ÆT. 33.]

EDUCATION FOR RUSTICS.

257

(1) TO SIR JOHN SINCLAIR, OF ULBSTER,

BART.

(CURRIE, 1800.)

ELLISLAND, 1791.

SIR,-The following circumstance has, I believe, been omitted in the statistical account, transmitted to you, of the parish of Dunscore, in Nithsdale. I beg leave to send it to you, because it is new and may be useful. How far it is deserving of a place in your patriotic publication, you are the best judge.

To store the minds of the lower classes with useful knowledge, is certainly of great importance, both to them as individuals, and to society at large. Giving them a turn for reading and reflection, is giving them a source of innocent and laudable amusement; and besides raises them to a more dignified degree in the scale of rationality. Impressed with this idea, a gentleman in this parish, Robert Riddell, Esq., of Glenriddell, set on foot a species of circulating library, on a plan so simple as to be practicable in any corner of the country; and so useful, as to deserve the notice of every country gentleman, who thinks the improvement of that part of his own species, whom chance has thrown into the humble walks of the peasant and the artisan, a matter worthy of his attention.

Mr. Riddell got a number of his own tenants, and farming neighbors, to form themselves into a society for the purpose of having a library among themselves. They entered into a legal engagement to abide by it for three years; with a saving clause or two, in case of removal to a distance, or of death. Each member, at his entry, paid five shillings and at each of their meetings, which were held every fourth Saturday, sixpence more. With their entry-money, and the credit which they took on the faith of their future

258

CO-OPERATIVE LIBRARY SCHEME.

[1791. funds, they laid in a tolerable stock of books at the commencement. What authors they were to purchase, was always decided by the majority. At every meeting, all the books, under certain fines and forfeitures, by way of penalty, were to be produced; and the members had their choice of the volumes in rotation. He whose name stood for that night, first on the list, had his choice of what volume he pleased in the whole collection; the second had his choice after the first; the third after the second, and so on to the last. At next meeting, he who had been first on the list at the preceding meeting, was last at this; he who had been second was first; and so on through the whole three years. At the expiration of the engagement, the books were sold by auction, but only among the members themselves; and and each man had his share of the common stock, in money or in books, as he chose to be a purchaser or not.

At the breaking up of this little society, which was formed under Mr. Riddell's patronage, what with benefactions of books from him, and what with their own purchases, they had collected together upwards of one hundred and fifty volumes. It will easily be guessed, that a good deal of trash would be bought. Among the books, however, of this little library, were, Blair's Sermons, Robertson's History of Scotland, Hume's History of the Stewarts, The Spectator, Idler, Adventurer, Mirror, Lounger, Observer, Man of Feeling, Man of the World, Chrysal, Don Quixote, Joseph Andrews, &c. A peasant who can read, and enjoy such books, is certainly a much superior being to his neighbor, who perhaps stalks beside his team, very little removed, except in shape, from the brutes he drives. Wishing your patriotic exertions their so much merited success,-I am, Sir, your humble servant,

A PEASANT.*

The above is extracted from the third volume of Sir John Sinclair's Statistics,

DEAR SIR, -I am exceedingly to blame in not writing you long ago; but the truth is, that I am the most indolent of all human beings, and when I matriculate in the Herald's Office, I intend that my supporters shall be two sloths; my crest, a slow-worm; and the motto, "Deil tak' the foremost." So much by way of apology for not thanking you sooner for your kind execution of my commission.

I would have sent you the poem; but somehow or other it found its way into the public paper, where you must have seen it.*

I am ever, dear Sir, yours sincerely,

ROBERT BURNS.

TO (PROBABLY) WM. NICOL,

OF THE HIGH SCHOOL, EDINBURGH.

(CUNNINGHAM, 1834.)

THOU Eunuch of language: thou Englishman, who never was south of the Tweed: thou servile echo of

p. 598.-It was enclosed to Sir John by Mr. Riddell himself in the following letter, also printed there:-"SIR JOHN-I enclose you a letter written by Mr. Burns, as an addition to the account of Dunscore parish. It contains an account of a small library which he was so good (at my desire) as to set on foot, in the barony of Monkland (or Friar's Carse), in this parish. As its utility has been felt, particularly among the younger class of people, I think, that if a similar plan were established, in the different parishes of Scotland, it would tend greatly to the speedy improvement of the tenantry, trades people, and work people. Mr. Burns was so good as to take the whole charge of this small concern. He was treasurer, librarian, and censor, to this little society, who will long have a grateful sense of his public spirit and exertions for their improvement and information.

