No. 298.

TO THE EARL OF GLENCAIRN.

MY LORD,

WHEN you cast your eye on the name

at the bottom of this letter, and on the title page of the book I do myself the honour to send your lordship, a more pleasurable feeling than my vanity tells me, that it must be a name not entirely unknown to you. The generous patronage of your late illustrious brother found me in the lowest obscurity: he introduced my rustic muse to the partiality of my country; and to him I owe all. My sense of his goodness, and the anguish of my soul at losing my truly noble protector and friend, I have endeavoured to express in a poem to his memory, which I have now published. This edition is just from the press; and in my gratitude to the dead and my respect for the living, (fame belies you, my lord, if you possess not the same dignity of man, which was your noble brother's characteristic feature) I had destined a copy for the Earl of Glencairn. I learnt just now that you are in town-allow me to present it you.

I know, my lord, such is the vile, venal contagion which pervades the world of letters, that

professions of respect from an author, particu larly from a poet to a lord, are more than suspicious. I claim my by-past conduct, and my feelings at this moment, as exceptions to the too just conclusion. Exalted as are the honours of your lordship's name, and unnoted as is the obscurity of mine, with the uprightness of an honest man I come before your lordship, with an offering, however humble, 'tis all I have to give, of my grateful respect; and to beg of you, my lord, 'tis all I have to ask of you, that you will do me the honour to accept of it.

I have the honour to be, &c.

SIR,

No. 299.

To DR. ANDERSON.

I AM much indebted to my worthy friend, Dr. Blacklock, for introducing me to a gentleman of Dr. Anderson's celebrity; but when you do me the honour to ask my assistance in your purposed publication, alas, Sir! you might as well think to cheapen a little honesty at the sign of an Advocate's wig, or humility under the Geneva band. I am a miserable hurried devil, worn to the marrow in the friction of holding the noses of the poor publi

cans to the grindstone of Excise; and, like Milton's Satan, for private reasons, am forced

"To do what yet, tho' damn'd, I would abhor;"

-and except a couplet or two of honest execration

*

*

*

No. 300.

To MRS. DUNLOP,

Castle Douglas, 25th. June, 1794.

HERE in a solitary inn, in a solitary village, am I set by myself, to amuse my brooding fancy as I may.-Solitary confinement, you know, is Howard's favourite idea of reclaiming sinners; so let me consider by what fatality it happens, that I have so long been exceeding sinful as to neglect the correspondence of the most valued friend I have on earth. To tell you that I have been in poor health, will not be excuse enough, though it is true. I am afraid I am about to suffer for the follies of my youth. My medical friends threaten me with a flying gout; but I trust they are mistaken.

I am just going to trouble your critical pa tience with the first sketch of a stanza I have been framing as I paced along the road. The subject is LIBERTY: You know, my honoured friend, how dear the theme is to me. I design

it an irregular Ode for General Washington's birth-day. After having mentioned the degeneracy of other kingdoms, I come to Scotland thus:

Thee, Caledonia, thy wild heaths among,

Thee, fam'd for martial deed, and sacred soug,

To thee I turn with swimming eyes;

Where is that soul of freedom fled?

Immingled with the mighty dead!

Bencath that hallowed turf, where WALLACE lies!

Hear it not, WALLACE, in thy bed of death!
Ye babbling winds, in silence sweep;
Disturb not ye the hero's sleep,
Nor give the coward secret breath.—
Is this the power in freedom's war,
That wont to bid the battle rage?
Behold that eye which shot immortal hate,
Crushing the despot's proudest bearing,
That arm which, nerved with thundering fate,
Braved usurpation's boldest daring!

One quench'd in darkness like the sinking star.
And one the palsied arm of tottering, powerless age.

You will probably have another scrawl from me in a stage or two.

No. 301.

To MR. JAMES JOHNSON.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

YOU should have heard from me long

ago; but over and above some vexatious share

in the pecuniary losses of these accursed times I have all this winter been plagued with low spirits and blue devils, so that I have almost hung my harp on the willow trees.

I am just now busy correcting a new edition. of my poems; and this, with my ordinary business, finds me in full employment."

I send you, by my friend Mr. Wallace, forty one songs for your fifth volume; if we cannot finish it any other way, what would you think of Scots words to some beautiful Irish airs? In the mean time, at your leisure, give a copy of the Museum to my worthy friend Mr. Peter Hill, bookseller, to bind for me, interleaved with blank leaves, exactly as he did the Laird of Glenriddel's, that I may insert every anecdote I can learn, together with my own criticisms and remarks on the songs.-A copy of this kind I shall leave with you, the editor, to publish at some after period, by way of making the Museum a book famous to the end of time, and you renowned for ever.

I have got an Highland Dirk, for which I have great veneration; as it once was the dirk of Lord Balmerino. It fell into bad hands, who

* Burns's anxiety with regard to the correctness of his writings was very great. Being questioned as to his mode of composition, he replied, "All my poetry is the effect of easy composition, but of laborious correction.”