s: And winds by the cot where my Mary resides;


s: How wanton thy waters her snowy feet lave,


s: As gathering sweet flow'rets she stems thy clear wave.


s: Flow gently, sweet Afton! among thy green braes,


s: Flow gently, sweet river, the theme of my lays!


s: My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream--


s: Flow gently, sweet Afton! disturb not her dream.


s: Now crystal clear are the falling waters,


s: Fresh o'er the mountains breaks forth the morning,


s: All creatures joy in the sun's returning,


s: While corn grows green in simmer showers,


s: Tune--"_The deuks dang o'er my daddie._"


s: The fien'-ma-care, quo' the feirrie auld wife,


s: This seven lang years I hae lien by his side,


s: O, hand your tongue, my feirrie auld wife,


s: She's fair and fause that causes my smart,


s: She's broken her vow, she's broken my heart,


s: 'Twad been o'er meikle to gien thee mair--


s: Tune--"_The Deil cam' fiddling through the town._"


s: The deil cam' fiddling through the town,


s: We'll mak our maut, we'll brew our drink,


s: We'll dance, and sing, and rejoice, man;


s: And mony braw thanks to the meikle black deil


s: There's threesome reels, there's foursome reels,


s: But the ae best dance e'er cam to the land


s: LOUIS, WHAT RECK I BY THEE. Tune--"_Louis, what reck I by thee._"


s: Tune--"_Charlie Gordon's welcome hame._"


s: But what is the north and its Highlands to me?


s: The south nor the east gie ease to my breast,


s: The far foreign land, or the wild rolling sea.


s: But I look to the west, when I gae to rest,


s: That happy my dreams and my slumbers may be;


s: For far in the west lives he I Io'e best,


s: The lad that is dear to my babie and me.


s: But your green graff, now, Luckie Laing,


s: They cooper'd at e'en, they cooper'd at morn,


s: 'Till our gude-man has gotten the scorn;


s: Tune--"_The lass that made the bed for me._"


s: And drank, "Young man, now sleep ye soun'."


s: "Haud aff your hands, young man," she says,


s: But aye she blush'd, and aye she sigh'd,


s: I clasp'd her waist, and kiss'd her syne,


s: While the tear stood twinklin' in her e'e;


s: Gie body strength, then I'll ne'er start


s: Tune--"_I'll gae nae mair to yon town._"


s: There's nane sall ken, there's nane sall guess,


s: How blest ye flow'rs that round her blaw,


s: Tune--_"Ye're welcome, Charlie Stewart."_


s: May he whose arms shall fauld thy charms


s: There's ne'er a flower that blooms in May


s: Cassillis's banks, is the heroine of these verses.]


s: Now bank an' brae are claith'd in green,


s: To thee, lov'd Nith, thy gladsome plains,


s: Where late wi' careless thought I rang'd,


s: loveliest young ladies in Nithsdale, Phillis M'Murdo.]


s: Wae is my heart, and the tear's in my e'e;


s: Lang, lang, joy's been a stranger to me;


s: Forsaken and friendless, my burden I bear,


s: And the sweet voice of pity ne'er sounds in my ear.


s: Love, thou hast pleasures, and deep hae I loved;


s: Love, thou hast sorrows, and sair hae I proved;


s: But this bruised heart that now bleeds in my breast,


s: I can feel by its throbbings will soon be at rest.


s: O, if I were happy, where happy I hae been,


s: Down by yon stream, and yon bonnie castle green;


s: For there he is wand'ring, and musing on me,


s: Wha wad soon dry the tear frae his Phillis's e'e.


s: poet's lady correspondents. Burns, in the note in which he


s: Ance mair I hail thee, thou gloomy December!


s: Ance mair I hail thee wi' sorrow and care:


s: Sad was the parting thou makes me remember,


s: Parting wi' Nancy, oh! ne'er to meet mair.


s: Fond lovers' parting is sweet painful pleasure,


s: Hope beaming mild on the soft parting hour;


s: But the dire feeling, O farewell for ever!


s: Wild as the winter now tearing the forest,


s: 'Till the last leaf o' the summer is flown,


s: Such is the tempest has shaken my bosom,


s: Since my last hope and last comfort is gone!


s: Still as I hail thee, thou gloomy December,


s: Still shall I hail thee wi' sorrow and care;


s: For sad was the parting thou makes me remember,


s: Tune--"_The King of France, he rade a race._"


s: 'Twas pibroch, sang, strathspey, or reels,


s: When there cam a yell o' foreign squeels,


s: defaced the legend of my heart, so faithfully inscribed on them.


s: And curst be the cause that shall part us!


s: deeper than the flaxen. The song was written for Thomson's work.]


s: Green be your woods, and fair your flowers,


s: Now green's the sod, and cauld's the clay,


s: There's auld Rob Morris that wons in yon glen,


s: He's the king o' guid fellows and wale of auld men;


s: He has gowd in his coffers, he has owsen and kine,


s: And ae bonnie lassie, his darling and mine.


s: She's fresh as the morning, the fairest in May;


s: She's sweet as the ev'ning amang the new hay;


s: As blythe and as artless as the lamb on the lea,


s: And dear to my heart as the light to my e'e.


s: But oh! she's an heiress,--auld Robin's a laird,


s: And my daddie has nought but a cot-house and yard;


s: A wooer like me mamma hope to come speed;


s: The wounds I must hide that will soon be my dead.


s: The day comes to me, but delight brings me nane;


s: The night comes to me, but my rest it is gane:


s: I wander my lane like a night-troubled ghaist,


s: And I sigh as my heart it wad burst in my breast.


s: I then might hae hop'd she wad smil'd upon me!


s: O, how past descriving had then been my bliss,


s: As now my distraction no words can express!


s: There's braw, braw lads on Yarrow braes,


s: It ne'er was wealth, it ne'er was wealth,


s: That coft contentment, peace, or pleasure;


s: Lord Gregory, mind'st thou not the grove


s: juvenile works. I leave it in your hands. I do not think it very


s: remarkable either for its merits or its demerits." "Of all the


s: productions of Burns," says Hazlitt, "the pathetic and serious


s: love-songs which he has left behind him, in the manner of the old


s: Now tired with wandering, haud awa hame;


s: And tell me thou bring'st me my Willie the same.


s: Loud blew the cauld winter winds at our parting;


s: It was na the blast brought the tear in my e'e;


s: Now welcome the simmer, and welcome my Willie,


s: Ye hurricanes, rest in the cave o' your slumbers!


s: Awaken, ye breezes, row gently, ye billows,


s: And waft my dear laddie ance mair to my arms.


s: But if he's forgotten his faithfulest Nannie,


s: O still flow between us, thou wide roaring main;


s: May I never see it, may I never trow it,


s: But, dying, believe that my Willie's my ain.


s: Tell me thou bring'st me my Willie the same.


s: Winter winds blew loud and cauld at our parting,


s: Fears for my Willie brought tears in my e'e;


s: Welcome now simmer, and welcome my Willie,


s: Rest, ye wild storms, in the cave of your slumbers,


s: Wauken, ye breezes, row gently, ye billows,


s: But oh, if he's faithless, and minds na his Nannie,


s: Flow still between us, thou wide roaring main;


s: Tho' thou has been false, I'll ever prove true,


s: The frost that freezes the life at my heart,


s: The wan moon is setting behind the white wave,


s: False friends, false love, farewell! for mair


s: She has open'd the door, she has open'd it wide;


s: She sees his pale corse on the plain, Oh!


s: My true love! she cried, and sank down by his side,


s: True hearted was he, the sad swain o' the Yarrow,


s: And fair are the maids on the banks o' the Ayr,


s: But by the sweet side o' the Nith's winding river,


s: Are lovers as faithful, and maidens as fair:


s: To equal young Jessie seek Scotland all over;


s: To equal young Jessie you seek it in vain;


s: Grace, beauty, and elegance fetter her lover,


s: O, fresh is the rose in the gay, dewy morning,


s: But in the fair presence o' lovely young Jessie


s: Love sits in her smile, a wizard ensnaring;


s: Enthron'd in her een he delivers his law:


s: And still to her charms she alone is a stranger--


s: Air--"_Hey! bonnie lass, will you lie in a barrack?_"


s: O ken ye what Meg o' the Mill has gotten?


s: An' ken ye what Meg o' the Mill has gotten?


s: She has gotten a coof wi' a claute o' siller,


s: And broken the heart o' the barley Miller.


s: The Miller was strappin, the Miller was ruddy;


s: A heart like a lord and a hue like a lady:


s: The Laird was a widdiefu', bleerit knurl;


s: She's left the guid-fellow and ta'en the churl.


s: The Miller he hecht her a heart leal and loving;


s: The Laird did address her wi' matter mair moving,


s: A fine pacing horse wi' a clear chained bridle,


s: A whip by her side and a bonnie side-saddle.


s: O wae on the siller, it is sae prevailing;


s: And wae on the love that is fixed on a mailen'


s: A tocher's nae word in a true lover's parle,


s: But gie me my love, and a fig for the warl!


s: The bees hum round the breathing flowers;


s: The widow's tears, the orphan's cries."]


s: And frost will blight the fairest flowers,


s: Her heart was tint, her peace was stown.


s: heroine resides, a widow, in Edinburgh.]


s: Had I a cave on some wild, distant shore,


s: Where the winds howl to the waves' dashing roar;


s: Falsest of womankind, canst thou declare,


s: All thy fond plighted vows--fleeting as air!


s: The winds were whispering through the grove,


s: She, sinking, said, "I'm thine for ever?"


s: The haunt o' Spring's the primrose brae,


s: Or chain the soul in speechless pleasure,


s: "Thy Jeany will venture wi' ye, my lad,"


s: O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad,


s: O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad:


s: Tho' father and mither and a' should gae mad,


s: O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad.


s: But warily tent, when you come to court me,


s: And come na unless the back-yett be a-jee;


s: Syne up the back-stile and let naebody see,


s: At kirk, or at market, whene'er ye meet me,


s: Gang by me as tho' that ye car'd na a flie;


s: But steal me a blink o' your bonnie black e'e,


s: Ay vow and protest that ye care na for me,


s: And whiles ye may lightly my beauty a wee;


s: But court na anither, tho' jokin' ye be,


s: For fear that she wyle your fancy frae me.


s: To mark the sweet flowers as they spring;


s: Her breath is the breath o' the woodbine,


s: That wakes thro' the green-spreading grove,


s: To deck her gay, green-spreading bowers;


s: expletives, and weakened the simple energy of the original: Burns


s: musician, "which I dislike in the whole song is,


s: There, latest mark'd her vanish'd sail."


s: While thro' thy sweets she loves to stray,


s: And we'll take a right guid willie-waught,


s: Where are the joys I have met in the morning,


s: Where is the peace that awaited my wand'ring,


s: No more a-winding the course of yon river,


s: No more I trace the light footsteps of pleasure,


s: Is it that summer's forsaken our valleys,


s: No, no, the bees' humming round the gay roses,


s: Fain would I hide, what I fear to discover,


s: All that has caused this wreck in my bosom,


s: Time cannot aid me, my griefs are immortal,


s: Come then, enamour'd and fond of my anguish,


s: poet's manuscripts the song commences thus:


s: This change was tried out of compliment, it is believed, to Mrs.


s: elsewhere set to the tune of the Death of the Linnet.]


