when he is indebted for good offices, the payment that usually recurs to him-the only coin indeed in which he is probably conversant-is rhyme. Johnson sends the books by the fly, as directed, and begs me to inclose his most cept at meal-times, or when called into the fields by his scientific pursuits; or on Sundays, when he never failed, let the weather be what it might, to mount his horse, to ride to Elgin to attend the Seceder meeting-house. As the duke's engagements and oc. cupations deprived him of sufficient leisure to peruse the numerous books of miscellaneous information which were continually appearing, it became Mr Hoy's business to devote his forenoons to reading them as they arrived; and then he was enabled, as they sat tete a tete over their bottle of claret together after dinner, to fill the duke with all that was worth remembering, and his grace's 's memory was such, that it never afterwards lost what it thus received. "Mr Hoy's chief sciences were astromony, entomology, and botany. To the first of these he adhered steadily to his dying day, and made almost daily observations on the heavenly bodies, and from his having undertaken the regulation of the clocks at Gordon castle and Fochabers, it was matter of notoriety that his was the only accurately kept time in the north of Scotland. "We need scarcely say that Mr Hoy was quite indifferent to fame; he equally despised riches, never seeking for more than might enable him to dispense some charities, and to afford himself respectable clothes, of which he never had more than two suits at a time. When his kind and indulgent patron voluntarily offered him an addition to his sixty-pound salary, he replied, 'Keep it to yoursel', my lord duke, I'm no needin' mair; ye hae as muckle need o't as I hae.' When Burns was at Gordon castle he was particularly delighted with Hoy's blunt manner, and perhaps the circumstance of his being a native of the Borders gave him an additional value in the Poet's estimation. Mr Hoy left orders in his will that his remains should be interred in the churchyard of the cathedral'near his auld frien' Mr Duncan,' the Seceder minister, to whom he had listened so many years of his life, in defiance of the wind, rain, snow, or sunshine that may have vainly assailed him during his hebdomadal rides to Elgin. "The old librarian followed his noble master to the grave, after the interval of a few short months, and we cannot take our leave of him better than in the well-known words of the immortal dramatist: : "O good old man! how well in thee appears E M. grateful thanks: my return I intended should have been one or two poetic bagatelles which the world have not seen, or, perhaps, for obvious reasons, cannot see. These I shall send you before I leave Edinburgh. They may make you laugh a little, which, on the whole, is no bad way of spend. ing one's precious hours and still more precious breath: at any rate, they will be, though a small, yet a very sincere mark of my respectful esteem for a gentleman whose farther acquaintance I should look upon as a peculiar obligation. The duke's song, independent totally of his dukeship, charms me. There is I know not what of wild happiness of thought and expression peculiarly beautiful in the old Scottish song style, of which his Grace, old venerable Skinner, the author of ' Tullochgorum,' &c., and the late Ross, at Lochlee, of true Scottish poetic memory, are the only modern instances that I recollect, since Ramsay with his contemporaries, and poor Bob Fergusson went to the world of deathless existence and truly immortal song. The mob of mankind, that many-headed beast, would laugh at so serious a speech about an old song; but, as Job says, "O that mine adversary had written a book!' Those who think that composing a Scotch song is a trifling business-let them try. I wish my Lord Duke would pay a proper attention to the Christian admonition-" Hide not your candle under a bushel," but "Let your light shine before men." I could name half a dozen dukes that I guess are a devilish deal worse employed; nay, I question if there are half a dozen better perhaps there are not half that scanty number whom Heaven has favoured with the tuneful, happy, and, I will say, glorious gift. : I am, dear Sir, Your obliged humble servant, R. B. No. LXXIX. TO ROBERT AINSLIE, ESQ., EDINBURGH. EDINBURGH, Sunday Morning, Nov. 23, 1787. I BEG, my dear Sir, you would not make any appointment. to take us to Mr Ainslie's to-night. On looking over my engagements, constitution, present state of my health, some little vexatious soul concerns, &c., I find I can't sup abroad to-night. I shall be in to-day till one o'clock if you have a leisure hour. You will think it romantic when I tell you, that I find the idea of your friendship almost necessary to my existence. You assume a proper length of face in my bitter hours of blue-devilism, and you laugh fully up to my highest wishes at my good things.-I don't know upon the whole, if you are one of the first fellows in God's world, but you are so to me. I tell you this just now in the conviction that some inequalities in my temper and manner may perhaps sometimes make you suspect that I am not so warmly as I ought to be your friend. No. LXXX. TO THE EARL OF GLENCAIRN. MY LORD, R. B. EDINBURGH, 1787. I KNOW your lordship will disapprove of my ideas in a request I am going to make to you; but I have weighed, long and seriously weighed, my situation, my hopes, and turn of mind, and am fully fixed to my scheme, if I can possibly effectuate it. I wish to get into the Excise: I am told that your lordship's interest will easily procure me the grant from the commissioners; and your lordships patronage and goodness, which have already rescued me from obscurity, wretchedness, and exile, embolden me to ask that interest. You have likewise put it in my power to save the little tie of home that sheltered an aged mother, two brothers, and three sisters from destruction. There, my lord, you have bound me over to the highest gratitude. My brother's farm is but a wretched lease, but I think he will probably weather out the remaining seven years of it; and after the assistance which I have given, and will give him, to keep the family together, I think, by my guess, I shall have rather better than two hundred pounds, and instead of seeking, what is almost impossible at present to find, a farm that I can certainly live by, with so small a stock, I shall lodge this sum in a banking-house, a sacred deposit, excepting only the calls of uncommon distress or necessitous old age. These, my lord, are my views: I have resolved from the maturest deliberation; and now I am fixed, I shall leave no stone unturned to carry my resolve into execution. Your lordship's patronage is the strength of my hopes; nor have I yet applied to any body else. Indeed my heart sinks within me at the idea of applying to any other of the great who have honoured me with their countenance. I am ill-qualified to dog the heels of greatness with the impertinence of solicitation, and tremble nearly as much at the thought of the cold promise as the cold denial; but to your lordship I have not only the honour, the comfort, but the pleasure of being Your lordship's much obliged And deeply indebted humble servant, R. B. No. LXXXI. TO JAMES DALRYMPLE, ESQ., ORANGEFIELD. EDINBURGH, 1787. DEAR SIR, I SUPPOSE the devil is so elated with his success with you, that he is determined by a coup de main to complete his purposes on you all at once, in making you a poet. I broke open the letter you sent me; hummed over the rhymes; and, as I saw they were extempore, said to myself, they were very w well; but when I saw at the bottom a name that I shall ever value with grateful respect, "I gapit wide, but naething spak." I was nearly as much struck as the friends of Job, of affliction-bearing memory, when they sat down with him seven days and seven nights, and spake not a word. I am naturally of a superstitious cast, and as soon as my wonder-scared imagination regained its consciousness, and resumed its functions, I cast about what this mania of yours might portend. My foreboding ideas had the wide stretch of possibility; and several events, great in their magnitude, and important in their consequences, occurred to my fancy. The downfall of the conclave, or the crushing of the Cork rumps; a ducal coronet to Lord George Gordon, and the protestant interest; or St Peter's keys to * * * * *. You want to know how I come on. I am just in statu quo, or, not to insult a gentleman with my Latin, in “auld use and wont." The noble Earl of Glencairn took me by the hand to-day, and interested himself in my concerns, with a goodness like that benevolent Being whose image he so richly bears. He is a stronger proof of the immortality of the soul than any that philosophy ever produced. A mind like his can never die. Let the worshipful squire H. L., or the reverend Mass J. M. go into their primitive |