this life, as is consistent with the usual mixture of good and evil in the cup of Being! I have just finished a poem, which you will receive inclosed. It is my first essay in the way of tales. I have, these several months, been hammering at an elegy on the amiable and accomplished Miss Burnet. I have got, and can get, no farther than the following fragment, on which, please give me your strictures. In all kinds of poetic composition, I set great store by your opinion; but in sentimental verses, in the poetry of the heart, no Roman Catholic ever set more value on the infallibility of the Holy Father than I do on yours. I mean the introductory couplets as text verses. ELEGY ON THE LATE MISS BURNET OF MONBODDO. LIFE ne'er exulted in so rich a prize, In vain ye flaunt in summer's pride, ye groves; Thou crystal streamlet with thy flowery shore; Ye woodland choir that chaunt your idle loves, Ye cease to charm; Eliza is no more. Ye heathy wastes inmix'd with reedy fens, Ye rugged cliffs o'erhanging dreary glens, Shall venal lays their pompous exit hail; And thou, sweet excellence! forsake our earth, And not a muse in honest grief bewail. We saw thee shine in youth and beauty's pride, And virtue's light that beams beyond the spheres ; But like the sun eclips'd at morning tide, Thou left'st us darkling in a world of tears. Let me hear from you soon. Adieu ! No. CV. TO MR PETER HILL. 17th January, 1791 TAKE these two guineas, and place them over against that account of yours! which has gagged my mouth these five or six months! I can as little write good things as apologies to the man I owe money to. O the supreme curse of making three guineas do the business of five! Not all the labours of Hercules; not all the Hebrews' three centuries of Egyptian bondage were such an insuperable business, such an- task!! Poverty! thou halfsister of death, thou cousin german of hell! where shall I find force of execration equal to the amplitude of thy demerits? Oppressed by thee, the venerable ancient, grown hoary in the practice of every virtue, laden with years and wretchedness, implores a little-little aid to support his existence, from a stony-hearted son of Mammon, whose sun of prosperity never knew a cloud; and is by him denied and insulted. Oppressed by thee, the man of sentiment, whose heart glows with independence, and melts with sensibility, inly pines soul, under the contumely of arrogant, unfeelunder the neglect, or writhes in bitterness of ing wealth. Oppressed by thee, the son of genius, whose ill-starred ambition plants him at the tables of the fashionable and polite, must see, in suffering silence, his remark neglected, and his person despised, while shallow greatness, in his idiot attempts at wit, shall meet with countenance and applause. Nor is it only the family of worth that have reason to complain of thee; the children of folly and vice, though in common with thee, the offspring of evil, smart equally under thy rod. Owing to thee, the man of unfortunate disposition and neglected education, is condemned as a fool for his dissipation, despised and shunned as a needy wretch, when his follies, as usual, bring him to want: and when his unprincipled necessities drive him to dishonest practices, he is abhorred as a miscreant, and perishes by the justice of his country. But far otherwise is the lot of the man of family and fortune. His early follies and extravagance, are spirit and fire; his consequent wants, are the embarrassments of an honest fellow; and when, to remedy the matter, he has gained a legal commission to plunder distant provinces, or massacre peaceful nations, he returns, perhaps, laden with the spoils of rapine and murder; lives wicked and respected, and dies a and a lord. Nay, worst of all, alas for helpless woman! the needy prostitute, who has shivered at the cor.. ner of the street, waiting to earn the wages of carnal prostitution, is left neglected and insulted, ridden down by the chariot wheels of the coroneted RIP, hurrying on to the guilty assignation: she, who, without the same neces sities to plead, riots nightly in the same guilty | cumstances of pure horror. The initiation trade. Well divines may say of it what they please, but execration is to the mind, what phlebotomy is to the body; the vital sluices of both are wonderfully relieved by their respective evacuations. No. CVI. FROM A. F. TYTLER, ESQ. of the young witch is most happily describedthe effect of her charms, exhibited in the dance, on Satan himself the apostrophe"Ah, little thought thy reverend grannie !"the transport of Tam, who forgets his situation, and enters completely into the spirit of the scene, are all features of high merit, in this excellent composition. The only fault it possesses, is, that the winding up, or conclusion of the story, is not commensurate to the interest which is excited by the descriptive and characteristic painting of the preceding parts. -The preparation is fine, but the result is not adequate. But for this, perhaps, you have a good apology-you stick to the popular tale. will eclipse Prior and La Fontaine; for, with I am, dear Sir, with much esteem, DEAR SIR, Edinburgh, 12th March, 1791. MR HILL yesterday put into my hands a sheet of Grose's Antiquities, containing a poem of And now that I have got out my mind, and yours, entitled Tam o' Shanter, a tale. The feel a little relieved of the weight of that debt very high pleasure I have received from the I owed you, let me end this desultory scroll by perusal of this admirable piece, I feel, demands an advice:-You have proved your talent for the warmest acknowledgments. Hill tells me a species of composition, in which but