Among the profusion of idle compliments | on him, could only have envied my feelings which insidious craft, or unmeaning folly inces- and situation. But I hate the theme, and santly offers at your shrine-a shrine, how far never more shall write or speak on it. exalted above such adoration-permit me, were it but for rarity's sake, to pay you the honest tribute of a warm heart, and an independent mind; and to assure you, that I am, thou most amiable, and most accomplished of thy sex, with the most respectful esteem, and fervent regard, thine, &c One thing I shall proudly say, that I can pay Mrs a higher tribute of esteem, and appreciate her amiable worth more truly, than any man whom I have seen approach her. No. CXLIV. TO THE SAME. No. CXLVI. TO THE SAME. Farewell, thou first of friends, and most accomplished of women; even with all thy little caprices! I HAVE often told you, my dear friend, that you had a spice of caprice in your composition, and you have as often disavowed it, even perI WILI. wait on you, my ever-valued friend, but haps while your opinions were, at the moment, whether in the morning I am not sure. Sun- irrefragably proving it. Could any thing esday closes a period of our curst revenue busi-trange me from a friend such as you?—No! ness, and may probably keep me employed To-morrow I shall have the honour of waiting with my pen until noon. Fine employment on you. for a poet's pen! There is a species of the human genus that I call the gin-horse class: what enviable dogs they are. Round, and round, and round they go,-Mundell's ox that drives his cotton mill, is their exact prototype -without an idea or a wish beyond their circle: fat, sleek, stupid, patient, quiet, and contented; while here I sit, altogether Novemberish, a d- melange of fretfulness and melancholy; not enough of the one to rouse me to passion, nor of the other to repose me in torpor; my soul flouncing and fluttering round her tenement, like a wild finch, caught amid the horrors of winter, and newly thrust into a cage. Well, I am persuaded that it was of me the Hebrew sage prophesied, when he foretold-" And behold, on whatsoever this man doth set his heart, it shall not prosper!" If my resentment is awakened, it is sure to be where it dare not squeak; and if MADAM, No. CXLVII. I RETURN your common-place book. I have perused it with much pleasure, and would have continued my criticisms, but as it seems the critic has forfeited your esteem, his strictures must lose their value. If it is true that "offences come only from the heart," before you I am guiltless. To admire, esteem, and prize you, as the most accomplished of women, and the first of friends -if these are crimes, I am the most offending thing alive. In a face where I used to meet the kind Pray that wisdom and bliss be more frequent complacency of friendly confidence, now to visitors of No. CXLV. TO THE SAME. R. B. I HAVE this moment got the song from S- I have sent you Werter, truly happy to have find cold neglect, and contemptuous scorn-is a wrench that my heart can ill bear. It is, however, some kind of miserable good luck; that while de-haut-en-bas rigour may depress an unoffending wretch to the ground, it has a tendency to rouse a stubborn something in his bosom, which, though it cannot heal the wounds of his soul, is at least an opiate to blunt their poignancy. With the profoundest respect for your abilities; the most sincere esteem, and ardent regard for your gentle heart and amiable manners; and the most fervent wish and prayer for your welfare, peace, and bliss, I have the honour to be, madam, your most devoted humble servant. No. CXLVIII. TO JOHN SYME, ESQ. You know that among other high dignities, you have the honour to be my supreme court of critical judicature, from which there is no appeal. I inclose you a song which I composed since I saw you, and I am going to give you the history of it. Do you know that among much that I admire in the characters and manners of those great folks whom I have now the honour to call my acquaintances, the O family, there is nothing charms me more than Mr O's unconcealable attachment to that incomparable woman. Did you ever, my dear Syme, meet with a man who owed more to the Divine Giver of all good things than Mr O.? A fine fortune; a pleasing exterior; self-evident amiable dispositions, and an ingenious upright mind, and that informed too, much beyond the usual run of young fellows of his rank and fortune; and to all this, such a woman!