s: Thro' gentle showers and laughing flowers,


s: "Ah! the poor shepherd's mournful fate,"


s: and some unrecorded "Mary" of the poet's heart, is in the latter


s: The muse should tell, in labour'd strains,


s: But at twal at night, when the moon shines bright,


s: For the man that lo'es his mistress weel,


s: Tune--"_It was a' for our rightfu' king._"


s: entirely. Johnson received it from him in his own handwriting.]


s: Tune--"_O steer her up, and haud her gaun._"


s: She's down i' the grove, she's wi' a new love!


s: She lets thee to wit that she has thee forgot,


s: As light as the air, and fause as thou's fair,


s: Sleep'st thou, or wak'st thou, fairest creature?


s: Wild nature's tenants freely, gladly stray;


s: While the sun and thou arise to bless the day.


s: With starless gloom o'ercast my sullen sky;


s: 'Tis then I wake to life, to light, and joy.


s: Air--"_My lodging is on the cold ground._"


s: These wild-wood flowers I've pu'd, to deck


s: When all the flow'rs were fresh and gay,


s: Farewell, thou stream that winding flows


s: Whilst thou didst pledge the powers above,


s: Contented wi' little, and cantie wi' mair,


s: Whene'er I forgather wi' sorrow end care,


s: I gie them a skelp, as they're creepin alang,


s: Wi' a cog o' guid swats, and an auld Scottish sang.


s: I whyles claw the elbow o' troublesome thought;


s: But man is a sodger, and life is a faught:


s: My mirth and guid humour are coin in my pouch,


s: And my freedom's my lairdship nae monarch dare touch.


s: A towmond o' trouble, should that be my fa',


s: A night o' guid fellowship sowthers it a':


s: When at the blithe end o' our journey at last,


s: Wha the deil ever thinks o' the road he has past?


s: Blind chance, let her snapper and stoyte on her way;


s: Be't to me, be't frae me, e'en let the jade gae:


s: Come ease, or come travail; come pleasure or pain;


s: My warst word is--"Welcome, and welcome again!"


s: Thou may'st find those will love thee dear--


s: Now in her green mantle blythe nature arrays,


s: And listens the lambkins that bleat o'er the braes,


s: While birds warble welcome in ilka green shaw;


s: But to me it's delightless--my Nannie's awa!


s: The snaw-drap and primrose our woodlands adorn,


s: And violets bathe in the weet o' the morn;


s: They pain my sad bosom, sae sweetly they blaw,


s: They mind me o' Nannie--and Nanny's awa!


s: Thou lav'rock that springs frae the dews of the lawn,


s: The shepherd to warn o' the gray-breaking dawn,


s: And thou mellow mavis that hails the night fa',


s: Come autumn sae pensive, in yellow and gray,


s: And soothe me with tidings o' nature's decay:


s: The dark dreary winter, and wild driving snaw,


s: There was once a day--but old Time then was young--


s: That brave Caledonia, the chief of her line,


s: From some of your northern deities sprung,


s: (Who knows not that brave Caledonia's divine?)


s: From Tweed to the Orcades was her domain,


s: To hunt, or to pasture, or do what she would:


s: Her heav'nly relations there fixed her reign,


s: And pledg'd her their godheads to warrant it good.


s: The pride of her kindred the heroine grew;


s: Her grandsire, old Odin, triumphantly swore


s: "Whoe'er shall provoke thee, th' encounter shall rue!"


s: With tillage or pasture at times she would sport,


s: To feed her fair flocks by her green rustling corn;


s: But chiefly the woods were her fav'rite resort,


s: Her darling amusement, the hounds and the horn.


s: Long quiet she reign'd; till thitherward steers


s: A flight of bold eagles from Adria's strand:


s: Repeated, successive, for many long years,


s: They darken'd the air, and they plunder'd the land:


s: Their pounces were murder, and terror their cry,


s: They'd conquer'd and ruin'd a world beside;


s: She took to her hills, and her arrows let fly--


s: The daring invaders they fled or they died.


s: The fell harpy-raven took wing from the north,


s: The scourge of the seas, and the dread of the shore;


s: To wanton in carnage, and wallow in gore;


s: O'er countries and kingdoms their fury prevail'd,


s: No arts could appease them, no arms could repel;


s: But brave Caledonia in vain they assail'd,


s: As Largs well can witness, and Loncartie tell.


s: The Cameleon-savage disturbed her repose,


s: With tumult, disquiet, rebellion, and strife;


s: Provok'd beyond bearing, at last she arose,


s: And robb'd him at once of his hope and his life:


s: Oft prowling, ensanguin'd the Tweed's silver flood:


s: But, taught by the bright Caledonian lance,


s: He learned to fear in his own native wood.


s: Thus bold, independent, unconquer'd, and free,


s: Her bright course of glory for ever shall run:


s: I'll prove it from Euclid as clear as the sun:


s: Rectangle-triangle, the figure we'll choose,


s: The upright is Chance, and old Time is the base;


s: Then ergo, she'll match them, and match them always.


s: Where gathering flowers and busking bowers,


s: The western breeze steals thro' the trees,


s: Tune--"_Here's a health to them that's awa._"


s: And wha winna wish guid luck to our cause,


s: Here's a health to Charlie the chief of the clan,


s: May tyrants and tyranny tine in the mist,


s: Here's a health to Tammie, the Norland laddie,


s: There's nane ever fear'd that the truth should be heard,


s: Here's Chieftain M'Leod, a chieftain worth gowd,


s: Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine,


s: That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth,


s: When yon green leaves fade frae the tree,


s: Nae star blinks thro' the driving sleet:


s: The sweetest flower that deck'd the mead,


s: following, written for Thomson the heroine was Mrs. Burns.]


s: Their groves o' sweet myrtle let foreign lands reckon,


s: Where bright-beaming summers exalt the perfume;


s: Far dearer to me yon lone glen o' green brockan,


s: Wi' the burn stealing under the lang yellow broom:


s: Far dearer to me are yon humble broom bowers,


s: Where the blue-bell and gowan lurk lowly unseen;


s: For there, lightly tripping amang the wild flowers,


s: A listening the linnet, aft wanders my Jean.


s: Tho' rich is the breeze in their gay sunny valleys,


s: And cauld CALEDONIA'S blast on the wave;


s: Their sweet-scented woodlands that skirt the proud palace,


s: What are they?--The haunt of the tyrant and slave!


s: The slave's spicy forests, and gold-bubbling fountains,


s: He wanders as free as the winds of his mountains,


s: Save love's willing fetters, the chains o' his Jean.


s: 'Twas na her bonnie blue een was my ruin;


s: Fair tho' she be, that was ne'er my undoing:


s: 'Twas the dear smile when naebody did mind us,


s: 'Twas the bewitching, sweet stown glance o' kindness.


s: Sair do I fear that to hope is denied me,


s: Sair do I fear that despair maun abide me!


s: But tho' fell fortune should fate us to sever,


s: Queen shall she be in my bosom for ever.


s: Mary, I'm thine wi' a passion sincerest,


s: And thou hast plighted me love o' the dearest!


s: And thou'rt the angel that never can alter--


s: Sooner the sun in his motion would falter.


s: But never, never can come near the heart.


s: Lovely as yonder sweet opening flower is,


s: In Love's delightful fetters she chains the willing soul!


s: And feel thro' every vein Love's raptures roll.


s: She's bonnie, blooming, straight, and tall,


s: "Had I a cave on some wild distant shore."]


s: The wretch whase doom is, "hope nae mair."


s: Last May a braw wooer cam down the lang glen,


s: I said there was naething I hated like men,


s: The deuce gae wi'm, to believe, believe me,


s: He spak o' the darts in my bonnie black een,


s: I said he might die when he liked for Jean,


s: The Lord forgie me for lying, for lying,


s: A weel-stocked mailen--himsel' for the laird--


s: And marriage aff-hand, were his proffers:


s: I never loot on that I kenn'd it, or car'd,


s: But thought I may hae waur offers, waur offers,


s: But what wad ye think? In a fortnight or less--


s: He up the Gateslack to my black cousin Bess,


s: Guess ye how, the jad! I could bear her, could bear her,


s: Guess ye how, the jad! I could bear her.


s: But a' the niest week as I fretted wi' care,


s: And wha but my fine fickle lover was there!


s: I glowr'd as I'd seen a warlock, a warlock,


s: But owre my left shouther I gae him a blink,


s: My wooer he caper'd as he'd been in drink,


s: And vow'd I was his dear lassie, dear lassie,


s: I spier'd for my cousin fu' couthy and sweet,


s: And how my auld shoon suited her shauchled feet,


s: But, heavens! how he fell a swearin', a swearin',


s: He begged, for Gudesake, I wad be his wife,


s: So, e'en to preserve the poor body in life,


s: I think I maun wed him to-morrow, to-morrow,


s: Why did they not come along with you, Dumourier?


s: I will fight France with you, Dumourier;


s: By my soul I'll dance a dance with you, Dumourier.


s: Then we'll be damn'd, no doubt, Dumourier.


s: And 'twere more fit that she should sit,


s: Comes trinkling down her swan-white neck;


s: Awa wi' your witchcraft o' beauty's alarms,


s: The slender bit beauty you grasp in your arms:


s: O, gie me the lass that has acres o' charms,


s: O, gie me the lass wi' the weel-stockit farms.


s: Your beauty's a flower, in the morning that blows,


s: And withers the faster, the faster it grows;


s: But the rapturous charm o' the bonnie green knowes,


s: Ilk spring they're new deckit wi' bonnie white yowes.


s: And e'en when this beauty your bosom has blest,


s: The brightest o' beauty may cloy when possest;


s: But the sweet yellow darlings wi' Geordie imprest,


s: The langer ye hae them--the mair they're carest.


s: Tune--"_Here's a health to them that's awa._"


s: Thou art sweet as the smile when fond lovers meet,


s: 'Gainst fortune's fell cruel decree?--Jessy!


s: Full well thou know'st I love thee, dear!


s: "The soul, uneasy, and confined at home,


s: Rests and expatiates in a life to come."


s: I do not doubt, Sir, but you will wish to know what has been the


s: result of all the pains of an indulgent father, and a masterly


s: "Elegies;" Thomson; "Man of Feeling"--a book I prize next to the


s: Bible; "Man of the World;" Sterne, especially his "Sentimental


s: I shall only trouble you with a few particulars relative to the


s: wretched state of this country. Our markets are exceedingly high;


s: poorest sort, Heaven only knows. This country, till of late, was


s: flourishing incredibly in the manufacture of silk, lawn, and


s: English and French, and other foreign luxuries and fopperies, has


s: My mother sends you a small present of a cheese, 'tis but a very


s: father's), when he was very young, lost his father, and having


s: letters to you. By uncommon, I mean their being written in such a


s: It is natural for a young fellow to like the acquaintance of the


s: females, and customary for him to keep them company when occasion


s: "O! happy state when souls each other draw,


s: I know were I to speak in such a style to many a girl, who thinks


s: When I look over what I have written, I am sensible it is vastly


s: integrity and truth, and who sincerely loves a woman of amiable


s: It would oblige me much if you would send me a line or two when


s: virtue, if a heart devoted to love and esteem you, and an earnest


s: softness, that endearing sweetness of disposition, with all the


s: allowed to wait on you, and as I expect to remove in a few days a


s: On rummaging over some old papers I lighted on a MS. of my early


s: ROBERT BURNESS: a man who had little art in making money, and


s: "There are numbers in the world who do not want sense to


s: make a figure, so much as an opinion of their own abilities


s: to put them upon recording their observations, and allowing


s: them the same importance which they do to those which appear


s: "Pleasing, when youth is long expired, to trace


s: The forms our pencil, or our pen designed!


