order to a cobbler. You have felt too much of of books at the commencement. What authors the ills of life not to sympathize with a diseased they were to purchase, was always decided by wretch, who has impaired more than half of any the majority. At every meeting, all the books, faculties he possessed. Your goodness will ex-under certain fines and forfeitures, by way of cuse this distracted scrawl, which the writer penalty, were to be produced; and the memdare scarcely read, and which he would throw bers had their choice of the volumes in rotation. into the fire, were he able to write any thing He whose name stood, for that night, first on better, or indeed any thing at all. the list, had his choice of what volume he pleas Rumour told me something of a son of yoursed in the whole collection; the second had his who was returned from the East or West Indies. If you have gotten news of James or Anthony, it was cruel in you not to let me know; as I promise you, on the sincerity of a man, who is weary of one world and anxious about another, that scarce any thing could give me so much pleasure as to hear of any good thing befalling my honoured friend.

If you have a minute's leisure, take up your pen in pity to le pauvre miserable. R. B.

SIR,

No. CXXXVI.

TO SIR JOHN SINCLAIR.

THE following circumstance has, I believe, been omitted in the statistical account, transmitted to you, of the parish of Dunscore, in Nithsdale. I beg leave to send it to you, because it is new and may be useful. How far it is deserving of a place in your patriotic publication, you are the best judge.

To store the minds of the lower classes with useful knowledge, is certainly of very great importance, both to them as individuals, and to society at large. Giving them a turn for reading and reflection, is giving them a source of innocent and laudable amusement; and besides raises them to a more dignified degree in the scale of rationality. Impressed with this idea, a gentleman in this parish, Robert Riddel, Esq. of Glenriddel, set on foot a species of circulating liberary, on a plan so simple as to be practicable in any corner of the country; and so useful, as to deserve the notice of every country gentleman, who thinks the improvement of that part of his own species, whom chance has thrown into the humble walks of the peasant and the artizan, a matter worthy of his attention.

Mr. Riddel got a number of his own tenants, and farming neighbours, to form themselves into a society for the purpose of having a library among themselves. They entered into a legal engagement to abide by it for three years; with a saving clause or two, in case of removal to a distance, or of death. Each member, at his entry, paid five shillings, and at each of their meetings, which were held every fourth Saturday, sixpence more. With their entry-money, and the credit which they took on the faith of their future funds, they laid in a tolerable stock |

choice after the first; the third after the second, and so on to the last. At next meeting, he who had been first on the list at the preceding meeting, was last at this; he who had been second was first; and so on through the whole three years. At the expiration of the engagement, the books were sold by auction, but only among the members themselves: and each man had his share of the common stock, in money or in books, as he chose to be a purchaser or not.

At the breaking up of this little society, which was formed under Mr. Riddel's patronage, what with benefactions of books from him, and what with their own purchases, they had collected together upwards of one hundred and fifty volumes. It will easily be guessed, that a good deal of trash would be bought. Among the books, however, of this little library, were Blair's Sermons, Robertson's History of Scotland, Hume's History of the Stuarts, the Spectato, Idler, Adventurer, Mirror, Lounger, Observer, Man of Feeling, Man of the World, Chrysal, Don Quixotte, Joseph Andrews, &c. A peasant who can read, and enjoy such books, is certainly a much superior being to his neighbour, who perhaps stalks beside his team, very little removed, except in shape, from the brute he drives.

Wishing your patriotic exertions their so much merited success, I am, Sir,

Your humble servant,
A PEASANT.

The above is extracted from the third volume of to Sir John by Mr. Riddel himself in the following Sir John Sinclair's Statistics, p. 598.-It was enclosed ietter, also printed there:

"SIR JOHN,

"I enclose you a letter, written by Mr. Burns as an addition to the account of Dunscore parish. It con. tains an account of a small library which he was so Monkland, or Friar's Carse, in this parish. As its good (at my desire), as to set on foot, in the barony of utility has been felt, particularly among the younger tablished, in the different parishes of Scotland, it class of people, I think, that if a similar plan were es would tend greatly to the speedy improvement of the tenantry, trades people, and work people. Mr. Burns concern. was so good as to take the whole charge of this small He was treasurer, librarian, and censor to this little society, who will long have a grateful sense of his public spirit and exertions for their improve "I have the honour to be, Sir John, "Yours most sincerely,

ment and inforination.

