poet, are the two grand considerations for which I live: if miry ridges, and dirty dunghills are to engross the best part of the functions of my soul immortal, I had better been a rook or a magpie all at once, and then I should not have been plagued with any ideas superior to breaking of clods, and picking up grubs: not to mention barndoor cocks or mallards, creatures with which I could almost exchange lives at any time.-If you continue so deaf, I am afraid a visit will be no great pleasure to either of us; but if I hear you are got so well again as to be able to relish conversation, look you to it, madam, for I will make my threatenings good, I am to be at the new yearday fair of Ayr, and by all that is sacred in the world, friend! I will come and see you. Your meeting, which you so well describe, with your old schoolfellow and friend, was truly interesting. Out upon the ways of the world!-They spoil these "social offsprings of the heart." Two veterans of the "men of the world" would have met, with little more heart-workings than two old hacks worn out on the road. Apropos, is not the Scotch phrase, "Auld lang syne," exceedingly expressive. There is an old song and tune which has often thrilled through my soul. You know I am an enthusiast in old Scotch songs. I shall give you you the verses on the other sheet, as I suppose Mr. Ker will save you the postage.* Light be the turf on the breast of the Heaveninspired poet who composed this glorious fragment! There is more of the fire of native genius in it, than in half a dozen of modern English Bacchanalians. Now I am on my hobby-horse, I cannot help inserting two other old stanzas, which please me mightily. Go fetch to me a pint o' wine, An fill it in a silver tassie; That I may drink, before I go, A service to my bonnie lassie : The boat rocks at the pier o' Leith; The ship rides by the Berwick-law, The trumpets sound, the banners fly, The shouts o' war are heard afar, The battle closes thick and bloody: But it's not the roar o' sea or shore, Nor shouts o' war that's heard afar, It's leaving thee, my bonnie Mary. No. * Here follows the song of Auld lang syne, as printed VOL. IV. p. 123. E. No. LXV. To a young Lady who had heard he had been making a Ballad on her, inclosing that Ballad. December, 1788. MADAM, I UNDERSTAND my very worthy neighbour, Mr. Riddel, has informed you that I have made you the subject of some verses. There is something so provoking in the idea of being the burden of a ballad, that I do not think Job or Moses, though such patterns of patience and meekness, could have resisted the curiosity to know what that ballad was so my worthy friend has done me a mischief, which I dare say he never intended; and reduced me to the unfortunate alternative of leaving your curiosity ungratified, or else disgusting you with foolish verses, the unfinished production of a random moment, and never meant to have met your ear. I have heard or read somewhere of a gentleman, who had some genius, much eccentricity, and very considerable dexterity with his pencil. In the accidental group of life into which one is thrown, wherever this gentleman met with a character in a more than ordinary degree congenial to his heart, he used to steal a sketch of the face, merely, he said, as a nota bene to point out the agreeable recollection to his memory. What this gentleman's pencil was to him, is my muse to me; and the verses I do myself the honor to send you are a memento exactly of the same kind that he indulged in. It may be more owing to the fastidiousness of my caprice, than the delicacy of my taste, but I am so often tired, disgusted, and hurt with the insipidity, affectation and pride of mankind, that when I meet with a person "after my own heart," I positively feel what an orthodox protestant would call a species of idolatry which acts on my fancy like inspiration, and I can no more desist rhyming on the impulse, than an Eolian harp can refuse its tones to the streaming air. A distich or two would be the consequence, though the object which hit my fancy were grey-bearded age; but where my theme is youth and beauty, a young lady whose personal charms, wit and sentiment, are equally striking and unaffected, by heavens! though I had lived three score years a married man, and three score years before I was a married man, my imagi |