s: Such was our youthful air, and shape, and face,


s: Such the soft image of our youthful mind."--_Ibid._


s: For my own part I never had the least thought or inclination of


s: Lest my works should be thought below criticism: or meet with a


s: critic, who, perhaps, will not look on them with so candid and


s: favourable an eye, I am determined to criticise them myself.


s: Of all the numerous ills that hurt our peace,


s: That press the soul, or wring the mind with anguish,


s: Has this to say, 'It was no deed of mine;'


s: This sting is added--'Blame thy foolish self!'


s: Or worser far, the pangs of keen remorse;


s: The torturing, gnawing consciousness of guilt--


s: Of guilt, perhaps, where we've involved others;


s: The young, the innocent, who fondly lov'd us,


s: Nay, more, that every love their cause of ruin!


s: O burning hell; in all thy store of torments,


s: Lives there a man so firm, who, while his heart


s: Feels all the bitter horrors of his crime,


s: Can firmly force his jarring thoughts to peace?


s: I have often courted the acquaintance of that part of mankind,


s: commonly known by the ordinary phrase of blackguards, sometimes


s: believe, may be partly owing to my misfortunes giving my mind a


s: melancholy cast: but there is something even in the--


s: Abrupt and deep, stretch'd o'er the buried earth,"--


s: There was a certain period of my life that my spirit was broke by


s: The following song is a wild rhapsody, miserably deficient in


s: The foregoing was to have been an elaborate dissertation on the


s: various species of men; but as I cannot please myself in the


s: renders life delightful; and to maintain an integritive conduct


s: A Prayer, when fainting fits, and other alarming symptoms of a


s: pleurisy or some other dangerous disorder, which indeed still


s: threatens me, first put nature on the alarm:--


s: Misgivings in the hour of _despondency_ and prospect of death:--


s: Why am I loth to leave this earthly scene.


s: I don't well know what is the reason of it, but somehow or other,


s: wretched infirmity, and, if possible, to mend it.


s: "And if there is no other scene of being


s: Where my insatiate wish may have its fill,--


s: This something at my heart that heaves for room,


s: My best, my dearest part, was made in vain."


s: O ye illustrious names unknown! who could feel so strongly and


s: coeur_, or, to tell the truth, which will scarcely be believed, a


s: friendship and politeness, she offered me every allegiance except


s: another.--By the way, these old Scottish airs are so nobly


s: There will surely be some pleasant weather


s: She promis'd fair and perform'd but ill;


s: Of mistress, friends, and wealth bereav'd me,


s: Yet I bear a heart shall support me still.


s: I'll act with prudence as far as I'm able,


s: Then come misfortune, I bid thee welcome,


s: accompanied with a warm, feeling, poetic heart, shaken hands with


s: This is all worth quoting in my MSS., and more than all.


s: I hope my father's friends in your country will not let their


s: personally acquainted with most of them, and I can assure you the


s: This, my dear Sir, is one of the many instances of the folly of


s: Common-place Book. This is questioned by Robert Chambers, who,


s: however, leaves both name and date unsettled.]


s: I have not time at present to upbraid you for your silence and


s: patron now is Mr. Aiken, in Ayr, who is pleased to express great


s: I have done myself the pleasure of complying with your request in


s: I am heartily sorry I had not the pleasure of seeing you as you


s: It is injuring some hearts, those hearts that elegantly bear the


s: impression of the good Creator, to say to them you give them the


s: respect to the enclosed, because I know it will gratify yours to


s: assist me in it to the utmost of your power.


s: Our race comes on a-pace; that much-expected scene of revelry and


s: I went to Dr. Douglas yesterday, fully resolved to take the


s: "O woman, lovely woman! Heaven design'd you


s: To temper man!--we had been brutes without you."


s: subscription, should have a more lengthened acknowledgment from,


s: ungrateful Jean! for never never will I see you more.


s: I was with Wilson, my printer, t'other day, and settled all our


s: You see, Sir, that if to know one's errors were a probability of


s: promises well; in short, how you feel in the inner man.


s: No news worth anything: only godly Bryan was in the inquisition


s: noblest being ever God created, if he imagined me to be a rascal.


s: I am truly sorry I was not at home yesterday, when I was so much


s: celebrate your illustrious ancestor, the Saviour of his Country.


s: "Great patriot hero! ill-requited chief!"


s: The first book I met with in my early years, which I perused with


s: "Syne to the Leglen wood, when it was late,


s: Your truly facetious epistle of the 3d inst. gave me much


s: Farewell, my dear friend! may guid luck hit you,


s: What I have wrote heaven knows; I have not time to review it; so


s: accept of it in the beaten way of friendship. With the ordinary


s: phrase--perhaps rather more than the ordinary sincerity,


s: nature in all the gayety of the vernal year. The evening sun was


s: flaming over the distant western hills; not a breath stirred the


s: crimson opening blossom, or the verdant spreading leaf. It was a


s: golden moment for a poetic heart. I listened to the feathered


s: warblers, pouring their harmony on every hand, with a congenial


s: entertainment to you, but of that I am far from being an adequate


s: woman; but I have no common friend to procure me that permission,


s: One feature of your character I shall ever with grateful pleasure


s: points to some other of his compositions, for purgation by fire.


s: districts and countries of Kyle, Cunningham, and Carrick, of old


s: extent, To our trusty and well-beloved William Chalmers and John


s: M'Adam, students and practitioners in the ancient and mysterious


s: Be it known unto you that whereas in the course of our care and


s: watchings over the order and police of all and sundry the


s: manufacturers, retainers, and venders of poesy; bards, poets,


s: Enclosed you have "Tam Samson," as I intend to print him. I am


s: thinking for my Edinburgh expedition on Monday or Tuesday, come


s: se'ennight, for pos. I will see you on Tuesday first.


s: information respecting the early days of Burns.]


s: For my own affairs, I am in a fair way of becoming as eminent as


s: suffered ever since I came to town with a miserable headache and


s: stomach complaint, but am now a good deal better.--I have found a


s: Betty--the Dean of Faculty--Sir John Whitefoord--I have likewise


s: discovered my generous unknown friend to be Patrick Miller, Esq.,


s: Dugald Stewart, and some of my learned friends, put me in the


s: periodical paper, called The Lounger, a copy of which I here


s: Your friend's notion of my life has put a crotchet in my head of


s: I confess I have sinned the sin for which there is hardly any


s: conceited majesty, preside over the dull routine of business--a


s: My direction is--care of Andrew Bruce, merchant, Bridge-street.


s: patronage is a bounty peculiarly suited to my feelings. I am not


s: servility, I trust, I shall ever have so much honest pride as to


s: But clear your decks, and here's the sex,


s: I have to-day corrected my 152d page. My best good wishes to Mr.


s: The word you object to in the mention I have made of my glorious


s: countryman and your immortal ancestor, is indeed borrowed from


s: Thomson; but it does not strike me us an improper epithet. I


s: "Saviour of his Country," which sooner or later I shall at least


s: nation, when poetry is and has been the study of man of the first


s: "When proud fortune's ebbing tide recedes,"


s: you will bear me witness, that when my bubble of fame was at the


s: acquainted with the classes of mankind among whom I have chiefly


s: unavoidable, and am prepared for it. I had been at a good deal of


s: My compliments to all the happy inmates of St. Margaret's.


s: Winchester school, had translated part of "Halloween" into Latin


s: verse, for the benefit of his comrades.]


s: Pardon my seeming neglect in delaying so long to acknowledge the


s: subscribers' names; so if any of my Ayr friends have subscription


s: painter has spoiled a "human face divine." The enclosed stanzas I


s: "Praise from thy lips, 'tis mine with joy to boast,


s: They best can give it who deserve it most."


s: deathless names in song. But, my lord, in the midst of these


s: enthusiastic reveries, a long-visaged, dry, moral-looking phantom


s: galling sneer of contumelious greatness. I hold you out the


s: I am still, in the Apostle Paul's phrase, "The old man with his


s: The inscription on the stone is as follows:--


s: "No scuptur'd marble here, nor pompous lay,


s: This simple stone directs pale Scotia's way


s: To pour her sorrows o'er her poet's dust."


s: On the other side of the stone is as follows:


s: _Session-house, within the Kirk of Canongate, the


s: twenty-second day of February, one thousand seven hundred


s: Was roll'd together, or had tried his beams


s: And therefore little can I grace my cause


s: Dr. Smith was just gone to London the morning before I received


s: So little am I acquainted with the words and manners of the more


s: public and polished walks of life, that I often feel myself much


s: embarrassed how to express the feelings of my heart, particularly


s: And little therefore shall I grace my cause


s: Society by Dr. Moore, a work of spirit and observation.]


s: I am happy, Madam, that some of my own favourite pieces are


s: I leave Edinburgh to-morrow morning, but could not go without


s: troubling you with half a line, sincerely to thank you for the


s: permanent lights of genius and literature, those who are truly


s: Farewell, my dear Sir! I wished to have seen you, but I have been


s: correspondence, as I have met with few people whose company and


s: Down drops her ance weel burnish'd crest,


s: nowhere else to be found in the poet's correspondence.]


s: I'm sitten down here after seven and forty miles ridin', e'en as


s: I was gaun to write you a lang pystle, but, Gude forgie me, I gat


s: Give me a spirit like my favourite hero, Milton's Satan:


s: Infernal world! and thou proufoundest hell,


s: Receive thy new possessor! he who brings


s: A mind not be chang'd by _place_ or _time_!


s: compensate my little ones, for the stigma I have brought on their


s: I shall write you more at large soon; as this letter costs you no


s: magnanimity, the intrepid, unyielding independence, the desperate


s: SATAN. 'Tis true, I have just now a little cash; but I am


s: P.S. I shall be in Edinburgh about the latter end of July.


s: Scotland, as well as for the poetry of Greece and Rome.]


s: If once I were gone from this scene of hurry and dissipation, I


s: promise myself the pleasure of that correspondence being renewed


s: immediately, to go into his second number: the first is already


s: published. I shall show you the first number when I see you in


s: sparingly support as savage inhabitants. My last stage was


s: intervals; then we flew at Bab at the Bowster, Tullochgorum, Loch


s: kneeled; our worthy landlord's son held the bowl; each man a full


s: I am afraid I have almost ruined one source, the principal one,


s: towerings, pop, down at my foot, like Corporal Trim's hat.


s: bagpiper will touch him off "Bundle and go!"


s: running a drunken race on the side of Loch Lomond with a wild


s: wrong; but you know very well your connexion and mine stands on a


s: Though in the morn comes sturt and strife,


s: My life, since I saw you last, has been one continued hurry; that


s: I have been looking over several farms in this country; one in


s: effort to habituate it to the routine of business.


s: songs," says he, "which follow, beginning 'Again rejoicing nature


s: Has crept thro' scoundrels ever since the flood."


s: Gules, purpure, argent, &c., quite disowned me.


s: understood men, their manners, and their ways, equal to him; but


s: favourite with anybody. I was a good deal noted for a retentive


s: memory, a stubborn sturdy something in my disposition, and an


s: country of tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies,


s: brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, elf-candles,


s: remember one half-stanza which was music to my boyish ear--


s: I met with these pieces in Mason's English Collection, one of my


s: flood-gates of life shut in eternal rest.


