in my conjectures; and you may believe me, my dear madam, I would not run any risk of hurting you by an ill-judged compliment. I wish to show to the world, the odds between a poet's friends and those of simple prosemen. More for your information both the pieces go in. One of them, "Where braving all the winter's harms," is already set-the tune is Neil Gow's Lamentation for Abercarny; the other is to be set to an old Highland air in Daniel Dow's "Collection of antient Scots Music; the name is Ha a Chaillich air mo Dheidh. My treacherous memory has forgot every circumstance about Les Incas, only I think you mentioned them as being in C 's possession. I shall ask him about it. I am afraid the song of "Somebody" will come too late-as I shall, for certain, leave town in a week for Ayrshire, and from that to Dumfries, but there my hopes are slender. I leave my direction in town, so any thing, wherever I am, will reach me. it is not too severe, On the contrary, like of being with you in has given him I saw your's to nor did he take it amiss. a whipt spaniel, he talks the Christmas days. Mr. the invitation, and he is determined to accept of it. O selfishness! he owns, in his sober moments, that from his own volatility of inclination, the circumstances in which he is situated and his knowledge of his father's disposition,-the whole affair is chimerical-yet he will gratify an idle penchant, at the enormous, cruel expence of perhaps ruining the peace of the very woman for whom he professes the generous passion of love! He is a gentleman in his mind and manners, tant pis!-He is a volatile school-boy: The heir of a man's fortune who well knows the value of two times two! Perdition seize them and their fortunes, before they should make the amiable, the lovely the derided object of their purse-proud contempt. I am doubly happy to hear of Mrs.'s recovery, because I really thought all was over with her. There are days of pleasure yet awaiting her. "As I cam in by Glenap "I met with an aged woman; No. 261 TO MR. MORISON, Wright, Mauchline. MY DEAR SIR, Ellisland, Jan. 22, 1788. NECESSITY obliges me to go into my new house, even before it be plaistered. I will inhabit the one end until the other is finished. About three weeks more, I think, will, at farthest, be my time beyond which I cannot stay in this present house. If ever you wished to deserve the blessing of him that was ready to perish; if ever you were in a situation that a little. kindness would have rescued you from many evils; if ever you hope to find rest in future states of untried being;-get these matters of mine ready. My servant will be out in the beginning of next week for the clock. My compliments to Mrs. Morison.* I am, after all my tribulation, Dear Sir, yours. No. 262. To MR. JAMES SMITH, AVON PRINTFIELD, LINLITHGOW. Mauchline, April 28, 1788. BEWARE of your Strasburgh, my good Sir! Look on this as the opening of a correspondence like the opening of a twenty-four gun battery! There is no understanding a man properly, * This letter refers to chairs, and other articles of furniture which the Poet had ordered. without knowing something of his previous ideas (that is to say, if the man has any ideas; for I know many who, in the animal-muster, pass for men, that are the scanty masters of only one idea on any given subject, and by far the greatest part of your acquaintances and mine can barely boast of ideas, 1.25-1.5-1.75, or some such fractional matter) so to let you a little into the secrets of my pericranium, there is, you must know, a certain clean-limbed, handsome, bewitching young hussy of your acquaintance, to whom I have lately and privately given a matrimonial title to my corpus. "Bode a robe and wear it." Says the wise old Scots adage! I hate to presage ill-luck; and as my girl has been doubly kinder to me than even the best of women usually are to their partners of our sex, in similar circum. stances, I reckon on twelve times a brace of children against I celebrate my twelfth wedding day these twenty-four will give me twenty-four gossippings, twenty-four christenings, (I mean one equal to two) and I hope, by the blessing of the God of my fathers, to make them twenty-four useful Members of Society, and twenty-four. approven servants of their God! 66 Light's heartsome," quo' the wife, when she was stedling sheep. You see what a lamp I have hung up to lighten your paths, when you are + idle enough to explore the combinations and relations of my ideas. 'Tis now as plain as a pike-staff, why a twenty-four gun battery was a metaphor I could readily employ. Now for business.-I intend to present Mrs. Burns with a printed shawl, an article of which I dare say you have variety: 'tis my first present to her since I have irrevocably called her mine, and I have a kind of whimsical wish to get her the said first present from an old and much valued friend of hers and mine, a trusty Trojan, on whose friendship I count myself pos sessed of a life-rent lease. Look on this letter as a "beginning of sorrows;" I'll write you till your eyes ache with eading nonsense. Mrs. Burns ('tis only her private designation) begs her best compliments to you. No. 263. To MR. ROBERT AINSLIE. Mauchline, May, 26, 1788. MY DEAR FRIEND, I AM two kind of letters in your debt, but I have been from home, and horridly busy buying and preparing for my farming business: |