has laid me under, the consciousness of your su- | my dear Madam, let me beg of you to give us, periority in the rank of man and gentleman, of itself was fully as much as I could ever make head against; but to owe you money too, was more than I could face.

I think I once mentioned something of a collection of Scotch songs I have for some years been making: I send you a perusal of what I have got together. I could not conveniently | spare them above five or six days, and five or six glances of them will probably more than sufA very few of them are my own. When you are tired of them, please leave them with Mr. Clint, of the King's Arms. There is not another copy of the collection in the world; and I shall be sorry that any unfortunate negli gence should deprive me of what has cost me a good deal of pains.

No. CLXXXVI.

TO THE SAME.

showed me. At present, my situation in life must be in a great measure stationary, at least for two or three years. The statement is this I am on the supervisor's list; and as we come on there by precedency, in two or I WILL wait on you, my ever-valued friend, three years I shall be at the head of that list, but whether in the morning I am not sure. and be appointed of course-then a Friend Sunday closes a period of our curst revenue bu might be of service to me in getting me into a siness, and may probably keep me employed place of the kingdom which I would like. A with my pen until noon. Fine employment for supervisor's income varies from about a hundred a poet's pen! There is a species of the human and twenty, to two hundred a-year; but the genus that I call the gin-horse class: what enbusiness is an incessant drudgery, and would be | viable dogs they are. Round, and round, and nearly a complete bar to every species of litera-round they go,-Mundell's ox that drives his ry pursuit. The moment I am appointed su- cotton mill, is their exact prototype-without pervisor in the common routine, I may be no- an idea or a wish beyond their circle: fat, minated on the collector's list; and this is al-sleek, stupid, patient, quiet, and contented; ways a business purely of political patronage. A while here I sit, altogether Novemberish, a d— collectorship varies much, from better than two melange of fretfulness and melancholy; not hundred a-year to near a thousand. They also enough of the one to rouse me to passion, nor come forward by precedency on the list, and of the other to repose me in torpor; my soul have, besides a handsome income, a life of com- flouncing and fluttering round her tenement, plete leisure. A life of literary leisure, with a like a wild finch, caught amid the horrors of decent competence, is the summit of my wish-winter, and newly thrust into a cage. es. It would be the prudish affectation of silly pride in me, to say that I do not need or would not be indebted to a political friend; at the same time, Sir, I by no means lay my affairs before you thus, to hook my dependent situation on your benevolence. If, in my progress of life, an opening should occur where the good offices of a gentleman of your public character and political consequence might bring me forward, I will petition your goodness with the same frankness and sincerity as now do myself the honour to subscribe myself, &c.

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

Pray that wisdom and bliss be more frequent visitors of

R. B.

No. CLXXXV.

TO MRS. RIDDEL.

DEAR MADAM,

1 MEANT to have called on you yesternight, but as I edged up to your box-door, the first object which greeted my view, was one of those lobster-coated puppies, sitting like another dragon, guarding the Hesperian fruit. On the conditions and capitulations you so obligingly offer, I shall certainly make my weather-beaten rustic phiz a part of your box-furniture on Tuesday, when we may arrange the business of the visit.

Among the profusion of idle compliments which insidious craft, or unmeaning folly incessantly offers at your shrine-a shrine, how far 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.

No. CLXXXVIL

TO THE SAME.

I HAVE this moment got the song from S, and I am sorry to see that he has spoilt it a good deal. It shall be a lesson to me how I lend him any thing again.

I have sent you Werter, truly happy to have any the smallest opportunity of obliging you.

'Tis true, Madam, I saw you once since I was at W- -; and that once froze the very life-blood of my heart. Your reception of me was such, that a wretch meeting the eye of his judge, about to pronounce sentence of death on him, could only have envied my feelings and situation. But I hate the theme, and never more shall write or speak on it.

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.

If it is true that "offences come only from the heart," before you I am guiltless. mire, 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.

ners of those great folks whom I have now the
honour to call my acquaintances, the O-
family, there is nothing charms me more than
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 for-
tune; and to all this, such a woman!—but of
her I shall say nothing at all, in despair of say-
ing any thing adequate in my song, I have en-
deavoured 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. O-
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*.

NOTHING short of a kind of absolute necessiletter. Except my ardent and just esteem for ty could have made me trouble you with this

In a face where I used to meet the kind complacency of friendly confidence, now to find cold neglect, and contemptuous scorn-is a wrench your sense, taste, and worth, every sentiment arising in my breast, as I put pen to paper to you, that my heart can ill bear. It is, however, is painful. The scenes I have passed with the some kind of miserable good luck; that while friend of my soul, and his amiable connexions! de-haut-en-bas rigour may depress an unoffend- The wrench at my heart to think that he is ing 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, at least an opiate to blunt their poignancy. With the profoundest respect for your abili.

is

ties; 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. CXC.

