ÆT. 33.] THE HEAD OF THE COMMONALITY.

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ble deference, I am disposed to think unequal to the merits of the book. I have sometimes thought to transcribe these marked passages, or at least so much of them as to point where they are, and send them to you. Original strokes that strongly depict the human heart, is your and Fielding's province, beyond any other novelist I have ever perused. Richardson indeed might perhaps be excepted; but, unhappily, his dramatis persona are beings of some other world; and however they may captivate the inexperienced, romantic, fancy of a boy or a girl, they will ever, in proportion as we have made human nature our study, dissatisfy our riper years.

As to my private concerns, I am going on, a mighty tax-gatherer before the Lord, and have lately had the interest to get myself ranked on the list of excise as a supervisor. I am not yet employed as such, but in a few years I shall fall into the file of supervisorship by seniority. I have had an immense loss in the death of the Earl of Glencairn; the patron from whom all my fame and good fortune took its rise. Independent of my grateful attachment to him, which was indeed so strong that it pervaded my very soul, and was entwined with the thread of my existence; so soon as the prince's friends had got in (and every dog, you know, has his day), my getting forward in the Excise would have been an easier business than otherwise it will be. Though this was a consummation devoutly to be wished, yet, thank Heaven, I can live and rhyme as I am; and as to my boys, poor little fellows! if I cannot place them on as high an elevation in life, as I could wish, I shall, if I am favored so much of the Disposer of events as to see that period, fix them on as broad and independent a basis as possible. Among the many wise adages which have been treasured up by our Scottish ancestors this is one of the best, Better be the head o' the commonality, than the tail o' the gentry.

But I am got on a subject, which, however, interesting to me, is of no manner of consequence to you; so I shall give you a short poem on the other page, and close this with assuring you how sincerely I have the honor to be, yours &c. R. B.

Written on the blank leaf of a book, which I presented to a very young lady, whom I had formerly characterised under the denomination of THE ROSEBUD.

(Here was inscribed the Poem at page 49, Vol. III-Beauteous Rose-bud, young and gay.)

The foregoing letter is the last that has been given to the public of Burns's letters to Dr. Moore. That gentleman's reply, dated 29th March 1791, was printed by Dr. Currie. He begins by admitting that the Rev. Mr. Baird had before transmitted to him a copy of the Elegy on Capt. Henderson, and the printed poem on "Alloway Church." His criticisms on these gems of Burns's muse are rather frigid; and he closes by advising him to avoid the Scottish dialect in his future poems, and make entire use of the modern English: "Why (he asks) should you write only for a part of the island, when you can command the admiration of the whole?" He also requests Burns to favor him with his observations on "Zeluco," and not to suppress his censure, if he any have: "Trust me it will break no squares between us-I am not akin to the Bishop of Grenada."

Burns's copy of "Zeluco" with his pencil observations on the margin, was presented to Mrs. Dunlop. A grandson of hers carried it to the East Indies, where one of the volumes was consumed by the white ants. The other volume (the first) is still preserved, and one of the poet's observations would not have been relished by Dr. Moore. At conclusion of Chap. xii. a lady's maid thus addresses her mistress in support of a bashful suitor for the lady's hand: "Although he is languishing for love of your ladyship, yet rather than open his mouth to you on the subject, he will certainly die.”— "Die! nonsense," cried the widow, "Yes, die!" cried the maid, "and what is worse, die in a dark lanthorn; at least, I am told that is what he is in danger of." Burns's note is "Rather a bad joke-an unlucky attempt at humor."

On a blank leaf fronting the title-page the poet has inscribed "To my much esteemed Friend, Mrs. Dunlop of Dunlop. ROBT. BURNS."

The notes are not very numerous. The book is now in possession of Mr. Wallace Dunlop, C.B., great-grandson of the poet's patroness. To the late Dr. Carruthers of Inverness, we were indebted for this account of the poet's annotated copy of "Zeluco."

(9) TO MR. PETER HILL, BOOKSELLER,

WITH A EWE-MILK CHEESE.

(CURRIE, 1800.)