To Sir John Sinclair,
of Ulbster, Bart.

ROBERT RIDDEL

We have gotten a set of very decent players here just now. or two. David Campbell, in Ayr, wrote to me by the manager of the company, a Mr. Suther land, who is a man of apparent worth. On New-year-day evening I gave him the following prologue, which he spouted to his audience with applause.

I have seen them an evening FROM WILLIAM BURNS, THE POET'S

PROLOGUE.

No song nor dance I bring from yon great city,

That queens it o'er our taste the more's the
pity:

Though, by the bye, abroad why will you roam?
Good sense and taste are natives here at home;
But not for panegyric I appear,

I come to wish you all a good new year!
Old Father Time deputes me here before ye,
Not for to preach, but tell his simple story:
The sage grave ancient cough'd, and bade me

say,

DEAR BROTHER,

BROTHER.

Newcastle, 24th Jan. 1790.

I WROTE you about six weeks ago, and I have expected to hear from you every post since, but I suppose your excise business which you hinted at in your last, has prevented you from writing. By the bye, when and how have you got into the excise; and what division have you got about Dumfries? These questions please answer in your next, if more important matter do not occur. the letter to John Murdoch, which Gilbert wrote me you meant to send; enclose it in your's to me, and let me have them as soon as possible, for I intend to sail for London, in a fortnight, or three weeks at farthest.

But in the mean time let me have

You promised me when I was intending to go to Edinburgh, to write me some instructions about behaviour in companies rather above my station, to which I might be eventually introduced. As I may be introduced into such companies at Murdoch's, or on his account, when I And with a would-be-roguish leer and wink, go to London, I wish you would write me some He bade me on you press this one word-such instructions now: I never had more need

"You're one year older this important day,"
If wiser too-he hinted some suggestion,
But 'twould be rude, you know, to ask the
tion;

"THINK!"

ques

of them, for having spent little of my time in company of any sort since I came to Newcastle, I have almost forgot the common civilities of life. To these instructions pray add some of a moral kind, for though (either through the strength of early impressions, or the frigidity of my constitution), I have hitherto withstood the temptation to those vices, to which young fellows of my station and time of life are so much addicted, yet, I do not know if my virtue will be able to withstand the more powerful temptations of the metropolis: yet, through God's assistance and your instructions, I hope to weather the storm.

Give the compliments of the season and my love to my sisters, and all the rest of your family. Tell Gilbert, the first time you write him, that I am well, and that I will write him either when I sail or when I arrive at London. I am, &c. W. B.

No. CXXXIX.

TO MRS. DUNLOP.

Ellisland, 25th January, 1790.

"Little did my mother think,

That day she cradled me,
What land I was to travel in,

Or what death I should die."

Ir has been owing to unremitting hurry of Old Scottish songs are, vou know, a favourbusiness' that I have not written to you, Ma-ite study and pursuit of mine; and now I am dam, long ere now. My health is greatly bet on that subject, allow me to give you two ter, and I now begin once more to share in sa-stanzas of another old simple ballad, which I tisfaction and enjoyment with the rest of my am sure will please you. The catastrophe of the piece is a poor ruined female, lamenting her fate. She concludes with this pathetic wish:

fellow-creatures.

Many thanks, my much esteemed friend, for your kind letters; but wly will you make me run the risk of being contemptible and mercenary in my own eyes! When I pique myself on my independent spirit, I hope it is neither poetic license, nor poetic rant; and I am so flattered with the honour you have done me, in making me your compeer in friendship and friendly correspondence, that I cannot without pain, and a degree of mortification, be reminded of the real inequality between our situations.

that my father had ne'er on me smiled;
O that my mother had ne'er to me sung!
O that my cradle had never been rock'd;
But that I had died when I was young!

