No. XXX.

TO GAVIN HAMILTON, ESQ.

MAUCHLINE.

[Burns reached Edinburgh on his first visit on the 28th November. Through Mr. Dalrymple, of Orangefield, near. Ayr, Burns was introduced to his brother-inlaw, Lord Glencairn, to the Hon. Henry Erskine, and other influential people. Gavin Hamilton, a Writer in Mauchline, was one of Burns' chief patrons in Ayrshire.]

HONOURED SIR,

EDINBURGH, December 7th, 1786.

I have paid every attention to your commands, but can only say what perhaps you will have heard before this reach you, that Muirkirklands were bought by a John Gordon, W.S., but for whom I know not; Mauchlands, Haugh Mill, &c., by a Frederick Fotheringham, supposed to be for Ballochmyle Laird, and Adam-hill and Shawood were bought for Oswald's folks. This is so imperfect an account, and will be so late ere it reach you, that were it not to discharge my conscience I would not trouble you with it; but after all my diligence I could make it no sooner nor better.

For my own affairs, I am in a fair way of becoming as eminent as Thomas à Kempis or John Bunyan; and you may expect henceforth to see my birthday inserted among the wonderful events, in the Poor Robin's and Aberdeen Almanacks, along with the Black Monday, and the battle of Bothwell Bridge. My Lord Glencairn and the Dean of Faculty, Mr. H. Erskine, have taken me under their wing; and by all probability I shall soon be the tenth worthy, and the eighth wise man of the world. Through my Lord's influence it is inserted in the records of the Caledonian Hunt, that they universally, one and all, subscribe for the second edition. My subscription bills come out to-morrow, and you shall have some of them next post. I have met, in Mr. Dalrymple, of Orangefield, what Solomon emphatically calls “ a friend that sticketh closer than a brother." The warmth with which he interests himself in my affairs is of the same enthusiastic kind which you, Mr. Aiken, and the few patrons that took notice of my earlier poetic days showed for the poor unlucky devil of a poet.

I always remember Mrs. Hamilton and Miss Kennedy in my poetic prayers, but you both in prose and verse.

May cauld ne'er catch you but a hap,

Nor hunger but in plenty's lap!

Amen!

R. B.

No. XXXI.

TO JAMES DALRYMPLE, ESQ. OF ORANGEFIELD.

DEAR SIR,

[December 10, 1786?]

I suppose the devil is so elated with his success with you, that he is determined by a coup de main to complete his purposes on you all at once, in making you a poet. I broke open the letter you sent mehummed over the rhymes-and as I saw they were extempore, said to myself they were very well; but when I saw at the bottom a name that I shall ever value with grateful respect, "I gapit wide, but naething spak." I was nearly as much struck as the friends of Job, of affliction-bearing memory, when they sat down with him seven days and seven nights, and spake not a word.

I am naturally of a superstitious cast; and as soon as my wonderscared imagination regained its consciousness, and resumed its functions, I cast about what this mania of yours might portend. My foreboding ideas had the wide stretch of possibility; and several events, great in their magnitude, and important in their consequences, occurred to my fancy. The downfall of the conclave, or the crushing of the cork rumps-a ducal coronet to Lord George Gordon, and the Protestant interest, or St. Peter's keys to.

You want to know how I come on. I am just in statu quo, or, not to insult a gentleman with my Latin, in "auld use and wont." The noble Earl of Glencairn took me by the hand to-day, and interested himself in my concerns, with a goodness like that benevolent being whose image he so richly bears. He is a stronger proof of the immortality of the soul than any that philosophy ever produced. A mind like his can never die. Let the worshipful Squire H. L., or the Reverend Mass J. M., go into their primitive nothing. At best, they are but ill-digested lumps of chaos- ! only, one of them strongly tinged with bituminous particles and sulphureous effluvia. But my noble patron, eternal as the heroic swell of magnanimity, and the generous throb of benevolence, shall look on with princely eye at "the war of elements, the wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds."-R. B.

