nothing, except a swelling throb of gratitude, or a deep-felt sentiment of veneration. Mrs. Burns, Madam, is the identical woman * * * my When she first found herself "as women wish to be who love their lords," as I loved her nearly to distraction, we took steps for a private marriage. Her parents got the hint; and not only forbade me her company and the house, but, on my rumoured West-Indian voyage, got a warrant to put me in jail till I should find security in about-to-be paternal relation. You know my lucky reverse of fortune. On my eclatant return to Mauchline, I was made very welcome to visit my girl. The usual consequences began to betray her; and as I was at that time laid up a cripple in Edinburgh, she was turned, literally turned out of doors and I wrote to a friend to shelter her till my return, when our marriage was declared. Her happiness or misery were in my hands; and who could trifle with such a deposit? I can easily fancy a more agreeable companion for my journey of life, but, upon my honour, I have never seen the individual instance. Circumstanced Circumstanced as I am, I could never have got a female partner for life, who could have entered into my favourite studies, relished my favourite authors, &c. without probably entailing on me, at the same time, expensive living, fantastic caprice, perhaps apish affectation, with all the other blessed boarding-school acquirements, which (pardonnez moi, Madame) are sometimes to be found among females of the upper ranks, but almost universally pervade the misses of the would-be gentry, I like your way in your church-yard lucubrations. Thoughts that are the spontaneous result of accidental situations, either respecting health, place, or company, have often a strength, and always an originality, that would in vain be looked for in fancied circumstances and studied paragraphs. For me, I have often thought of keeping a letter, in progression, by me, to send you when the sheet was written out. Now I talk of sheets, I must tell you, my reason for writing to you on paper of this kind, is my pruriency of writing to you at large. A page of post is on such a dis-social, narrow-minded scale, that I cannot abide it; and double letters, at least in my miscellaneous reverie manner, are a monstrous tax in a close correspond ence. No. LV. TO THE SAME. Ellisland, 16th August, 1788. I AM in a fine disposition, my honoured friend, to send you an elegiac epistle; and want only genius to make it quite Shenstonian. "Why droops my heart with fancied woes forlorn? Why sinks my soul beneath each wintry sky?" My increasing cares in this, as yet, strange country-gloomy conjectures in the dark vista of futurity-consciousness of my own inability for the struggle of the world-my broadened mark to misfortune in a wife and children :-I could indulge these reflections, till my humour should ferment into the most acid chagrin, that would corrode the very thread of life. To counterwork these baneful feelings, I have have sat down to write to you; as I declare, upon my soul, I always find that the most sovereign balm for my wounded spirit. I was yesterday at Mr.'s to dinner, for the first time. My reception was quite to my mind from the lady of the house, quite flattering. She sometimes hits on a couplet or two, impromptu. She repeated one or two to the admiration of all present. My suffrage as a professional man, was expected: I for once went agonizing over the belly of my conscience. Pardon me, ye, my adored household gods-Independence of spirit, and Integrity of soul! In the course of conversation, Johnson's Musical Museum, a collection of Scottish songs with the music, was talked of. We got a song on the harpsichord, beginning, "Raving winds around her blowing."* The air was much admired: the lady of the house asked me whose were the words; "Mine, Madam-they are indeed my very best verses ;" she took not the smallest notice of them! The old Scottish proverb says well, "king's caff is better than ither folk's corn." I was going to See vol. iv. p. 277. make make a New Testament quotation about "casting pearls ;" but that would be too virulent, for the lady is actually a woman of sense and taste. After all that has been said on the other side of the question, man is by no means a happy creature. I do not speak of the selected few, favoured by partial heaven; whose souls are tuned to gladness amid riches and honours, and prudence and wisdom. I speak of the neglected many, whose nerves, whose sinews, whose days are sold to the minions of fortune. If I thought you had never seen it, I would transcribe for you a stanza of an old Scottish ballad, called The life and age of man; beginning thus: ""Twas in the sixteenth hunder year Of God and fifty-three, Frae Christ was born, that bought us dear, I had an old grand-uncle, with whom my mother lived a while in her girlish years; the good old man, for such he was, was long blind ere he died, during which time, his highest enjoyment, was to sit down and cry, while my mother |