young folks? I had a thousand questions to answer about you all: I had to describe the little ones with the minuteness of anatomy. They were highly delighted when I told them that John* was so good a boy, and so fine a scholar, and that Willie was going on still very pretty; but I have it in commission to tell her from them that beauty is a poor silly bauble without she be good. Miss Chalmers I had left in Edin burgh, but I had the pleasure of meeting with Mrs. Chalmers, only Lady M'Kenzie being rather a little alarmingly ill of a sore-throat somewhat marr'd our enjoyment.

I shall not be in Ayrshire for four weeks. My most respectful compliments to Mrs. Hamilton, Mis Kennedy, and Doctor McKenzie. I shall probably write him from some stage or other. I am ever, Sir,

Yours most gratefully.

No. 258.

To MISS MARGARET CHALMERS, (now Mrs. Hay, of Edinburgh.)

Sept. 26, 1787.

I SEND Charlotte the first number of

the songs; I would not wait for the second

*This is the "wee curlie Johnnie," mentioned in Burns's dedication to Gavin Hamilton, Esq.

number; I hate delays in little marks of friendship, as I hate dissimulation in the language of the heart. I am determined to pay Charlotte a poetic compliment, if I could hit on some glorious old Scotch air, in number second.* You will see a small attempt on a shred of paper in the book; but though Dr. Blacklock commended it very highly, I am not just satisfied with it myself. I intend to make it description of some kind: the whining cant of love, except in real passion, and by a masterly hand, is to me as insufferable as the preaching cant of old Father Smeaton, Whigminister at Kilmaurs. Darts, flames, cupids, loves, graces, and all that farrago, are just a Mauchline * ✶ ✶ ✶ —a senseless rabble.

I got an excellent poetic epistle yesternight from the old, venerable author of Tullochgorum, John of Badenyon, &c. I suppose you know he is a clergyman. It is by far the finest poetic compliment I ever got. I will send you a copy of it.

I go on Thursday or Friday to Dumfries to wait on Mr. Miller about his farms.-Do tell that to Lady McKenzie, that she may give me eredit for a little wisdom. "I wisdom dwell with prudence." What a blessed fire side! How happy should I be to pass a winter evening un

*Of the Scot's Musical Museum.

der their venerable roof! and smoke a pipe of tobacco, or drink water-gruel with them! What solemn, lengthened, laughter-quashing gravity of phiz! What sage remarks on the good-fornothing sons and daughters of indiscretion and folly! And what frugal lessons, as we straightened the fire-side circle, on the uses of the poker and tongs!

Miss N. is very well, and begs to be remembered in the old way to you. I used all my eloquence, all the persuasive flourishes of the hand, and heart-melting modulation of periods in my power, to urge her out to Hervieston, but all in vain. My rhetoric seems quite to have lost its effect on the lovely half of mankind. I have seen the day-but that is a "tale of other years.”—In my conscience I believe that my heart has been so oft on fire that it is absolutely vitrified. I look on the sex with something like the admiration with which I regard the starry sky in a frosty December night. I admire the beauty of the Creator's workmanship; I am charmed with the wild but graceful eccentricity of their motions, and-wish them good night. I mean this with respect to a certain passion dont j'ai eu l'honneur d' etre un miserable esclave: as for friendship, you and Charlotte have given me pleasure, permanent pleasure," which the world cannot give, nor take away" I hope; and which will outlast the heavens and the earth.

Without date.

I HAVE been at Dumfries, and at one visit more shall be decided about a farm in that country. I am rather hopeless in it; but as my brother is an excellent farmer, and is, besides, an exceedingly prudent, sober man, (qualities which are only a younger brother's fortune in our family,) I am determined, if my Dumfries business fail me, to return into partnership with him, and at our leisure take another farm in the neighbourhood. I assure you I look for high compliments from you and Charlotte on this very sage instance of my unfathomable, incomprehensible wisdom. Talking of Charlotte, I must tell her that I have to the best of my power, paid her a poetic compliment, now compleated. The air is admirable: true old Highland. It was the tune of a Galic song which an Inverness lady sung me when I was there; and I was so charmed with it that I begged her to write me a set of it from her singing; for it had never been set before. I am fixed that it shall go in Johnson's next number; so Charlotte and you need not spend your precious time in contradicting me. I won't say the poetry is firstrate; though I am convinced it is very well: and, what is not always the case with compliments to ladies, it is not only sincere but just.

(Here follows the song of the Banks of the Devon.”)

Edinburgh, Nov. 21, 1787.

I HAVE One vexatious fault to the kindly-welcome, well filled sheet which I owe to your and Charlotte's goodness-it contains too much sense, sentiment, and good-spelling. It is impossible that even you two, whom I declare to my God, I will give credit for any degree of excellence the sex are capable of attaining; it is impossible you can go on to correspond at that rate; so like those who, Shenstone says, retire because they have made a good speech, I shall after a few letters hear no more of you. I insist that you shall write whatever comes first: what you see, what you read, what you hear, what you admire, what you dislike; trifles, bagatelles, nonsense; or to fill up a corner, e'en put down a laugh at full length. Now none of your polite hints about flattery: I leave that to your lovers, if you have or shall have any: though thank heaven I have found at last two girls who can be luxuriantly happy in their own minds and with one another, without that commonly necessary appendage to female bliss, a lover.

Charlotte and you are just two favourite resting places for my soul in her wanderings through the weary, thorny wilderness of this worldGod knows I am ill-fitted for the struggle: 1