ROBERT RIDDELL."
"Lament of Mary

"I have the honor to be, Sir John, yours most sincerely, It is supposed that the poem here referred to was the Queen of Scots." If so, the date would be about May 1791.

fashionable barbarisms: thou quack, vending the nostrums of empirical elocution: thou marriage-maker between vowels and consonants, on the Gretna-green of caprice thou cobbler, botching the flimsy socks of bombast oratory: thou blacksmith, hammering the rivets of absurdity: thou butcher, embruing thy hands in the bowels of orthography: thou arch-heretic in pronunciation: thou pitch-pipe of affected emphasis : thou carpenter, mortising the awkward joints of jarring sentences: thou squeaking dissonance of cadence: thou pimp of gender: thou Lyon Herald to silly etymology: thou antipode of grammar: thou executioner of construction: thou brood of the speechdistracting builders of the Tower of Babel: thou lingual confusion worse confounded: thou scape-gallows from the land of syntax: thou scavenger of mood and tense thou murderous accoucheur of infant learning thou ignus fatuus, misleading the steps of benighted ignorance: thou pickle-herring in the puppet-show of nonsense: thou faithful recorder of barbarous idiom: thou persecutor of syllabication : thou baleful meteor, foretelling and facilitating the rapid approach of Nox and Erebus.*

() TO MR. JOHN SOMERVILLE, WRITER,
EDINBURGH.

(DOUGLAS, 1877.)

ELLISLAND, NEAR DUMFRIES, 11th May 1791.

ALLOW me, my dear Sir, to introduce a Mr. Lorimer, a particular friend of mine, to your acquaintance, as a

*This singular composition made its appearance in the Gentleman's Magazine for August 1832, without date or signature. The original MS. was in the possession of Mr. Andrew Henderson, Surgeon, Berwick-upon-Tweed, one of the sons of Mrs. Henderson of Jedburgh, daughter of Mr. Wm. Cruikshank, High School, Edinburgh.

gentleman worth your knowing, both as a man and (what is case in point), as a man of property and consequence, who goes to town just now, to advise with and employ an Agent in some law-business. By way of serving him, I put him in the best hands when I introduce him to Mr. Somerville. My kindest compliments to Mrs. Somerville, little Harry, and all your little folks. By the way, about ten months ago, I collected a little fellow, whom, for strength, size, figure, and pitch of note, I will match against any boy in Nithsdale, Annandale, or any dale whatever. So, in a mug of porter, here goes the Gudewife o' Diltammies' toast"The Gudeman an' the bill! for they keep a' the toun in milk." Yours,

*

*

ROBT. BURNS.

The above curious fragment we print from a newspaper cutting of unknown date; a footnote intimates that the seal of the letter is of black wax, bearing the impression of a heart transpierced by two cross arrows, and explains in reference to the portion represented by asterisks that "our compositor either cannot or will not make it out."

The gentleman to whom the letter is addressed has already been introduced to the reader in the poet's letter to Peter Hill, page 241 supra. Here we have the earliest reference to the Lorimer family which occurs in the bard's correspondence. His intercourse with them began when he commenced his excise practice near the close of 1789. The eldest daughter, Jean (born in 1775), who was destined to become the "Chloris" of Burns, was then bursting into precocious womanhood. Already had her charms prompted his muse to make her the subject of a song in which he vicariously wooed her for a brother exciseman; and the names "Jean Lorimer" and "John Gillespie" were engraved on the window panes at Ellisland. The ingenious reader will be at small loss to unriddle the mysterious allusions in the latter part of the above fragment. They undoubtedly refer to the conception and birth of William Nicol Burns, the poet's third son, who first saw daylight about one month prior to the date of this communication to Somerville. Thus-Tristram Shandy-like-the history of Colonel William