I hae a wife and twa wee laddies, But I'll sned besoms-thraw saugh woodies, Lord help me thro' this warld o' care! Not but I hae a richer share Than mony ithers; But why should ae man better fare, And a' men brithers? Come FIRM RESOLVE take thou the van, Wha does the utmost that he can, Will whyles do mair. But to conclude my silly rhyme, To weans and wife, That's the true pathos and sublime Of human life. My My compliments to sister Beckie As e'er tread clay! And gratefully, my guid auld cockie, ROBERT BURNS. No. No. LXXXVI. To R. GRAHAM, Esq. of FINTRY. 9th December, 1789. SIR, I HAVE a good while had a wish to trouble you with a letter, and had certainly done it long ere now-but for a humiliating something that throws cold water on the resolution, as if one should say, You have found “ Mr. Graham a very powerful and kind friend "indeed; and that interest he is so kindly tak ing in your concerns, you ought, by every "thing in your power to keep alive and che"rish." Now though since God has thought proper to make one powerful and another helpless, the connexion of obliger and obliged is all fair; and though my being under your patronage is to me highly honourable, yet, Sir, allow me to flatter myself, that as a poet and an honest man, you first interested yourself in my welfare, and principally as such still, you permit me to approach you. I have found the excise-business go on a great deal smoother with me than I expected; owing a good deal to the generous friendship of Mr. Mitchell, my collector, and the kind assistance of Mr. Findlater, my supervisor. I dare to be honest, and I fear no labour. Nor do I find my hurried life greatly inimical to my correspondence with the Muses. Their visits to me, indeed, and I believe to most of their acquaintance, like the visits of good angels, are short and far between: but I meet them now and then as I jog through the hills of Nithsdale, just as I used to do on the banks of Ayr. I take the liberty to enclose you a few bagatelles, all of them the productions of my leisure thoughts in my excise rides. If you know or have ever seen Captain Grose the antiquarian, you will enter into any humour that is in the verses on him. Perhaps you have seen them before, as I sent them to a London newspaper. Though I dare say you have none of the solemn-league-and-covenant fire, which shone so conspicuous in Lord George Gordon and the Kilmarnock weavers, yet I think you must have heard of Dr. M'Gill, one of the clergymen of Ayr, and his heretical book. God help him, poor man! Though he is one of the worthiest, as well as one of the ablest of the whole priesthood of the Kirk of Scotland, in every sense of that ambiguous term, yet the poor Doctor and his numerous family are in imminent danger of being thrown out to the mercy of the winter-winds. The enclosed ballad on that business is, I confess, too local, but I laughed myself at some conceits in it, though I am convinced in my conscience that there are a good many heavy stanzas in it too. The election ballad, as you will see, alludes to the present canvass in our string of boroughs. I do not believe there will be such a hard-run match in the whole general election.* I am too little a man to have any political attachments; I am deeply indebted to, and have the warmest veneration for, individuals of both parties; but a man who has it in his power to be the father of a country, and who * * * is a character that one cannot speak of with patience. Sir J. J. does "what man can do ;" but yet I doubt his fate. No. *This alludes to the contest for the borough of Dumfries, between the Duke of Queensberry's interest and that of Sir James Johnstone. E. |