-but of her I shall say nothing at all, in despair of saying any thing adequate : in my song, I have endeavoured to do justice to what would be his feelings on seeing, in the scene I have drawn, the habitation of his Lucy. As I am a good deal pleased with my performance, I in my first fervour thought of sending it to Mrs Ŏ, but on second thoughts, perhaps what I offer as the honest incense of genuine respect, might, from the well-known character of poverty and poetry, be construed into some modification or other of that servility which my soul abhors. MADAM, No. CXLIX. TO MISS NOTHING short of a kind of absolute necessity could have made me trouble you with this letter. Except my ardent and just esteem for your sense, taste, and worth, every sentiment arising in my breast, as I put pen to paper to you, is painful. The scenes I have past with the friend of my soul, and his amiable connexions! The wrench at my heart to think that he is gone, for ever gone from me, never more to meet in the wanderings of a weary world; and the cutting reflection of all, that I had most unfortunately, though most undeservedly, lost the confidence of that soul of worth, ere it took its flight! These, madam, are sensations of no ordinary anguish. However, you, also, may be offended with some imputed improprieties of mine; sen The song inclosed was the one beginning with "O wat ye wha's in yon town." sibility you know I possess, and sincerity none will deny me. To oppose those prejudices which have been raised against me, is not the business of this letter. Indeed it is a warfare I know not how to wage. The powers of positive vice I can in some degree calculate, and against direct malevolence I can be on my guard; but who can estimate the fatuity of giddy caprice, or ward off the unthinking mischief of precipitate folly? I have a favour to request of you, madam, and of your sister Mrs, through your means. You know, that, at the wish of my late friend, I made a collection of all my trifles in verse which I had ever written. They are many of them local, some of them puerile, and silly, and all of them unfit for the public eye. As I have some little fame at stake, a fame that I trust may live, when the hate of those who "watch for my halting," and the contumelious sneer of those whom accident has made my superiors, will, with themselves, be gone to the regions of oblivion; I am uneasy now for the fate of those manuscripts.-Will Mrs have the goodness to destroy them, or return them to me? As a pledge of friendship they were bestowed; and that circumstance, indeed, was all their merit. Most unhappily for me, that merit they no longer possess, and I hope that Mrs's goodness, which I well know, and ever will revere, will not refuse this favour to a man whom she once held in some degree of estimation. With the sincerest esteem I have the hon. our to be, madam, &c. No. CL. TO MR CUNNINGHAM. 25th February, 1794. CANST thou minister to a mind diseased? Canst thou speak peace and rest to a soul tossed on a sea of troubles, without one friendly star to guide her course, and dreading that the next surge may overwhelm her? Canst thou give to a frame, tremblingly alive to the tortures of suspense, the stability and hardihood of the rock that braves the blast? If thou canst not do the least of these, why wouldst thou disturb me in my miseries, with thy inquiries after me? [ But now the L-d's ain trumpet touts, His piercing words, like Highland swords A vast, unbottom'd boundless pit, A street so called, which faces the tent in Shakspeare's Hamlet. WORKS. The half asleep start up wi' fear, XXIII. 'Twad be owre lang a tale to tell An' how they crowded to the yıll, An' cheese an' bread, frae women's laps, XXIV. In comes a gaucie, gash guidwife, The auld guidmen, about the grace, XXV. Waesucks for him that gets nae lass, On sic a day. XXVI. Now Clinkumbell, wi' rattlin' tow, Begins to jow an' croon ; Some swagger hame, the best they dow, At slaps the billies halt a blink, Wi' faith an' hope, an' love an' drink, XXVII. How monie hearts this day converts O' sinners and o' lasses! Their hearts o' stane, gin night, are gane There's some are fou o' love divine; An' mony jobs that day begin, Some ither day. No. CXLVIII. TO JOHN SYME, ESQ. You know that among other high dignities, you have the honour to be my supreme court of critical judicature, from which there is no appeal. I inclose you a song which I composed since I saw you, and I am going to give you the history of it. Do you know that among much that I admire in the characters and manners of those great folks whom I have now the honour to call my acquaintances, the O family, there is nothing charms me more than Mr O's unconcealable attachment to that incomparable woman. Did you ever, my dear Syme, meet with a man who owed more to the Divine Giver of all good things than Mr O.? A fine fortune; a pleasing exterior; self-evident amiable dispositions, and an ingenious upright mind, and that informed too, much beyond the usual run of young fellows of his rank and fortune; and to all this, such a woman!