stripped it of the silver mounting, as well as the knife and fork. I have some thoughts of sending it to your care, to get it mounted anew. Thank you for the copies of my Volunteer Ballad. Our friend Clarke has done indeed well! 'tis chaste and beautiful. I have not met with any thing that has pleased me so much. You know, I am no Connoisseur; but that I am an Amateur will be allowed me. No. 302. To MISS FONTENELLE. ACCOMPANYING A PROLOGUE TO BE SPOKEN MADAM, FOR HER BENEFIT. IN such a bad world as ours, those who add to the scanty sum of our pleasures, are positively our benefactors. To you, Madam, on our humble Dumfries boards, 1 have been more indebted for entertainment than ever I was in prouder theatres. Your charms, as a woman, would insure applause to the most indifferent actress, and your theatrical talents would insure admiration to the plainest figure. This, Madam, is not the unmeaning, or insiduous compliment of the frivolous or interested; I pay it from the same honest impulse that the sublime of nature excites my admiration, or her beauties give me delight. Will the foregoing lines be of any service to you on your approaching benefit night? If they will, I shall be prouder of my muse than ever. They are nearly extempore: I know they have no great merit; but though they should add but little to the entertainment of the evening, they give me the happiness of an opportunity to declare how much I have the honour to be, &c. No. 303. To PETER MILLER, JUN. ESQ. OF DAL DEAR SIR, SWINTON. Dumfries, Nov. 1794. YOUR offer is indeed truly generous, and most sincerely do I thank you for it; but in my present situation, I find that I dare not accept it. You well know my political sentiments; and were I an insular individual, unconnected with a wife and a family of children, with the most fervid enthusiasm I would have volunteered my services: I then could and would have despised all consequences that might have ensued. My prospect in the Excise is something; at least, it is, encumbered as I am with the welfare, the very existence, of near half-a-score of helpless individuals, what I dare not sport with. In the mean time, they are most welcome to my Ode; only, let them insert it as a thing they have met with by accident and unknown to me. -Nay, if Mr. Perry, whose honour, after your character of him I cannot doubt; if he will give me an address and channel by which any thing will come safe from those spies with which he may be certain that his correspondence is beset, I will now and then send him any bagatelle that I may write. In the present hurry of Europe, nothing but news and politics will be regarded; but against the days of peace, which Heaven send soon, my little assistance may perhaps fill up an idle column of a Newspaper. I have long had it in my head to try my hand in the way of little prose essays, which I propose sending into the world through the medium of some Newspaper; and should these be worth his while, to these Mr. Perry shall be welcome; and all my reward shall be, his treating me with his paper; which, by the bye, to any body who has the least relish for wit, is a high treat indeed. With the most grateful esteem, I am ever, No. 304. To GAVIN HAMILTON, Esq. MY DEAR SIR, Dumfries. Ir is indeed with the highest satisfaction that I congratulate you on the return of " days of ease, and nights of pleasure," after the horrid hours of misery, in which I saw you suffering existence when I was last in Ayrshire. I seldom pray for any body. "I'm baith dead sweer, and "wretched ill o't." But most fervently do I bescech the great Director of this world, that you may live long and be happy, but that you may live no longer than while you are happy. It is needless for me to advise you to have a reverend care of your health. I know you will make it a point never, at one time, to drink more than a pint of wine; (I mean an English pint,) and that you will never be witness to more than one bowl of punch at a time; and that cold drams you will never more taste. I am well convinced too, that after drinking, perhaps boiling punch, you will never mount your horse and gallop home in a chill, late hour.-Above all things, as I understand you are now in habits of intimacy with that Boanerges of gospel powers, Father Auld, be earnest with him that he will wrestle in prayer for you, that you may see the vanity of vanities in trusting to, or even practising the carnal moral works of charity, humanity, generosity, and forgiveness; things which you practised so flagrantly that it was evident you delighted in them; neglecting, or perhaps, profanely despising the wholesome doctrine of "Faith without 66 works, the only anchor of salvation." A hymn of thanksgiving would, in my opini on, be highly becoming from you at present: and in my zeal for your well-being, I earnestly press it on you to be diligent in chanting over the two inclosed pieces of sacred poesy. My best compliments to Mrs. Hamilton and Miss Kennedy. Yours in the L-d, R. B. No. 305. To MR. SAMUEL CLARKE, JUN. DEAR SIR, DUMFRIES. Sunday Morning. I was, I know, drunk last night, but I am sober this morning. From the expressions Capt. made use of to me, had I had nobody's welfare to care for but my own, we should certainly have come, according to the manners of the world, to the necessity of murdering one another about the business. The words were such as, generally, I believe, end in a brace of pistols; but I am still pleased to think that I did not ruin the peace and welfare of a wife and a family of children in a drunken squabble. Farther you know that the report of certain political opinions being mine, has already once before brought me to the brink of destruction. I dread lest last night's business may be misrepresented in the same way.-You, I beg, will take care to prevent it. I tax your wish for Mr. Burns's |