O that the grave it were my bed;

My blankets were my winding sheet;
The clocks and the worms my bedfellows a' ;
And O sae sound as I should sleep!''

Most sincerely do I rejoice with you, dear Madam, in the good news of Anthony. Not only your anxiety about his fate, but my own I do not remember in all my reading to have esteem for such a noble, warm-hearted, manly met with any thing more truly the language of young fellow, in the little I had of his acquaint-misery, than the exclamation in the last line. ance, has interested me deeply in his fortunes. Misery is like love; to speak its language truly, the author must have felt it.

Falconer, the unfortunate author of the Shipwreck, which you so much admire, is no more. I am every day expecting the doctor to give After weathering the dreadful catastrophe he so your little god-son the small-pox. They are feelingly describes in his poem, and after wea-rife in the country, and I tremble for his fate. thering many hard gales of fortune, he went to By the way, I cannot help congratulating you the bottom with the Aurora frigate! I forget on his looks and spirit. Every person who what part of Scotland had the honour of giving sees him, acknowledges him to be the finest, him birth, but he was the son of obscurity and handsomest child he has ever seen. I am mymisfortune. He was one of those daring ad-self delighted with the manly swell of his little venturous spirits, which Scotland beyond any chest, and a certain miniature dignity in the other country is remarkable for producing. carriage of his head, and glance of his fine black Little does the fond mother think, as she hangs eye, which promise the undaunted gallantry of delighted over the sweet little leech at her bo- an independent mind.

som, where the poor fellow may hereafter wan- I thought to have sent you some rhymes, but der, and what may be his fate. 1 remember a time forbids. I promise you poetry until you stanza in an old Scottish ballad, which, not-are tired of it, next time I have the honour of withstanding its rude simplicity, speaks feelingly assuring you how truly I am, &c. to the heart.

Falconer was in early life a sea boy, to use a word of Shakspeare, on board a man-of-war, in which capacity he attracted the notice of Campbell, the author of the satire on Dr. Johnson, entitled Lexiphanes, then purser of the ship. Campbell took him as his servant, and delighted in giving him instruction; and when Falconer afterwards acquired celebrity, boasted of him as his scholar. The editor had this information from a surgeon of a man-of-war, in 1777, who knew both Campbell and Falconer, and who himself perished soon after by shipwreck, on the coast of America.

Though the death of Falconer happened so lately as 1770 or 1771, yet in the biography prefixed by Dr. Anderson to his works, in the complete edition of the Poets of Great Britain, it is said, "Of the family, birth-place, and education of William Falconer, there are no memorials." On the authority already given, it may be mentioned, that he was a native of one of the towns on the coast of Fife, and that his parents, who had suffered some misfortunes, removed to one of the sea-ports of England, where they both died, soon after, of an epidemic fever, leaving poor Fal. coner, then a boy, forlorn and destitute. In conse quence of which he entered on board a man-of-war. These last circumstances are however less certain.CRONEK.

No. CXL.

FROM MR. CUNNINGHAM.

28th January, 1790.

In some instances it is reckoned unpardonable to quote any one's own words; but the value I have for your friendship, nothing can more truly or more elegantly express, than

"Time but the impression stronger makes, As streams their channels deeper wear."

Having written to you twice without having

• 'The bard's second son, Francis

neard from you, I am apt to think my letters | does me the honour to mention me so kindly is nave miscarried. My conjecture is only framed his works, please give him my best thanks for upon the chapter of accidents turning up against the copy of his book-I shall write him, my first me, as it too often does, in the trivial, and I leisure hour. I like his poetry much, but I may with truth add, the more important affairs think his style in prose quite astonishing. of life but I shall continue occasionally to inform you what is going on among the circle of your friends in these parts. In these days of merriment, I have frequently heard your name proclaimed at the jovial board-under the roof of our hospitable friend at Stenhouse Mills, there

were no

Lingering moments number'd with care."

I saw your Address to the New-year in the Dumfries Journal. Of your productions I shall say nothing, but my acquaintance allege that when your name is mentioned, which every man of celebrity must know often happens, I am the champion, the Mendoza, against all snarling critics, and narrow-minded reptiles, of whom a few on this planet do crawl.