-but of her I shall say nothing at all, in despair of saying any thing adequate: in my song, I have endeavoured to do justice to what would be his feelings on seeing, in the scene I have drawn, the habitation of his Lucy. As I am a good deal pleased with my performance, I in my first fervour thought of sending it to Mrs Ŏ, but on second thoughts, perhaps what I offer as the honest incense of genuine respect, might, from the well-known character of poverty and poetry, be construed into some modification or other of that servility which my soul abhors. sibility you know I possess, and sincerity none will deny me. To oppose those prejudices which have been raised against me, is not the business of this letter. Indeed it is a warfare I know not how to wage. The powers of positive vice I can in some degree calculate, and against direct malevolence I can be on my guard; but who can estimate the fatuity of giddy caprice, or ward off the unthinking mischief of precipitate folly? I have a favour to request of you, madam, and of your sister Mrs, through your means. You know, that, at the wish of my late friend, I made a collection of all my trifles in verse which I had ever written. They are many of them local, some of them puerile, and silly, and all of them unfit for the public eye. As I have some little fame at stake, a fame that I trust may live, when the hate of those who "watch for my halting," and the contumelious sneer of those whom accident has made my superiors, will, with themselves, be gone to the regions of oblivion; I am uneasy now for the fate of those manuscripts.-Will Mrs have the goodness to destroy them, or return them to me? As a pledge of friendship they were bestowed; and that circumstance, indeed, was all their merit. Most unhappily for me, that merit they no longer possess, and I hope that Mrs's goodness, which I well know, and ever will revere, will not refuse this favour to a man whom she once held in some degree of estimation. With the sincerest esteem I have the hon. our to be, madam, &c. MADAM, No. CXLIX. TO MISS NOTHING short of a kind of absolute necessity could have made me trouble you with this letter. Except my ardent and just esteem for your sense, taste, and worth, every sentiment arising in my breast, as I put pen to paper to you, is painful. The scenes I have past with the friend of my soul, and his amiable connexions! The wrench at my heart to think that he is gone, for ever gone from me, never more to meet in the wanderings of a weary world; and the cutting reflection of all, that I had most unfortunately, though most undeservedly, lost the confidence of that soul of worth, ere it took its flight! These, madam, are sensations of no ordinary anguish. However, you, also, may be offended with some imputed improprieties of mine; sen The song inclosed was the one beginning with "O wat ye wha's in yon town." No. CL. TO MR CUNNINGHAM. 25th February, 1794. CANST thou minister to a mind diseased? Canst thou speak peace and rest to a soul tossed on a sea of troubles, without one friendly star to guide her course, and dreading that the next surge may overwhelm her? Canst thou give to a frame, tremblingly alive to the tortures of suspense, the stability and hardihood of the rock that braves the blast? If thou canst not do the least of these, why wouldst thou disturb me in my miseries, with thy inquiries after me? that my feelings at times could only be envied | And so on, in all the spirit and ardour of that by a reprobate spirit listening to the sentence charming hymn. that dooms it to perdition. Are you deep in the language of consolation? I have exhausted in reflection every topic of comfort. A heart at ease would have been charmed with my sentiments and reasonings; but as to myself, I was like Judas Iscariot preaching the gospel; he might melt and mould the hearts of those around him, but his own kept its native incorrigibility. Still there are two great pillars that bear us up, amid the wreck of misfortune and misery. The ONE is composed of the different modifications of a certain noble, stubborn something in man, known by