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. Dugald Stewart, and some of my learned friends, put me in the periodical paper called the Lounger,* a copy of which I here enclose you-I was, sir, when I was first honored 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 ob servation. I shall certainly, my ever honored patron, write you an account of my every step; and hetter health and more spirits may enable me to make it something better than this stupid matter of fact epistle. I have the honor to be, Good Sir, Your ever grateful humble servant. If any of my friends write me, my direction is, care of Mr. Creech, bookseller. No. VIII.* To Mr. WILLIAM CHALMERS, Writer, Ayr. Edinburgh, Dec. 27, 1786. MY DEAR FRIEND, 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 send you an entertaining letter; *The paper here alluded to, was written by Mr. M'Kenzie, the celebrated author of the Man of feeling. This letter is now presented entire. and by all the plodding, stupid powers, that in nodding, conceited majesty, preside over the dull routine of business-A heavily-solemn oath this!-I am, and have been, ever since I came to Edinburgh, as unfit to write a letter of humor, 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 desart 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 storytelling, 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 enclose you two poems I have carded and spun since I past. 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 honor to be more than once. There has not been any thing 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. 1 No. IX. To JOHN BALLANTINE, Esq.. MY HONORED FRIEND, Edinburgh, Jan. 14, 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 favorable 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 a 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 any where than in my old neighbourhood, but Mr. Miller is no judge of land; and though I dare say he means to favor me, yet he may give me in his opinion an advantageous bargain, that may ruin me. I am to take a tour by Dumfries as I return, and have promised to meet Mr. Miller on his lands some time in May. I went to a Mason-lodge yesternight, where the most Worshipful-Grand Master Charters, and all the Grand-Lodge of Scotland visited. The meeting was numerous and elegant; all the different Lodges about town were present, in all their pomp. The Grand Master, who presided with great solemnity and honor *This is one of a great number of old saws that Burns, when a lad, had picked up from his mother, of which the good old woman had a vast collection. This venerable and most respectable person is still living, under the sheltering roof of her son Gilbert, on his farm, near Dumfries. E. to himself as a gentleman and Mason, among other general toasts gave "Caledonia, and Caledonia's Bard, Brother B," which rung through the whole assembly with multiplied honors and repeated acclamations. As I had no idea such a thing would happen, I was downright thunder-struck, and trembling in every nerve made the best return in my power. Just as I had finished, some of the grand officers said, so loud that I could hear, with a most comforting accent, "Very well indeed!" which set me something to rights again. I have to-day corrected my 152nd page. My best good wishes to Mr. Aiken. I am ever, Dear Sir, Your much indebted humble Servant. No. X. TO THE SAME. WHILE here I sit, sad and solitary, by the side of a fire in a little country inn, and drying my wet clothes, in pops a poor fellow of a sodger and tells me he is going to Ayr. By heavens! say I to myself, with a tide of good spirits which the magic of that sound, Auld Toon o' Ayr, conjured up, I will send my last song to Mr. Ballantine. Here it is Ye flowery banks o' bonie Doon,* *The reader will perceive that the measure of this copy of the "Banks o' bonie Doon," differs from that which is Thou 'll break my heart, thou bonie bird Thou 'll break my heart, thou bonie bird That sings beside thy mate; Aft hae I rov'd my bonie Doon, Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose And my fause luver staw the rose, already published. Burns was obliged to adapt his words to a particular air, and in so doing he lost much of the simplicity and beauty which the song possesses in its present state. E. 3 |