In that first concern, the conduct of the man, there was ever but one side on which I was habitually blameable, and there I have secured myself in the way pointed out by Nature and Nature's GOD. I was sensible that, to so helpless a creature as a poor poet, a wife and family were incumbrances, which a species of prudence would bid him shun; but when the alternative was, being at eternal warfare with myself, on account of habitual follies, to give them no worse name, which no general example, no licentious wit, no sophistical infidelity, would, to me, ever justify, I must have been a fool to have hesitated, and a madman to have made another choice. Besides, I had in "my Jean" a long and much-loved fellow-creature's happiness or misery among my hands, and who could trifle with such a deposit ?

In the affair of a livelihood, I think myself tolerably secure: I have good hopes of my farm, but should they fail, I have an excise commission, which, on my simple petition, will, at any time procure me bread. There is a certain stigma affixed to the character of an excise officer, but I do not pretend to borrow honour from my profession; and though the salary be comparatively small, it is luxury to any thing that the first twenty-five years of my life taught me to expect.

Thus, with a rational aim and method in life, you may easily guess, my reverend and much-ho. noured friend, that my characteristical trade is not

forgotten. I am, if possible, more than ever an enthusiast to the muses. I am determined to study man and nature, and in that view incessantly; and to try if the ripening and corrections of years can enable me to produce something worth preserving.

You will see in your book, which I beg your pardon for detaining so long, that I have been tuning my lyre on the banks of Nith. Some large poetic plans that are floating in my imagination, or partly put in execution, I shall impart to you when I have the pleasure of meeting with you; which, if you are then in Edinburgh, I shall have about the beginning of March.

That acquaintance, worthy Sir, with which you were pleased to honour me, you must still allow me to challenge; for with whatever unconcern I give up my transient connexion with the merely Great, I cannot lose the patronizing notice of the learned and good, without the bitterest regret. R. B.

[Alexander Geddes, to whom this letter is addressed, was a scholar and controversialist; a poet, too, and one of the bishops of the broken remnant of the ancient Catholic church of Scotland. He is known in verse as the author of a very clever rustic poem, beginning thus:

"There was a wee bit wifiekie,

And she gaed to the fair;
She got a wee bit drappikie,
Which cost her meikle care:

The drink gaed to the wifie's head,
And she was like to spue,

And 'O!' quo' this wee wifiekie,
'I wish I binna fou.'"

Nor is he unknown as the translator of one of the books of the Iliad, which he Englished in opposition to Cowper. In his controversies and conversation he was so liberal that he incurred the displeasure of some of his brethren in Scotland, which induced him to remove to London, where he was patronized by Lord Petre, and undertook a "New Translation of the Bible,” the prospectus to which is said to have alarmed both Jews and Christians. He was a man of undoubted talents and learning; his temper was quick, and his vanity not little. He died 20th February, 1802, in the sixtyfifth year of his age.

The volume which Burns sent to the bishop was the Edinburgh copy of his poems, with the addition, in his own handwriting, of such compositions as the muse of Nithsdale had inspired. The blanks, too, in the print were all filled up. This precious book belongs to Margaret Geddes, the wife of my friend John Hyslop, surgeon, Finsbury-square, grandson of John Maxwell, of Terraughty, to whom the poet addressed one of his most spirited epistles; it is in good preservation, and in equally excellent hands.-ED.]

No. CXXXV.

TO MR. JAMES BURNESS.

MY DEAR SIR,

Ellisland, 9th Feb. 1789.

WHY I did not write to you long ago is what, even on the rack, I could not answer. If you can in your mind form an idea of indolence, dissipation, hurry, cares, change of country, entering on untried scenes of life, all combined, you will save me the trouble of a blushing apology. It could not be want of regard for a man for whom I had a high esteem before I knew him-an esteem, which has much increased since I did know him; and this caveat entered, I shall plead guilty to any other indictment with which you shall please to charge me.

After I parted from you, for many months my life was one continued scene of dissipation. Here at last I am become stationary, and have taken a farm and a wife.

The farm is beautifully situated on the Nith, a large river that runs by Dumfries, and falls into the Solway frith. I have gotten a lease of my farm as long as I pleased; but how it may turn out is just a guess, and it is yet to improve and enclose, &c. ;

however, I have good hopes of my bargain on the whole.

My wife is my Jean, with whose story you are partly acquainted. I found I had a much loved fellow creature's happiness or misery among my hands, and I durst not trifle with so sacred a deposit. Indeed I have not any reason to repent the step I have taken, as I have attached myself to a very good wife, and have shaken myself loose of every bad failing.

I have found my book a very profitable business, and with the profits of it I have begun life pretty decently. Should fortune not favour me in farming, as I have no great faith in her fickle ladyship, I have provided myself in another resource, which, however some folks may affect to despise it, is still a comfortable shift in the day of misfortune. In the heyday of my fame, a gentleman whose name at least I dare say you know, as his estate lies somewhere near Dundee, Mr. Graham, of Fintry, one of the Commissioners of Excise, offered me the commission of an excise officer. I thought it prudent to accept the offer; and accordingly I took my instructions, and have my commission by me. Whether I may ever do duty, or be a penny the better for it, is what I do not know; but I have the comfortable assurance, that, come whatever ill fate will, I can, on my simple petition to the excise-board, get into employ.

We have lost poor uncle Robert this winter. He