tion and business engross every moment. I am engaged in assisting an honest Scotch enthusiast, a friend of mine, who is an engraver, and has taken it into his head to publish a collection of all our songs set to music, of which the words and music are done by Scotsmen. This, you will easily guess, is an undertaking exactly to my taste. I have collected, begged, borrowed, and stolen, all the songs I could meet with. "Pompey's Ghost," words and music, I beg from you immediately, to go into his second number-the first is already published. I shall shew you the first number when I see you in Glasgow, which will be in a fortnight or less. Do be so kind as to send me the song in a day or two-you cannot imagine how much it will oblige me.

Direct to me at Mr. W. Cruikshank's, St. James's Square, New Town, Edinburgh.-R. B.

No. CXIII.

TO MRS. DUNLOP.

EDINBURGH, February 12, 1788.

SOME things in your late letters hurt me not that you say them, but that you mistake me. Religion, my honoured Madam, has not only been all my life my chief dependence, but my dearest enjoyment. I have indeed been the luckless victim of wayward follies; but, alas! I have ever been "more fool than knave." A mathematician without religion is a probable character; an irreligious poet is a monster.-R. B.

No. CXIV.

TO THE REV. JOHN SKINNER.

REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,

EDINBURGH, 14th February, 1788.

I have been a cripple now near three months, though I am getting vastly better, and have been very much hurried besides or else I would have wrote you sooner. I must beg your pardon for the epistle you sent me appearing in the magazine. I had given a copy or two to some of my intimate friends, but did not know of the printing of it till the publication of the magazine. However, as it does great honour to us both, you will forgive it.

The second volume of the songs I mentioned to you in my last is published to-day. I send you a copy, which I beg you will accept as a mark of the veneration I have long had, and shall ever have, for your character, and of the claim I make to your continued acquaintance. Your songs appear in the third volume, with your name in the index; as I assure you, Sir, I have heard your "Tullochgorum," particularly among our west-country folks, given to many different names, and most commonly to the immortal author of "The Minstrel," who indeed never wrote anything * Mr. Johnson, publisher of the Scots Musical Museum.

superior to "Gie's a sang, Montgomery cried." Your brother has promised me your verses to the Marquis of Huntly's reel, which certainly deserve a place in the collection. My kind host, Mr. Cruikshank, of the High School here, and said to be one of the best Latins in this age, begs me to make you his grateful acknowledgments for the entertainment he has got in a Latin publication of yours, that I borrowed for him from your acquaintance, and much-respected friend in this place, the Reverend Dr. Webster. Mr. Cruikshank maintains that you write the best Latin since Buchanan. I leave Edinburgh to-morrow, but shall return in three weeks. Your song you mentioned in your last, to the tune of "Dumbarton Drums,” and the other, which you say was done by a brother in trade of mine, a ploughman, I shall thank you for a copy of each.

I am ever, reverend Sir,

With the most respectful esteem and sincere veneration, yours,

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No. CXV.

R. B.

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TO MR. RICHARD BROWN.

EDINBURGH, February 15, 1788.

MY DEAR FRIEND, I received yours with the greatest pleasure. I shall arrive at Glasgow on Monday evening; and beg, if possible, you will meet me on Tuesday. I shall wait you Tuesday all day. I shall be found at Davies's Black Bull Inn. I am hurried, as if hunted by fifty devils, else I should go to Greenock; but if you cannot possibly come, write me, if possible, to Glasgow, on Monday; or direct to me at Mossgiel by Mauchline; and name a day and place in Ayrshire, within a fortnight from this date, where I may meet you. I only stay a fortnight in Ayrshire, and return to Edinburgh. I am ever, my dearest Friend, yours,

R. B.

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No. CXVI.

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TO MISS CHALMERS.

EDINBURGH, Sunday [February 17]. TO-MORROW, my dear Madam, I leave Edinburgh. I have altered all my plans of future life. A farm that I could live in, I could not find; and, indeed, after the necessary support my brother and the rest of the family required, I could not venture on farming in that style suitable to my feelings. You will condemn me for the next step I have taken : I have entered into the Excise. I stay in the west about three weeks, and then return to Edinburgh for six weeks' instructions; afterwards, for I get employ instantly, I go où il plait à Dieu—et mon roi. I have chosen this, my dear friend, after mature deliberation. The question is not at what

door of fortune's palace shall we enter in, but what doors does she open to us? I was not likely to get anything to do. I wanted un bút, which is a dangerous, an unhappy situation. I got this without any hanging on, or mortifying solicitation: it is immediate bread; and though poor in comparison of the last eighteen months of my existence, 'tis luxury in comparison of all my preceding life: besides, the commissioners are some of them my acquaintances, and all of them my firm friends.-R. B.

No. CXVII.

TO MRS. ROSE,

OF KILRAVOCK.

[This is an acknowledgment of two Highland airs which Mrs. Rose had sent him, with a very kind letter.]

MADAM,

EDINBURGH, February 17, 1788.

You are much indebted to some indispensable business I have had on my hands, otherwise my gratitude threatened such a return for your obliging favour as would have tired your patience. It but poorly expresses my feelings to say, that I am sensible of your kindness. It may be said of hearts such as yours is, and such, I hope, mine is, much more justly than Addison applies it—

"" "Some souls by instinct to each other turn

There was something in my reception at Kilravock so different from the cold, obsequious, dancing-school bow of politeness, that it almost got into my head that friendship had occupied her ground without the intermediate march of acquaintance. I wish I could transcribe, or rather transfuse into language, the glow of my heart when I read your letter. My ready fancy, with colours more mellow than life itself, painted the beautiful wild scenery of Kilravock; the venerable grandeur of the castle; the spreading woods; the winding river, gladly leaving his unsightly, heathy source, and lingering with apparent delight as he passes the fairy walk at bottom of the garden; your late distressful anxieties; your present enjoyments; your dear little angel, the pride of your hopes; my aged friend, venerable in worth and years, whose loyalty and other virtues will strongly entitle her to the support of the Almighty Spirit here, and His peculiar favour in a happier state of existence. You cannot imagine, Madam, how much such feelings delight me: they are my dearest proofs of my own immortality. Should I never revisit the north, as probably I never will, nor again see your hospitable mansion, were I some twenty years' hence to see your little fellow's name making a proper figure in a newspaper paragraph, my heart would bound with pleasure.