With best compliments to your wife, and her black eved sister, I remain, yours, &c.

No. CXLI.

TO MR. PETER HILL.

Ellisland, Feb. 2. 1790.

I

Your book came safe, and I am going to trouble you with farther commissious. I call it troubling you-because I want only, BOOKS; the cheapest way, the best; so you may have to hunt for them in the evening auctions. want Smollett's Works, for the sake of his incomparable humour. I have already Roderick Random, and Humphrey Clinker.-Peregrine Pickle, Launcelot Greaves, and Frederick, Count Fathom, I still want; but as I said, the veriest ordinary copies will serve me. I am nice only in the appearance of my poets. I forget the price of Cowper's Poems, but, I believe, I must have them. I saw the other day, proposals for a publication, entitled, "Banks's new and complet Christian's Family Bible," printed for C. Cooke, Paternoster-row, London.-He promises at least, to give in the work, I think it is three hundred and odd engravings, to which he has put the names of the first artists in London.*You will know the character of the performance, as some numbers of it are published; and if it is really what it pretends to be, set me down as a subscriber, and send me the published numbers.

reason to complain of my silence. The dazzling perplexity of novelty will dissipate and leave me to pursue my course in the quiet path of me thodical routine.

No. CXLII.

TO MR. W. NICOLL.

Let me hear from you, your first leisure miNo! I will not say one word about apolo-nute, and trust me, you shall in future have no gies or excuses for not writing-I am a poor, rascally gauger, condemned to gallop at least 200 miles every week to inspect dirty ponds and yeasty barrels, and where can I find time to write to, or importance to interest any body? The upbraidings of my conscience, nay the upbraidings of my wife, have persecuted me on your account these two or three months past.— I wish to God I was a great man, that my correspondence might throw light upon you, to let the world see what you really are; and then I would make your fortune, without putting my hand in my pocket for you, which, like all other great men, I suppose I would avoid as much as possible. What are you doing, and how are you doing? Have you lately seen any of my few friends? What is become of the BOROUGH • Perhaps no set of men more effectually avail them. REFORM, or how is the fate of my poor name-selves of the easy credulity of the public, than a cer. tain description of Paternoster-row booksellers. Three sake Mademoiselle Burns decided? O man! hundred and odd engravings!-and by the first artists but for thee and thy selfish appetites, and dis-in London, too! No wonder that Burns was dazzled honest artifices, that beauteous form, and that by the splendour of the promise. It is no unusual thing for this class of impostors to illustrate the Holy once innocent and still ingenuous mind might Scriptures by plates originally engraved for the His have shone conspicuous and lovely in the faith-tory of England, and I have actually seen subjects deful wife, and the affectionate mother, and shall signed by our celebrated artist Stothard, from Clarissa the unfortunate sacrifice to thy pleasures have no claim on thy humanity!

I saw lately in a Review, some extracts from a new poem, called The Village Curate; send I want likewise a cheap copy of The World. Mr. Armstrong, the young poet, who

it me.

Ellisland, Feb. 9, 1790.
MY DEAR SIR,
THAT d-mned mare of yours is dead. I
would freely have given her price to have saved

Harlowe and the Novelist's Magazine, converted, with incredible dexterity, by these Bookselling-Breslaws. into Scriptural embellishments! One of these venders of Family Bibles' lately called on me, to consult me professionally, about a folio engraving he brought with him.-It represented MONS. BUFFON, Scated, contemplating various groups of animals that sur. rounded him; He merely wished, he said, to be in formed, whether by uncloathing the Naturalist, and

