return you my grateful thanks for the lessons of virtue and piety you have given me, which were too much neglected at the time of giving them, but which, I hope, have been remembered ere it is yet too late. Present my dutiful respects to my mother, and my compliments to Mr. and Mrs. Muir; and with wishing you a merry New-year's-day, I shall conclude.

I am, honoured sir,

Your dutiful son,"

ROBERT BURNS.

P.S. My meal is nearly out; but I am going to borrow, till I get more.

II.

TO MR. JOHN MURDOCH, SCHOOLMASTER,
Staples Inn Buildings, London.

DEAR SIR,

Lochlee, 15th January, 1783.

As I have an opportunity of sending you a letter, without putting you to that expense which any production of mine would but ill repay, I embrace it with pleasure, to tell you that I have not forgotten, nor ever will forget, the many obligations I lie under to your kindness and friendship.

I do not doubt, sir, but you will wish to know what has been the result of all the pains of an indulgent father, and a masterly teacher; and I wish I could gratify your curiosity with such a recital as you would be pleased with; but that is what I am afraid will not be the case. I have, indeed, kept

pretty clear of vicious habits; and, in this respect, I hope my conduct will not disgrace the education I have gotten; but as a man of the world, I am most miserably deficient. One would have thought, that bred as I have been, under a father who has figured pretty well as un homme des affaires, I might have been what the world calls a pushing, active fellow; but, to tell you the truth, sir, there is hardly any thing more my reverse. I seem to be one sent into the world to see and observe; and I very easily compound with the knave who tricks me of my money, if there be any thing original about him which shows me human nature in a different light. from any thing I have seen before. In short, the joy of my heart is to "study men, their manners, and their ways;" and for this darling subject, I cheerfully sacrifice every other consideration. I am quite indolent about those great concerns that set the bustling busy sons of care agog; and if I have to answer for the present hour, I am very easy with regard to any thing further. Even the last, worst shift of the unfortunate and the wretched does not much terrify me: I know that even then my talent for what country-folks call" a sensible crack," when once it is sanctified by a hoary head, would procure me so much esteem, that even then-I would learn to be happy. However, I am under no apprehen-' sions about that; for, though indolent, yet, so far as an extremely delicate constitution permits, I am not lazy; and in many things, especially in tavern-matters, I am a strict economist; not indeed for the sake of the money, but one of the principal parts in my composition is a kind of pride of stomach, and I scorn to fear the face of any man living;

above every thing, I abhor, as hell, the idea of sneaking in a corner to avoid a dun― possibly some pitiful, sordid wretch, who in my heart I despise and detest. "Tis this, and this alone, that endears economy to me. In the matter of books indeed, I am very profuse. My favourite authors are of the sentimental kind, such as Shenstone, particularly his Elegies; Thomson; Man of Feeling, a book I prize next to the Bible; Man of the World; Sterne, especially his Sentimental Journey; M'Pherson's Ossian, &c. These are the glorious models after which I endeavour to form my conduct; and 'tis incongruous, 'tis absurd, to suppose that the man whose mind glows with sentiments lighted up at their sacred flame-the man whose heart distends with benevolence to all the human race-he" who can soar above this little scene of things," can he descend to mind the paltry concerns about which the terræfilial race fret, and fume, and vex themselves? O how the glorious triumph swells my heart! I forget that I am a poor insignificant devil, unnoticed and unknown, stalking up and down fairs and markets, when I happen to be in them, reading a page or two of mankind, and "catching the manners living as they rise," whilst the men of business jostle me on every side as an idle encumbrance in their way. But I dare say I have by this time tired your patience; so I shall conclude with begging you to give Mrs. Murdoch→ not my compliments, for that is a mere commonplace story, but my warmest, kindest wishes for her welfare; and accept the same for yourself from,

Dear sir, yours, &c.

III.

[The following is taken from the MS. Prose presented by our Bard to Mr. Riddel.]

ON rummaging over some old papers, I lighted on a MS. of my early years, in which I had determined to write myself out, as I was placed by fortune among a class of men to whom my ideas would have been nonsense. I had meant that the book should have lain by me, in the fond hope that, some time or other, even after I was no more, my thoughts would fall into the hands of somebody capable of appreciating their value. It sets off thus:

Observations, Hints, Songs, Scraps of Poetry, &c. by R. B.-a man who had little art in making money, and still less in keeping it; but was, however, a man of some sense, a great deal of honesty, and unbounded good will to every creature, rational and irrational. As he was but little indebted to scholastic education, and bred at a plough-tail, his performances must be strongly tinctured with his unpolished rustic way of life; but as I believe they are really his own, it may be some entertainment to a curious observer of human nature, to see how a ploughman thinks and feels, under the pressure of love, ambition, anxiety, grief, with the like cares and passions, which, however diversified by the modes and manners of life, operate pretty much alike, I believe, on all the species.

"There are numbers in the world who do not want sense to make a figure, so much as an opinion

of their own abilities, to put them upon recording their observations, and allowing them the same importance which they do to those which appear in print." Shenstone.

"Pleasing, when youth has long expired, to trace
The forms our pencil, or our pen design'd!
Such was our youthful air, and shape, and face,
Such the soft image of our youthful mind." Ibid.

April, 1783.

Notwithstanding all that has been said against love, respecting the folly and weakness it leads a young inexperienced mind into, still I think it in a great measure deserves the highest encomiums that have been passed on it. If any thing on earth deserves the name of rapture or transport, it is the feelings of green eighteen, in the company of the mistress of his heart, when she repays him with an equal return of affection.

August.

There is certainly some connexion between love, and music, and poetry; and therefore, I have always thought a fine touch of nature, that passage in a modern love-composition:

"As toward her cot he jogg'd along,

Her name was frequent in his song."

For my own part, I never had the least thought or inclination of turning poet, till I got once heartily in love; and then rhyme and song were, in a manner, the spontaneous language of my heart.

September.

I entirely agree with that judicious philosopher,