In fact, a fair dame, at whose shrine I, the Priest of the Nine, offer up the incense of Parnassus; a dame, whom the Graces have attired in witchcraft, and whom the Loves have armed with lightning; a fair one, herself the heroine of the song, insists on the amendment, and dispute her commands if you dare!

No. CCCXIV.

TO MRS. RIDDEL.

DUMFRIES, 1793.

MR. BURNS'S compliments to Mrs. Riddel; is much obliged to her for her polite attention in sending him the book. Owing to Mr. B. being at present acting as supervisor of Excise, a department that occupies his every hour of the day, he has not that time to spare which is necessary for any belle-lettre pursuit; but, as he will, in a week or two, again return to his wonted leisure, he will then pay that attention to Mrs. R.'s beautiful song, "To thee, loved Nith," which it so well deserves. When "Anacharsis' Travels" come to hand, which Mrs. Riddel mentioned as her gift to the public library, Mr. B. will feel honoured by the indulgence of a perusal of them before presentation: it is a book he has never yet seen, and the regulations of the library allow too little leisure for deliberate reading.

Friday Evening.

P.S. Mr. Burns will be much obliged to Mrs. Riddel if she will favour him with a perusal of any of her poetical pieces which he may not have

seen.

No. CCCXV.

TO MRS. DUNLOP.

15th December, 1795.

MY DEAR FRIEND, As I am in a complete Decemberish humour, gloomy, sullen, stupid, as even the Deity of Dulness herself could wish, I shall not drawl out a heavy letter with a number of heavier apologies for my late silence. Only one I shall mention, because I know you will sympathize in it: these four months a sweet little girl, my youngest child, has been so ill, that every day a week or less threatened to terminate her existence. There had much need be many pleasures annexed to the states of husband and father, for, God knows, they have many peculiar cares. I cannot describe to you the anxious, sleepless hours these ties frequently give me. I see a train of helpless little folks; me and my exertions all their stay and on what a brittle thread does the life of man hang! If I am nipt off at the command of fate! even in all the vigour of manhood as I am-such

things happen every day-gracious God! what would become of my little flock! 'Tis here that I envy your people of fortune. A father on his death-bed, taking an everlasting leave of his children, has indeed woe enough; but the man of competent fortune leaves his sons and daughters independency and friends, while I-but I shall run distracted if I think any longer on the subject!

To leave talking of the matter so gravely, I shall sing with the old Scots ballad

"O that I had ne'er been married!

I would never had nae care:
Now I've gotten wife and bairns,
They cry crowdie ! evermair.
Crowdie! ance; crowdie! twice;
Crowdie! three times in a day;
An ye, crowdie! ony mair,

Ye'll crowdie! a' my meal away."

December 24th.

We have had a brilliant theatre here this season; only, as all other business does, it experiences a stagnation of trade from the epidemical complaint of the country, want of cash. I mentioned our theatre merely to lug in an occasional Address which I wrote for the benefit-night of one of the actresses, and which is as follows:

[Here the Address is transcribed. See page 112.]

25th, Christmas Morning.

This, my much-loved friend, is a morning of wishes; accept mine-so Heaven hear me as they are sincere!-that blessings may attend your steps, and affliction know you not! In the charming words of my favourite author, "The Man of Feeling," "May the Great Spirit bear up the weight of thy grey hairs, and blunt the arrow that brings them rest!" Now that I talk of authors, how do you like Cowper? Is not the "Task" a glorious poem? The religion of the "Task," bating a few scraps of Calvinistic divinity, is the religion of God and nature; the religion that exalts, that ennobles man. Were not you to send me your "Zeluco" in return for mine? Tell me how you like my marks and notes through the book. I would not give a farthing for a book, unless I were at liberty to blot it with my criticisms.

I have lately collected, for a friend's perusal, all my letters; I mean those which I first sketched, in a rough draught, and afterwards wrote out fair. On looking over some old musty papers, which, from time to time, I had parcelled by, as trash that were scarce worth preserving, and which yet at the same time I did not care to destroy, I discovered many of these rude sketches, and have written, and am writing them out, in a

* Burns generally carried Cowper's "Task" in his pocket, and took it out when he found himself in a lonely road, or in a brewhouse where he had to wait sometimes to "gauge the browst." The copy which he used was one lent to him by Mrs. Dunlop, the margins of which he enriched with notes, critical and commendatory.

bound MS. for my friend's library. As I wrote always to you the rhapsody of the moment, I cannot find a single scroll to you except one, about the commencement of our acquaintance. If there were any possible conveyance, I would send you a perusal of my book.-R. B.

No. CCCXVI.

TO MRS. DUNLOP,

IN LONDON.

DUMFRIES, 20th December, 1795.

I HAVE been prodigiously disappointed in this London journey of yours. In the first place, when your last to me reached Dumfries, I was in the country, and did not return until too late to answer your letter; in the next place, I thought you would certainly take this route; and now I know not what is become of you, or whether this may reach you at all. God grant that it may find you and yours in prospering health and good spirits! Do let me hear from you the soonest possible.

As I hope to get a frank from my friend Captain Miller, I shall every leisure hour take up the pen, and gossip away whatever comes first, prose or poetry, sermon or song. In this last article I have abounded of late. I have often mentioned to you a superb publication of Scottish Songs, which is making its appearance in your great metropolis, and where I have the honour to preside over the Scottish verse, as no less a personage than Peter Pindar does over the English.

December 29th.

