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To make some amends, mes cheres Mesdames, for dragging you on to this second sheet; and to relieve a little the tiresomeness of my unstudied and uncorrectible prose, I shall transcribe you some of my poetic bagatelles; though I have, these eight or ten months, done very lit. tle that way. One day, in an Hermitage on the Banks of the Nith, belonging to a gentleman in my neighbourhood, who is so good as give me a key at pleasure, I wrote as follows; supposing myself the sequestered, venerable inhabitant of the lonely mansion.

Lines written in Friar's Carse Hermitage.-See Poems, p. 203.

No. 270.

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, inclosing 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 canker-toothed, 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 have 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. F of C's lamentation for the death of her son; an uncommonly promising youth of eighteen or nineteen years of

age." Here follow the verses, entitled, "A Mother's lament for the loss of her Son."

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 any thing 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.

No. 271.

TO MR. JAMES JOHNSON,

ENGRAVER, EDINBURGH.

MY DEAR SIR,

Mauchline, Nov. 15, 1788.

I HAVE sent you two more songs.—If you have got any tunes, or any thing to correct, please send them by return of the carrier.

I can easily see, my dear friend, that you will very probably have four volumes. Perhaps you may not find your account lucratively, in this business; but you are a patriot for the music of your country; and I am certain, posterity will look on themselves as highly indebted to your public spirit. Be not in a hurry; let us go on correctly; and your name shall be immortal.

I am preparing a flaming preface for your third volume. I see every day, new musical publications advertised; but what are they? Gaudy, hunted butterflies of a day, and then vanish for ever: but your work will outlive the momentary neglects of idle fashion, and defy the teeth of time.

Have you never a fair goddess that leads you a wild-goose chase of amorous devotion? Let me know a few of her qualities, such as, whether she be rather black or fair, plump or thin, short or tall, &c. and chuse your air, and I shall task my Muse to celebrate her.

No. 272.

TO DR. BLACKLOCK,

Mauchline, Nov. 15, 1788.

REV. AND DEAR SIR,

As I hear nothing of your motions but that you are, or were, out of town, I do not know where this may find you, or whether it will find you at all. I wrote you a long letter, dated from the land of matrimony, in June; but either it had not found you, or, what I dread more, it found you or Mrs. Blacklock in too precarious a state of health and spirits, to take notice of an idle packet.

I have done many little things for Johnson, since I had the pleasure of seeing you; and I have finished one piece, in the way of Pope's Moral Epistles; but from your silence, I have every thing to fear, so I have only sent you two melancholy things, which I tremble lest they should too well suit the tone of your present feelings.

In a fortnight I move, bag and baggage, to Nithsdale; till then, my direction is at this place; after that period it will be at Ellisland, near Dumfries. It would extremely oblige me were it but half a line, to let me know how you are, and where you are.-Can I be indifferent to the fate of a man, to whom I owe so much? A man whom I not only esteem but venerate.

My warmest good wishes and most respectful compliments to Mrs. Blacklock, and Miss Johnston, if she is with you.

I cannot conclude without telling you that I am more and more pleased with the step I took respecting "my Jean."-Two things, from my happy experience, I set down as apothegms in life. A wife's head is immaterial, compared with her heart-and-" Virtue's (for wisdom what poet pretends to it)-ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.

Adieu!

Here follow the "The Mother's Lament for

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