her: she has vexed me beyond description. In-bound the said Nelson to the confession of faith, debted as I was to your goodness beyond what so far as it was agreeable to reasor. and the I can ever repay, I eagerly grasped at your of word of God! fer to have the mare with me. That I might at least shew my readiness in wishing to be grateful, I took every care of her in my power. She was never crossed for riding above half a score of times by me or in my keeping. I drew her in the plough, one of three, for one poor week. I refused fifty-five shillings for her, which was the highest bode I could squeeze for her. I fed her up and had her in fine order for Dumies fair; when four or five days before the fair, ne was seized with an unaccountable disorder in the sinews, or somewhere in the bones of the neck; with a weakness or total want of power in her fillets, and in short the whole vertebræ of her spine seemed to be diseased and unhinged, and in eight and forty hours, in spite of the two best farriers in the country, she died and be d-mned to her! The farriers said that she had been quite strained in the fillets beyond cure before you had bought her, and that the poor devil, though she might keep a little flesh, had been jaded and quite worn out with fatigue and oppression. While she was with me, she was under my own eye, and I assure you, my much valued friend, every thing was done for her that could be done; and the accident has vexed me to the heart. In fact I could not pluck up spirits to write you, on account of the unfortunate business.

Mrs. B. begs to be remembered most gratefully to you. Little Bobby and Frank are charmingly well and healthy. I am jaded to death with fatigue. For these two or three months, on an average, I have not ridden less than two hundred miles per week. I have done little in the poetic way. I have given Mr. Sutherland two Prologues; one of which was delivered last week. I have likewise strung four or five barbarous stanzas, to the tune of Chevy Chase, by way of Elegy on your poor unfortunate mare, beginning,

"Peg Nicholson was a good Bay-mare,"— (see p. 77.)

My best compliments to Mrs. Nicoll, and little Neddy, and all the family. I hope Ned is a good scholar, and will come out to gather nuts and apples with me next harvest,

No. CXLIII.

TO MR. CUNNINGHAM.

Ellisland, 13th February, 1790. I BEG your pardon, my dear and much valued friend, for writing to you on this very unfashionable, unsightly sheet

66

My poverty but not my will consents."

There is little new in this country. Our theatrical company, of which you must have heard, leave us in a week. Their merit and character are indeed very great, both on the stage and in private life; not a worthless creature among them; and their encouragement has been accordingly. Their usual run is from eighteen But to make amends, since of modish post I to twenty-five pounds a night; seldom less than have none, except one poor widowed half sheet the one, and the house will hold no more than of gilt, which lies in my drawer among my plethe other. There have been repeated instances beian foolscap pages, like the widow of a man of sending away six, and eight, and ten pounds of fashion, whom that unpolite scoundrel, Nein a night for want of room. A new theatre is cessity, has driven from Burgundy and Pineto be built by subscription; the first stone is to apple, to a dish of Bohea, with the scandalbe laid on Friday first to come. Three hun-bearing help-mate of a village priest; or a glass dred guineas have been raised by thirty subscri- of whisky-toddy, with the ruby-nosed yokebers, and thirty more might have been got if fellow of a foot-padding exciseman-I make a wanted. vow to enclose this sheet-full of epistolary fragThe manager, Mr. Sutherland, was introduced to me by a friend from Ayr; and a ments in that my only scrap of gilt-paper. worthier or cleverer fellow I have rarely met with. Some of our clergy have slipt in by stealth now and then; but they have got up a farce of their own. You must have heard how the Rev. Mr. Lawson of Kirkmahoe, seconded not write to you; Miss Burnet is not more dear by the Rev. Mr. Kirkpatrick of Dunscore, to her guardian angel, nor his grace the Duke and the rest of that faction, have accused in forto the powers of mal process, the unfortunate and Rev. Mr. He-friend Cunningham to me. ron of Kirkgunzeon, that in ordaining Mr. cannot write to you; should you doubt it, take Nelson to the cure of souls in Kirkbean, he, the following fragment which was intended for the said Heron, feloniously and treasonably

giving him a rather more resolute look, the plate could not, at a trifling expense, be made to pass for "DA

NIEL IN THE LIONS' DEN!"-CROMEK.

• On Friday first to come-a Scotticism.

I am indeed your unworthy debtor for three friendly letters. I ought to have written to you long ere now, but it is a literal fact, I have scarcely a spare moment.

of

It is not that I will

than my It is not that I

you some time ago, and be convinced that I can antithesize sentiment, and circumvolute periods, as well as any coiner of phrase in the regions of philology