s: between sermons, at funerals, &c., used a few years afterwards to


s: stupid devils, the mechanics and peasantry around him, who were,


s: dexterous ploughman for my age; and the next eldest to me was a


s: threatening letters, which used to set us all in tears.


s: bewitching creature, a year younger than myself. My scarcity of


s: her.--Indeed, I did not know myself why I liked so much to loiter


s: troubling, and where the weary are at rest!


s: misfortune of my life was to want an aim. I had felt early some


s: sometimes happened to me to fall in with those who carried it on.


s: It was in vain to think of doing any more good at school. The


s: joined a flax-dresser in a neighboring town (Irvine) to learn his


s: From this adventure I learned something of a town life; but the


s: unfortunately buying bad seed, the second from a late harvest, we


s: assiduously Nature's design in my formation--where the lights and


s: requisite in Edinburgh, and I set out to-morrow.


s: From henceforth, my dear Sir, I am determined to set off with my


s: letters like the periodical writers, viz. prefix a kind of text,


s: Now for a modest verse of classical authority:


s: morning, and have passed, besides by-excursions, Linlithgow,


s: I left Andrew Bruce and family all well. I will be at least three


s: Here am I on my way to Inverness. I have rambled over the rich,


s: Yesterday morning I rode from this town up the meandering Devon's


s: regular, but they have the smile of sweetness and the settled


s: Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought,


s: That one would almost say her body thought."


s: Her eyes are fascinating; at once expressive of good sense,


s: answer about you. I had to describe the little ones with the


s: meeting Mrs. Chalmers, only Lady Mackenzie being rather a little


s: alarmingly ill of a sore throat somewhat marred our enjoyment.


s: I shall not be in Ayrshire for four weeks. My most respectful


s: I have just time to write the foregoing, and to tell you that it


s: I arrived here safe yesterday evening, after a tour of twenty-two


s: preaching cant of old Father Smeaton, whig-minister at Kilmaurs.


s: compliments to ladies, it is not only sincere, but just.


s: eternally rank against him in hostile array.


s: Allow me, Sir, to strengthen the small claim I have to your


s: My direction for two or three weeks will be at Mr. William


s: Cruikshank's, St. James's-square, New-town, Edinburgh.


s: Accept, in plain dull prose, my most sincere thanks for the best


s: further acquaintance I should look upon as a peculiar obligation.


s: peculiarly beautiful in the old Scottish song style, of which his


s: I wish my Lord Duke would pay a proper attention to the Christian


s: My brother's farm is but a wretched lease, but I think he will


s: These, my lord, are my views: I have resolved from the maturest


s: I am naturally of a superstitious cast, and as soon as my


s: Protestant interest; or St. Peter's keys to * * * * * *.


s: _Saturday Noon, No. 2, St. James's Square_,


s: complimentary card to accompany your trinket.


s: "Some say we're thieves, and e'en sae are we,


s: I would give my best song to my worst enemy, I mean the merit of


s: letter, called forth the commendation of Lord Jeffrey, when he


s: criticised Cromek's Reliques of Burns, in the Edinburgh Review.]


s: I lie so miserably open to the inroads and incursions of a


s: Mr. Mackenzie, in Mauchline, my very warm and worthy friend, has


s: economy, is almost inseparable from it; then there must be in the


s: contrast of valour and mercy, from the 36th verse to the 50th, is


s: Either my apprehension is dull, or there is something a little


s: Ris'n should be the word instead of rose. Try it in prose.


s: The gems of thought their purest force,"


s: expression. The address to the advocates for abolishing the


s: The comparison of our distant joys to distant objects is equally


s: As (or, so) the blue lightning when it springs


s: I will not beg your pardon, Madam, for these strictures, as my


s: prudence he retrieved his fortunes, and lived much respected in


s: Greenock, to a good old age. He said Burns had little to learn in


s: I have much to tell you "of men, their manners, and their ways,"


s: the following verses, which she sent me the other day:--


s: There, welcome, win, and wear the prize,


s: Your friendship much can make me blest--


s: My best compliments to our friend Allan.


s: Your thought if love must harbour there,


s: Ayrshire; I seldom pray for any body, "I'm baith dead-sweer and


s: wretched ill o't;" but most fervently do I beseech the Power that


s: thanksgiving would, in my opinion, be highly becoming from you at


s: determined to accept of it. O selfishness! he owns, in his sober


s: moments, that from his own volatility of inclination, the


s: circumstances in which he is situated, and his knowledge of his


s: "Heaven's sovereign saves all beings but himself--


s: That hideous sight--a naked human heart."


s: wretch, by selling out. Lately I was a sixpenny private; and, God


s: fortitude or cunning as to dissemble or conceal my cowardice.


s: Dunlop: he pleads guilty of folly, but not of irreligion.]


s: I have been a cripple now near three months, though I am getting


s: The second volume of the songs I mentioned to you in my last is


s: respectful esteem and sincere veneration, yours,


s: obliging favour as would have tired your patience. It but poorly


s: "Some souls by instinct to each other turn."


s: intermediate march of acquaintance. I wish I could transcribe, or


s: paragraph, my heart would bound with pleasure.


s: I am assisting a friend in a collection of Scottish songs, set to


s: beguiled the time and eased the pain by composing the Clarinda


s: Apologies for not writing are frequently like apologies for not


s: singing--the apology better than the song. I have fought my way


s: I should return my thanks for your      hospitality (I


s: pleased with the farm; and as he is, without exception, the most


s: kindest compliments to my worthy hostess and the sweet little


s: So soon as I am settled in the routine of life, either as an


s: vicious a bent to idleness, and have ever been so little a man of


s: stimulating compliments I can think of. Men of grave, geometrical


s: Perdition catch my soul, but I do love thee!"


s: Was roll'd together, or had try'd his beams


s: where, indeed, all men are equally in the dark.


s: Adieu, my dear Sir; God send us a cheerful meeting!


s: complaint, and the cowardly, feeble resolve.


s: Poor Miss K. is ailing a good deal this winter, and begged me to


s: remember her to you the first time I wrote to you. Surely woman,


s: accounts that the poet suspected his solvency.]


s: My very best compliments and good wishes to Mrs. Cleghorn.


s: forsooth, because it is mine; any little poetic effort, however


s: consequences attending a dull letter; one, for example, and the


s: You see, Madam, the truth of the French maxim, _le vrai n'est pas


s: Your books have delighted me: Virgil, Dryden, and Tasso were all


s: equally strangers to me; but of this more at large in my next.


s: Now for business.--I intend to present Mrs. Burns with a printed


s: Mrs. Burns ('tis only her private designation) begs her best


s: As I flatter my wishes that I foresee many future years'


s: correspondence between us, 'tis foolish to talk of excusing dull


s: honour to commend them. But light be the turf upon his breast who


s: "Where'er I roam, whatever realms I see,


s: My heart, untravell'd, fondly turns to thee;


s: Still to my _friend_ it turns with ceaseless pain,


s: and drags at each remove a lengthening chain."


s: "The valiant, in himself, what can he suffer?


s: Or what need he regard his _single_ woes?" &c.


s: Your surmise, Madam, is just; I am indeed a husband.


s: You are right that a bachelor state would have insured me more


s: approaching my God, would seldom have been of the number.


s: The most placid good-nature and sweetness of disposition; a warm


s: I have lately been much mortified with contemplating an unlucky


s: compliment to my ingenuousness, or to hint that the defect is in


s: consequence of the unsuspicious simplicity of conscious truth or


s: Were it not for the terrors of my ticklish situation respecting


s: I desired the carrier to pay you, but as I mentioned only fifteen


s: hackneyed victims of profusion, as in the unfeeling children of


s: parsimony. I have every possible reverence for the much-talked-of


s: offends my palate that it chokes me in the gullet; and the


s: If ever you have any of these disagreeable sensations, let me


s: eternally larding the lean characters of certain great men in a


s: Among our common friends I must not forget one of the dearest of


s: The clergy I pass by; their profundity of erudition, and their


s: liberality of sentiment; their total want of pride, and their


s: Dumfries-shire Whigs, to enable them to digest the Duke of


s: Shakspeare, asked Old Kent why he wished to be in his service, he


s: discuss matters _vivâ voce._ My knee, I believe, will never be


s: entirely well; and an unlucky fall this winter has made it still


s: worse. I well remember the circumstance you allude to, respecting


s: Many and happy returns of seasons to you, with your dearest and


s: neighbourhood. They are almost the only favours the muses have


s: Since I am in the way of transcribing, the following were the


s: production of yesterday as I jogged through the wild hills of New


s: thoughts "unhousel'd, unanointed, unanneal'd:"--


s: Weak, timid landsmen on life's stormy main:


s: The world were blest, did bliss on them depend;


s: Ah, that "the friendly e'er should want a friend!"


s: The little fate bestows they share as soon;


s: Unlike sage, proverb'd, wisdom's hard-wrung boon.


s: Let Prudence number o'er each sturdy son,


s: Who feel by reason and who give by rule;


s: Instinct's a brute and sentiment a fool!


s: Who make poor _will do_ wait upon _I should_;


s: We own they're prudent, but who owns they're good?


s: Ye wise ones, hence! ye hurt the social eye;


s: God's image rudely etch'd on base alloy!


s: Here the muse left me. I am astonished at what yon tell me of


s: "Why droops my heart with fancied woes forlorn?


s: Why sinks my soul, beneath each wintry sky?"


s: My increasing cares in this, as yet strange country--gloomy


s: I was yesterday at Mr. Miller's to dinner for the first time. My


s: reception was quite to my mind: from the lady of the house quite


s: independence of spirit, and integrity of soul! In the course of


s: If I thought you had never seen it, I would transcribe for you a


s: Frae Christ was born, that bought us dear,


s: I had an old grand-uncle, with whom my mother lived awhile in her


s: "What truth on earth so precious as a lie."


s: My idle reasonings sometimes make me a little sceptical, but the


s: I am exceedingly pleased with your fancy in making the author you


s: goodness. I can truly say that, all the exterior of life apart, I


s: soul--I will not say more, but so much as Lady Mackenzie and Miss


s: continues thus, I may scrawl you half a quire.


s: I very lately--to wit, since harvest began--wrote a poem, not in


s: is going on in the third volume; and, of consequence, finds me a


s: sequestered, venerable inhabitant of the lonely mansion.


s: Necessity obliges me to go into my new house even before it be


s: brought me an answer from him. It was dated the very day he had


s: beautiful story of 'The Paria,' published in the Bee of Dr.


s: "To soothe the maddening passions all to peace."


s: "To soothe the throbbing passions into peace."


s: I think the "Address" is in simplicity, harmony, and elegance of


s: The soul of every song that's nobly great."


s: "Great mass of waters, theme for nobler song,"


s: yew-tree--"Ben-lomond's lofty, cloud-envelop'd head," &c. are


s: Deep seam'd with frequent streaks of moving fire."


s: "hospitable flood;" their wheeling round, their lighting, mixing,


s: Notwithstanding the opprobrious epithets with which some of our


s: philosophers and gloomy sectarians have branded our nature--the


s: profligate brother? We forget the injuries and feel for the man.


s: features of whose administration have ever been mildness to the


s: "The bloody and tyrannical House of Stewart" may be said with


s: In the contest between prince and people, the consequence of that


s: The Stewarts have been condemned and laughed at for the folly and


s: Who does not know that the abilities or defects of leaders and


s: BODY, for similar oppression, and almost in the very same terms,


s: I have sent you two more songs. If you have got any tunes, or


s: anything to correct, please send them by return of the carrier.


