for which, were I vivâ voce with you to paint the situation and recount the circumstances, you would applaud me. R. B. No. CVI. TO MR WILLIAM DUNBAR, EDINBURGH. MAUCHLINE, 7th April, 1788. I HAVE not delayed so long to write you, my much re spected friend, because I thought no farther of my promise. I have long since given up that kind of formal correspondence, where one sits down irksomely to write a letter, because we think we are in duty bound so to do. I have been roving over the country, as my farm I have taken is forty miles from this place, hiring servants and preparing matters; but most of all, I am earnestly busy to bring about a revolution in my own mind.-As, till within these eighteen months, I never was the wealthy master of ten guineas, my knowledge of business is to learn; add to this, my late scenes of idleness and dissipation have enervated my mind to an alarming degree. Skill in the sober science of life is my most serious and hourly study. I have dropt all conversation and all reading (prose reading) but what tends in some way or other to my serious aim. Except one worthy young fellow, I have not one single correspondent in Edinburgh. You have indeed kindly made me an offer of that kind. The world of wits, and gens comme il faut which I lately left, and with whom I never again will intimately mix,-from that port, Sir, I expect your Gazette: what les beaux esprits are saying, what they are doing, and what they are singing. Any sober intelligence from my sequestrated walks of life; any droll original; any passing remark, important, forsooth, because it is mine; any little poetic effort, however embryoth; these, my dear Sir, are all you have to expect from me. When I talk of poetic efforts, I must have it always understood, that I appeal from your wit and taste to your friendship and good nature. The first would be my favourite tribunal, where I defied censure; but the last, where I declined justice. I have scarcely made a single distich since I saw you. When I meet with an old Scots air that has any facetious idea in its name, I have a peculiar pleasure in following out that idea for a verse or two. I trust that this will find you in better health than I did last time I called for you. A few lines from you, directed to me, at Mauchline, were it but to let me know how you are, will set my mind a good deal.* Now, never shun the idea of writing me because perhaps you may be out of humour or spirits. I could give you a hundred good consequences attending a dull letter; one, for example, and the remaining ninety nine some other time; it will always serve to keep in countenance, my much respected Sir, Your obliged friend, and humble servant, R. B.† * Something is omitted here, perhaps, "at rest:" but the letter is given as it appears in the original. The gentleman to whom the above letter is addressed, and which is for the first time published, was a writer to the Signet in Edinburgh, with whom the poet appears to have been on very intimate and friendly terms. For this and three other letters to the same individual, inserted afterwards, we are indebted to the activity and industry of Mr P. Buchan of Aberdeen, who has been unremitting in his exertions to recover every scrap connected with the name or fame of our national Bard. In his communications to us, Mr Buchan states, that "the four letters referred to belong to Misses Ogilvie, daughters of the late Rev. and ingenious John Ogilvie, D. D. of Midmar, author of the poems on Providence,'Paradise,' and 'Britannia,' and after having made the tour of part of Europe and America, had again crossed the Atlantic, for the purpose of being first given to the public in this complete edition of Burns' works."-M. H DEAR SIR, No. CVII. TO THE SAME. LAWN-MARKET, Monday morning. IN justice to Spencer, I must acknowledge that there is scarcely a Poet in the language could have been a more agreeable present to me; and in justice to you, allow me to say, Sir, that I have not met with a man in Edinburgh to whom I would so willingly have been indebted for the gift. The tattered rhymes I herewith present you, and the handsome volumes of Spencer for which I am so much indebted to your goodness, may perhaps be not in proportion to one another as do their late author, but be that as it may, my gift, though far less valuable, is as sincere a mark of esteem as yours. The time is approaching when I shall return to my shades; and I am afraid my numerous Edinburgh friendships are of so tender a construction, that they will not bear carriage with me. Yours is one of the few that I could wish of a more robust constitution. It is indeed very probable that when I leave this city, we part never more to meet in this sublunary sphere; but I have a strong fancy that in some future eccentric planet, the comet of happier systems than any with which astronomy is yet acquainted, you and I, among the harum-scarum sons of imagination and whim, with a hearty shake of a hand, a metaphor and a laugh, shall recognise old acquaintance : Where wit may sparkle all its rays, I have the honour to be, with the warmest sincerity, * There is no date to the above, and consequently the order in which it is placed may not be quite chronologically correct.-M. No. CVIII. TO MISS CHALMERS. No date. Now for that wayward, unfortunate thing, myself. I have broke measures with Creech, and last week I wrote him a frosty, keen letter. He replied in terms of chastisement, and promised me upon his honour that I should have the account on Monday; but this is Tuesday, and yet I have not heard a word from him. God have mercy on me! a poor damned, incautious, duped, unfortunate fool! The sport, the miserable victim of rebellious pride, hypochondriac imagination, agonizing sensibility, and bedlam passions! 66 I wish that I were dead, but I'm no like to die!" I had lately "a hairbreadth 'scape in th' imminent deadly breach" of love too. Thank my stars I got off heart-whole, 'waur fleyd than hurt."-Interruption. 66 I have this moment got a hint; I fear I am something like undone-but I hope for the best. Come, stubborn pride and unshrinking resolution; accompany me through this, to me, miserable world! You must not desert me! Your friendship I think I can count on, though I should date my letters from a marching regiment. Early in life, and all my life, I reckoned on a recruiting drum as my forlorn hope. Seriously though, life at present presents me with but a melancholy path: but-my limb will soon be sound, and I shall struggle on. R. B. No. CIX. TO THE SAME. EDINBURGH, Sunday. TO-MORROW, my dear madam, I leave Edinburgh. I have altered all my plans of future life. A farm that I could live in, I could not find; and, indeed, after the necessary support my brother and the rest of the family required, I could not venture on farming in that style suitable to my feelings. You will condemn me for the next step I have taken. I have entered into the Excise. I stay in the west about three weeks, and then return to Edinburgh for six weeks' instructions; afterwards, for I get employ in. stantly, I go où il plait à Dieu,—et mon Roi. I have chosen this, my dear friend, after mature deliberation. The question is not at what door of fortune's palace shall we enter in; but what doors does she open to us? I was not likely to get any thing to do. I wanted un bût, which is a dangerous, an unhappy situation. I got this without any hanging on, or mortifying solicitation; it is immediate bread, and though poor in comparison of the last eighteen months of my existence, 'tis luxury in comparison of all my preceding life besides, the commissioners are some of them my acquaintances, and all of them my firm friends. R. B. MADAM, No. CX. TO MRS DUNLOP. MAUCHLINE, 28th April, 1788. YOUR powers of reprehension must be great indeed, as I assure you they made my heart ache with penitential pangs, even though I was really not guilty. As I commence farmer at Whit-Sunday, you will easily guess I must be pretty busy; but that is not all. As I got the offer of the Excise business without solicitation, and as it costs me only six months' attendance for instructions, to entitle me to a commission-which commission lies by me, and at any future period, on my simple petition, can be resumed-I thought five-and-thirty pounds a-year was no bad dernier resort for a poor poet, if fortune in her jade tricks should kick |