tian virtue; 'tis purely a selfish gratification of my own feelings whenever I think of you. If your better functions would give you leisure to write me, I should be extremely happy; that is to say, if you neither keep nor look for a regu lar correspondence. I hate the idea of being obliged to write a letter. I sometimes write a friend twice a week, at other times once a quarter. I am exceedingly pleased with your fancy in making the author you mention place a map of Iceland instead of his portrait before his works: 'twas a glorious idea. Could you conveniently do me one thingWhenever you finish any head, I could like to have a proof copy of it. I might tell you a long story about your fine genius; but, as what every body knows cannot have escaped you, I shall not say one syllable about it. No. XXIX. To Miss CHALMERS, Edinburgh. Ellisland, near Dumfries, Sept. 16, 1788. Where are you? and how are you? and is lady. M'Kenzie recovering her health? for I have had but one solitary letter from you. I will not think you have forgotten me, madam; and for my part "When thee, Jerusalem, I forget, "My heart is not of that rock, nor my soul careless as that sea." I do not make my progress among mankind, as a bowl does among its fellows -rolling through the crowd without bearing away any mark or impression, except where they hit in hostile collision. I am here, driven in with my harvest-folks by bad weather; and as you and your sister once did me the honour of interesting yourselves much à l'egard de moi, I sit down to beg the continuation. of your goodness.-I can truly say that, all the exterior of life apart, I never saw two, whose esteem flattered the nobler feelings of my soul-I will not say, more, but so much, as lady M'Kenzie and miss Chalmers. When I think of you-hearts the best, minds the noblest, of human kind-unfortunate, even in the shades of life-when I think I have met with you, and have lived more of real life with you in eight days, than I can do with almost any body I meet with in eight yearswhen I think on the improbability of meeting you in this world again-I could sit down and cry like a child!-If ever you honoured me with a place in your esteem, I trust I can now plead more desert. I am secure against that crushing grip of iron poverty, which, alas! is less or more fatal to the native worth and purity of, I fear, the noblest souls; and a late, important step in my life has kindly taken me out of the way of those ungrate ful iniquities, which, however overlooked in fashionable license, or varnished in fashionable phrase, are indeed but lighter and deeper shades of villainy. Shortly after my last return to Ayrshire, I mar ried" my Jean." This was not in consequence of the attachment of romance perhaps; but I had a long and much-loved fellow creature's happiness or misery in my determination, and I durst not trifle with so important a deposit. Nor have I any cause to repent it. If I have not got polite tattle, modish manners, and fashionable dress, I am not sickened and disgusted with the multiform curse of boarding-school affectation; and I have got the handsomest figure, the sweetest temper, the soundest constitution, and the kindest heart in the counMrs. Burns believes, as firmly as her ereed, ty. that I am le plus bel esprit, et le plus honnete homme in the universe; although she scarcely ever in her life, except the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, and the Psalms of David in metre, spent five minutes together on either prose or verse. I must except also from this last, a certain late publication of Scots poems, which she has perused very devoutly; and all the ballads in the country, as she has (O the partial lover! you will ery) the finest "wood-note wild" I ever heard.-I am the more particular in this lady's character, as I know she will henceforth have the honour of a share in your best wishes. She is still at Mauchline, as I am building my house; for this hovel that I shelter in, while occasionally here, is pervious to every blast that blews, and every shower that falls; and I am only preserved from being chilled to death, by being suffocated with smoke. I do not find my farm that pennyworth I was taught to expect, but I believe, in time, it may be a saving bargain. You will be pleased to hear that I have laid aside idle eclat, and bind every day after my reapers. To save me from that horrid situation of at any time going down, in a losing bargain of a farm, to misery, I have taken my excise instructions, and have my commission in my pocket for any emer gency of fortune. If I could set all before your view, whatever disrespect you, in common with the world, have for this business, I know you would approve of my idea. I will make no apology, dear madam, for this egotistic detail: I know you and your sister will be interested in every circumstance of it. What signify the silly, idle gewgaws of wealth, or the ideal trumpery of greatness! When fellow partakers of the same nature fear the same God, have the same benevolence of heart, the same nobleness of soul, the same detestation at every thing dishonest, and the same scorn at every thing unworthyif they are not in the dependance of absolute beg gary, in the name of common sense are they not equals? And if the bias, the instinctive bias of their souls run the same way, why may they not be friends? When I may have an opportunity of sending you this, Heaven only knows. Shenstone says, "When one is confined idle within doors by bad weather, the best antidote against ennui is, to read the letters of, or write to one's friends;" in that case, then, if the weather continues thus, I may scrawl you half a quire. I very lately, to wit, since harvest began, wrote a poem, not in imitation, but in the manner of Pope's Moral Epistles. It is only a short essay, just to try the strength of my muse's pinion in that way. I will send you a copy of it, when once I have heard from you. I have likewise been laying the foundation of some pretty large poetic works: how the superstructure will come on I leave to that great maker and marrer of projects -Time. Johnson's collection of Scots songs is going on in the third volume; and of consequence finds me a consumpt for a great deal of idle me tre.-One of the most tolerable things I have done in that way, is, two stanzas that I made to an air, a musical gentleman of my acquaintance composed for the anniversary of his wedding-day, which happens on the seventh of November. Take it as follows: The day returns-my bosom burns The blissful day we twa did meet, &c. See vol. iii. p. 233. I shall give over this letter for shame. If I should be seized with a scribbling fit, before this goes away, I shall make it another letter; and then you may allow your patience a week's respite between the two. I have not room for more than the old, kind, hearty farewell! * Capt. Riddel of Glenriddel. To make some amends, mes cheres mesdames, for dragging you on to this second sheet; and to relieve a little the tiresomeness of my unstudied and uncorrectible prose, I shall transcribe you some of my late poetic bagatelles; though I have these eight or ten months done very little that way. One day, in a hermitage on the banks of Nith, belonging to a gentleman in my neighbourhood, who is so good as to give me a key at pleasure, I wrote as follows; supposing myself the sequestered, venerable inhabitant of the lonely mansion. Lines written in Friar's Carse Hermitage*. No. XXX. To Mrs. DUNLOP, of Dunlop. Mauchline, 27th Sept. 1788. To I have received twins, dear madam, more than once; but scarcely ever with more pleasure than when I received yours of the 12th instant. make myself understood: I had wrote to Mr. Graham, inclosing my poem addressed to him, and the same post which favoured me with yours, brought me an answer from him. It was dated the very day he had received mine; and I am The poetic temperament is ever predisposed to sensations of the "horrible and awful." Burns, in returning from his visits at Glenriddel to his farm at Ellisland, had to pass through a little wild wood in which stood the hermitage. When the night was dark and dreary it was his custom generally to solicit an additional parting glass to fortify his spirits and keep up his courage. This was related by a lady, a near relation of capt. Riddel's, who had frequent opportunities of seeing this salutary practice exemplified. Vol. IV. C B. |