EPISTLE TO MR GRAHAM OF FINTRY.

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summer, in which he aimed at the style of Pope's Moral Epistles, while at the same time he sought to advance his personal fortunes through the medium of a patron.

FIRST EPISTLE TO MR GRAHAM OF FINTRY.

When Nature her great masterpiece designed,
And framed her last, best work, the human mind,
Her eye intent on all the mazy plan,

She formed of various parts the various man.

Then first she calls the useful many forth;
Plain plodding industry, and sober worth:
Thence peasants, farmers, native sons of earth,
And merchandise' whole genus take their birth:
Each prudent cit a warm existence finds,
And all mechanics' many-apron'd kinds.
Some other rarer sorts are wanted yet,
The lead and buoy are needful to the net;

The caput mortuum of gross desires

Makes a material for mere knights and squires;
The martial phosphorus is taught to flow;

She kneads the lumpish philosophic dough,

Then marks th' unyielding mass with grave designs,
Law, physic, politics, and deep divines;

Last, she sublimes the Aurora of the poles,
The flashing elements of female souls.
The order'd system fair before her stood,

Nature, well-pleased, pronounced it very good;
But ere she gave creating labour o'er,
Half-jest, she tried one curious labour more.
Some spumy, fiery, ignis fatuus matter,

Such as the slightest breath of air might scatter;
With arch alacrity and conscious glee
(Nature may have her whim as well as we,
Her Hogarth-art perhaps she meant to shew it)
She forms the thing, and christens it—a poet,
Creature, though oft the prey of care and sorrow,
When blest to-day, unmindful of to-morrow.
A being formed t' amuse his graver friends,
Admired and praised-and there the homage ends:
A mortal quite unfit for fortune's strife,
Yet oft the sport of all the ills of life;
Prone to enjoy each pleasure riches give,
Yet haply wanting wherewithal to live;

Longing to wipe each tear, to heal each groan,
Yet frequent all unheeded in his own.

But honest nature is not quite a Turk,
She laughed at first, then felt for her poor work.
Pitying the propless climber of mankind,
She cast about a standard tree to find;
And, to support his helpless woodbine state,
Attached him to the generous truly great,
A title, and the only one I claim,

To lay strong hold for help on bounteous Graham.

Pity the tuneful muses' hapless train,

Weak, timid landsmen on life's stormy main !
Their hearts no selfish stern absorbent stuff,
That never gives-though humbly takes enough;
The little fate allows, they share as soon,
Unlike sage proverb'd wisdom's hard-wrung boon.
The world were blest did bliss on them depend,
Ah, that 'the friendly e'er should want a friend!'
Let prudence number o'er each sturdy son,
Who life and wisdom at one race begun,
Who feel by reason and who give by rule
(Instinct's a brute, and sentiment a fool !)—
Who make poor will do wait upon I should-

We own they're prudent, but who feels they're good ?
Ye wise ones, hence! ye hurt the social eye!
God's image rudely etched on base alloy !
But come, ye who the godlike pleasure know,
Heaven's attribute distinguished--to bestow!
Whose arms of love would grasp the human race:
Come thou who giv'st with all a courtier's grace;
Friend of my life, true patron of my rhymes!
Prop of my dearest hopes for future times.
Why shrinks my soul half-blushing, half-afraid,
Backward, abashed, to ask thy friendly aid?
I know my need, I know thy giving hand,
I crave thy friendship at thy kind command;
But there are such who court the tuneful nine--
Heavens! should the branded character be mine!
Whose verse in manhood's pride sublimely flows,
Yet vilest reptiles in their begging prose.
Mark, how their lofty independent spirit
Soars on the spurning wing of injured merit!
Seek not the proofs in private life to find;
Pity the best of words should be but wind!

So to heaven's gate the lark's shrill song ascends,
But grovelling on the earth the carol ends.
In all the clam'rous cry of starving want,
They dun benevolence with shameless front;
Oblige them, patronise their tinsel lays,
They persecute you all your future days!

THE MOTHER'S LAMENT.

Ere my poor soul such deep damnation stain,
My horny fist assume the plough again;
The pie-bald jacket let me patch once more;
On eighteenpence a week I've lived before.

Though, thanks to Heaven, I dare even that last shift!
I trust, meantime, my boon is in thy gift:

That, placed by thee upon the wished-for height,
Where, man and nature fairer in her sight,

My muse may imp her wing for some sublimer flight.

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One cannot but feel that, though the bard guards himself against being confounded with the common herd of patronageseekers, his words truly express somewhat more of a sense of dependence than it is agreeable to contemplate in connection with so proud a name. Anticipation of difficulties had already somewhat'sicklied o'er the native hue of resolution.'

TO MRS DUNLOP OF DUNLOP.

MAUCHLINE, 27th Sept. 1788.

I have received twins, dear madam, more than once, but scarcely ever with more pleasure than when I received yours of the 12th instant. To make myself understood: I had wrote to Mr Graham, enclosing my poem addressed to him, and the same post which favoured me with yours brought me an answer from him. It was dated the very day he had received mine; and I am quite at a loss to say whether it was most polite or kind.