the names of courage, fortitude, magnanimity. The OTHER is made up These are no ideal pleasures; they are real delights, and I ask what of the delights among the sons of men are superior, not to say, equal to them? And they have this precious, vast addition, that conscious virtue stamps them for her own; and lays hold on them to bring herself into the presence of a witnessing, judging, and approving God. MADAM, No. CLI. то DEAD TO THE LIVING. of those feelings and sentiments, which, how- SUPPOSES HIMSELF TO BE WRITING FROM THE ever the sceptic may deny them, or the enthusiast disfigure them, are yet, I am convinced, original and component parts of the human soul; those senses of the mind, if I may be allowed the expression, which connect us with, and link us to, those awful obscure realities an all-powerful and equally beneficent God; and a world to come, beyond death and the grave. The first gives the nerve of combat, while a ray of hope beams on the field;-the last pours the balm of comfort into the wounds which time can never cure. I do not remember, my dear Cunningham, that you and I ever talked on the subject of religion at all. I know some who laugh at it, as the trick of the crafty FEW, to lead the undiscerning MANY; or at most as an uncertain obscurity, which mankind can never know any thing of, and with which they are fools if they give themselves much to do. Nor would I quarrel with a man for his irreligion, any more than I would for his want of a musical ear. I would regret that he was shut out from what, to me and to others were such superlative sources of enjoyment. It is in this point of view, and for this reason, that I will deeply imbue the mind of every child of mine with religion. If my son should happen to be a man of feeling, sentiment, and taste, I shall thus add largely to his enjoyments. Let me flatter myself that this sweet little fellow who is just now running about my desk, will be a man of a melting, ardent, glowing heart; and an imagination, delighted with the painter, and rapt with the poet. Let me figure him, wandering out in a sweet evening, to inhale the balmy gales, and enjoy the growing luxuriance of the spring; himself the while in the blooming youth of life. He looks abroad on all nature, and through nature up to nature's God. His soul, by swift, delighting degrees, is wrapt above this sublunary sphere, until he can be silent no longer, and bursts out into the glorious enthusiasm of Thomson. "These, as they change, Almighty Father, these Are but the varied God.-The rolling year Is full of thee." I DARE say this is the first epistle you ever received from this nether world. I write you from the regions of Hell, amid the horrors of the damned. The time and manner of my leaving your earth I do not exactly know; as I took my departure in the heat of a fever of intoxication, contracted at your too hospitable mansion; but on my arrival here, I was fairly tried and sentenced to endure the purgatorial tortures of this infernal confine, for the space of ninety-nine years, eleven months, and twenty-nine days; and all on account of the impropriety of my conduct yesternight under your roof. Here am I, laid on a bed of pitiless furze, with my aching head reclined on a pillow of ever-piercing thorn, while an infernal tormentor, wrinkled, and old, and cruel, his name, I think, is Recollection, with a whip of scorpions, forbids peace or rest to approach me, and keeps anguish eternally awake. Still, madam, if I could in any measure be reinstated in the good opinion of the fair circle whom my conduct last night so much injured, I think it would be an alleviation to my torments. For this reason I trouble you with this letter. To the men of the company I will make no apology. Your husband, who insisted on my drinking more than I chose, has no right to blame me; and the other gentlemen were partakers of my guilt. But to you, madam, I have much to apologize. Your good opinion I valued as one of the greatest acquisitions I had made on earth, and I was truly a beast to forfeit it. There was a Miss I too, a woman of fine sense, gentle and unassuming manners-do make, on my part, a miserable d-d wretch's best apology to her. A Mrs G, a charming woman, did me the honour to be prejudiced in my favour; this makes me hope that I have not outraged her beyond all forgiveness. To all the other ladies please present my humblest contrition for my conduct, and my petition for their gracious pardon. O all ye powers of decency and decorum! whisper to them that my errors, though great, were |