No. CXV. EXTRACT OF A LETTER To MR. CUNNINGHAM. 12th March, 1791. Ir the foregoing piece be worth your strictures, let me have them. For my own part, a thing that I have just composed always appears through a double portion of that partial medium in which an author will ever view his own works. I believe, in general, novelty has something in it that inebriates the fancy, and not unfrequently dissipates and fumes away like other intoxication, and leaves the poor patient, as usual, with an aching heart. A striking instance of this might be adduced in the revolution of many a hymeneal honeymoon. But, lest I sink into stupid prose, and so sacrilegiously intrude on the office of my parish priest, I shall fill up the page in my own way, and give you another song of my late composition, which will appear perhaps in Johnson's work, as well as the former. You must know a beautiful Jacobite air, There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame. When political combustion ceases to be the object of princes and patriots, it then, you know, becomes the lawful prey of historians and poets. By yon castle wa' at the close of the day, The church is in ruins, the state is in jars, My seven braw sons for Jamie drew sword, And now I greet round their green beds in the yerd: Now life is a burden that bows me down, words are the same But till last moment my If If you like the air, and if the stanzas hit your fancy, you cannot imagine, my dear friend, how much you would oblige me, if, by the charms of your delightful voice, you would give my honest effusion to "the memory of joys that are past!" to the few friends whom you indulge in that pleasure. But I have scribbled on 'till I hear the clock has intimated the near approach of "That hour o❜ night's black arch the key-stane." So, good night to you! Sound be your sleep, and delectable your dreams!-Apropos, how do you like this thought in a ballad I have just now on the tapis ? I look to the west when I gae to rest, That happy my dreams and my slumbers may be ; For far in the west is he I lo'e best, The lad that is dear to my babie and me! Good night, once more, and God bless you! No. No. CXVI. To MRS. DUNLOP. Ellisland, 11th April, 1791. I AM AM once more able, my honoured friend, to return you, with my own hand, thanks for the many instances of your friendship, and particularly for your kind anxiety in this last disaster that my evil genius had in store for me. However, life is chequered-joy and sorrow-for on Saturday morning last, Mrs. Burns made me a present of a fine boy, rather stouter, but not so handsome as your godson was at his time of life. Indeed I look on your little namesake to be my chef d'œuvre in that species of manufacture, as I look on Tam o' Shanter to be my standard performance in the poetical line. 'Tis true, both the one and the other discover a spice of roguish waggery that might perhaps be as well spared; but then they also shew, in my opinion, a force of genius, and a finishing polish that I despair of ever excelling. Mrs. Burns is getting stout again, and laid as lustily about her to-day at breakfast, as a reaper from the corn-ridge. That is the peculiar privilege and blessing of our hale sprightly damsels, that are bred among the hay and heather. We cannot hope for that highly polished mind, that charming delicacy of soul, which is found among the female world in the more elevated stations of life, and which is certainly by far the most bewitching charm in the famous cestus of Venus. It is indeed such an inestimable treasure, that where it can be had in its native heavenly purity, unstained by some one or other of the many shades of affectation, and unalloyed by some one or other of the many species of caprice, I declare to Heaven, I should think it cheaply purchased at the expense of every other earthly good! But as this angelic creature is, I am afraid, extremely rare in any station and rank of life, and totally denied to such a humble one as mine; we meaner mortals must put up with the next rank of female excellence as fine a figure and face we can produce as any rank of life whatever; rustic, native grace; unaffected modesty, and unsullied purity; nature's mother-wit, and the rudiments of taste; a simplicity of soul, unsuspicious of, because |