No. XXXII.

TO JOHN BALLANTINE, ESQ.,

MY HONOURed Friend,

BANKER, AYR.

EDINBURGH, 13th December, 1786. I would not write you till I could have it in my power to give you some account of myself and my matters, which by the by is often no easy task. I arrived here on Tuesday was se'nnight, and have suffered ever since I came to town with a miserable head-ache and stomach com

plaint, but am now a good deal better. I have found a worthy warm friend in Mr. Dalrymple, of Orangefield, who introduced me to Lord Glencairn, a man whose worth and brotherly kindness to me I shall remember when time shall be no more. By his interest it is passed in the "Caledonian Hunt," and entered in their books, that they are to take each a copy of the second edition, for which they are to pay one guinea.-I have been introduced to a good many of the noblesse, but my avowed patrons and patronesses are, the Duchess of Gordon-the Countess of Glencairn, with my Lord, and Lady Betty*—the Dean of Faculty-Sir John Whitefoord. I have likewise warm friends among the literati : Professors Stewart, Blair, and Mr. Mackenzie-the Man of Feeling. An unknown hand left ten guineas for the Ayrshire Bard with Mr. Sibbald, which I got. I since have discovered my generous unknown friend to be Patrick Miller, Esq., brother to the Justice Clerk; and drank a glass of claret with him by invitation at his own house yesternight. I am nearly agreed with Creech to print my book, and I suppose I will begin on Monday. I will send a subscription bill or two, next post; when I intend writing my first kind patron, Mr. Aiken. I saw his son to-day, and he is very well.

I

Dugald Stewart, and some of my learned friends, put me in the periodical paper called the Lounger,† a copy of which I here inclose you. was, Sir, when I was first honoured with your notice, too obscure; now I tremble lest I should be ruined by being dragged too suddenly into the glare of polite and learned observation.

I shall certainly, my ever-honoured patron, write you an account of my every step; and better health and more spirits may enable me to make it something better than this stupid matter-of-fact epistle.

*Lady Betty Cunningham, sister of Lord Glencairn. The paper here alluded to was written by Mr. Mackenzie, the celebrated author of "The Man of Feeling. It recognises in the poems 'a genius of no ordinary rank," remarkable in itself without reference to the natural wonder excited by the fact that they were written by a man of such humble rank, without the advantages of a good education. The power of genius," Mr. Mackenzie proceeds, "is not less admirable in tracing the manners, than in painting the passions or in drawing the scenery of nature. That intuitive glance with which a writer like Shakspeare discerns the characters of men, with which he catches the many changing hues of life, forms a sort of problem in the science of mind, of which it is easier to see the truth than to assign the cause. Though I am very far from meaning to compare our rustic bard to Shakspeare, yet whoever will read his lighter and more humorous poems, his Dialogue of the Dogs, his Dedication to GH—, Esq., his Epistle to a Young Friend, and to WS, will perceive with what uncommon penetration and sagacity this heaven-taught ploughman, from his humble and unlettered station, has looked upon men and things." Mackenzie then referred to the misfortunes which, as he had heard most probably from Dugald Stewart, had befallen the bard, and expressed a hope that some means might be found to provide for him in his native land.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

No. XXXIII.

TO MR. ROBERT MUIR.

EDINBURGH, December 20th, 1786.

I have just time for the carrier, to tell you that I received your letter; of which I shall say no more but what a lass of my acquaintance said of her bastard wean; she said she "did na ken wha was the father exactly, but she suspected it was some o' thae bonny blackguard smugglers, for it was like them." So I only say your obliging epistle was like you. I inclose you a parcel of subscription bills. Your affair of sixty copies is also like you; but it would not be like me to comply.

Your friend's notion of my life has put a crotchet in my head of sketching it in some future epistle to you. My compliments to Charles and Mr. Parker.-R. B.

No. XXXIV.