Your criticisms, my honoured benefactress, are truly the work of a friend. They are not the blasting depredations of a cankertoothed, caterpillar critic; nor are they the fair statement of cold impartiality, balancing with unfeeling exactitude the pro and con of an author's merits: they are the judicious observations of animated friendship, selecting the beauties of the piece. I am just arrived from Nithsdale, and will be here a fortnight. I was on horseback this morning by three o'clock; for between my wife and my farm is just forty-six miles. As I jogged on in the dark, I was taken with a poetic fit as follows:

MRS FERGUSSON OF CRAIGDARROCH'S LAMENTATION FOR THE DEATH
OF HER SON AN UNCOMMONLY PROMISING YOUTH OF EIGHTEEN OR
NINETEEN YEARS OF AGE.1

Fate gave the word, the arrow sped,
And pierc'd my darling's heart;
And with him all the joys are fled
Life can to me impart.

1 'Died here on Monday last [Nov. 19, 1787] James Fergusson, Esq., younger of Craigdarroch. The worth of this truly amiable and much-lamented youth can

By cruel hands the sapling drops,
In dust dishonour'd laid:
So fell the pride of all my hopes,
My age's future shade.

The mother linnet in the brake
Bewails her ravish'd young;
So I, for my lost darling's sake,
Lament the live-day long.

Death! oft I've feared thy fatal blow,

Now, fond I bare my breast;
Oh, do thou kindly lay me low

With him I love, at rest!'

You will not send me your poetic rambles, but, you see, I am no niggard of mine. I am sure your impromptus give me double pleasure; what falls from your pen can neither be unentertaining in itself nor indifferent to me.

The one fault you found is just, but I cannot please myself in an emendation.

What a life of solicitude is the life of a parent! You interested me much in your young couple.

I would not take my folio paper for this epistle, and now I repent it. I am so jaded with my dirty long journey that I was afraid to drawl into the essence of dulness with anything larger than a quarto, and so I must leave out another rhyme of this morning's manufacture.

I will pay the sapientipotent George most cheerfully, to hear from you ere I leave Ayrshire. R. B.

It is a curious circumstance regarding the brief poem conveyed by this letter, that a copy of it in the possession of Mr Allason Cunninghame of Logan House, Ayrshire, is understood by that gentleman's family to have been sent to his grandmother, Burns's early patron, Mrs General Stewart of Afton, as a deploration of the death of her only son, Alexander Gordon Stewart, who died at a military academy at Strasburg, the 5th December 1787. Allan Cunningham speaks of a copy of the poem in his possession bearing a note by the author, which shews that he really had endeavoured to turn this piece to the account of gratifying two best be estimated by a sketch given of him on his leaving Glasgow College in May last:-"Of all the young men of this age I have ever known, he is by much the most promising. His abilities are equal to anything he chooses to undertake. His understanding is clear and penetrating, and readily comprehends the most abstract subjects. His memory is retentive. He speaks with fluency and perspicuity; he writes with neatness and accuracy. No one can exceed him in the assiduity of his application, and he persists in it with the utmost steadiness, in spite of every allurement. United with all these shining qualifications, he discovers the most gentle temper, simple manners, and the amiable modesty of youth."'-Newspaper Obituary.

REMARKS ON AN ADDRESS TO LOCH LOMOND.

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friends. 'The Mother's Lament,' he says, 'was composed partly with a view to Mrs Fergusson of Craigdarroch, and partly to the worthy patroness of my early muse, Mrs Stewart of Afton.' We may suppose that the parity of the two cases, and their nearness in point of time, had produced but one indivisible impression in the mind of the bard. Yet there is reason to believe that, in his complaisance towards his friends, he was somewhat over eager to gratify them with poetical compliments, and oftener than once caused one to pay a double debt. We shall find that the little poem beginning, Sensibility, how charming, was first written on certain experiences of Mrs M'Lehose, and sent to her, but afterwards addressed to 'my dear and much honoured friend, Mrs Dunlop.' So the reader will perceive that even Burns had his little mystères d'atelier.

TO MR PETER HILL.

MAUCHLINE, 1st October 1788.

I have been here in this country about three days, and all that time my chief reading has been the Address to Lochlomond you were so obliging as to send to me.1 Were I empannelled one of the author's jury, to determine his criminality respecting the sin of poesy, my verdict should be 'Guilty! A poet of Nature's making!' It is an excellent method for improvement, and what I believe every poet does, to place some favourite classic author, in his own walks of study and composition, before him as a model. Though your author had not mentioned the name, I could have, at half a glance, guessed his model to be Thomson. Will my brother-poet forgive me if I venture to hint that his imitation of that immortal bard is in two or three places rather more servile than such a genius as his required ?—e. g. To soothe the maddening passions all to peace.'

Address.

To soothe the throbbing passions into peace.'

THOMSON.

I think the Address is in simplicity, harmony, and elegance of versification, fully equal to the Seasons. Like Thomson, too, he has looked into nature for himself: you meet with no copied description. One particular criticism I made at first reading: in no one instance

1 Address to Loch Lomond, a Poem. 1s. 6d. sewed. Hill.' Scots Magazine publication list, Sep. 1788.

The poem entitled An Address to Lochlomond is said to be written by a gentleman, now one of the masters of the High School at Edinburgh, and the same who translated the beautiful story of the Paria, as published in the Bee of Dr Anderson.CURRIE (1799.)

The author was Dr Cririe, afterwards minister of Dalton, in Dumfriesshire. He published, in 1803, Scottish Scenery, or Sketches in Verse-a handsome quarto of poetry and notes, including the Address to Loch Lomond. Dr Cririe died in 1835.