SINCE I began this letter, I have been appointed to act in the capacity of supervisor here; and I assure you, what with the load of business, and what with that business being new to me, I could scarcely have commanded ten minutes to have spoken to you, had you been in town, much less to have written you an epistle. This appointment is only temporary, and during the illness of the present incumbent; but I look forward to an early period when I shall be appointed in full form-a consummation devoutly to be wished! My political sins seem to be forgiven me.

This is the season (New-year's-day is now my date) of wishing; and mine are most fervently offered up for you. May life to you be a positive blessing while it lasts, for your own sake; and that it may yet be greatly prolonged is my wish, for my own sake, and for the sake of the rest of your friends! What a transient business is life! Very lately I was a boy; but t'other day I was a young man; and I already begin to feel the rigid fibre and stiffening joints of old age coming fast o'er my frame. With all my follies of youth, and I fear a few vices of manhood, still I congratulate myself on having had in early days religion strongly impressed on my mind. I have nothing to say to any one as to which sect he belongs to, or what creed he believes: but I look on the man who is firmly persuaded of infinite Wisdom and Goodness superintending and directing every circumstance that can happen in his lot-I felicitate such

a man, as having a solid foundation for his mental enjoyment; a firm prop and sure stay in the hour of difficulty, trouble, and distress; and a neverfailing anchor of hope, when he looks beyond the grave.

January 12th.

You will have seen our worthy and ingenious friend, the Doctor, long ere this. I hope he is well, and beg to be remembered to him. I have just been reading over again, I daresay for the hundred and fiftieth time, his "View of Society and Manners;" and still I read it with delight. His humour is perfectly original: it is neither the humour of Addison, nor Swift, nor Sterne, nor of anybody but Dr. Moore. By the by, you have deprived me of "Zeluco:" remember that, when you are disposed to rake up the sins of my neglect from among the ashes of my laziness. He has paid me a pretty compliment, by quoting me in his last publication.-R. B.

No. CCCXVII.

TO THE HON. THE PROVOST, BAILIES, AND TOWN COUNCIL OF DUMFRIES.

GENTLEMEN,

[1795.]

The literary taste and liberal spirit of your good town has so ably filled the various departments of your schools, as to make it a very great object for a parent to have his children educated in them. Still, to me, a stranger, with my large family and very stinted income, to give my young ones that education I wish, at the high school fees which a stranger pays, will bear hard upon me.

Some years ago your good town did me the honour of making me an honorary Burgess. Will you allow me to request that this mark of distinction may extend so far as to put me on a footing of a real freeman of the town in the schools?

That I may not appear altogether unworthy of this favour allow me to state to you some little services I have lately done a branch of your revenue the two pennies exigible on foreign ale vended within your limits. In this rather neglected article of your income, I am ready to show that within these few weeks my exertions have secured for you of those duties nearly the sum of Ten Pounds; and in this, too, I was the only one of the gentlemen of the Excise (except Mr. Mitchell, whom you pay for his trouble) who took the least concern in the business.

If you are so very kind as to grant my request, it will certainly be a constant incentive to me to strain every nerve where I can officially serve you, and will, if possible, increase that grateful respect with which I have the honour to be,

Gentlemen,

Your devoted humble Servant,

R. B.*

*The original draft of this letter is in the British Museum. Cromek, who first published it (omitting, however, the third paragraph) states that the poet's request was immediately complied with.

No. CCCXVIII.

TO MRS. RIDDEL.

DUMFRIES, 20th January, 1796.

I CANNOT express my gratitude to you for allowing me a longer perusal of "Anacharsis." In fact, I never met with a book that bewitched me so much; and I, as a member of the library, must warmly feel the obligation you have laid us under. Indeed, to me the obligation is stronger than to any other individual of our society; as "Anacharsis" is an indispensable desideratum to a son of the Muses.

The health you wished me in your morning's card is, I think, flown from me for ever. I have not been able to leave my bed to-day till about an hour ago. These wickedly unlucky advertisements I lent (I did wrong) to a friend, and I am ill able to go in quest of him.

No. CCCXIX.

TO MRS. DUNLOP.

R. B.

[There seems about this time to have been some coldness between Burns and Mrs. Dunlop, probably caused by her displeasure at his confirmed habits of conviviality.]

DUMFRIES, 31st January, 1796.

THESE many months you have been two packets in my debt: what sin of ignorance I have committed against so highly valued a friend I am utterly at a loss to guess. Alas, Madam! ill can I afford, at this time, to be deprived of any of the small remnant of my pleasures. I have lately drunk deep of the cup of affliction. The autumn robbed me of my only daughter and darling child, and that at a distance too, and so rapidly, as to put it out of my power to pay the last duties to her. I had scarcely begun to recover from that shock, when I became myself the victim of a most severe rheumatic fever, and long the die spun doubtful; until, after many weeks of a sick bed, it seems to have turned up life, and I am beginning to crawl across my room, and once indeed have been before my own door in the street.

"When pleasure fascinates the mental sight,
Affliction purifies the visual ray,

Religion hails the drear, the untried night,
And shuts, for ever shuts, life's doubtful day."

No. CCCXX.

R. B.

TO MRS. RIDDEL,

[Who had desired him to go to the Birthday Assembly on that day to show his loyalty.]

DUMFRIES, 4th June, 1796.

I AM in such miserable health as to be utterly incapable of showing my loyalty in any way. Racked as I am with rheumatisms, I meet every face with a greeting like that of Balak to Balaam: "Come, curse me Jacob; and come, defy me Israel!" So say I: Come, curse me that east wind;

B