bewitching young hussy of your acquaintance, to whom I have lately and privately given a matrimonial title to my eorpus. "Bode a robe and wear it," Says the wise old Scots adage! I hate to presage ill luck; and as my girl has been doubly kinder to me than even the best of women usually are to their partners of our sex, in similar circumstances, I reckon on twelve times a brace of children against I celebrate my twelfth wedding day: these twenty-four will give me twenty-four gossippings, twenty-four christenings, (I mean one equal to two,) and I hope, by the blessing of the God of my fathers, to make them twenty-four dutiful children to their parents, twenty-four useful members of society, and twenty-four approven servants of their God! "Light's heartsome," quo' the wife, when she was stealing sheep. You see what a lamp I have hung up to lighten your paths, when you are idle enough to explore the combinations and relations of my ideas. 'Tis now as plain as a pike-staff, why a twentyfour gun battery was a metaphor I could readily employ. * Now for business.-I intend to present Mrs. Burns with a printed shawl, an article of which I dare say you have variety: 'tis my first present to her since I have irrevocably called her mine, and I have a kind of whimsical wish to get her the said first present from an old and much valued friend of her's and mine, a trusty Trojan, on whose friendship I count myself possessed of a life-rent lease. Look on this letter as a "beginning of sorrows ;" I'll write you till your eyes ache with reading non sense. Mrs. Burns ('tis only her private designation) begs her best compliments to you. No. XXIV. To Mr. ROBERT AINSLIE. My dear friend, Mauchline, May 26, 1788. I am two kind letters in your debt, but I have been from home, and horridly busy buying and preparing for my farming business; over and above the plague of my excise instructions, which this week will finish. As I flatter my wishes that I foresee many future years correspondence between us, 'tis foolish to talk of excusing dull epistles: a dull letter may be a very kind one. I have the pleasure to tell you that I have been extremely fortunate in all my buyings and bargainings hitherto; Mrs. Burns not excepted; which title I now avow to the world. I am truly pleased with this last affair: it has indeed added to my anxieties for futurity, but it has given a stability to my mind and resolutions, unknown before; and the poor girl has the most sacred enthusiasm. of attachment to me, and has not a wish but to gratify my every idea of her deportment*. I am interrupted. Farewell! my dear sir. No. XXV. TO THE SAME. Ellisland, June 14, 1788. This is now the third day, my dearest sir, that I have sojourned in these regions; and, during * A passage has been omitted in a letter to Mrs. Dunlop. (See General Correspondence, No. LIII.) This passage places Mrs. Burns in so interesting a point of view, that it must be preserved. these three days, you have occupied more of my thoughts than in three weeks preceding: in Ayr shire I have several variations of friendship's compass, here it points invariably to the pole,My farm gives me a good many uncouth cares and anxieties, but I hate the language of complaint. Job, or some one of his friends, says wellWhy should a living man complain ?" I have lately been much mortified with contemplating an unlucky imperfection in the very framing and construction of my soul; namely, a blundering inaccuracy of her olfactory organs in hitting the scent of craft or design in my fellow creatures. I do not mean any compliment to my ingenuousness, or to hint that the defect is in consequence of the unsuspicious simplicity of collscious truth and honour: I take it to be, in some way or other, an imperfection in the mental sight; or, metaphor apart, some modification of "To jealousy or infidelity I am an equal stranger: my preservative from the first is a most thorough consciousness of her sentiments of honour, and her attachment to me; my antidote against the last, is my long and deep-rooted affeetion for her. "In housewife matters, of aptness to learn and activity to execute, she is eminently mistress: and, during my absence in Nithsdale, she is regularly and constantly apprentice to my mother and sisters in their dairy and other rural business. "The Muses must not be offended when I tell them, the concerns of my wife and family will, in my mind, always take the pas; but I assure then, their ladyships will ever come next in place. "You are right that a bachelor state would have insured me more friends; but, from a cause you will easily guess, conscious peace in the enjoyment of my own mind, and unmistrusting confidence in approaching my God, would seldom have Pave been of the number |