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pendance but my dearest enjoyment. I have, indeed, been the luckless victim of wayward follies; but, alas! I have ever been more fool than knave." A mathematician without religion is a probable character; an irreligious poet is a monster.

No. XCIII.

R. B.

TO THE REV. JOHN SKINNER.

EDINBURGH, 14th February, 1788.

REVEREND And Dear Sir,

I HAVE been a cripple now near three months, though I am getting vastly better, and have been very much hurried beside, or else I would have wrote you sooner. I must beg your pardon for the epistle you sent me appearing in the Magazine. I had given a copy or two to some of my intimate friends, but did not know of the printing of it till the publication of the Magazine. However, as it does great honour to us both, you will forgive it.

;

The second volume of the songs I mentioned to you in my last is published to-day. I send you a copy, which I beg you will accept as a mark of the veneration I have long had, and shall ever have, for your character, and of the claim I make to your continued acquaintance. Your songs appear in the third volume, with your name in the index as I assure you, Sir, I have heard your Tullochgorum,' particularly among our west-country folks, given to many different names, and most commonly to the immortal author of The Minstrel,' who, indeed, never wrote any thing superior to Gie's a sang, Montgomery cried." Your brother has promised me your verses to the Marquis of Huntley's reel, which certainly deserve a place in the collection. My kind host, Mr Cruikshank, of the high-school here, and said to be one of the best Latins in this age, begs me

to make you his grateful acknowledgments for the entertainment he has got in a Latin publication of yours, that I borrowed for him from your acquaintance and much respected friend in this place, the Reverend Dr Webster. Mr Cruikshank maintains that you write the best Latin since Buchanan. I leave Edinburgh to-morrow, but shall return in three weeks. Your song you mentioned in your last, to the tune of Dumbarton Drums,' and the other, which you say was done by a brother in trade of mine, a ploughman, I shall thank you for a copy of each. I am ever, Reverend Sir, with the most respectful esteem and sincere veneration, yours,

R. B.*

*The letter from the Rev. John Skinner, to which the above is a reply, supplying some information about Scottish song, we subjoin :

LINSHEART, 14th November, 1787. "SIR,-Your kind return without date, but of post-mark October 25th, came to my hand only this day; and, to testify my punctuality to my poetic engagement, I sit down immediately to answer it in kind. Your acknowledgment of my poor but just encomiums on your surprising genius, and your opinion of my rhyming excursions, are both, I think, by far too high. The difference between our two tracks of education and ways of life is entirely in your favour, and gives you the preference every manner of way. I know a classical education will not create a versifying taste, but it mightily improves and assists it; and though, where both these meet, there may sometimes be ground for approbation, yet where taste appears single, as it were, and neither cramped nor supported by acquisition, I will always sustain the justice of its prior claim to applause. A small portion of taste, this way, I have had almost from childhood, especially in the old Scottish dialect: and it is as old a thing as I remember, my fondness for Christ-kirk o' the Green,' which I had by heart ere I was twelve years of age, and which, some years ago, I attempted to turn into Latin verse. While I was young, I dabbled a good deal in these things; but, on getting the black gown, I gave it pretty much over, till my daughters grew up, who, being all good singers, plagued me for words to some of their favourite tunes, and so extorted these effusions, which have made a public appearance beyond my expectations, and contrary to my intentions, at the same time that I hope there is nothing

No. XCIV.

TO RICHARD BROWN.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

EDINBURGH, February 15th, 1788.

I RECEIVED yours with the greatest pleasure. I shall arrive at Glasgow on Monday evening; and beg, if possible, you will meet me on Tuesday. I shall wait you Tuesday all

to be found in them uncharacteristic, or unbecoming the cloth, which I would always wish to see respected.

"As to the assistance you propose from me in the undertaking you are engaged in,* I am sorry I cannot give it so far as I could wish, and you perhaps expect. My daughters, who were my only intelligencers, are all foris-familiate, and the old woman their mother has lost that taste. There are two from my own pen, which I might give you, if worth the while. One to the old Scotch tune of Dumbarton's Drums.'

