Mr. Ritson, ranks with me, as my coevals, have always mistaken vulgarity for simplicity; whereas simplicity is as much eloignée from vulgarity, on the one hand, as from affected point and puerile conceit on the other.

66

I agree with you, as to the air "Craigie-burn Wood," that a chorus would, in some degree, spoil the effect; and shall certainly have none in my projected song to it. It is not, however, a case in point with “Rothemurche;" there, as in "Roy's Wife of Aldivalloch," a chorus goes, to my taste, well enough. As to the chorus going first, that is the case with Roy's Wife" as well as "Rothemurche." In fact, in the first part of both tunes the rhythm is so peculiar and irregular, and on that irregularity depends so much of their beauty, that we must e'en take them with all their wildness, and humour the verse accordingly. Leaving out the starting-note in both tunes has, I think, an effect that no regularity could counterbalance the want of :

Does not the tameness of the prefixed syllable strike you? In the last case, with the true furor of genius, you strike at once into the wild originality of the air; whereas in the first insipid method it is like the grating screw of the pins before the fiddle is brought into tune. This is my taste; if I am wrong, I beg pardon of the cognoscenti.

"The Caledonian Hunt" is so charming, that it would make any subject in a song go down; but pathos is certainly its native tongue. Scottish Bacchanalians we certainly want, though the few we have are excellent. For instance "Todlin Hame" is, for wit and humour, an unparalleled composition; and "Andrew and his cutty Gun" is the work of a master. By the way, are you not quite vexed to think that those men of genius, for such they certainly were, who composed our fine Scottish lyrics, should be unknown? It has given me many a heart-ache.-R. B.

No. CCCVI.

TO G. THOMSON.

SINCE yesterday's penmanship I have framed a couple of English stanzas, by way of an English song to Roy's Wife." [The song "Canst thou leave me thus, my Katy," is given in page 221.] Well! I think this, to be done in two or three turns across my roo and with two or three pinches of Irish blackguard, is not so far amiss. You see I am determined to have my quantum of applause from somebody.

Tell my friend Allan (for I am sure that we only want the trifling circumstance of being known to one another, to be the best friends on earth) that I much suspect he has, in his plates, mistaken the figure of the

stock and horn. I have at last gotten one; but it is a very rude instrument it is composed of three parts; the stock, which is the hinder thigh-bone of a sheep, such as you see in a mutton-ham; the horn, which is a common Highland cow's horn, cut off at the smaller end, until the aperture be large enough to admit the stock, to be pushed up through the horn, until it be held by the thicker end of the thigh-bone; and, lastly, an oaten reed exactly cut and notched, like that which you see every shepherdboy have when the corn-stems are green and full-grown. The reed is not made fast in the bone, but is held by the lips, and plays loose in the smaller end of the stock; while the stock, with the horn hanging on its larger end, is held by the hands in playing. The stock has six or seven ventiges on the upper side, and one back-ventige, like the common flute. This of mine was made by a man from the braes of Athole, and is exactly what the shepherds are wont to use in that country.

However, either it is not quite properly bored in the holes, or else we have not the art of blowing it rightly; for we can make little of it. If Mr. Allan chooses, I will send him a sight of mine; as I look on myself to be a kind of brother-brush with him. "Pride in poets is nae sin," and, I will say it, that I look on Mr. Allan and Mr. Burns to be the only genuine and real painters of Scottish costume in the world.-R. B.

No. CCCVII.

TO PETER MILLER, JUN., ESQ.

OF DALSWINTON.

[This is a reply to an offer by Mr. Perry (through Mr. Peter Miller) of an engagement on the Morning Chronicle, of which he was editor.]

DUMFRIES, November, 1794.

DEAR SIR, Your offer is indeed truly generous, and most sincerely do I thank you for it; but in my present situation I find that I dare not accept it. You well know my political sentiments; and were I an insular individual, unconnected with a wife and a family of children, with the most fervid enthusiasm I would have volunteered my services: I then could and would have despised all consequences that might have ensued.

My prospect in the Excise is something; at least, it is, encumbered as I am with the welfare, the very existence, of near half a score of helpless individuals, what I dare not sport with.

In the mean time they are most welcome to my Ode; only let them insert it as a thing they have met with by accident and unknown to me. Nay, if Mr. Perry, whose honour, after your character of him, I cannot doubt; if he will give me an address and channel by which anything will come safe from those spies with which he may be certain that his correspondence is beset, I will now and then send him any bagatelle that I may write. In the present hurry of Europe nothing but news and politics will

be regarded; but against the days of peace, which Heaven send soon, my little assistance may perhaps fill up an idle column of a newspaper. I have long had it in my head to try my hand in the way of little prose essays, which I propose sending into the world through the medium of some newspaper; and should these be worth his while, to these Mr. Perry shall be welcome; and all my reward shall be, his treating me with his paper-which, by the by, to anybody who has the least relish for wit, is a high treat indeed.

With the most grateful esteem, I am ever, dear Sir,

R. B.

No. CCCVIII.

TO G. THOMSON.

January, 1795.

I FEAR for my songs; however a few may please, yet originality is a coy feature in composition, and in a multiplicity of efforts in the same style disappears altogether. For these three thousand years we poetic folks have been describing the spring, for instance; and, as the spring continues the same, there must soon be a sameness in the imagery, &c. of these said rhyming folks.

