open the book without feeling my aston- | rising fame, and I wish and expect it may ishment renewed and increased. It was my wish to have expressed my approbation in verse; but whether from declining life, or a temporary depression of spirits, it is at present out of my power to accomplish that agreeable intention.

Mr. Stewart, Professor of Morals in this University, had formerly read me three of the poems, and I had desired him to get my name inserted among the subscribers; but whether this was done, or not, I never could learn. I have little intercourse with Dr. Blair, but will take care to have the poems communicated to him by the intervention of some mutual friend. It has been told me by a Gentleman, to whom I showed the performances, and who sought a copy with diligence and ardour, that the whole impression is already exhausted. It were, therefore, much to be wished, for the sake of the young man, that a second edition, more numerous than the former, could immediately be printed as it appears certain that its intrinsic merit and the exertion of the author's friends, might give it a more universal circulation than any thing of the kind which has been published within my memory.*

:

tower still higher by the new publication. But, as a friend, I warn you to prepare to meet with your share of detraction and envy-a train that always accompany great men. For your comfort I am in great hopes that the number of your friends and admirers will increase, and that you have some chance of ministerial, or even ***** patronage. Now, my friend, such rapid success is very uncom mon: and do you think yourself in no danger of suffering by applause and a full purse? Remember Solomon's advice, which he spoke from experience, "stronger is he that conquers," &c. Keep fast hold of your rural simplicity and purity, like Telemachus, by Mentor's aid, in Calypso's isle, or even in that of Cyprus. I hope you have also Minerva with you. I need not tell you how much a modest diffidence and invincible temperance adorn the most shining talents, and elevate the mind, and exalt and refine the imagina tion, even of a poet.

I hope you will not imagine I speak from suspicion or evil report. I assure you I speak from love and good report, and good opinion, and a strong desire to see you shine as much in the sunshine as you have done in the shade; and in the practice, as you do in the theory of vir tue. This is my prayer, in return for your elegant composition in verse. All here join in compliments and good wishes for your further prosperity.

No. IX.

TO MR. CHALMERS.

Edinburgh, 27th Dec. 1786.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

I CONFESS I have sinned the sin for which there is hardly any forgivenessingratitude to friendship-in not writing you sooner; but of all men living, I had intended to send you an entertaining let

I rejoice to hear, from all corners, of your ter; and by all the plodding stupid pow

*The reader will perceive that this is the letter which produced the determination of our Bard to give up his scheme of going to the West Indies, and to try the fate of a new Edition of his Poems in Edinburgh. A copy

of this letter was sent by Mr. Lowrie to Mr. G. Hamilton, and by him communicated to Burns, among whose papers it was found.

For an account of Mr. Lowrie and his family, see the letter of Gilbert Burns to the Editor.

ers 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 humour as to write a commentary on the Revelations.

To make you some amends for what, before you reach this paragraph you will I have suffered, I enclose you two poems have carded and spun since I passed Glenbuck. One blank in the address to Edinburgh, "Fair B-," is the heavenly Miss Burnet, daughter to Lord Monboddo, at whose house I had the honour to be There has not been more than once. 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. I have sent you a parcel of subscriptionbills; and have written to Mr. Ballantyne and Mr. Aiken, to call on you for some of them, if they want them. My direction is-care of Andrew Bruce, Merchant, Bridge-street.

No. X.

TO THE EARL OF EGLINTON.
Edinburgh, January, 1787.

MY LORD,

No. XI.

TO MRS. DUNLOP.