s: My warmest good wishes and most respectful compliments to Mrs.


s: Blacklock, and Miss Johnston, if she is with you.


s: world!--They spoil "these social offsprings of the heart." Two


s: Light be the turf on the breast of the heaven-inspired poet who


s: It may be more owing to the fastidiousness of my caprice than the


s: letter, was common to the house of William Burns: in a letter


s: humanity can taste, should be yours. I own myself so little a


s: remember, something of the same kind to Margaret Chalmers.]


s: experience. Another appearance from the press I put off to a very


s: should speak against the Lord's anointed Bailie of Edinburgh?


s: I believe I shall in the whole, 100_l._ copyright included, clear


s: commissioners of excise, was, if in his power, to procure me that


s: Thus, secure of a livelihood, "to thee, sweet poetry, delightful


s: maid," I would consecrate my future days.


s: Many happy returns of the season to you, my dear Sir! May you be


s: I do not know if passing a "Writer to the signet," be a trial of


s: seven-tenths of them come short of your advantages natural and


s: accidental; while two of those that remain, either neglect their


s: But to change the theme: I am still catering for Johnson's


s: exercised by Dr. Gregory, on the poem of the "Wounded Hare."]


s: Need I make any apology for this trouble, to a gentleman who has


s: decisions are to me of the last consequence. My late transient


s: acquaintance among some of the mere rank and file of greatness, I


s: Professor Dalzel's taste, I shall ever revere.


s: I shall be in Edinburgh some time next month.


s: Why I did not write to you long ago, is what, even on the rack, I


s: My wife is my Jean, with whose story you are partly acquainted. I


s: We have lost poor uncle Robert this winter. He has long been very


s: "Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate you!"


s: "Like the fair plant that from our touch withdraws,


s: Shrink, mildly fearful, even from applause,


s: Be all a mother's fondest hope can dream,


s: Straight as the fox-glove, ere her bells disclose,


s: Mild as the maiden-blushing hawthorn blows,


s: Fair as the fairest of each lovely kind,


s: Your form shall be the image of your mind;


s: Your manners shall so true your soul express,


s: That all shall long to know the worth they guess:


s: Congenial hearts shall greet with kindred love,


s: The enclosed ode is a compliment to the memory of the late Mrs.


s: I have stolen from my corn-sowing this minute to write a line to


s: Friars-Carse, lived, or Burns had leisure to attend: such


s: institutions, when well conducted, are very beneficial, when not


s: oppressed by divinity and verse, as they sometimes are.]


s: I will make no excuse, my dear Bibliopolus (God forgive me for


s: Your faithful, poor, but honest, friend,


s: I have a poetic whim in my head, which I at present dedicate, or


s: How wisdom and folly meet, mix, and unite;


s: How virtue and vice blend their black and their white;


s: How genius, the illustrious father of fiction,


s: Confounds rule and law, reconciles contradiction--


s: I sing: If these mortals, the critics, should bustle,


s: I care not, not I, let the critics go whistle.


s: But now for a patron, whose name and whose glory,


s: At once may illustrate and honour my story.


s: Thou first of our orators, first of our wits;


s: Yet whose parts and acquirements seem mere lucky hits;


s: With knowledge so vast, and with judgment so strong,


s: No man with the half of 'em e'er went far wrong;


s: With passion so potent, and fancies so bright,


s: No man with the half of 'em ere went quite right;


s: A sorry, poor misbegot son of the muses,


s: On the 20th current I hope to have the honour of assuring you in


s: My house shall be your welcome home; and as I know your prudence


s: (would to God you had _resolution_ equal to your _prudence_!) if


s: With every sentiment of grateful respect,


s: Your obliged and grateful humble servant,


s: Inhuman man! curse on thy barb'rous art,


s: "Dear as the ruddy drops which warm my heart"


s: inconsiderate word should have estranged the haughty sailor.]


s: My direction is at Ellisland, near Dumfries


s: I would fain offer, my dear Sir, a word of sympathy with your


s: subjects that would give great satisfaction to--a breast quite at


s: With every wish for your welfare and future success,


s: respectable addition to the company of performers, whom the Great


s: domestic morality preached by one of the experienced.]


s: postage, one or two rhymes of my later manufacture.


s: however, they remarkably agree; if you help either the one or the


s: You see, Sir, what it is to patronize a poet. 'Tis like being a


s: Your much indebted and very humble servant,


s: learned, the poor and the rich. That there is an incomprehensible


s: Adieu my dear sir! So soon as your present views and schemes are


s: concentered in an aim, I shall be glad to hear from you; as your


s: welfare and happiness is by no means a subject indifferent to


s: apology for presenting you with a few unconnected thoughts that


s: testimony how much, and with what respectful esteem,


s: I have mentioned in my last my appointment to the Excise, and the


s: existence; a proposition so obviously probable, that, setting


s: "Against the day of battle and of war"--


s: "'Tis _this_, my friend, that streaks our morning bright,


s: 'Tis _this_, that gilds the horror of our night.


s: When wealth forsakes us, and when friends are few,


s: When friends are faithless, or when foes pursue;


s: Tis this that wards the blow, or stills the smart,


s: Within the breast bids purest raptures rise,


s: Bids smiling conscience spread her cloudless skies."


s: I have been busy with _Zeluco._ The Doctor is so obliging as to


s: Farewell! _A Dieu, le bon Dieu, je vous commende._


s: Big with the idea of this important day at Friars-Carse, I have


s: aerial armies of sanguinary Scandinavians, darting athwart the


s: To leave the heights of Parnassus and come to the humble vale of


s: to-night.--I shall send a servant again for them in the evening.


s: I wish from my inmost soul it were in my power to give you a more


s: regiment is the most blackguard corps under the crown, and


s: consequently with us an honest fellow has the surest chance for


s: You need not doubt that I find several very unpleasant and


s: tolerably at ease in your internal reflections? 'Tis much to be a


s: inevitably incurred. The worst circumstance is, that the excise


s: Burns joins me in kind compliments to you and Mrs. Brown. Adieu!


s: acquaintance, like the visits of good angels, are short and far


s: hard-run match in the whole general election.


s: Sir J. J. does "what man can do," but yet I doubt his fate.


s: Many thanks, dear Madam, for your sheet-full of rhymes. Though at


s: "Tell us, ye dead; will none of you in pity


s: _What 'tis you are, and we must shortly be?_


s: A little time will make us learn'd as you are."


s: Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?"


s: Jesus Christ, thou amiablest of characters! I trust thou art no


s: impostor, and that thy revelation of blissful scenes of existence


s: introduce me at Tinwald; and it was impossible, not from your


s: heaven to help me on to another. Shall I write you on Politics or


s: The following circumstance has, I believe, been committed in the


s: To store the minds of the lower classes with useful knowledge, is


s: chance has thrown into the humble walks of the peasant and the


s: artisan, a matter worthy of his attention.


s: peasant who can read, and enjoy such books, is certainly a much


s: Wishing your patriotic exertions their so much merited success,


s: honourable house of Kirkpatrick. No, no, Sir: I cannot indeed be


s: clergyman, where I pickt up a good many scraps of learning,


s: particularly in some branches of the mathematics. Whenever I feel


s: universal applause, and assure you that with the highest respect,


s: I mean to take advantage of the frank, though I have not, in my


s: present frame of mind, much appetite for exertion in writing. My


s: nerves are in a cursed state. I feel that horrid hypochondria


s: No song nor dance I bring from yon great city,


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


s: Tho', by the bye, abroad why will you roam?


s: Good sense and taste are natives here at home.


s: I can no more.--If once I was clear of this cursed farm, I should


s: I shall see you on Wednesday forenoon. In the greatest hurry,


s: benumbed and poisoned by the cursed influence of riches, which,


s: circumstances in it that I was led to fear.


s: I have not, for sheer hurry of business, been able to spare five


s: But, my dear Sir, little ones that look up to you for paternal


s: I hope Mrs. Fordyce and the two young ladies are well. Do let me


s: Old Scottish song are, you know, a favourite study and pursuit of


s: "O that my father had ne'er on me smil'd;


s: The clocks and the worms my bedfellows a';


s: I am every day expecting the doctor to give your little godson


s: No! I will not say one word about apologies or excuses for not


s: affectionate mother; and shall the unfortunate sacrifice to thy


s: pleasures have no claim on thy humanity!


s: Your book came safe, and I am going to trouble you with further


s: commissions. I call it troubling you,--because I want only,


s: BOOKS; the cheapest way, the best; so you may have to hunt


s: Let me hear from you, your first leisure minute, and trust me you


s: That d--mned mare of yours is dead. I would freely have given her


s: fatigue. For these two or three months, on an average, I have not


s: My best compliments to Mrs. Nicol, and little Neddy, and all the


s: village-priest; or a glass of whisky-toddy, with a ruby-nosed


s: indolence, laden with fetters of ever-increasing weight?


s: What strange beings we are! Since we have a portion of conscious


s: existence, equally capable of enjoying pleasure, happiness, and


s: "Join night to day, and Sunday to the week."


s: Luckily for me, I was prevented from the discussion of the knotty


s: carrier), Knox's History of the Reformation; Rae's History of the


s: Display of the Secession Act and Testimony, by Mr. Gibb; Hervey's


s: I wrote to Mr. A. Masterton three or four months ago, to pay some


s: And now to quit the dry walk of business, how do you do, my dear


s: friend? and how is Mrs. Hill? I trust, if now and then not so


s: necessity of studying selfishness, in order that we may


s: EXIST! Still there are, in every age, a few souls, that all


s: "------ States of native liberty possest,


s: You must know I have just met with the Mirror and Lounger for the


s: counsel learned in the laws of criticism) I estimate as the first


s: disqualifications; and for the young females of a family I could


s: leisure to transcribe anything that may show how much I have the


s: franking is at present under a temporary death. I shall have some


s: unsightly a scrawl as Betty Byre-Mucker's answer to it; I hope,


s: opinion," I have quite disfigured my copy of the book with my


s: Scotland, I mislaid or lost it, and by consequence your direction


s: Now that you are over with the sirens of Flattery, the harpies of


s: You knew Henderson--I have not flattered his memory.


s: indolence, and fifty other things; in short to anything--but


s: "Thy spirit, Independence, let me share;


s: Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky!"


s: Milton's Satan, for private reasons, am forced


s: "To do what yet though damn'd I would abhor."


s: --and, except a couplet or two of honest execration  *  *  *  *


s: Your gratefully indebted humble servant,


s: Even the fairest of his virtues are against him. That independent


s: fortune, and turn away our eyes, lest the wants and woes of our


s: brother-mortals should disturb the selfish apathy of our souls!


s: As to myself, a being to whose interest I believe you are still a


s: My best compliments to your father and Miss Tait. If you have an


s: shell. Where is Lady M'Kenzie? wherever she is, God bless her! I


s: likewise beg leave to trouble you with compliments to Mr. Wm.


s: germins of their wicked machinations! O for a poisonous tornado,


s: "As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far


s: I read your letter--I literally jumped for joy--How could such a


s: I have a copy of _Tam o' Shanter_ ready to send you by the first


s: opportunity: it is too heavy to send by post.


s: I heard of Mr. Corbet lately. He, in consequence of your


s: Nothing less than the unlucky accident of having lately broken my


s: ladyship's elegant present by Mrs. Miller, from returning you my


s: Take these two guineas, and place them over against that d--mned


s: prostitution, is left neglected and insulted, ridden down by the


s: chariot wheels of the coroneted RIP, hurrying on to the


s: I mean the introductory couplets as text verses.


