both tunes has, I think, an effect that no regularity could counterbalance the want of.

Does not the tameness of the prefixed syllable strike you? In the last case, with the true furor of genius, you strike at once into the wild originality of the air; whereas in the first insipid method, it is like the grating screw of the pins before the fiddle is brought This is my taste; if I am wrong, I beg pardon of the

into tune.

cognoscenti.

The Caledonian Hunt is so charming, that it would make any subject in a song go down; but pathos is certainly its native tongue. Scottish bacchanalians we certainly want, though the few we have are excellent. For instance, Todlin Hame is, for wit and humour, an unparalleled composition; and Andrew and his Cutty Gun is the work of a master. By the way, are you not quite vexed to think that those men of genius-for such they certainly were-who composed our fine Scottish lyrics, should be unknown? It has given me many a heartache. Apropos to bacchanalian songs in Scottish, I composed one yesterday for an air I like much-Lumps o' Pudding (p. 290).

If you do not relish this air, I will send it to Johnson. Since yesterday's penmanship, I have framed a couple of English stanzas, by way of an English song to Roy's Wife (p. 290). You will allow me, that in this instance my English corresponds in sentiment with the Scottish.

Well! I think this, to be done in two or three turns across my room, and with two or three pinches of Irish Blackguard, is not so far amiss. You see I am determined to have my quantum of applause from somebody.

Tell my friend Allan-for I am sure that we only want the trifling circumstance of being known to one another, to be the best friends on earth-that I much suspect he has, in his plates, mistaken the figure of the stock and horn. I have at last gotten one, but it is a very rude instrument. It is composed of three parts: the stock, which is the hinder thigh-bone of a sheep, such as you see in a mutton ham; the horn, which is a common Highland cow's horn, cut off at the smaller end until the aperture be large enough to admit the stock to be pushed up through the horn until it be held by the thicker end of the thigh-bone; and lastly, an oaten reed, exactly cut and notched like that which you see every shepherd-boy have when the corn-stems are green and fullgrown. The reed is not made fast in the bone, but is held by the lips, and plays loose in the smaller end of the stock; while the stock, with the horn hanging on its larger end, is held by the hands in playing. The stock has six or seven ventages on the

upper side, and one back-ventage, like the common flute. This of mine was made by a man from the Braes of Athole, and is exactly what the shepherds wont to use in that country.

However, either it is not quite properly bored in the holes or else we have not the art of blowing it rightly; for we can make little of it. If Mr Allan chooses, I will send him a sight of mine, as I look on myself to be a kind of brother-brush with him. "Pride in poets is nae sin;" and I will say it, that I look on Mr Allan and Mr Burns to be the only genuine and real painters of Scottish costume in the world.

R. B.

CCCXXIII.

TO PETER MILLER, JUN., ESQ.

DUMFRIES, Nov. 1794.

DEAR SIR,-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 halfa-score of helpless individuals-what I dare not sport with.

In the meantime, 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 anything 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 inay 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 by, to anybody who has the least relish for wit, is a high treat indeed. With the most grateful esteem, I am ever, dear sir,

R. B.

CCCXXIV.

TO MRS DUNLOP,

IN LONDON.

DUMFRIES, 20th December 1794. I HAVE been prodigiously disappointed in this London journey of yours. In the first place, when your last to me reached Dumfries, I was in the country, and did not return until too late to answer your letter; in the next place, I thought you would certainly take this route; and now I know not what has become of you, or whether this may reach you at all. God grant that it may find you and yours in prospering health and good spirits! Do let me hear from you the soonest possible.

As I hope to get a frank from my friend Captain Miller, I shall, every leisure hour, take up the pen, and gossip away whatever comes first-prose or poetry, sermon or song. In this last article I have abounded of late. I have often mentioned to you a superb publication of Scottish Songs, which is making its appearance in your great metropolis, and where I have the honour to preside over the Scottish verse, as no less a personage than Peter Pindar does over the English.

December 29th.

Since I began this letter, I have been appointed to act in the capacity of supervisor here; and I assure you, what with the load of business, and what with that business being new to me, I could scarcely have commanded ten minutes to have spoken to you had you been in town, much less to have written you an epistle. This appointment is only temporary, and during the illness of the present incumbent; but I look forward to an early period when I shall be appointed in full form-a consummation devoutly to be wished! My political sins seem to be forgiven me.