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 enclose 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 man

gone, for ever gone from me, never more to the cutting reflection of all, that I had most unmeet in the wanderings of a weary world; and fortunately, though most undeservedly, lost the confidence of that soul of worth, ere it took its flight.

anguish. However, yon, also, may be offended These, Madam, are sensations of no ordinary with some imputed improprieties of mine; sensibility 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

The song enclosed was the one beginning with "O wat ye wha's in yon town.

means. You know, that, at the wish of my late up, amid the wreck of misfortune and misery friend, I made a collection of all my trifles in The ONE is composed of the different modifica. verse which I had ever written. They are ma- tions of a certain noble, stubborn something in ny of them local, some of them puerile, and sil-man, known by the names of courage, fortitude, ly, and all of them unfit for the public eye. As magnanimity. The OTHER is made up of those I have some little fame at stake, a fame that I feelings and sentiments, which, however the trust may live, when the hate of those who sceptic may deny them, or the enthusiast dis"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 estima

tion.

figure 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 allpowerful 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

With the sincerest esteem I have the honour the trick of the crafty FEW, to lead the undisto be, Madam, &c.

No. CXCII.

TO MR. CUNNINGHAM.

A MIND DISEASED.

cerning 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 25th February, 1794. mind of every child of mine with religion. If CANST thou minister to a mind diseased? my son should happen to be a man of feeling, Canst thou speak peace and rest to a soul tossed sentiment, and taste, I shall thus add largely to on a sea of troubles, without one friendly star to his enjoyments. Let me flatter myself that this guide her course, and dreading that the next sweet little fellow who is just now running surge may overwhelm her? Canst thou give to about my desk, will be a man of a melting, ara frame, tremblingly alive to the tortures of sus-dent, glowing heart; and an imagination, depense, the stability and hardihood of the rock lighted with the painter, and rapt with the that braves the blast? If thou canst not do the poet. least of these, why wouldst thou disturb me in my miseries, with thy inquiries after me?

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 naFor these two months I have not been able to ture up to nature's God. His soul, by swift, lift a pen. My constitution and frame were, ab delighting degrees, is wrapt above this subluorigine, blasted with a deep incurable taint of nary sphere, until he can be silent no longer, hypochondria, which poisons my existence. Of and bursts out into the glorious enthusiasm of late a number of domestic vexations, and some Thomson.pecuniary share in the ruin of these

times;

losses which, though trifling, were yet what I" These, as they change, Almighty Father, these could ill bear, have so irritated me, that my Are but the varied God.-The rolling year feelings at times could only be envied by a re- Is full of thee." probate spirit listening to the sentence that dooms it to perdition.

And so on, in all the spirit and ardour of that charming hymu.

Are you deep in the language of consolation? I have exhausted in reflection every topic of These are no ideal pleasures; they are real comfort. A heart at ease would have been delights, and I ask what of the delights among charmed with my sentiments and reasonings; the sons of men are superior, not to say, equal but as to myself, I was like Judas Iscariot to them? And they have this precious, vast adpreaching the gospel; he might melt and mould the hearts of those around him, but his own kept its native incorrigibility.

dition, that conscious virtue stamps them for her own; and lays hold on them to bring herself into the presence of a witnessing, judging,

Still there are two great pillars that bear us and approving God.

SUPPOSES HIMSELF TO BE WRITING FROM THE
DEAD TO THE LIVING.

MADAM,

TO THE EARL OF GLENCAIRN

MY LORD,

protector and friend, I have endeavoured to express in a poem to his memory, which I have now published. This edition i just from the press; and in my gratitude to the dead, and my respect for the living (fame belies you, my lord, if you possess not the same dignity of man, which was your noble brother's characteristic feature), I had destined a copy for the Earl of Glencairn. I learnt just now that you are in town:-allow me to present it to you.

WHEN you cast your eye on the name at the bottom of this letter, and on the title page of the book I do myself the honour to send your I DARE say this is the first epistle you ever lordship, a more pleasurable feeling than my vareceived from this nether world. I write you nity tells me, that it must be a name not entirefrom the regions of Hell, amid the horrors of ly unknown to you. The generous patronage the damned. The time and manner of my lea- of your late illustrious brother found me in the ving your earth I do not exactly know; as I lowest obscurity: he introduced my rustic muse took my departure in the heat of a fever of in- to the partiality of my country; and to him I toxication, contracted at your too hospitable owe all. My sense of his goodness, and the mansion; but on my arrival here, I was fairly anguish of my soul at losing my truly noble tried and sentenced to endure the purgatorial tortures of this infernal confine, for the space of ninety-nine years, eleven months, and twentynine 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 everpiercing 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 I know, my lord, such is the vile, venal conanguish eternally awake. Still, Madam, if I tagion which pervades the world of letters, could in any measure be reinstated in the good that professions of respect from an author, paropinion of the fair circle whom my conduct last ticularly from a poet, to a lord, are more than night so much injured, I think it would be an suspicious. I claim my by-past conduct, and alleviation to my torments. For this reason I my feelings at this moment, as exceptions to the trouble you with this letter. To the men of too just conclusion. Exalted as are the honours the company I will make no apology.-Your of your lordship's name, and unnoted as is the husband, who insisted on my drinking more obscurity of mine; with the uprightness of an 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 involuntary-that an intoxicated man is the vilest of beasts-that it was not in my nature to be brutal to any one-that to be rude to a woman, when in my senses, was impossible

with me-but

Regret! Remorse! Shame! ye three hellnounds that ever dog my steps and bay at my heels, spare me! spare me!

Forgive the offences, and pity the perdition of, Madam, your humble slave.

honest man, I come before your lordship, with
an offering, however humble, 'tis all I have to
give, of my grateful respect; and to beg of you,
my lord,-'tis all I have to ask of you, that you
will do me the honour to accept of it.
I have the honour to be, &c.