s: Nor envious death so triumph'd in a blow,


s: As that which laid th' accomplish'd Burnet low.


s: I do not remember if ever I mentioned to you my having an idea of


s: something in it vastly more grand, heroic, and sublime, than the


s: I do not know, Sir, whether you are a subscriber to _Grose's


s: The ballad on Queen Mary was begun while I was busy with _Percy's


s: I have just read over, once more of many times, your _Zeluco._ I


s: By yon castle wa' at the close of the day,


s: I heard a man sing, tho' his head it was grey;


s: And as he was singing, the tears fast down came--


s: There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame.


s: That hour, o' night's black arch the key-stane.--


s: That happy my dreams and my slumbers may be;


s: The lad that is dear to my babie and me!


s: Good night, once more, and God bless you!


s: nature's ties ought to feel on the occasion.


s: injurious to the honest fame of the former. Whatever may be my


s: Shanter to be my standard performance in the poetical line. 'Tis


s: This is the greatest effort my broken arm has yet made. Do let me


s: small-pox. May almighty goodness preserve and restore him!


s: Thou eunuch of language: thou Englishman, who never was south the


s: vending the nostrums of empirical elocution: thou marriage-maker


s: benighted ignorance: thou pickle-herring in the puppet-show of


s: The patrons of Moffat-school are, the ministers, magistrates, and


s: independent that I may sin, but I want to be independent in my


s: reading the card you did me the honour to write me, I overlooked


s: You blame me for not writing you sooner, but you will please to


s: recollect that you omitted one little necessary piece of


s: and that other favourite one from Thomson's Alfred--


s: Or shall I quote you an author of your acquaintance?


s: Mrs. B. and family have been in Ayrshire these many weeks.


s: Farewell; and God bless you, my dear friend!


s: existence I owe to the noble house of Glencairn!


s: Can you minister to a mind diseased? can you, amid the horrors of


s: _Miserable perdu_ that I am, I have tried everything that used to


s: unfinished from my listless tongue: at last I luckily thought of


s: themselves,' anything generally is better than one's own thought.


s: torpitude of the moral powers, that may be called, a lethargy of


s: commands. Indeed I had one apology--the bagatelle was not worth


s: Still the inequalities of life are, among men, comparatively


s: I have just finished the following song, which to a lady the


s: descendant of Wallace--and many heroes of his true illustrious


s: line--and herself the mother of several soldiers, needs neither


s: _Scene_--_a field of battle_--_time of the day, evening;


s: the wounded and dying of the victorious army are supposed to


s: Farewell, thou fair day, thou green earth, and ye skies


s: Farewell, loves and friendships, ye dear tender ties--


s: returns of the season! May all good things attend you and yours


s: wherever they are scattered over the earth!


s: pollute the sacred flame of thy sky-descended and heaven-bound


s: acquaintance, and who so much enjoys the luxury of unencumbered


s: freedom and undisturbed privacy, is not perhaps recommendation


s: enough:--but when I inform you that Mr. Stewart's principal


s: supplication, as is customary with people when they suspect the


s: The members of the infernal junto were all out on some midnight


s: family, a living evidence of the truth of the story.


s: Another story, which I can prove to be equally authentic, was as


s: On a market day in the town of Ayr, a farmer from Carrick, and


s: seraphs cease their own less delightful strains; or in the drowsy


s: elbowchair, where the frowsy, but potent power of indolence,


s: Do not blame me for it, Madam;--my own conscience, hackneyed and


s: weather-beaten as it is in watching and reproving my vagaries,


s: follies, indolence, &c., has continued to punish me sufficiently.


s: So I parodied it as follows, which is literally the first copy,


s: "unanointed, unanneal'd;" as Hamlet says.--


s: Will none of you in pity disclose the secret,


s: What 'tis you are, and we must shortly be?"


s: But what shall I write to you?--"The voice said cry," and I said,


s: grandeur; or performing thy mystic rites in the shadow of the


s: inspirations, which thou breathest round the wig of a prating


s: particularly in the sightless soarings of SCHOOL DIVINITY,


s: who, leaving Common Sense confounded at his strength of pinion,


s: offered her scorned alliance to the wizard power of Theologic


s: mortals!!!"--O doctrine! comfortable and healing to the weary,


s: generous Antigua, so a very unfit menstruum for scandal.


s: --behold all these things are written in the chronicles of my


s: &c., usually set to "The Mill, Mill, O!" is a disgrace to the


s: collections in which it has already appeared, and would doubly


s: I wish the farmer great joy of his new acquisition to his family.


s: I am interrupted, and must leave off. You shall soon hear from me


s: When o'er the hill the eastern star, &c.


s: In the printed copy of my "Nannie, O!" the name of the river is


s: Girvan is the name of the river that suits the idea of the stanza


s: compliments to honest Allan, Gude be wi' ye, &c.


s: As I find I have still an hour to spare this morning before my


s: conveyance goes away, I will give you "Nannie, O!" at length.


s: In my very early years, when I was thinking of going to the West


s: Indies, I took the following farewell of a dear girl. It is quite


s: difficulty in the undertaking than you are aware of. There is a


s: potter, to make one vessel to honour, and another to dishonour.


s: And never made anither. (Such a person as she is.)


s: thought to meet with there so soon. Every other instance of the


s: "The valiant _in himself_, what can he suffer?


s: Or what need he regard his _single_ woes?" &c.


s: "Who so unworthy but may proudly deck him


s: With his fair-weather virtue, that exults


s: Glad o'er the summer main! the tempest comes,


s: The rough winds rage aloud; when from the helm,


s: This virtue shrinks, and in a corner lies


s: Lamenting--Heavens! if privileged from trial,


s: "Attach thee firmly to the virtuous deeds


s: With all its vain and transient joys, sit loose."


s: "'Tis this, my friend, that streaks our morning bright."


s: I see you are in for double postage, so I shall e'en scribble out


s: reforming, or rather the republican spirit, of your part of the


s: "While Europe's eye is fixed on mighty things."


s: I shall have the honour of receiving your criticisms in person at


s: powerful, and me impotent; has given you patronage, and me


s: A hurry of business, thrown in heaps by my absence, has until now


s: I have just received yours of the 30th, and feel much for your


s: Mr. Corbet can be of little service to me at present; at least I


s: should be shy of applying. I cannot possibly be settled as a


s: uncertainty. Besides, some envious, malicious devil, has raised a


s: deprecate: misery and ruin to thousands are in the blast that


s: Many returns of the season to you, my dear Sir. How comes on your


s: CLXXXVI.] be of any service to you? I should like to know


s: publication, and stated that Dr. Beattie had promised an essay on


s: I do not doubt but you might make a very valuable collection of


s: The very name of Peter Pindar is an acquisition to your work. His


s: My most respectful compliments to the honourable gentleman who


s: appearance of truth. Apropos, do you know the much admired old


s: Highland air called "The Sutor's Dochter?" It is a first-rate


s: The song prefixed ["Mary Morison"] is one of my juvenile works. I


s: Now tired with wandering, haud awa hame;


s: And tell me thou bring'st me my Willie the same.


s: Loud blew the cauld winter winds at our parting;


s: It was na the blast brought the tear in my e'e;


s: Now welcome the simmer, and welcome my Willie,


s: Ye hurricanes, rest in the cave o' your slumbers!


s: Oh how your wild horrors a lover alarms!


s: Awaken, ye breezes! blow gently, ye billows!


s: And waft my dear laddie ance mair to my arms.


s: But if he's forgotten his faithfulest Nannie,


s: O still flow between us, thou wide, roaring main;


s: May I never see it, may I never trow it,


s: But, dying, believe that my Willie's my ain!


s: There _was_ a time, Sir, when I was your dependent: this language


s: superior to "Poortith cauld." The original song, "The mill, mill,


s: "And sweetly the nightingale sang from the tree."


s: flat. If I could hit on another stanza, equal to "The small birds


s: preservation? There is also one sentimental song of mine in the


s: Museum, which never was known out of the immediate neighbourhood,


s: Let me know just how you like these random hints.


s: imitation of Ossian, who denominates himself the "Voice of


s: "And sweetly the wood-pigeon cooed from the tree."]


s: "How sweet this lone vale, and how soothing to feeling,


s: Yon nightingale's notes which in melody meet."


s: The song has found its way into several collections.]


s: The business of many of our tunes wanting, at the beginning, what


s: "There's braw, braw lads on Yarrow braes,


s: That wander through the blooming heather,"


s: Degenerate as human nature is said to be, and in many instances,


s: experience had proved to be every way fitted for our happiness in


s: occupation. Still my honest fame is my dearest concern; and a


s: thousand times have I trembled at the idea of those _degrading_


s: should my heart's blood stream around my attempt to defend it!


s: My poems having just come out in another edition, I beg leave to


s: present you with a copy, as a small mark of that high esteem and


s: ardent gratitude, with which I have the honour to be,


s: elbow.--Happy thought that idea has engendered in my head!


s: SPUNKIE--thou shalt henceforth be my symbol signature, and


s: Come then, my guardian spirit, like thee may I skip away, amusing


s: thickheaded blunderbuss recollect, that he is not Spunkie:--that


s: "SPUNKIE'S wanderings could not copied be:


s: Amid these perils none durst walk but he."--


s: plaster, between his shoulders, Stitch, in a dozen pilgrimages,


s: acquired as much rational theology as the said priest had done by


s: Tell me, and tell me truly, what you think of this theory.


s: Permit me to present you with the enclosed song as a small though


s: unembellished simple manner of descriptive TRUTH.--Flattery,


s: I leave to your LOVERS, whose exaggerating fancies may make


s: them imagine you still nearer perfection than you really are.


s: of PEACE, is the sincere wish of him who has the honour to


s: times, has not been mentioned: it is believed he was of the west


s: ballads. My own loss as to pecuniary matters is trifling; but the


s: I cannot alter the disputed lines in the "Mill Mill, O!" What you


s: You know Frazer, the hautboy-player in Edinburgh--he is here,


s: I should wish to hear how this pleases you.


s: Have you ever, my dear Sir, felt your bosom ready to burst with


s: subscription might surely have accepted, without any impropriety,


s: "I've seen the smiling of fortune beguiling,"


s: "O fickle fortune, why this cruel sporting,


s: Why thus perplex us, poor sons of a day?"


s: The old ballad, "I wish I were where Helen lies," is silly to


s: contemptibility. My alteration of it, in Johnson's, is not much


s: great-grand-child will hold up your volumes, and say, with honest


s: Clarke. The young lady had reason to complain, when the poet


s: Your objection, my dear Sir, to the passages in my song of "Logan


s: because I wish, and will be glad, to see you act decidedly on the


s: happened about three years ago. That struck my fancy, and I


s: endeavoured to do the idea justice as follows:


s: Had I a cave on some wild distant shore.


s: By the way, I have met with a musical Highlander in Breadalbane's


s: O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad.


s: irresistible impulse to some idle vagary, such as arranging wild


s: misleading mankind from the councils of wisdom and the paths of


s: Scottish drama, which Sir Walter Scott laments he did not write,


s: The honour you have done your poor poet, in writing him so very


s: My tongue to my mouth's roof let cleave,


s: When I received your ladyship's letter, I was just in the act of


s: profession. Another advantage I have in this business, is the


s: knowledge it gives me of the various shades of human character,


s: You know that my pretensions to musical taste are merely a few of


s: taitie," may rank among this number; but well I know that, with


s: I dare say, my dear Sir, that you will begin to think my


s: "Down the burn, Davie." I have this moment tried an alteration,


s: "When summer comes, the swains on Tweed,"


s: is the production of Crawfurd. Robert was his Christian name.