I am assisting a friend in a collection of Scottish songs, set to their proper tunes; every air worth preserving is to be included: among others

I have given "Morag," and some few Highland airs which pleased me most, a dress which will be more generally known, though far, far inferior in real merit. As a small mark of my grateful esteem, I beg leave to present you with a copy of the work, as far as it is printed: the Man of Feeling, that first of men, has promised to transmit it by the first opportunity.

I beg to be remembered most respectfully to my venerable friend and to your little Highland chieftain.* When you see the "two fair spirits of the hill" at Kildrummie,* tell them that I have done myself the honour of setting myself down as one of their admirers for at least twenty years to come-consequently they must look upon me as an acquaintance for the same period; but, as the Apostle Paul says, "this I ask of grace, not of debt." I have the honour to be, Madam, &c.

R. B.

No. CXVIII.

TO CLARINDA.

[On the 18th of February, Burns left Edinburgh for Mossgiel, visiting Glasgow and Kilmarnock on his way. In a last fond interview, Sylvander and Clarinda had parted, but the correspondence was continued. Sylvander had disclosed to Clarinda his unhappy liason with Jean Armour and the prospect of a second pledge of illicit love. Clarinda in her replies speaks with kindness of Jean, but evidently looks forward on her own side to the prospect of a union with Burns, should her husband's death leave her free to marry again. "You know," she says, "I count all things (Heaven excepted) but loss, that I may win and keep you." How far Burns had any serious thoughts of marriage with Mrs. M'Lehose, should circumstances permit it, it is difficult to say; but at any rate he reckoned himself released from all obligations towards Jean Armour, except those of common humanity.]

GLASGOW, Monday Evening, Nine o'clock. THE attraction of love, I find, is in an inverse proportion to the attraction of the Newtonian philosophy. In the system of Sir Isaac, the nearer objects were to one another, the stronger was the attractive force. In my system, every milestone that marked my progress from Clarinda, awakened a keener pang of attachment to her. How do you feel, my love? Is your heart ill at ease? I fear it. God forbid that these persecutors should harass that peace, which is more precious to me than my Be assured I shall ever think on you, muse on you, and in my moments of devotion, pray for you. The hour that you are not in my thoughts, "be that hour darkness; let the shadows of death cover it; let it not be numbered in the hours of the day!"

own.

"When I forget the darling theme,

Be my tongue mute! my fancy paint no more!

And, dead to joy, forget my heart to beat!"

* The references in these two sentences are to Mrs. Rose's mother and her son Hugh, and to young ladies of the neighbourhood.

I have just met with my old friend, the ship captain*-guess my pleasure: to meet you could alone have given me more. My brother William, too, the young saddler, has come to Glasgow to meet me; and here are we three spending the evening.

I arrived here too late to write by post; but I'll wrap half-a-dozen sheets of blank paper together, and send it by the Fly, under the name of a parcel. You will hear from me next post-town. I would write you a longer letter, but for the present circumstances of my friend.

Adieu, my Clarinda! I am just going to propose your health by way of grace-drink. SYLVANDER.

No. CXIX.

TO CLARINDA.

KILMARNOCK, Friday [Feb. 22].

I WROTE you, my dear Madam, the moment I alighted in Glasgow. Since then I have not had opportunity; for in Paisley, where I arrived next day, my worthy, wise friend Mr. Pattison did not allow me a moment's respite. I was there ten hours; during which time I was introduced to nine men worth six thousands; five men worth ten thousands; his brother, richly worth twenty thousands; and a young weaver, who will have thirty thousands good when his father, who has no more children than the said weaver, and a Whig kirk, dies. Mr. P. was bred a zealous Antiburgher; but during his widowerhood he has found their strictness incompatible with certain compromises he is often obliged to make with those powers of darkness-the devil, the world, and the flesh. *** His only daughter, who, "if the beast be to the fore, and the branks bide hale,” will have seven thousand pounds when her old father steps into the dark factory-office of eternity with his well-thrummed web of life, has put him again and again in a commendable fit of indignation by requesting a harpsichord. "Oh these boarding-schools!" exclaims my prudent friend: "she was a good spinner and sewer till I was advised by her foes and mine to give her a year of Edinburgh !"

After two bottles more, my much-respected friend opened up to me a project—a legitimate child of Wisdom and Good Sense: 'twas no less than a long-thought-on and deeply-matured design, to marry a girl fully as elegant in her form as the famous priestess whom Saul consulted in his last hours, and who had been second maid of honour to his deceased wife. This, you may be sure, I highly applauded; so I hope for a pair of gloves by and by. I spent the two bypast days at Dunlop House, with that worthy family to whom I was deeply indebted early in my poetic career; and in about two hours I shall present your "twa wee sarkies" to the little fellow. My dearest Clarinda, you are ever present with me; and these hours, that drawl by among the fools and rascals of this world, are only supportable in the idea, that they are the forerunners of that happy hour that ushers me to 66 the mistress of my soul." Next week I shall visit

* Mr. Richard Brown.