a very he is to send off a packet for you this day; I few of our own poets have succeeded-Go on cannot resist therefore putting on paper what-write more tales in the same style; you I must have told you in person, had I met with you after the recent perusal of your tale, which is, that I feel I owe you a debt, which, if undischarged, would reproach me with ingratitude. I have seldom in my life tasted of higher enjoyment from any work of genius, than I have received from this composition; and I am much mistaken, if this poem alone, had you never written another syllable, would not have been sufficient to have transmitted your name down to posterity with high reputation. In the introductory part, where you paint the character of your hero, and exhibit him at the ale-house ingle, with his tippling cronies, you have delineated nature with a humour and naiveté, that would do honour to Matthew Prior; but when you describe the unfortunate orgies of the witches' sabbath, and the hellish scenery in which they are exhibited, you display a power of imagination, that Shakspeare himself could not have exceeded. I know not that I have ever met with a picture of more horrible fancy than the following: "Coffins stood round like open presses, SIR, No. CVII. TO A. F. TYTLER, ESQ. NOTHING less than the unfortunate accident I have met with, could have prevented my grateful acknowledgments for your letter. His own favourite poem, and that an essay in a walk of the muses entirely new to him, where consequently his hopes and fears were in the most anxious alarm for his success in the attempt; to have that poem so much applauded by one of the first judges, was the most delicious vibration that ever trilled along the heartstrings of a poor poet. However, providence, to keep up the proper proportion of evil with the good, which it seems is necessary in this sublunary state, thought proper to check my exultation by a very serious misfortune. A But when I came to the succeeding lines, my day or two after I received your letter, my blood ran cold within me : "A knife a father's throat had mangled, And here, after the two following lines, "Wi' mair o' horrible and awfu'," &c. the descriptive part might perhaps have been better closed, than the four lines which succeed, which, though good in themselves, yet as they derive all their merit from the satire they contain, are here rather misplaced among the cir horse came down with me and broke my right arm. As this is the first service my arm has done me since its disaster, I find myself unable to do more than just in general terms to thank you for this additional instance of your patronage and friendship. As to the faults you detected in the piece, they are truly there: one of them, the hit at the lawyer and priest, I shall cut out; as to the falling off in the catastrophe, for the reason you justly adduce, it * Our bard profited by Mr Tytler's criticism, and expunged the four lines accordingly. cannot easily be remedied. Your approbation, | drooping head. Soon and well may her "cruel sir, has given me such additional spirits to wounds" be healed! I have written thus far persevere in this species of poetic composition, with a good deal of difficulty. When I get a that I am already revolving two or three stories little abler you shall hear farther from, in my fancy. If I can bring these floating Madam, yours, &c. ideas to bear any kind of embodied form, it will give me an additional opportunity of assuring you how much I have the honour to be, &c. No. CVIII. TO MRS DUNLOP. Ellisland, 7th February, 1791. WHEN I tell you, madam, that by a fall, not from my horse but with my horse, I have been a cripple some time, and that this is the first day my arm and hand have been able to serve me in writing; you will allow that it is too good an apology for my seemingly ungrateful silence. I am now getting better, and am able to rhyme a little, which implies some tolerable ease; as I cannot think that the most poetic genius is able to compose on the rack. I do not remember if ever I mentioned to you my having an idea of composing an elegy on the late Miss Burnet of Monboddo. I had the honour of being pretty well acquainted with her, and have seldom felt so much at the loss of an acquaintance, as when I heard that so amiable and accomplished a piece of God's works was no more. I have as yet gone no farther than the following fragment, of which please let me have your opinion. You know that elegy is a subject so much exhausted, that any new idea on the business is not to be expected; 'tis well if we can place an old idea in a new light. How far I have succeeded as to this last, you will judge from what follows (Here follows the Elegy, &c. adding this verse.) The parent's heart that nestled fond in thee, That heart how sunk, a prey to grief and care! So deckt the woodbine sweet yon aged tree, So from it ravaged, leaves it bleak and bare. I have proceeded no further. Your kind letter, with your kind remembrance of your god-son, came safe. This last, madam, is scarcely what my pride can bear. As to the little fellow, he is, partiality apart, the finest boy I have of a long time seen. He is now seventeen months old, has the smallpox and measles over, has cut several teeth, and yet never had a grain of doctor's drugs in his bowels. I am truly happy to hear that the "little floweret" is blooming so fresh and fair, and that the "mother plant" is rather recovering her No. CIX. TO LADY W. M. CONSTABLE, ACKNOWLEDGING A PRESENT OF A VALUABLE SNUFF-BOX, WITH A FINE PICTURE OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS, ON THE LID. MY LADY, NOTHING less than the unlucky