his alleged spouse. They both acknowledge their irregular marriage, and their sorrow for that irregularity, and desiring that the Session will take such steps as may seem to them proper, in order to the solemn confirmation of the said marriage. The Session, taking this affair under their consideration, agree that they both be rebuked for this acknowledged irregularity, and that they be solemnly engaged to adhere faithfully to one another as man and wife all the days of their life. 'In regard the Session have a title in law to some fine for behoof of the poor, they agree to refer to Mr Burns his own generosity. The above sentence was accordingly executed, and the Session absolved the said parties from any scandal on this account. (Signed) WILLIAM AULD, Moderator. JEAN ARMOUR. 'Mr Burns gave a guinea-note for behoof of the poor.' TO MRS DUNLOP. MAUCHLINE, August 10, 1788. MY MUCH-HONOURED FRIEND-Yours of the 24th June' is before me. I found it, as well as another valued friend-my wife— waiting to welcome me to Ayrshire: I met both with the sincerest pleasure. When I write you, madam, I do not sit down to answer every paragraph of yours, by echoing every sentiment, like the faithful Commons of Great Britain in Parliament assembled, answering a speech from the best of kings! I express myself in the fulness of my heart, and may perhaps be guilty of neglecting some of your kind inquiries; but not from your very odd reason-that I do not read your letters. All your epistles, for several months, have cost me nothing except a swelling throb of gratitude, or a deep-felt sentiment of veneration. * * * When Mrs Burns, madam, is the identical woman she first found herself as women wish to be who love their lords,' as I loved her nearly to distraction, we took steps for a private marriage. Her parents got the hint; and not only forbade me her company and their house, but on my rumoured West Indian voyage, got a warrant to put me in jail till I should find security in my about-to-be paternal relation. You know my lucky reverse of fortune. On my éclatant return to Mauchline, I was made very 1 It may be suspected that the date of this letter should be July instead of August. welcome to visit my girl. The usual consequences began to betray her; and as I was at that time laid up a cripple in Edinburgh, she was turned, literally turned out of doors, and I wrote to a friend to shelter her till my return, when our marriage was declared. Her happiness or misery was in my hands, and who could trifle with such a deposit? * * * I can easily fancy a more agreeable companion for my journey of life; but, upon my honour, I have never seen the individual instance. * * Circumstanced as I am, I could never have got a female partner for life who could have entered into my favourite studies, relished my favourite authors, &c., without probably entailing on me, at the same time, expensive living, fantastic caprice, perhaps apish affectation, with all the other blessed boarding-school acquirements, which (pardonnez moi, madame) are sometimes to be found among females of the upper ranks, but almost universally pervade the misses of the would-be gentry. * * ** I like your way in your church-yard lucubrations. Thoughts that are the spontaneous result of accidental situations, either respecting health, place, or company, have often a strength and always an originality that would in vain be looked for in fancied circumstances and studied paragraphs. For me, I have often thought of keeping a letter in progression by me, to send you when the sheet was written out. Now I talk of sheets, I must tell you my reason for writing to you on paper of this kind is my pruriency of writing to you at large. A page of post is on such a dis-social, narrow-minded scale, that I cannot abide it; and double letters, at least in my miscellaneous reverie manner, are a monstrous tax in a close correspondence. R. B. TO MRS DUNLO P. 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 Miller's to dinner,1 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 agonising 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, 'Raving winds around her blowing.' 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 folks' corn.' I was going to 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 sixteen hundredth year Of God and fifty-three Frae Christ was born, that bought us dear, 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 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 1 At Dalswinton House. 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. R. B. TO MR BEUGO, ENGRAVER, EDINBURGH. ELLISLAND, 9th Sept. 1788. MY DEAR SIR-There is not in Edinburgh above the number of the Graces whose letters would have given me so much pleasure as yours of the 3d instant, which only reached me yesternight. I am here on my farm, busy with my harvest; but for all that most pleasurable part of life called SOCIAL COMMUNICATION, I am here at the very elbow of existence. The only things that are to be found in this country, in any degree of perfection,.are stupidity and canting. Prose they only know in graces, prayers, &c., and the value of these they estimate, as they do their plaiding webs-by the ell! As for the Muses, they have as much an idea of a rhinoceros as of a poet. For my old capricious but good-natured hussy of a Muse: 'By banks of Nith I sat and wept When Coila I thought on, In midst thereof I hung my harp I am generally about half my time in Ayrshire with my darling Jean; and then I, at lucid intervals, throw my horny fist across my be-cobwebbed lyre, much in the same manner as an old wife throws her hand across the spokes of her spinning-wheel. I will send you the Fortunate Shepherdess as soon as I return to Ayrshire, for there I keep it with other precious treasure. I shall send it by a careful hand, as I would not for anything it should be mislaid or lost. I do not wish to serve you from any benevolence, or other grave Christian virtue; 'tis purely a selfish gratification of my own feelings whenever I think of you. You do not tell me if you are going to be married. Depend upon it, if you do not make some foolish choice, it will be a very great improvement on the dish of life. I can speak from experience, though, God knows, my choice was as random as blind-man's buff. If your better functions would give you leisure to write me, I should be extremely happy; that is to say, if you neither keep nor look for a regular correspondence. I hate the idea of being obliged to write a letter. I sometimes write a friend twice a week; at other times, once a quarter. I am exceedingly pleased with your fancy in making the author you mention place a map of Iceland instead of his portrait before his works: 'twas a glorious idea. Could you conveniently do me one thing?-whenever you finish any head, I should like to have a proof-copy of it. I might tell you a long story about your fine genius; but as what everybody knows cannot have escaped you, I shall not say one syllable about it. If you see Mr Nasmyth, remember me to him most respectfully, as he both loves and deserves respect: though if he would pay less respect to the mere carcass of greatness, I should think him much nearer perfection. R. B. Mr Beugo was the engraver of Burns's portrait for the late edition of his Poems. The glorious idea alluded to in the third last paragraph was probably a joke against Creech, who was then about to publish, in one volume, a collection of certain wiry square-toed articles, which he had at various times contributed to the newspapers. The gelidity of his constitution shines in this volume, and must have made the idea of a map of Iceland as a frontispiece appear to Burns the perfection of practical wit. It would appear that one of the productions of these 'lucid intervals' in Ayrshire was a ballad, which is usually printed under the title of The Fête Champêtre. According to the recital of Gilbert Burns: 'When Mr Cunninghame, of Enterkin, came to his estate, two mansion-houses on it, Enterkin and Anbank, were both in a ruinous state. Wishing to introduce himself with some éclat to the county, he got temporary erections made on the banks of Ayr, tastefully decorated with shrubs and flowers, for a supper and ball, to which most of the respectable families in the county were invited. It was a novelty, and attracted much notice. A dissolution of parliament was soon expected, and this festivity was thought to be an introduction to a canvass for representing the county. Several other candidates were spoken of, particularly Sir John Whitefoord, then residing at Cloncaird, commonly pronounced Glencaird, and Mr Boswell, the well-known biographer of Dr Johnson. The political views of this festive assemblage, which are alluded to in the ballad, if they ever existed, were, however, laid aside, as Mr Cunninghame did not canvass the county.' By the favour of W. Allason Cunninghame, Esq., son of Mr Cunninghame, of Enterkin, |