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 patronising 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.

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I had intended to have closed my late appearance on the stage of life in the character of a countryfarmer; but, after discharging some filial and fraternal claims, I find I could only fight for existence in that miserable manner, which I have lived to see throw a venerable parent into the jaws of a jail; whence death, the poor man's last and often best friend, rescued him.

I know, sir, that to need your goodness is to have a claim on it may I therefore beg your patronage to forward me in this affair, till I be appointed to a division, where, by the help of rigid economy, I will try to support that independence so dear to my soul, but which has been too often so distant from my situation.

"When Nature her great master-piece design'd."

See Poems.

XLVII.

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 Loch-Lomond," you were so obliging as to send to me. Were I impannelled 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 mentionedthe 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 madding passions all to peace.

Address.

To soothe the throbbing passions into peace.
Thomson.

1 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 has he said too much. He never flags in his progress, but, like a true poet of Nature's making, kindles in his course. His beginning is simple and modest, as if distrustful of the strength of his pinion; only, I do not altogether like

"Truth,

The soul of every song that's nobly great."

Fiction is the soul of many a song that is nobly great. Perhaps I am wrong: this may be but a prose-criticism. Is not the phrase, in line 7, page 6, "Great lake," too much vulgarized by everyday language, for so sublime a poem ?

"Great mass of waters, theme for nobler song,"

is perhaps no emendation. His enumeration of a comparison with other lakes is at once harmonious and poetic. Every reader's ideas must sweep the

"Winding margin of an hundred miles."

The perspective that follows mountains blue-the imprisoned billows beating in vain-the wooded. isles-the digression on the yew-tree—“ Ben-Lomond's lofty cloud-envelop'd head," &c., are beautiful. A thunder-storm is a subject which has been often tried; yet our poet, in his grand picture, has interjected a circumstance, so far as I know, entirely original :

"The gloom

Deep-seam'd with frequent streaks of moving fire."

In his preface to the Storm, "The glens, how dark between!" is noble highland landscape! The "rain ploughing the red mould," too, is beautifully fancied. Ben-Lomond's "lofty pathless top," is a

good expression; and the surrounding view from it is truly great; the

"Silver mist

Beneath the beaming sun,"

is well described; and here he has contrived to enliven his poem with a little of that passion which bids fair, I think, to usurp the modern muses altogether. I know not how far this episode is a beauty upon the whole; but the swain's wish to carry "some faint idea of the vision bright," to entertain her "partial listening ear," is a pretty thought. But, in my opinion, the most beautiful passages in the whole poem are the fowls crowding, in wintry frosts, to Loch-Lomond's "hospitable flood;" their wheeling round, their lighting, mixing, diving, &c.; and the glorious description of the sportsman. This last is equal to any thing in the Seasons. The idea of "the floating tribes distant seen, far glistering to the moon," provoking his eye as he is obliged to leave them, is a noble ray of poetic genius. "The howling winds," the "hideous roar" of "the white cascades," are all in the same style.

I forget that, while I am thus holding forth, with the heedless warmth of an enthusiast, I am perhaps tiring you with nonsense. I must, however, mention, that the last verse of the sixteenth page is one of the most elegant compliments I have ever seen. I must likewise notice that beautiful paragraph, beginning, "The gleaming lake," &c. I dare not go into the particular beauties of the two last paragraphs, but they are admirably fine, and truly Ossianic.

1

I must beg your pardon for this lengthened

scrawl. I had no idea of it when I began—I should like to know who the author is; but, whoever he be, please present him with my grateful thanks for the entertainment he has afforded me.

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A friend of mine desired me to commission for him two books, Letters on the Religion essential to Man, a book you sent me before; and, The World Unmasked, or the Philosopher the greatest Cheat. Send me them by the first opportunity. The Bible you sent me is truly elegant. I only wish it had been in two volumes.

XLVIII.

TO MRS. DUNLOP, AT MOREHAM MAINS.

MADAM,

Mauchline, 13th Nov. 1788.

I HAD the very great pleasure of dining at Dunlop yesterday. Men are said to flatter women because they are weak; if it is so, poets must be weaker still; for Misses R. and K., and Miss G. M'K., with their flattering attentions and artful compliments, absolutely turned my head. I own they did not lard me over as many a poet does his patron * but they so in

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toxicated me with their sly insinuations and delicate inuendoes of compliment, that if it had not been for a lucky recollection, how much additional weight

The poem, entitled, An Address to Loch-Lomond, 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.