with what uncommon penetration and sagacity this heaven-taught ploughman, from his humble and unlettered station, has looked upon men and manners.

Against some passages of those lastmentioned poems, it has been objected, that they breathe a spirit of libertinism and irreligion. But if we consider the ignorance and fanaticism of the lower class of people in the country where these poems were written, a fanaticism of that pernicious sort which sets faith in opposition to good works, the fallacy and danger of which, a mind so enlightened as our poet's could not but perceive; we shall not look upon his lighter muse as the enemy of religion, (of which in several places he expresses the justest sentiments,) though she has sometimes been a little unguarded in her ridicule of hypocrisy.

In this, as in other respects, it must be allowed, that there are exceptionable parts of the volume he has given to the public,

which caution would have suppressed, or correction struck out; but poets are seldom cautious, and our poet had, alas! no friends or companions from whom correction could be obtained. When we reflect on his rank in life, the habits to which he must have been subject, and the society in which he must have mixed, we regret perhaps more than wonder, that delicacy should be so often offended in perusing a volume in which there is so much to interest and to please us.

Burns possesses the spirit as well as the fancy of a poet. That honest pride and independence of soul which are sometimes the muse's only dower, break forth on every occasion in his works. It may be, then, I shall wrong his feelings, while I indulge my own, in calling the attention of the public to his situation and circumstances. That condition, humble as it was, in which he found content, and wooed the muse, might not have been deemed un

comfortable; but grief and misfortunes have reached him there; and one or two of his poems hint, what I have learnt from some of his countrymen, that he has been obliged to form the resolution of leaving his native land, to seek under a West-Indian clime that shelter and support which Scotland has denied him. But I trust means may be found to prevent this resolution. from taking place; and that I do my country no more than justice, when I suppose her ready to stretch out her hand to cherish and retain this native poet, whose "woodnotes wild" possess so much excellence. To repair the wrongs of suffering or neglected merit; to call forth genius from the obscurity in which it had pined indignant, and place it where it may profit or delight the world; these are exertions which give to wealth an enviable superiority, to greatness and to patronage a laudable pride.

It is a long time since my last correspondence with you; and indeed, I did not know that your Paper continued to come out, till lately that I saw it at a certain great house where I was on a visit. Of that visit, Mr Lounger, if you will give me leave, I will tell you some particulars. Since I find that some of the great folks take in your Paper, it may do them no harm to be told a little how things are about them; or if, as I am apt to believe,

they are not easily to be mended, it will at least give us little folks some satisfaction to get out our thoughts of them.

Your predecessor, the author of the Mirror, who was kind enough to take some interest in my family, was well acquainted with its connection with Lady the great lady who first set my wife and daughters heads agog about fashion and finery. In my last to you, I inform

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you of our having luckily lost her acquaintance, though I had got into another hobble by our intimacy with my rich neighbour young Mushroom. I am ashamed to tell you, Sir, how things have come about; but, as I told Mr Mirror, I was always rather too easy in my way; I have been myself on a visit at the house of the great lady! (I beg her lord's pardon, but that is the way of speaking in our neighbourhood.) But this comes through Mr Mushroom too. You must know, that since he came home, by presents of shawls