No. LV.

TO THE SAME.

Ellisland, 16th August, 1788.

I AM in a fine disposition, my honoured

friend, to send you an elegiac epistle; and want only genius to make it quite Shenstonian.

"Why droops my heart with fancied woes forlorn? Why sinks my soul beneath each wintry sky ?"

My increasing cares in this, as yet, strange country-gloomy conjectures in the dark vista of futurity-consciousness of my own inability for the struggle of the world-my broadened mark to misfortune in a wife and children: -I could indulge these reflections, till my humour should ferment into the most acid chagrin, that would corrode the very thread of life.

To counterwork these baneful feelings, I

have sat down to write to you; as I declare, upon my soul, I always find that the most sovereign balm for my wounded spirit.

I was yesterday at Mr.'s to dinner, for the first time. My reception was quite to my mind from the lady of the house, quite flattering. She sometimes hits on a couplet or two, impromptu. She repeated one or two to the admiration of all present. My suffrage as a professional man, was expected: I for once went agonizing over the belly of my conscience. Pardon me, ye, my adored household gods-Independence of spirit, and Integrity of soul! In the course of conversation, Johnson's Musical Museum, a collection of Scottish songs with the music, was talked of. We got a song on the harpsichord, beginning,

The air was much admired: the lady of the house asked me whose were the words; "Mine, Madam-they are indeed my very best verses ;" she took not the smallest notice of them! The old Scottish proverb says well, "king's caff is better than ither folk's corn." I was going to

make

See vol. iv. p. 277.

make a New Testament quotation about "casting pearls ;" but that would be too virulent, for the lady is actually a woman of sense and taste.

After all that has been said on the other side of the question, man is by no means a happy creature. I do not speak of the selected few, favoured by partial heaven; whose souls are tuned to gladness amid riches and honours, and prudence and wisdom. I speak of the neglected many, whose nerves, whose sinews, whose days are sold to the minions of fortune.

If I thought you had never seen it, I would transcribe for you a stanza of an old Scottish ballad, called The life and age of man; beginning

thus:

""Twas in the sixteenth hunder year

Of God and fifty-three,

Frae Christ was born, that bought us dear,
As writings testifie."

I had an old grand-uncle, with whom my mother lived a while in her girlish years; the good old man, for such he was, was long blind ere he died, during which time, his highest enjoyment was to sit down and cry, while my

mother

mother would sing the simple old song of The life and age of man.

It is this way of thinking, it is these melancholy truths, that make religion so precious to the poor miserable children of men-if it is a mere phantom, existing only in the heated imagination of enthusiasm,

"What truth on earth so precious as the lie!"

My idle reasonings sometimes make me a little sceptical, but the necessities of my heart always give the cold philosophisings the lie. Who looks for the heart weaned from earth the soul affianced to her God; the correspondence fixed with heaven; the pious supplication and devout thanksgiving, constant as the vicissitudes of even and morn; who thinks to meet with these in the court, the palace, in the glare of public life? No: to find them in their precious importance and divine efficacy, we must search among the obscure recesses of disappointment, affliction, poverty, and distress.

I am sure, dear Madam, you are now more than pleased with the length of my letters. I return to Ayrshire middle of next week: and it quickens my pace to think that there will be a letter from you waiting me there. I must be here again very soon for my harvest.

No. LVI.

To R. GRAHAM, of FINTRY, Esq.

SIR,

WHEN I had the honour of being introduced to you at Athole-house, I did not think so soon of asking a favour of you. When Lear, in Shakespeare, asks old Kent why he wished to be in his service, he answers, "Because you have that in your face which I could like to call master." For some such reason, Sir, do I now solicit your patronage. You know, I dare say, of an application I lately made to your Board to be admitted an officer of excise. I have, according to form, been examined by a supervisor, and to-day I gave in his certificate, with a request for an order for instructions. In this affair if I succeed, I am afraid I shall but too much need a patronizing friend. Propriety of conduct as a man, and fidelity and attention as an officer, I dare engage for; but with any thing like business, except manual labour, I am totally unacquainted.