A great critic (Aikin) on songs says that love and wine are the exclusive themes for song-writing. The following is on neither subject, and consequently is no song; but will be allowed, I think, to be two or three pretty good prose thoughts inverted into rhyme :

["Is there, for honest poverty." Page 227.]

ECCLEFECHAN, 7th February, 1795.

You cannot have any idea of the predicament in which I write to you. In the course of my duty as supervisor (in which capacity I have acted of late) I came yesternight to this unfortunate, wicked little village. I have gone forward, but snows, of ten feet deep, have impeded my progress I have tried to "gae back the gate I cam again," but the same obstacle has shut me up within insuperable bars. To add to my misfortune, since dinner a scraper has been torturing catgut, in sounds that would have insulted the dying agonies of a sow under the hands of a butcher, and thinks himself, on that very account, exceeding good company. In fact, I have been in a dilemma-either to get drunk, to forget these miseries; or to hang myself, to get rid of them like a prudent man (a character congenial to my every thought, word, and deed), I, of two evils, have chosen the least, and am very drunk, at your service!

No. CCCX.

TO MR. HERON,

OF HERON.

[Mr. Heron was at this time a candidate for the representation of the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright; and there can be no question that Burns's poetical advocacy of his cause, however generous, was extremely imprudent in any Government official in that time of keen political excitement. Mr. Heron carried the election.]

DUMFRIES, 1794 or 1795.

SIR, I enclose you some copies of a couple of political ballads; one of which, I believe, you have never seen. Would to Heaven I could make you master of as many votes in the Stewartry! but

"Who does the utmost that he can,

Does well, acts nobly; angels could no more.'

In order to bring my humble efforts to bear with more effect on the foe I have privately printed a good many copies of both ballads, and have sent them among friends all about the country.

To pillory on Parnassus the rank reprobation of character, the utter dereliction of all principle, in a profligate junto, which has not only outraged virtue, but violated common decency, spurning even hypocrisy as paltry iniquity below their daring;-to unmask their flagitiousness to the broadest day-to deliver such over to their merited fate-is surely not merely innocent, but laudable; is not only propriety, but virtue. You have already, as your auxiliary, the sober detestation of mankind on the heads of your opponents; and I swear by the lyre of Thalia to muster on your side all the votaries of honest laughter and fair, candid ridicule !

I am extremely obliged to you for your kind mention of my interests in a letter which Mr. Syme showed me. At present my situation in life must be in a great measure stationary, at least for two or three years. The statement is this: I am on the supervisors' list, and as we come on there by precedency, in two or three years I shall be at the head of that list, and be appointed of course. Then a friend might be of service to me in getting me into a place of the kingdom which I would like. A supervisor's income varies from about a hundred and twenty to two hundred a year; but the business is an incessant drudgery, and would be nearly a complete bar to every species of literary pursuit. The moment I am appointed supervisor, in the common routine, I may be nominated on the collector's list; and this is always a business purely of political patronage. A collectorship varies much, from better than two hundred a year to near a thousand. They also come forward by precedency on the list; and have, besides a handsome income, a life of complete leisure. A life of literary leisure, with a decent competency, is the summit of my wishes. It would be the prudish affectation of silly pride in me to say that I do not need, or would not be indebted to, a political friend: at the same time, Sir, I by no means lay my affairs before you thus, to hook my dependant situation on

your benevolence. If, in my progress of life, an opening should occur where the good offices of a gentleman of your public character and political consequence might bring me forward, I shall petition your goodness with the same frankness as I now do myself the honour to subscribe myself,―R. B.

No. CCCXI.

TO G. THOMSON.

[Enclosing "How cruel are the Parents," and "Mark yonder Pomp."]

WELL! this is not amiss. You see how I answer your orders; your tailor could not be more punctual. I am just now in a high fit of poetizing, provided that the strait-jacket of criticism don't cure me. If you can in a post or two administer a little of the intoxicating potion of your applause, it will raise your humble servant's phrenzy to any height you want. I am at this moment "holding high converse" with the Muses, and have not a word to throw away on such a prosaic dog as you are.

No. CCCXII.
TO G. THOMSON.

May, 1795.

TEN thousand thanks for your elegant present ;* though I am ashamed of the value of it, being bestowed on a man who has not by any means merited such an instance of kindness. I have shown it to two or three judges of the first abilities here, and they all agree with me in classing it as a first-rate production. My phiz is sae kenspeckle, that the very joiner's apprentice whom Mrs. Burns employed to break up the parcel (I was out of town that day) knew it at once. My most grateful compliments to Allan, who has honoured my rustic muse so much with his masterly pencil. One strange coincidence is, that the little one who is making the felonious attempt on the cat's tail is the most striking likeness of an illdecdie, d-n'd wee rumble-gairie urchin of mine, whom, from that propensity to witty wickedness and manfu' mischief which even at twa days auld I foresaw would form the striking features of his disposition, I named Willie Nicol; after a certain friend of mine, who is one of the masters of a grammar-school in a city which shall be nameless.

No. CCCXIII.

TO G. THOMSON.

IN "Whistle, and I'll come to ye, my Lad," the iteration of that line is tiresome to my ear. Here goes what I think is an improvement :

*The picture alluded to was painted by David Allan from the "Cotter's Saturday Night :" it displays at once the talent and want of taste of the ingenious artist. The scene is a solemn one: but the serenity of the moment is disturbed by what some esteem as a beauty-namely, the attempt to cut the tip of the cat's tail by the little merry urchin seated on the floor.-Allan Cunningham.