s: solitary fire-side of my study, and there commit my effusions to


s: "Gil Morice" I am for leaving out. It is a plaguy length; the air


s: quandary, to offer up your prayers to the muses for inspiring


s: "Jockie and Jenny" I would discard, and in its place would put


s: dialect, but it may be easily turned into correct English.


s: "Where are the joys I hae met in the morning."]


s: A couplet worthy of Homer. Yesterday you had enough of my


s: correspondence. The post goes, and my head aches miserably. One


s: Where are the joys I have met in the morning?


s: praise, from a feeling that Thomson's taste would induce him to


s: exclude the first--one of our most original songs--from his


s: The faulty line in Logan-Water, I mend thus:


s: turning my thoughts on composing for you.


s: I am pleased that you are reconciled to the air of the "Quaker's


s: wife;" though, by the bye, an old Highland gentleman, and a deep


s: Their tales approves, and still she shuns


s: I shall just transcribe another of Turnbull's, which would go


s: The rest of your letter I shall answer at some other opportunity.


s: 'Tis said that we take the greatest liberties with our greatest


s: friends, and I pay myself a very high compliment in the manner in


s: either. But for these d----d dirty, dog's-ear'd little pages, I


s: Will Mr. M'Murdo do me the favour to accept of these volumes; a


s: trifling but sincere mark of the very high respect I bear for his


s: I mentioned to you a Scots ode or song I had lately composed, and


s: Where lively _wit_ excites to gay surprise;


s: Or folly-painting _humour_, grave himself,


s: Calls laughter forth, deep-shaking every nerve."


s: acknowledged. He has genius and worth which would do honour to


s: But I crave your pardon, Madam; I came to beg, not to preach.


s: _With a Copy of Bruce's Address to his Troops at Bannockburn._


s: acquaintance with which you have been pleased to honour me?


s: themselves to rescue their bleeding country, or perish with her.


s: "Thou mak'st the gloomy face of nature gay,


s: Giv'st beauty to the sun, and pleasure to the day."


s: Pray that wisdom and bliss be more frequent visiters of


s: I have sent you "Werter," truly happy to have any the smallest


s: sentence of death on him could only have envied my feelings and


s: In a face where I used to meet the kind complacency of friendly


s: stubborn something in his bosom, which, though it cannot heal the


s: With the profoundest respect for your abilities; the most sincere


s: Nothing short of a kind of absolute necessity could have made me


s: sensibility you know I possess, and sincerity none will deny me.


s: oblivion; I am uneasy now for the fate of those manuscripts--Will


s: suspense, the stability and hardihood of the rock that braves the


s: disturb me in my miseries, with thy inquiries after me?


s: For these two months I have not been able to lift a pen. My


s: constitution and frame were, _ab origine_, blasted with a deep


s: Are you deep in the language of consolation? I have exhausted in


s: hearts of those around him, but his own kept its native


s: equally beneficent God; and a world to come, beyond death and the


s: "These, as they change, Almighty Father, these


s: Are but the varied God.--The rolling year


s: characteristic feature), I had destined a copy for the Earl of


s: Glencairn. I learnt just now that you are in town:--allow me to


s: I return you the plates, with which I am highly pleased; I would


s: muster, for I am indeed ill at ease whenever I approach your


s: I am just going to trouble your critical patience with the first


s: Thee, famed for martial deed, and sacred song,


s: Beneath the hallowed turf where Wallace lies!


s: Hear it not, Wallace, in thy bed of death!


s: That arm which nerved with thundering fate,


s: One quenched in darkness like the sinking star,


s: And one the palsied arm of tottering, powerless age.


s: You will probably have another scrawl from me in a stage or two.


s: You should have heard from me long ago; but over and above some


s: famous to the end of time, and you renowned for ever.


s: Here, where the Scottish muse immortal lives, &c.


s: This is just a hasty sketch, until I see whether it be worth a


s: critique. We have many sailor songs, but as far as I at present


s: I give you leave to abuse this song, but do it in the spirit of


s: I shall withdraw my "On the seas and far away" altogether: it is


s: If it does not suit you as an editor, you may be pleased to have


s: verses to it that you can sing in the company of ladies.


s: God grant you patience with this stupid epistle!


s: "Andrew and his cutty gun." The song to which this is set in the


s: Sleep'st thou, or wak'st thou, fairest creature


s: The hart, hind, and roe, freely, wildly-wanton stray;


s: While the sun and thou arise to bless the day.


s: The night's gloomy shades, cloudy, dark, o'ercast my sky.


s: 'Tis then, 'tis then I wake to life and joy!


s: arrangement. Indeed, as all I have to say consists of unconnected


s: How do you like the simplicity and tenderness of this pastoral? I


s: "Where love is liberty, and nature law."


s: Despairing of my own powers to give you variety enough in English


s: finished my song to "Rothemurche's rant," and you have Clarke to


s: consult as to the set of the air for singing.


s: silliness of "Saw ye my father?"--By heavens! the odds is gold to


s: "When sable night each drooping plant restoring."


s: Now for my English song to "Nancy's to the greenwood," &c.


s: Farewell thou stream that winding flows.


s: "Craigieburn-wood" altogether. My heart is much in the theme.


s: You see, my dear Sir, what a punctual correspondent I am; though,


s: I agree with you as to the air, "Craigieburn-wood," that a chorus


s: accordingly. Leaving out the starting note in both tunes, has, I


s: Try,         {Oh Roy's wife of Aldivalloch.


s: compare with {Roy's wife of Aldivalloch.


s: Contented wi' little and cantie wi' mair.


s: If you do not relish this air, I will send it to Johnson.


s: Since yesterday's penmanship, I have framed a couple of English


s: In the mean time, they are most welcome to my Ode; only, let them


s: With the most grateful esteem I am ever,


s: possession of her countenance, and the gushing fondness, with a


s: imagery, &c., of these said rhyming folks.


s: A great critic (Aikin) on songs, says that love and wine are the


s: exclusive themes for song-writing. The following is on neither


s: As I am just going to bed, I wish you a good night.


s: Let me know, your very first leisure, how you like this song.


s: Their groves o' sweet myrtle let foreign lands reckon.


s: rumblegairie urchin of mine, whom from that propensity to witty


s: wickedness, and man-fu' mischief, which, even at twa days auld, I


s: masters of a grammar-school in a city which shall be nameless.


s: You do not tell me how you liked my two last songs. Are they


s: Oh whistle, and I'll come to ye, my lad;


s: Tho' father and mother and a' should gae mad,


s: Such is the peculiarity of the rhythm of this air, that I find it


s: _Supposes himself to be writing from the dead to the living._


s: purgatorial tortures of this infernal confine for the space of


s: reclined on a pillow of ever-piercing thorn, while an infernal


s: tormentor, wrinkled, and old, and cruel, his name I think is


s: deprived during this year: her death pressed sorely on him.]


s: Still anxious to secure your partial favour, &c.


s: Does well, acts nobly, angels could no more."


s: FRIEND might be of service to me in getting me into a place


s: Scottish songs which is making its appearance in your great


s: Since I began this letter, I have been appointed to act in the


s: appointed in full form: a consummation devoutly to be wished! My


s: He has paid me a pretty compliment, by quoting me in his last


s: advantage; _you_ fell in the face of day.--On the contrary, our


s: enemies, to complete our overthrow, contrived to make their guilt


s: Allow us, Sir, yet further, just to hint at another rich vein of


s: Still, to me, a stranger, with my large family, and very stinted


s: Some years ago your good town did me the honour of making me an


s: honorary burgess.--Will you allow me to request that this mark of


s: obligation you have laid us under. Indeed to me the obligation is


s: "When pleasure fascinates the mental sight,


s: Religion hails the drear, the untried night,


s: And shuts, for ever shuts! life's doubtful day."


s: Awa' wi' your witchcraft o' beauty's alarms.


s: If this will do, you have now four of my Irish engagement. In my


s: "Say, wherefore has an all-indulgent heaven


s: Light to the comfortless and wretched given?"


s: the fourth was found among the poet's MSS. after his death.]


s: gauger, and a kind, warm-hearted gentleman; Jessie Lewars was his


s: This will be delivered by Mr. Lewars, a young fellow of uncommon


s: Do let me know how Cleghorn is, and remember me to him.


s: 'Museum.'"--CROMEK. Will it be believed that this "humble


s: extremely anxious for your work, as indeed I am for everything


s: It will be no very pleasing news to you to be told that I am


s: dangerously ill, and not likely to get better. An inveterate


s: continuance of her friendship to his widow and children."]


s: I have written you so often, without receiving any answer, that I


s: otherwise he would, he says, have sent a larger sum. He has not,


s: After all my boasted independence, curst necessity compels me to


s: particularly as I shall [require] your advice.


s: It is somewhat singular, that in Lanark, Renfrew, Ayr, Wigton,


s: strictures, beg leave to distinguish by the appellation of


s: This song, as far as I know, for the first time appears here in


s: composed, he does not make the least claim to the tune.


s: A tradition is mentioned in the "Bee," that the second Bishop


s: Chisholm, of Dunblane, used to say, that if he were going to be


s: This charming song is much older, and indeed superior to Ramsay's


s: Brunswick; while there are hundreds satirizing them.--This may be


s: Jamie Gay is another and a tolerable Anglo-Scottish piece.


s: To this day among people who know nothing of Ramsay's verses, the


s: The old song, in three eight-line stanzas, is well known, and has


s: verses to suit that line. This has always a finer effect than


s: Another, but very pretty Anglo-Scottish piece.


s: returning to Loudon Castle, and at dinner produced this identical


s: He met wi' a lass was blythe and bonie."


s: Another of this name is Dr. Arne's beautiful air, called the new


s: This is an Anglo-Scottish production, but by no means a bad one.


s: "O Willy, weel I mind, I lent you my hand


s: To sing you a song which you did me command;


s: But my memory's so bad I had almost forgot


s: That you called it the gear and the blaithrie o't.--


s: I'll not sing about confusion, delusion or pride,


s: I'll sing about a laddie was for a virtuous bride;


s: For virtue is an ornament that time will never rot,


s: And preferable to gear and the blaithrie o't.--


s: Tho' my lassie hae nae scarlets or silks to put on,


s: We envy not the greatest that sits upon the throne;


s: I wad rather hae my lassie, tho' she cam in her smock,


s: Than a princess wi' the gear and the blaithrie o't.--


s: Tho' we hae nae horses or menzies at command,


s: We will toil on our foot, and we'll work wi' our hand;


s: And when wearied without rest, we'll find it sweet in any spot,


s: And we'll value not the gear and the blaithrie o't.--


s: If we hae ony babies, we'll count them as lent;


s: Hae we less, hae we mair, we will ay be content;


s: For they say they hae mair pleasure that wins bu groat,


s: Than the miser wi' his gear and the blaithrie o't--


s: I'll not meddle wi' th' affairs of the kirk or the queen;


s: They're nae matters for a sang, let them sink, let them swim;


s: On your kirk I'll ne'er encroach, but I'll hold it stil remote,


s: Sae tak this for the gear and the blaithrie o't."