"The other, perhaps, you have met with, as your noble friend the duchess has, I am told, heard of it. It was squeezed out of me by a brother parson in her neighbourhood, to accommodate a new Highland reel for the marquis's birth-day, to the stanza of

'Tune your fiddles, tune them sweetly,' &c.

"If this last answer your purpose, you may have it from a brother of mine, Mr James Skinner, writer, in Edinburgh, who, I believe, can give the music too.

"There is another humorous thing, I have heard said to be done by the catholic priest Geddes, and which hit my taste much :

'There was a wee wifeikie, was coming frae the fair,
Had gotten a little drapikie, which bred her meikle care,
It took upo' the wifie's heart, and she began to spew,
And co' the wee wifeikie, I wish I binna fou,

I wish,' &c. &c.

"I have heard of another new composition, by a young ploughman of my acquaintance, that I am vastly pleased with, to the tune of The humours of Glen,' which I fear won't do, as the music, I am told, is of Irish original. I have mentioned these,

* A plan of publishing a complete collection of Scottish songs, &c.

day. I shall be found at Davies, Black Bull inn. I am hurried, as if hunted by fifty devils, else I should go to Greenock; but if you cannot possibly come, write me, if possible, to Glasgow, on Monday; or direct to me at Mossgiel by Mauchline; and name a day and place in Ayrshire, within a fortnight from this date, where I may meet you. I only stay a fortnight in Ayrshire, and return to Edinburgh. I am ever, my dearest friend, yours,

R. B.*

such as they are, to show my readiness to oblige you, and to contribute my mite, if I could, to the patriotic work you have in hand, and which I wish all success to. You have only to notify your mind, and what you want of the above shall be sent you.

"Meantime, while you are thus publicly, I may say, employed, do not sheath your own proper and piercing weapon. From what I have seen of yours already, I am inclined to hope for much good. One lesson of virtue and morality, delivered in your amusing style, and from such as you, will operate more than dozens would do from such as me, who shall be told it is our employment, and be never more minded: whereas, from a pen like yours, as being one of the many, what comes will be admired. Admiration will produce regard, and regard will leave an impression, especially when example goes along.

"Now binna saying I'm ill bred,
Else, by my troth, I'll no be glad;
For cadgers, ye have heard it said,
And sic like fry,

Maun aye be harland in their trade,
And sae maun I.

"Wishing you, from my poet-pen, all success; and, in my other character, all happiness and heavenly direction,

"I remain, with esteem,

"Your sincere friend,

"JOHN SKINNER."

"The letters to Richard Brown, written at a period when the Poet was in the full blaze of reputation, showed that he was at no time so dazzled with success as to forget the friends who had anticipated the public by discovering his merit."— Walker.

No. XCV.

TO MRS ROSE, OF KILRAVOCK.

MADAM,

EDINBURGH, February 17th, 1788.

You are much indebted to some indispensable business I have had on my hands, otherwise my gratitude threatened such a return for your obliging favour as would have tired your patience. It but poorly expresses my feelings to say, that I am sensible of your kindness: it may be said of hearts such as yours is, and such, I hope, mine is, much more justly than Addison applies it,—

"Some souls by instinct to each other turn."

There was something in my reception at Kilravock so different from the cold, obsequious, dancing school bow of politeness, that it almost got into my head that friendship had occupied her ground without the intermediate march of acquaintance. I wish I could transcribe, or rather transfuse into language, the glow of my heart when I read your letter. My ready fancy, with colours more mellow than life itself, painted the beautifully wild scenery of Kilravock -the venerable grandeur of the castle-the spreading woods-the winding river, gladly leaving his unsightly, heathy source, and lingering with apparent delight as he passes the fairy walk at the bottom of the garden ;-your late distressful anxieties-your present enjoyments—your dear little angel, the pride of your hopes ;—my aged friend, venerable in worth and years, whose loyalty and other virtues will strongly entitle her to the support of the Almighty Spirit here, and his peculiar favour in a happier state of existence. You cannot imagine, Madam, how much such feelings delight me; they are my dearest proofs of my own immortality. Should I never revisit the north, as probably I never will, nor again see your hospitable mansion, were I, some twenty years hence, to see your

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