99

Edinburgh, 15th January, 1787

MADAM,

YOURS of the 9th current, which I am this moment honoured with, is a deep reproach to me for ungrateful neglect. I will tell you the real truth, for I am miserably awkward at a fib; I wished to have written to Dr. Moore before I wrote to you; but though, every day since I received yours of December 30th, the idea, the wish to write to him, has constantly pressed on my thoughts, yet I could not for my soul set about it. I know his fame and character, and I am one of "the sons of little men." To write him a mere matter-of-fact affair, like a merchant's order, would be disgracing the little character Í have; and to write the author of The View of Society and Manners a letter of sentiment-I declare every artery runs cold at the thought. I shall try, however, to write to him to-morrow or next day. His kind interposition in my behalf I have already experienced, as a gentleman waited on me the other day on the part of Lord Eglington, with ten guineas, by way of subscription for two copies of my next edition.

I

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, grow peculiarly strong in the breast of a Scotchman. There is scarcely any thing to which I am so feelingly alive; as the honour and welfare of my country; The word you object to in the mention and, as a poet, I have no higher enjoy- have made of my glorious countryman ment than singing her sons and daugh- and your immortal ancestor, is indeed borters. Fate had cast my station in the rowed from Thomson; but it does not veriest shades of life; but never did a strike me as an improper epithet. I disheart pant more ardently than mine, to trusted my own judgment on your finding be distinguished; though till very lately, fault with it, and applied for the opinion I looked in vain on every side for a ray of some of the literati here, who honour of light. It is easy, then, to guess how me with their critical strictures, and they much I was gratified with the counte- all allow it to be proper. The song you nance and approbation of one of my coun- ask I cannot recollect, and I have not a try's most illustrious sons, when Mr. Wauchope called on me yesterday on the copy of it. I have not composed any thing on the great Wallace, except what part of your Lordship. Your munificence, you have seen in print, and the inclosed, my Lord, certainly deserves my very which I will print in this edition.* You grateful acknowledgments; but your pat-will see I have mentioned some others of ronage 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.

U

the name. When I composed my Vision long ago, I attempted a description of Koyle, of which the additional stanzas are a part, as it originally stood. My heart glows with a wish to be able to do justice to the merits, of the Saviour of his Country, which, sooner or later, I shall at least attempt.

*Stanzas in the Vision, beginning "By stately tower or palace fair" and ending with the first Duan. E.

SIR,

No. XII.

TO DR. MOORE.

1787.

MRS. DUNLOP has been so kind as to send me extracts of letters she has had from you, where you do the rustic bare the honour of noticing him and his works. Those who have felt the anxieties and solicitude of authorship, can only know what pleasure it gives to be noticed in such a manner by judges of the first cha

You are afraid I shall grow intoxicated with my prosperity as a poet. Alas! Madam, I know myself and the world too well. I do not mean any airs of affected modesty; I am willing to believe that my abilities deserved some notice; but in a most enlightened, informed age and nation, when poetry is and has been the study of men of the first natural genius, aided with all the powers of polite learning, polite books, and polite companyto be dragged forth to the full glare of learned and polite observation, with all my imperfections of awkward rusticity and crude unpolished ideas on my head-racter. Your criticisms, Sir, I receive I assure you, Madam, I do not dissemble with reverence; only I am sorry they when I tell you I tremble for the conse- mostly came too late; a peccant passage quences. The novelty of a poet in my or two, that I would certainly have alterobscure situation, without any of those ed, were gone to the press. advantages which are reckoned necessary for that character, at least at this time of day, has raised a partial tide of public notice, which has borne me to a height where I am absolutely, feelingly certain my abilities are inadequate to support me; and too surely do I see that time when the same tide will leave me, and recede, perhaps, as far below the mark of truth. I do not say this in the ridiculous affectation of self-abasement and modesty. I have studied myself, and know what ground I occupy; and, however a friend or the world may differ from me in that particular, I stand for my own opinion in silent resolve, with all the tenaciousness of property. I mention this to you, once for all, to disburden my mind, and I do not wish to hear or say more about it. But

"When proud fortune's ebbing tide recedes,"

you will bear me witness, that, when my bubble of fame was at the highest, I stood, unintoxicated, with the inebriating cup in my hand, looking forward with rueful resolve to the hastening time when the blow of Calumny should dash it to the ground, with all the eagerness of vengeful triumph.