TO MR. WILLIAM CHALMERS,

MY DEAR FRIEND,

WRITER, AYR,

EDINBURGH, December 27th, 1786,

I confess I have sinned the sin for which there is hardly any forgiveness-ingratitude to friendship-in not writing you sooner; but of all men living, I had intended to have sent you an entertaining letter; and by all the plodding, stupid powers, that in nodding, conceited majesty, preside over the dull routine of business-a heavily solemn oath this!— Ì am, and have been, ever since I came to Edinburgh, as unfit to write a letter of humour, as to write a commentary on the Revelation of St. John the Divine, who was banished to the Isle of Patmos, by the cruel and bloody Domitian, son to Vespasian and brother to Titus, both emperors of Rome, and who was himself an emperor, and raised the second or third persecution, I forget which, against the Christians, and after throwing the said Apostle John, brother to the Apostle James, commonly called James the Greater, to distinguish him from another James, who was, on some account or other, known by the name of James the Less after throwing him into a caldron of boiling oil, from which he was miraculously preserved, he banished the poor son of Zebedee to a desert island in the Archipelago, where he was gifted with the second sight, and saw as many wild beasts as I have seen since I came to Edinburgh; which, a circumstance not very uncommon in story-telling, brings me back to where I set out.

To make you some amends for what, before you reach this paragraph, you will have suffered, I inclose you two poems I have carded and spun since I passed Glenbuck.

One blank in the Address to Edinburgh-" Fair B," is heavenly Miss Burnet, daughter to Lord Monboddo, at whose house I have had the !

honour to be more than once. There has not been anything nearly like her in all the combinations of beauty, grace, and goodness the great Creator has formed, since Milton's Eve on the first day of her existence. My direction is-care of Andrew Bruce, merchant, Bridge-street.

No. XXXV.

TO THE EARL OF EGLINTON.

R. B.

MY LORD, EDINBURGH, January, 1787. As I have but slender pretensions to philosophy, I cannot rise to the exalted ideas of a citizen of the world, but have all those national prejudices, which I believe glow peculiarly strong in the breast of a Scotchman. There is scarcely anything to which I am so feelingly alive as the honour and welfare of my country and as a poet, I have no higher enjoyment than singing her sons and daughters. Fate had cast my station in the veriest shades of life; but never did a heart pant more ardently than mine to be distinguished; though till very lately, I looked in vain on every side for a ray of light. It is easy then to guess how much I was gratified with the countenance and approbation of one of my country's most illustrious sons, when Mr. Wauchope called on me yesterday on the part of your lordship.* Your munificence, my lord, certainly deserves my very grateful acknowledgments; but your patronage is a bounty peculiarly suited to my feelings. I am not master enough of the etiquette of life to know, whether there be not some impropriety in troubling your lordship with my thanks, but my heart whispered me to do it. From the emotions of my inmost soul I do it. Selfish ingratitude I hope I am incapable of; and mercenary servility, I trust, I shall ever have so much honest pride as to detest.-R. B.

No. XXXVI.

TO JOHN BALLANTINE, ESQ.

MY HONOURED FRIEND,

EDINBURGH, January 14th, 1787.

It gives me a secret comfort to observe in myself that I am not yet so far gone as Willie Gaw's Skate, "past redemption ;"+ for I have still this favourable symptom of grace, that when my conscience, as in the case of this letter, tells me I am leaving something undone that I ought to do, it teazes me eternally till I do it.

I am still "dark as was Chaos" in respect to futurity. My generous friend Mr. Patrick Miller, has been talking with me about the lease of some farm or other in an estate called Dalswinton, which he has lately bought near Dumfries. Some life-rented embittering recollections whisper me that I will be happier anywhere than in my old neighbourhood, but Mr. Wauchope brought him ten guineas as a subscription for two copies of his second edition. This is one of a great number of old saws that Burns, when a lad, had picked up from his mother, who had a vast collection of them.

Y