I had an old grand-unele, 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 ery, 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 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. Sir, No. LV. To R. GRAHAM, of FINTRY, Esq. When I had the honour of being introduced to you at Athole-house, I did not think so soon of asking a favour of you. When Lear, in Shakespeare, asks old Kent why he wished to be in his service, 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 pa tronage. You know, I dare say, of an application I lately made to your board to be admitted an of ficer 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 patronizing friend. Pro priety 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. I had intended to have closed my late appear ance on the stage of life, in the character of a country farmer; 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 paronage to forward me in this affair, till I be ap pointed 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 masterpiece design'd, She form'd of various parts the various man. Makes a material for mere knights and squires; Law, physie, politics, and deep divines: Last, she sublimes th' Aurora of the poles, The order'd system fair before her stood, But honest Nature is not quite a Turk; She laugh'd at first, then felt for her poor work. Pitying the propless climber of mankind, She cast about a standard tree to find; And, to support his helpless woodbine state, Attach'd him to the generous truly great, A title, and the only one I claim, To lay strong hold for help on bounteous Graham, Weak, timid landmen on life's stormy main! Unlike sage proverb'd wisdom's hard-wrung boon. Ye wise ones, hence! ye hurt the social eye! Seek not the proofs in private life to find; I trust meantime my boon is in thy gift: That, plac'd by thee upon the wish'd-for height, No. LVI. 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 Lochlomond," 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 ex This is our poet's first epistle to Graham of Fintry. It is not equal to the second, but it contains too much of the characteristic vigour of its author to be suppressed. A little more knowledge of natural history, or of chemistry, was wanted, to enable him to execute the original conception cor rectly. E. |