Your patronising me, and interesting yourself in my fame and character as a poet, I rejoice in; it exalts me in my own idea; and whether you can or cannot aid me in my subscription is a trifle. Has a paltry subscription-bill any charms to the heart of a bard, compared with the patronage of the descendant of the immortal Wallace?

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The hope to be admired for ages is, in by far the greater part of those even who were authors of repute, an unsubstantial dream. For my part, my first ambition was, and still my strongest wish is, to please my compeers, the rustic inmates of the hamlet, while ever-changing language and manners shall allow me to be relished and understood. I am very willing to admit that I have some poetical abilities; and as few, if any writers, either moral or political, are intimately acquainted with the classes of mankind among whom I have chiefly mingled, I may have seen men and manners in a different phasis from what is common, which may assist originality of thought. Still I know very well the novelty of my character has by far the greatest share in the learned and polite notice I have lately had; and in a language where Pope and Churchill have raised the laugh, and Shenstone and Gray drawn the tear-where Thomson and Beattie have painted the landscape, and Lyttleton and Collins described the heart, I am not vain enough to hope for distinguished poetic fame.

I am,

Your obedient, humble servant,
J. MOORE.

No. XIV.

written for your perusal. I must forgive | ber of your subscribers, but find many of her, however, in consideration of her good my acquaintance are already among themintention, as you will forgive me, I hope, I have only to add, that with every senfor the freedom I use with certain expres- timent of esteem and the most cordial sions, in consideration of my admiration good wishes, of the poems in general. If I may judge of the author's disposition from his works, with all the good qualities of a poet, he has not the irritable temper ascribed to that race of men by one of their own number, whom you have the happiness to resemble in ease and curious felicity of expression. Indeed the poetical beauties, however original and brilliant, and lavishly scattered, are not all I admire in your works; the love of your native country, that feeling sensibility to all the objects of humanity, and the independent spirit which breathes through the whole, give me a most favourable impression of the poet, and have made me often regret that I did not see the poems, the certain effect of which would have been my seeing the author last summer, when I was longer in Scotland than I have been for many years.

I rejoice very sincerely at the encouragement you receive at Edinburgh, and I think you peculiarly fortunate in the patronage of Dr. Blair, who I am informed interests himself very much for you. I beg to be remembered to him: nobody can have a warmer regard for that gentleman than I have, which, independent of the worth of his character, would be kept alive by the memory of our common friend, the late Mr. George B- -e.

TO THE REV. G. LOWRIE, OF
NEW-MILLS, NEAR KILMAR-
NOCK.

Edinburgh, 5th Feb. 1787.

REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,

WHEN I look at the date of your kind letter, my heart reproaches me severely with ingratitude in neglecting so long to answer it. I will not trouble you with any account, by way of apology, of my hurried life and distracted attention: do me the justice to believe that my delay by no means proceeded from want of respect. I feel, and ever shall feel, for you, the mingled sentiments of esteem for a friend, and reverence for a father.

I thank you, Sir, with all my soul, for your friendly hints; though I do not need them so much as my friends are apt to imagine. You are dazzled with newspaper accounts and distant reports; but in reality, I have no great temptation to be intoxicated with the cup of prosperity. Novelty may attract the attention of manBefore I received your letter, I sent in-kind awhile; to it I owe my present eclat; closed in a letter to - ―, a sonnet by Miss Williams a young poetical lady, which she wrote on reading your Mountain-Daisy; perhaps it may not displease you.*

but I see the time not far distant, when the popular tide, which has borne me to a height of which I am perhaps unworthy, shall recede with silent celerity, and leave me a barren waste of sand, to descend at my leisure to my former station. I do not say this in the affectation of modesty ; I see the consequence is unavoidable, and am prepared for it. I had been at a good While soon "the garden's flaunting flow'rs" decay deal of pains to form a just, impartial es

I have been trying to add to the num

The Sonnet is as follows:

And scatter'd on the earth neglected lie, The "Mountain-Daisy," cherish'd by the ray A poet drew from heaven, shall never die. Ah! like the lonely flower the poet rose!

