common friens, especiall Mr. and Mrs. Cruik shank and the honest guidman o' Jock's Lodge. I'll be in Dumfries the morn gif the beast be and the branks bide hale. Gude be wi' you, Willie!

to the fore,

Amen!

No. 256.

TO THE SAME.

Mauchline, June 18, 1787.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

I AM now arrived safe in my native country, after a very agreeable jaunt, and have the pleasure to find all my friends well. I breakfasted with your gray-headed, reverend friend, Mr. Smith; and was highly pleased, both with the cordial welcome he gave me, and his most excellent appearance and sterling good sense.

I have been with Mr. Miller at Dalswinston, and am to meet him again in August. From my view of the lands and his reception of my bardship, my hopes in that business are rather mended; but still they are but slender.

I am quite charmed with Dumfries folksMr. Burnside, the clergyman, in particular, is a man whom I shall ever gratefully remember;

and his wife, Gude forgie me, I had almost broke the tenth commandment on her account. Simplicity, elegance, good sense, sweetness of disposition, good humour, kind hospitality, are the constituents of her manner and heart; in short-but if I say one word more about her, I shall be directly in love with her..

I never, my friend, thought mankind very capable of any thing generous; but the stateliness of the patricians in Edinburgh, and the servility of my plebeian brethren, (who perhaps formerly eyed me askance,) since I returned home, have nearly put me out of conceit altogether with my species. I have bought a pocket Milton which I carry perpetually about with me, in order to study the sentiments-the dauntless magnanimity; the intrepid, unyielding independance, the desperate daring, and noble defiance of hardship, in that great personage, SA

"Tis true, I have just now a little cash; but I am afraid the star that hitherto has shed its malignant, purpose-blasting rays full in my zenith; that noxious planet so baneful in its influences to the rhyming tribe, I much dread it is not yet beneath my horizon.—Misfortune dodges the path of human life; the poetic mind finds itself miserably deranged in, and unfit for the walks of business; add to all, that, thoughtless follies and hair-brained whims, like so many ignes fatui, eternally diverging from the right

line of sober discretion, sparkle, with step-bewitching blaze in the idly-gazing eyes of the poor heedless Bard, till, pop," he falls like Lu eifer, never to hope again." God grant this may be an unreal picture with respect to me! but should it not, I have very little dependance on mankind. I will close my letter with this tribute my heart bids me pay you the many ties of acquaintance and friendship which I have, or think I have in life, I have felt along the lines, and, d-n them! they are almost all of them of such frail contexture, that I am sure they would not stand the breath of the least adverse breeze of fortune; but from you, my ever dear sir, I look with confidence for the Apostolic love that shall wait on me "through good report and bad report,”—the love which Solomon emphatically says, "Is strong as death." My compliments to Mrs. Nicol, and all the circle of our common friends.

P. S. I shall be in Edinburgh about the latter end of July.

No. 257.

To GAVIN HAMILTON, Esq.

MY DEAR SIR,

HERE

Stirling, 28th. Aug. 1787.

am I on my way to Inverness.

I have rambled over the rich, fertile carses of

Falkirk and Stirling, and am delighted with their appearance: richly waving crops of wheat barley, &c. but no harvest at all yet, except in one or two places, an old Wife's Ridge.-Yesterday morning I rode from this town up the meandring Devon's banks to pay my respects to some Ayrshire folks at Harvieston. After breakfast, we made a party to go and see the famous Caudron-linn, a remarkable cascade in the Devon about five miles above Harvieston; and after spending one of the most pleasant days I ever had in my life, I returned to Stirling in the evening. They are a family, Sir, though I had not had any prior tie; though they had not been the brother and sisters of a certain generous friend of mine, 1 would never forget them. I am told you have not seen them these several years, so you can have very little idea of what these young folks are now. Your brother is as tall as you are, but slender rather than otherwise ; and I have the satisfaction to inform you that he is getting the better of those consumptive symptoms which I suppose you know were threatening him. His make, and particularly his manner, resemble you, but he will still have a finer face. (I put in the word still, to please Mrs. Hamilton.) Good sense, modesty, and at the same time a just idea of that respect that man owes to man, and has a right in his turn to exact, are striking features in his character;

and, what with me is the Alpha and the Omega he has a heart might adorn the breast of a poet! Grace has a good figure and the look of health and chearfulness, but nothing else remarkable in her person. I scarcely ever saw so striking a likeness as is between her and your little Beennie; the mouth and chin particularly. She is reserved at first; but as we grew better acquainted, I was delighted with the native frankness of her manner, and the sterling sense of her observation. Of Charlotte, I cannot speak in common terms of admiration: she is not only beautiful, but lovely. Her form is elegant; her features not regular, but they have the smile of sweetness and the settled complacency of good nature in the highest degree: and her complexion, now that she has happily recovered her wonted health, is equal to Miss Burnet's. After the exercise of our riding to the Falls, Charlotte was exactly Dr. Donne's mistress.

"Here pure and eloquent blood

Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought, "That one would almost say her body thought." Her eyes are fascinating; at once expressive of good sense, tenderness, and a noble mind.

I do not give you all this account, my good Sir, to flatter you. I mean it to reproach you. Such relations the first peer in the realm might own with pride; then why do you not keep up more correspondence with these so amiable