accident of having lately broken my right arin, could have prevented me, the moment I received your ladyship's elegant present by Mrs Miller, from returning you my warmest and most grateful acknowledgments. I assure your ladyship, I shall set it apart; the symbols of religion shall only be more sacred. In the moment of poetic composition, the box shall be my inspiring genius. When I would breathe the comprehensive wish of benevolence for the happiness of others, I shall recollect your ladyship; when I would interest my fancy in the distresses incident to humanity, I shall remember the unfortunate Mary. No. CX. MRS GRAHAM, OF FINTRY. MADAM, WHETHER it is that the story of our Mary, Queen of Scots, has a peculiar effect on the feelings of a poet, or whether I have, in the inclosed ballad, succeeded beyond my usual poetic success, I know not: but it has pleased me beyond any effort of my muse for a good while past; on that account I inclose it particularly to you. It is true, the purity of my motives may be suspected. I am already deeply indebted to Mr G- -'s goodness; and, what in the usual ways of men, is of infinitely greater importance, Mr G. can do me service of the utmost importance in time to come. I was born a poor dog; and however I may occasionally pick a better bone than I used to do, I know I must live and die poor; but I will indulge the flattering faith that my poetry will considerably outlive my poverty and without any fustain affection of spirit, I can promise and affirm, that it must be no ordinary craving of the latter shall ever make me do any thing injurious to the honest fame of the former. Whatever may be my failings, for failings are a part of human nature, may they ever be those of a generous heart, and an independent mind. It is no fault of mine that I was born to dependence; nor is it Mr G's chiefest praise that he can command influence; but it is his merit to bestow, not only with the kindness of a brother, but with the politeness of a gentleman; and I trust it shall be mine, to receive with thankfulness and remember with undiminished gratitude. No. CXI. FROM THE REV. G. BAIRD. SIR, London, 8th February, 1791. I TROUBLE you with this letter, to inform you that I am in hopes of being able very soon to bring to the press a new edition (long since talked of) of Michael Bruce's Poems. The profits of the edition are to go to his mother-a woman of eighty years of age-poor and helpless. The poems are to be published by subscription; and it may be possible, I think, to make out a 2s. 6d. or 3s. volume, with the assistance of a few hitherto unpublished verses, which I have got from the mother of the poet. But the design I have in view in writing to you, is not merely to inform you of these facts, it is to solicit the aid of your name and pen in support of the scheme. The reputation of Bruce is already high with every reader of classical taste, and I shall be anxious to guard against tarnishing his character, by allowing any new poems to appear that may lower it. For this purpose, the MSS. I am in possession of, have been submitted to the revision of some whose critical talents I can trust to, and I mean still to submit them to others. May I beg to know, therefore, if you will take the trouble of perusing the MSS.-of giving your opinion, and suggesting what curtailments, alterations, or amendments, occur to you as advisable? And will you allow us to let it be known, that a few lines by you will be added to the volume? I know the extent of this request.-It is bold to make it. But I have this consolation, that though you see it proper to refuse it, you will not blame me for having made it; you will see my apology in the motive. May I just add, that Michael Bruce is one in whose company, from his past appearance, you would not, I am convinced, blush to be found; and as I would submit every line of his that should now be published, to your own criticisms, you would be assured that nothing derogatory either to him or you, would be admitted in that appearance he may make in future. You have already paid an honourable tribute to kindred genius in Fergusson-I fondly hope that the mother of Bruce will experience your patronage. I wish to have the subscription papers circulated by the 14th of March, Bruce's birth day; which, I understand, some friends in Scotland talk this year of observing-at that time it will be resolved, I imagine, to place a plain, humble stone over his grave. This, at least, I trust you will agree to do-to furnish, in a few couplets, an inscription for it. On those points may I solicit an answer as early as possible; a short delay might disappoint us in procuring that relief to the mother, which is the object of the whole. You will be pleased to address for me under cover to the Duke of Athole, London. P. S.-Have you ever seen an engraving published here some time ago from one of your poems, "O thou pale Orb." If you have not, I shall have the pleasure of sending it to you. No. CXII. TO THE REV. G. BAIRD. IN ANSWER TO THE FOREGOING. WHY did you, my dear sir, write to me in such a hesitating style, on the business of poor Bruce? Don't I know, and have I not felt, the many ills, the peculiar ills that poetic flesa is heir to? You shall have your choice of all the unpublished poems I have; and had your letter had my direction so as to have reached me sooner (it only came to my hand this moment), I should have directly put you out of suspense on the subject. I only ask, that some prefatory advertisement in the book, as well as the subscription bills, may bear, that the publication is solely for the benefit of Bruce's mother. I would not put it in the