'Mid penury's bare soil and bitter gale:

He felt each storm that on the mountain blows,
Nor ever knew the shelter of the vale.
By genius in her native vigour nursed,

On nature with impassion'd look he gazed,
Then through the cloud of adverse fortune burst
Indignant, and in light unborrow'd blazed.
Scotia from rude afflictions shield thy bard,
flis heaven-taught numbers Fame herself will guard.

timate of my intellectual powers, before I came here; I have not added, since I came to Edinburgh, any thing to the account; and I trust I shall take every atom of it back to my shades, the coverts of my unnoticed, early years.

In Dr. Blacklock, whom I see very often, I have found, what I would have expected in our friend, a clear head and an excellent heart.

For the honour Miss W. has done me, please, Sir, return her, in my name, my most grateful thanks. I have more than once thought of paving her in kind, but have hitherto quitted the idea in hopeless despondency. I had never before heard of her; but the other day I got her po

By far the most agreeable hours I spend in Edinburgh must be placed to the account of Miss Lowrie and her piano-forte. I cannot help repeating to you and Mrs. Lowrie a compliment that Mr. Mackenzie, the celebrated "Man of Feeling," paid to Miss Lowrie, the other night, at the concert. I had come in at the inter-ems, which, for several reasons, some belude, and sat down by him, till I saw Miss Lowrie in a seat not very far distant, and went up to pay my respects to her. On my return to Mr. Mackenzie, he asked me who she was; I told him 'twas the daughter of a reverend friend of mine in the west country. He returned, There was something very striking, to his idea, in her appearance. On my desiring to know what it was, he was pleased to say, "She has a great deal of the elegance of a well-bred lady about her, with all the sweet simplicity of a country-girl."

PARDON my seeming neglect in delaying so long to acknowledge the honour you have done me, in your kind notice of me, January 23d. Not many months ago, I knew no other employment than following the plough, nor could boast any thing higher than a distant acquaintance with a country clergyman. Mere greatness never embarrasses me; I have nothing to ask from the great, and I do not fear their judgment; but genius, polished by learning, and at its proper point of elevation in the eye of the world, this of late I frequently meet with, and tremble at its approach. I scorn the affectation of seeming modesty to cover self-conceit. That I have some merit, I do not deny; but I see, with frequent wringings of heart, that the novelty of my character, and the honest national prejudice of my countrymen, have borne me to a height altogether untenable to my abilities.

longing to the head, and others the offspring of the heart, gave me a great deal of pleasure. I have little pretensions to critic lore: there are, I think, two characteristic features in her poetry-the unfettered wild flight of native genius, and the querulous, sombre tenderness of timesettled sorrow.

I only know what pleases me, often without being able to tell why.

No. XVI.

FROM DR. MOORE. Clifford-Street, 28th February, 1787.

DEAR SIR,

YOUR letter of the 15th gave me a great deal of pleasure. It is not surprising that you improve in correctness and taste, considering where you have been for some time past. And I dare swear there is no danger of your admitting any polish which might weaken the vigour of your native powers.

I am glad to perceive that you disdain the nauseous affectation of decrying your own merit as a poet, an affectation which is displayed with most ostentation by those who have the greatest share of self-conceit, and which only adds undeceiving falsehood to disgusting vanity. For you to deny the merit of your poems, would be arraigning the fixed opinion of the public.

As the new edition of my View of Society is not yet ready, I have sent you the former edition, which I beg you will accept as a small mark of my esteem. It is sent by sea to the care of Mr. Creech; and along with these four volumes for yourself, I have also sent my Medical Sketches, in one volume, for my friend Mrs. Dunlop, of Dunlop: this you will be so obliging as to transmit, or, if you chance to pass soon by Dunlop, to give to her.