This is the season (New-Year's Day is now my date) of wishing and mine are most fervently offered up for you! May life to you be a positive blessing while it lasts, for your own sake; and that it may yet be greatly prolonged, is my wish for my own sake, and for the sake of the rest of your friends! What a transient business is life! Very lately, I was a boy; but t'other day I was a young man; and I already begin to feel the rigid fibre and stiffening joints of old age coming fast o'er my frame. With all my follies of youth, and, I fear, a few vices of manhood, still I congratulate myself on having had, in early days, religion strongly impressed on my mind. I have nothing to say to any one as to which sect he belongs to, or what creed he believes; but I look on the man who is firmly persuaded of Infinite Wisdom and Goodness superintending and directing every circumstance that can happen in his lot-I felicitate such a man as having a solid foundation for

his mental enjoyment-a firm prop and sure stay in the hour of difficulty, trouble, and distress-and a never-failing anchor of hope when he looks beyond the grave.

12th January [1795].

You will have seen our worthy and ingenious friend, the doctor [Dr Moore], long ere this. I hope he is well, and beg to be remembered to him. I have just been reading over again, I daresay for the hundred and fiftieth time, his View of Society and Manners ; and still I read it with delight. Ilis humour is perfectly original -it is neither the humour of Addison, nor Swift, nor Sterne, nor of anybody but Dr Moore. By the by, you have deprived me of Zeluco; remember that when you are disposed to rake up the sins of my neglect from among the ashes of my laziness.

He has paid me a pretty compliment by quoting me in his last publication. R. B.

CCCXXV.

[In the neighbourhood of Dumfries lived a farmer whom Burns frequently visited. The farmer fell in love, and asked Burns to assist him in framing a proper letter to the lady. Burns furnished him with the two following drafts of a love-letter The farmer was successful in his

suit.]

MADAM,-What excuse to make for the liberty I am going to assume in this letter, I am utterly at a loss. If the most unfeigned respect for your accomplished worth-if the most ardent attachment-if sincerity and truth-if these, on my part, will in any degree weigh with you, my apology is these, and these alone. Little as I have had the pleasure of your acquaintance, it has been enough to convince me what enviable happiness must be his whom you shall honour with your particular regard, and more than enough to convince me how unworthy I am to offer myself a candidate for that partiality. In this kind of trembling hope, madam, I intend very soon doing myself the honour of waiting on you, persuaded that, however little Miss G may be dispos ed to attend to the suit of a lover as unworthy of her as I am, she is still too good to despise an honest man, whose only fault is loving her too much for his own peace. I have the honour to be, madam, your most devoted humble servant.

DEAR MADAM,—The passion of love had need to be productive of much delight; as where it takes thorough possession of the man, it almost unfits him for anything else. The lover who is certain of an equal return of affection is surely the happiest of men; but he who is a prey to the horrors of anxiety and dreaded disappointment is a being whose situation is by no means enviable. Of this,

my present experience gives me sufficient proof. To me, amusement seems impertinent, and business intrusion, while you alone engross every faculty of my mind. May I request you to drop me a line, to inform me when I may wait on you; for pity's sake, do; and let me have it soon. In the meantime, allow me, in all the artless sincerity of truth, to assure you that I truly am, my dearest madam, your ardent lover, and devoted humble servant.

CCCXXVI.

[The following note was written on behalf of a friend who complained to Burns of the irregular delivery of the newspaper. From prudential motives, it was never sent.]

TO THE EDITOR OF THE "MORNING CHRONICLE."*

SIR,-You will see, by your subscribers' list, that I have been about nine months of that number.

I

I am sorry to inform you, that in that time seven or eight of your papers either have never been sent me, or else have never reached me. To be deprived of any one number of the first newspaper in Great Britain for information, ability, and independence is what I can ill brook and bear; but to be deprived of that most admirable oration of the Marquis of Lansdowne, when he made the great though ineffectual attempt (in the language of the poet, I fear too true) "to save a SINKING STATE"-this was a loss that I neither can nor will forgive you. That paper, sir, never reached me; but I demand it of you. am a BRITON, and must be interested in the cause of LIBERTY; I am a MAN, and the RIGHTS OF HUMAN NATURE cannot be indifferent to me. However, do not let me mislead you-I am not a man in that situation of life which, as your subscriber, can be of any consequence to you in the eyes of those to whom SITUATION OF LIFE ALONE is the criterion of MAN. I am but a plain tradesman in this distant, obscure country-town; but that humble domicile in which I shelter my wife and children is the CASTELLUM of a BRITON; and that scanty, hard-earned income which supports them is as truly my property as the most magnificent fortune of the most PUISSANT MEMBER of your HOUSE OF NOBLES.

These sir, are my sentiments, and to them I subscribe my name; and were I a man of ability and consequence enough to address the PUBLIC, with that name should they appear. I am, &c.