power of ignorance to surmise, or malice to insinuate, that I clubbed a share in the work from mercenary motives. Nor need you give me credit for any remarkable generosity in my part of the business. I have such a host of peccadilloes, failings, follies, and backslidings (any body but myself might perhaps give some of them a worse appellation), that by way of some balance, however trifling, in the account, I am fain to do any good that occurs in my very limited power to a fellow-creature, just for the selfish purpose of clearing a little the vista of retrospection. No. CXIII. TO DR MOORE. Ellisland, 28th February, 1791 I Do not know, sir, whether you are a subscriber to Grose's Antiquities of Scotland. if you are, the inclosed poem will not be altogether new to you. Captain Grose did me the favour to send me a dozen copies of the proof-sheet, of which this is one. Should you have read the piece before, still this will answer the principal end I have in view it will give me another opportunity of thanking you for all your goodness to the rustic bard; and also of showing you, that the abilities you have been pleased to commend and patronize are still employed in the way you wish. : As to my private concerns, I am going on, a mighty tax-gatherer before the Lord, and have lately had the interest to get myself ranked on the list of excise as a supervisor. I am not yet employed as such, but in a few years I shall fall into the file of supervisorship by seniority. I have had an immense loss in the death of the Earl of Glencairn; the patron from whom all my fame and good fortune took its rise. Independent of my grateful attachment to him, which was indeed so strong that it pervaded my very soul, and was entwined with the thread of my existence; so soon as the prince's friends had got in (and every dog, you know, has his day), my getting forward in the excise would have been an easier business than otherwise it will be. Though this was a consummation devoutly to be wished, yet, thank Heaven, I can live and rhyme as I am; and as to my boys, poor little fellows! if I cannot place them on as high an elevation in life as I could wish, I shall, if I am favoured so much of the Disposer of events as to see that period, fix them on as broad and independent a basis as possible. Among the many wise adages which have been treasured up by our Scottish ancestors, this is one of the best, Better be the head of the commonalty, as the tail o' the gentry. The Elegy on Captain Henderson, is a tribute to the memory of a man I loved much. Poets have in this the same advantage as Roman Catholics; they can be of service to their friends after they have past that bourne where all other kindness ceases to be of any avail. Whether, after all, either the one or the other be of any real service to the dead, is, I fear, very problematical; but I am sure they are highly gratifying to the living and as a very orthodox text, I forget where in Scripture, says, "whatsoever is not of faith, is sin;" so say I, whatsoever is not detrimental to society, and is of positive enjoyment, is of God, the giver of all good things, and ought to be received and enjoyed by his creatures with thankful delight. As almost all my religious tenets originate from my heart, I am wonderfully pleased with the idea, that I can But I am got on a subject, which, however still keep up a tender intercourse with the interesting to me, is of no manner of consedearly beloved friend, or still more dearly be-quence to you; so I shall give you a short poem loved mistress, who is gone to the world of on the other page, and close this with assuring spirits. you how sincerely I have the honour to be, yours, &c. The ballad on Queen Mary was begun while I was busy with Percy's Reliques of English Poetry. By the way, how much is every honest heart, which has a tincture of Caledonian prejudice, obliged to you for your glorious story of Buchanan and Targe. Twas an unequivocal proof of your loyal gallantry of soul, giving Targe the victory. I should have been mortified to the ground if you had not. Written on the blank leaf of a book, which I presented to a very young lady, whom I had formerly characterised under the denomination of The Rose-bud. No. CXIV. FROM DR MOORE. I have just read over, once more of many times, your Zeluco. I marked with my pen. cil, as I went along, every passage that pleased me particularly above the rest; and one, or DEAR SIR, London, 29th March, 1791. two, I think, which, with humble deference, I YOUR letter of the 28th of February I received am disposed to think unequal to the merits of only two days ago, and this day I had the the book. I have sometimes thought to tran-pleasure of waiting on the Rev. Mr Baird, at scribe these marked passages, or at least so much of them as to point where they are, and send them to you. Original strokes that strongly depict the human heart, is your and Fielding's province, beyond any other novelist I have ever perused. Richardson indeed might perhaps be excepted; but, unhappily, his dramatis persona are beings of some other world; and however they may captivate the unexperienced, romantic fancy of a boy or a girl, they will ever, in proportion as we have made human nature our study, dissatisfy our riper minds. the Duke of Athole's, who had been so obliging as to transmit it to me, with the printed verses on Alloway Church, the Elegy on Capt. Henderson, and the Epitaph. There are many poetical beauties in the former: what I particularly admire are the three striking similes from "Or like the snow falls in the river," and the eight lines which begin with "By this time he was cross the ford;" |