ELLISLAND, [March 1791.]*

MY DEAR HILL,-I shall say nothing at all to your mnad present; you have long and often been of important service to me, and I suppose you mean to go on conferring obligations until I shall not be able to lift up my face before you. In the mean time, as Sir Roger de Coverley, because it happened to be a cold day in which he made his will, ordered his servants great coats for mourning; so, because I have been this week plagued with an indigestion, I have sent you by the carrier a fine old ewe-milk cheese.

I

Indigestion is the devil: nay, 'tis the devil and hell. It besets a man in every one of his senses. lose my appetite at the sight of successful Knavery; and sicken to loathing at the noise and nonsense of

*The original MS. of this letter is still preserved in Mr. Hill's family, but bears no date: Dr. Currie placed it under "March 1789," no doubt induced to do so by the reference near the close, to "the Duke of Queensberry's late political conduct." There is, however, another reference which compels us to place the letter under a later date :-"Candlish, the earliest friend, except my only brother, that I have on earth." The poet's brother William was alive till July 1790, and we have taken the earliest probable occasion to introduce the present letter, after that event. The mention of "the King's Arms inn here," suggests a date even later.

240

SMELLIE, CANDLISH, AND RAMSAY.

[1791.

self-important Folly. When the hollow-hearted wretch takes me by the hand, the feeling spoils my dinner; the proud man's wine so offends my palate that it choaks me in the gullet; and the pulvilis'd, feathered, pert coxcomb is so horrible in my nostril that my stomach turns.

If ever you have any of these disagreeable sensations, let me prescribe for your Patience a bit of my Cheese. I know that you are no niggard of your good things among your friends, and some of them are in much need of a slice. There, in my eye, is our friend Smellie; a man positively of the first abilities and greatest strength of mind, as well as one of the best hearts and keenest wits that I have ever met with; when you see him-as, alas! he too often is, smarting at the pinch of distressful circumstance aggravated by the sneer of contumelious greatness, a bit of my cheese alone will not cure him, but if you add a tankard of brown stout, and superadd a magnum of right Oporto, you will see his sorrows vanish like the morning mist before the summer sun.

Candlish, the earliest friend, except my only brother, that I have on earth, and one of the worthiest fellows that ever any man called by the name of Friend, if a luncheon of my cheese would help to rid him of some of his superabundant modesty, you would do well to give it him.

David,* with his "Courant" comes too across my recollection, and I beg you will help him largely from the said ewe-milk cheese, to enable him to digest those damn'd bedaubing paragraphs with which he is eternally larding the lean characters of certain great men in a certain great town. I grant you the periods are very well turned; so, a fresh egg is a very good thing, but when thrown at a man in a pillory, it does

*David Ramsay, already referred to in the letter to Hill of 2nd April 1789. He survived till June 27th, 1813.

ET. 33.] DUNBAR, CUNNINGHAM, AND SOMERVILLE.

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not at all improve his figure, not to mention the irreparable loss of the egg.

My facetious little friend, Colonel Dunbar, I would wish also to be a partaker; not to digest his spleen, for that he laughs off, but to digest his last night's wine at the last field-day of the Crochallan corps.

Among our common friends I must not forget one of the dearest of them, Cunningham. The brutality, insolence, and selfishness of a world unworthy of having such a fellow as he in it, I know sticks in his stomach, and if you can help him to any thing that will make him a little easier on that score, it will be very obliging.

As to honest John Somerville,* he is such a contented, happy man, that I know not what can annoy him, except perhaps he may not have got the better of a parcel of modest anecdotes, which a certain poet gave him one night at supper, the last time the said poet was in town.

Though I have mentioned so many men of Law, I shall have nothing to do with them professionallythe Faculty are beyond my prescription. As to their clients, that is another thing; God knows they have much to digest!

The clergy I pass by; their profundity of erudition, and their liberality of sentiment; their total want of pride, and their detestation of hypocrisy, are so proverbially notorious as to place them far, far above either my praise or censure.

I was going to mention a man of worth, whom I have the honor to call friend, the Laird of Craigdarroch; but I have spoken to the landlord of the King's

A confidential friend of Burns, whose name appears as a subscriber for four copies of the Edinburgh edition 1787. The poet presented him with a proof impression of his portrait (Beugo's engraving), which came into the possession of the late Mr. Alex. Russel of the Scotsman. Colonel Somerville (a son of the poet's friend) left a large sum of money, many thousands of which will fall to Mr. Russel's family, after the death of a lady annuitant.