s: "Kate of Aberdeen" is, I believe, the work of poor Cunningham the


s: stream near Durham, his native country, his reverence reprimanded


s: "There was a pretty May, and a milkin she went;


s: Wi' her red rosy cheeks, and her coal black hair;


s: And she has met a young man a comin o'er the bent,


s: With a double and adieu to thee, fair May.


s: Wi' thy red rosy cheeks, and thy coal black hair?


s: Unto the yowes a milkin, kind sir, she says,


s: What if I gang alang with thee, my ain pretty May,


s: Wi' thy red rosy cheeks, any thy coal-black hair;


s: Wad I be aught the warse o' that, kind sir, she says,


s: With a double and adieu to thee, fair May."


s: The Mary here alluded to is generally supposed to be Miss Mary


s: Pompey's Ghost.--I have seen a poetic epistle from him in North


s: This Dudgeon is a respectable farmer's son in Berwickshire.


s: I never heard more of the words of this old song than the title.


s: "How can she break that honest heart that wears her in its core!"


s: "The collier has a dochter, and, O, she's wonder bonnie!


s: A laird he was that sought her, rich baith in lands and money.


s: She wad na hae a laird, nor wad she be a lady,


s: But she wad hae a collier, the colour o' her daddie."


s: The old words of this song are omitted here, though much more


s: beautiful than these inserted; which were mostly composed by poor


s: There is a circumstance in their contract of marriage that merits


s: belonging to the Laird of Riddel, in Tweeddale.


s: The old words, all that I remember, are,--


s: knee-buckles as unlike as George-by-the-grace-of-God, and


s: Solomon-the-son-of-David; yet that same unknown drunken mortal is


s: The following interesting account of this plaintive dirge was


s: communicated to Mr. Riddel by Alexander Fraser Tytler, Esq., of


s: "In the latter end of the sixteenth century, the Chisolms were


s: proprietors of the estate of Cromlecks (now possessed by the


s: ladies, far from priding themselves on extensive literature, were


s: discovered,--her marriage disannulled,--and Helen became Lady


s: The old set of this song, which is still to be found in printed


s: indelicacies, and made it at once more chaste and more dull.


s: I am not sure if this old and charming air be of the South, as is


s: They wad na stay at bonie Castle Gordon,


s: --must be very striking. It needs not a Jacobite prejudice to be


s: This is another of Crawfurd's songs, but I do not think in his


s: All the old words that ever I could meet to this air were the


s: following, which seem to have been an old chorus:


s: The chorus of this song is old; the rest is the work of Balloon


s: There is a beautiful song to this tune, beginning,


s: which is the composition of Miss Jenny Graham, of Dumfries.


s: "Tranent-Muir," was composed by a Mr. Skirving, a very worthy


s: The following account of this song I had from Dr. Blacklock.


s: The Strephon and Lydia mentioned in the song were perhaps the


s: adequate to their tastes and habits of life. To elude the bad


s: consequences of such a connexion, Strephon was sent abroad with a


s: The chorus of this song is old. The rest of it, such as it is, is


s: M'Pherson, a daring robber, in the beginning of this century, was


s: Gow has published a variation of this fine tune as his own


s: composition, which he calls "The Princess Augusta."


s: This song is the composition of Balloon Tytler.


s: The chorus of this is old; the two stanzas are mine.


s: Dr. Blacklock told me that Smollet, who was at the bottom a great


s: Dr. Walker, who was minister at Moffat in 1772, and is now (1791)


s: The tune of Gallashiels was composed about the beginning of the


s: present century by the Laird of Gallashiel's piper.


s: These verses were composed on a charming girl, a Miss Charlotte


s: Hamilton, who is now married to James M'Kitrick Adair, Esq.,


s: physician. She is sister to my worthy friend Gavin Hamilton, of


s: "The mill, mill O, and the kill, kill O,


s: The sack and the sieve, and a' she did leave,


s: cockle-shells, &c.," the other way ran thus:--


s: This song is by the Duke of Gordon.--The old verses are,


s: The country girls in Ayrshire, instead of the line--


s: which I take to be the original reading.


s: These were composed by the late Dr. Austin, physician at


s: The title of this air shows that it alludes to the famous king


s: manners, very unlike the gloomy strictness of his sect; and among


s: ankles, as is done by shepherds in snowy weather: his face they


s: He is asked to drink, and by and bye to dance, which after some


s: uncouth excuses he is prevailed on to do, the fiddler playing the


s: intoxicated, and with all the ridiculous gesticulations of an old


s: called, and very justly, "The Flower of Strathmore."


s: The people in Ayrshire begin this song--


s: The two following old stanzas to this tune have some merit:


s: O ken ye what it is that'll daunton me?--


s: I think it will do meikle for to daunton me.


s: O ken ye what it is that wad wanton me--


s: I think it would do meikle for to wanton me."


s: "The Bonnie Lass made the Bed to me," was composed on an amour of


s: While the tear stood blinkin in her e'e;


s: This song and air are both by Dr. Blacklock.


s: This story is founded on fact. A John Hunter, ancestor to a very


s: respectable farming family, who live in a place in the parish, I


s: Irvine. He is the _Davie_ to whom I address my printed poetical


s: epistle in the measure of the Cherry and the Slae.


s: The last stanza of this song is mine; it was composed out of


s: compliment to one of the worthiest fellows in the world, William


s: Dunbar, Esq., writer to the signet, Edinburgh, and Colonel of the


s: This song I composed about the age of seventeen.


s: Douglas. But I am of opinion that the present ballad is a modern


s: swallowed by many readers as ancient fragments of old poems. This


s: minstrels, as he calls himself, at the conclusion of his song,


s: I composed this song out of compliment to Miss Ann Masterton, the


s: Strathallan's Lament, and two or three others in this work.


s: The first half stanza is old, the rest is Ramsay's. The old words


s: The tune is an old Highland air, called "Shuan truish willighan."


s: I composed this song out of compliment to one of the happiest and


s: Glenriddel, and his lady. At their fire-side I have enjoyed more


s: indebted for many of the happiest hours of my life.


s: The air was the tune of an old song, of which I have heard some


s: verses, but now only remember the title, which was,


s: This air was formerly called, "The bridegroom greets when the sun


s: This air is called "Robie donna Gorach."


s: This air is claimed by Neil Gow, who calls it his lament for his


s: brother. The first half-stanza of the song is old; the rest mine.


s: The first half-stanza of this song is old; the rest is mine.


s: "They say that Jockey 'll speed weel o't,


s: They say that Jockey 'll speed weel o't,


s: And scribblers they bang up their rhymes,


s: And claps his hands frae hough to hough,


s: This is perhaps the first bottle song that ever was composed.


s: This air is the composition of my friend Allan Masterton, in


s: I composed this song pretty early in life, and sent it to a young


s: It has little affinity to the tune commonly known by that name.


s: I composed this song as I conveyed my chest so far on the road to


s: I meant it as my farewell dirge to my native land.


s: This excellent song is the composition of my worthy friend, old


s: And danc'd, and sung, and sigh'd, and swore,


s: To _friendship's_ port I steer'd my course,


s: I picked up this old song and tune from a country girl in


s: Nithsdale.--I never met with it elsewhere in Scotland.


s: He wauken'd the auld wife frae her sleep,


s: These particulars I had from the author's son, Bishop Skinner, at


s: This song is mine, all except the chorus.


s: This air is Masterton's; the song mine.--The occasion of it was


s: Another excellent song of old Skinner's.


s: title, words, &c., we can localize it) has been composed. From


s: My sword that's bent in the middle clear;


s: My sword that's bent in the middle brown;


s: collection, was written from Mrs. Burns's voice.


s: The chorus of this is part of an old song, no stanza of which I


s: This song is altered from a poem by Sir Robert Ayton, private


s: secretary to Mary and Ann, Queens of Scotland.--The poem is to be


s: collection printed in Scotland. I think that I have improved the


s: simplicity of the sentiments, by giving them a Scots dress.


s: strolling through the country, with a sleight-of-hand blackguard.


s: This song is the composition of a ---- Johnson, a joiner in the


s: This tune is by Oswald. The song alludes to a part of my private


s: history, which it is of no consequence to the world to know.


s: The old song with this title has more wit than decency.


s: This time is the same with "Haud awa frae me, Donald."


s: Composed on my little idol "the charming, lovely Davies."


s: RAMSAY, as usual, has modernized this song. The original,


s: My heckle is broken, it canna be gotten,


s: Twa gaed to the wood, to the wood, to the wood.


s: An' it be na weel bobbit, weel bobbit, weel bobbit


s: An' it be na weel bobbit, we'll bob it again."


s: kitchen.--Mr. A. high in the praises of an African, his


s: A Mr. Dudgeon, a poet at times, a worthy remarkable


s: character--natural penetration, a great deal of information, some


s: _Sunday._--Went to church at Dunse--Dr. Howmaker a man of strong


s: _Tuesday._--Breakfast at Kelso--charming situation of Kelso--fine


s: markets, consequently low rents--fine lands not above sixteen


s: entangle the said minister, then a widower, in the net of


s: Indians--charming, romantic situation of Jedburgh, with gardens,


s: good-humoured, amiable girl; rather short _et embonpoint_, but


s: handsome, and extremely graceful--beautiful hazel eyes, full of


s: Wauchope--Mr. Scott exactly the figure and face commonly given to


s: that I send for her, and that she sees a poet who has _put out a


s: Took farewell of Jedburgh, with some melancholy, disagreeable


s: Galloway-whey, I hero remain till to-morrow--saw Elibanks and


s: Elibraes, on the other side of the Tweed.


s: _Tuesday._--Drank tea yesternight at Pirn, with Mr.


s: Horseburgh.--Breakfasted to-day with Mr. Ballantyne of


s: _Thursday_, breakfast at Berrywell, and walk into Dunse to see a


s: Ainslie's.--Company--Miss Jacky Grieve, an amiable sister of Mrs.


s: _Sunday._--A Mr. Robinson, brewer at Ednam, sets out with us to


s: breakfast--takes me to see his fine scenery on the stream of


s: Dunglass--Dunglass the most romantic, sweet place I over saw--Sir


s: little town, yet it was not destitute of people of parts.


s: abilities and bashfully diffident to an extreme.


s: Meet my good old friend Mr. Ainslie, who calls on Mr. Hood in the


s: _Monday._--Come, still through by-ways, to Warkworth, where we


s: Coquet, running through it.--Sleep at Morpeth, a pleasant enough


s: little town, and on next day to Newcastle.--Meet with a very


s: _Thursday_--Reach Longtown to dine, and part there with my good


s: friends Messrs. Hood and Ker--A hiring day in Longtown--I am


s: Carlisle.--Come by the coast to Annan.--Overtaken on the way by a


s: obstinate sinners. In the course of the sermon Burns observed the


s: admission dues; but on account of R. Burns's remarkable poetical


s: Extracted from the Minute Book of the Lodge by THOMAS


s: What a poor pimping business is a Presbyterian place of worship;


s: Pleasant view of Dunfermline and the rest of the fertile coast of


s: Falkirk.--Cross the grand canal to Carron.--Come past Larbert and


s: Pass Dunipace, a place laid out with fine taste--a charming


s: Dine at Auchinbowie--Mr. Monro an excellent, worthy old man--Miss


s: exulting in their heroic royal leader, and rescued liberty and


s: _Tuesday Morning._--Breakfast with Captain Forrester--Ochel


s: characters--Taymouth described in rhyme--Meet the Hon. Charles


s: _Thursday._--Come down Tay to Dunkeld--Glenlyon House--Lyon