delayed telling me of the twin-letter, from which I dare say you can hardly reap more pleasure than I do. Fortune. honoured and favour'd mine much by bringing it in good company, and hereafter I shall be glad you never find cause to separate the ideas of a friend who really may and does materially serve, and one who can only wish sincerely to see another do what is beyond her own reach to perform. You say I send you none of my poetic rambles. The truth is the instrument is jogged out of tune of late, as you say, by parental solicitudes, but if you 'll not be pleased but with a rhyme I must try two three lines like the wife in the song what soe'er they be, if they jingle, that's enough for me. Tane up between a priest and Jean, Now I aver this is a very pretty compliment, if you can find it out, and quite fit to come from the Aurora of the poles, but I am too long at telling you what a grand subject I was within a hair's-breadth of furnishing your mourning Melpomene. Nay, all the tears of the Muses would have been too few. My very soul shudders at the thought, even now when the danger is past. You say you are interested in the young couple (whose secret I therefore hope you still have and will keep till you have it from some other quarter), but figure to yourself Lady Wallace's 1 house burnt, which has been twice in the most imminent danger within this six weeks, and suppose the Swiss coming post to see the unextinguishable flame that has actually reduced to ashes the house next his bride's. Suppose you found Mossgiel all in one conflagration on your arrival, and the distant flame lighted your darksome way for some miles before you could reach it. You may then pen something that would have suited such a catastrophe. Yet I know not. You would still [have] had friends and acquaintances. How bitter must be misfortune to a stranger in a strange land! But this picture is too dreadful to dwell upon; it has made me sick two days already; so I bid it adieu, and will now send you some lines I wrot some time ago on being told a Mr. Anderson had just bought Clerkenton in this neighbourhood, and was about to marry a sweet pretty girl, a Miss Finlay, born at Donmanore near Edr., and living in Haddington with a grandmother. She is a distant relation of mine, and came to see me herself, and some circumstances in which I believe Fame was mistaken, as well as in that of its being her betrothed that had bought Clerkenton, interested me and produced the inclosed. Here I was called to see my son Andrew come to town on the news of the fire, which has been more alarming than they let me know so very near my friends that L. W. was taken out of a window, not daring open the door lest the mob had rushed in and robbed the house, which on this account my daughter would not leave as long as it was possible to stay with safety. Yet the effort has been so much for her she has been confined to bed ever since, and so ill her brother and sister were called in from the country to see her all which they kept quiet from me, as I could not have left John's wife, whose situation is still undetermined, and who seems to place so much on having me with her that I could not on any account tear myself away, unless she had been rich enough to have some other friend among the numerous relations living all around her who might have supply'd my place. Be not therefore surprized my hand shakes; so does my heart; yet my health is now pretty good, and I am much interested to hear what harvest and crop you have had this season, and how you left and found your far distant concerns. Remember I told you the Muse that inspired my rhymes was the wish to please a poet and to gain a friend, and that my aim was to pry into every cranny and corner of that soul which prompted your delightfull lays. I have done everything in my power to attain that end; if you think me worth the trouble, shew me the house, instead of turning the dark side of the lanthorn on my friendly curiosity. Farewell. FRAN. A. DUNLOP. (1) When James Boswell went to London the dowager Lady Wallace became the occupier of his flat in James's Court, where he in his turn had succeeded David Hume. TO BURNS. MORHAM MAINS, Tuesday 21st Oct. 1788. DEAR SIR, In consequence of the promise your friendship excited, I am to inform you that this has been a great week with me. It has brought me a son and a grandson. On Wednesday last, Mr. Henry, the Swiss mountaineer, arrived from London, where he had been in a fever, and found his wife, thank God! just got out of the same condition, in which she had continued ever since the fire. I have not yet seen either of them, being wholly taken up about the young stranger and his mother, whom I now hope soon to be able to leave well and nursing her little charge. She was really ill, and I think the farmer's joy in the increase of his family was hugely diminished by his concern about and fears for his little wife. I would beg to hear from you as soon as you receive this, that I may guess whether I can have any chance of finding you in Ayrshire at my return, which I think ought not now to be a far distant prospect. It is not mere words of course to say I will meet my friends with redoubled pleasure if you are one of the number. On the contrary, I am not sure if even the power of your own magic numbers can express the strength and sincerity of that regard and admiration which attaches me to my favourite author, and inspires the pleasure and pride I feel in having your own sanction to assume the name of, Dr. Burns, your friend and obliged humble sert. Believe me, 't is one of the greatest satisfactions I can feel to think you have a little partiality in favour of the truly grateful FRAN. A. DUNLOP. Write me here till I give you another address. I have not time for a word more. You who increase like the patriarch Jacob will despise our poor single, long-looked-for production. Lord bless you and your wife, your sons and daughters, your man and your maid servant, your ox and your ass, and all that is yours! Amen. Ad. Mrs. DUNLOP of Dunlop, Moreham Mains, Haddington. DEAR MADAM, SANQUHAR, 23rd Oct. 1788. This is literally a letter en passant, for I write you while my horse baits, on my wonted journey. Your two kind epistles came in course; but I shall much long for a third one, to inform me how you have recovered the horrid shock you must have felt in the dreadful catastrophe of Lady Wallace's house. My blood runs cold when I think of it! Apropos, I breakfasted this morning at Laicht, near New Cumnock, and Mrs. Logan1 asked me if I had heard that Miss Sn D- -p was married to a Dane? I replied, the information was new to me. As it is written, "that which is done in corners shall be proclaimed on the housetops." Your last, Madam, is unanswerable. The illustrious name of Wallace and the accomplishments of Mrs. Dunlop have accustomed you so much to the superlatives of Commendation that I am afraid. ELLISLAND, 26th Oct. My officious Landlady interrupted me, Madam, as I was going on to tell you that my Modesty called out Murder! all the time I was reading your last. Very unlike the fate of your other letters, I have never read it but once. Though I never sit down to answer a letter, as our Pastoral Bards make their contending swains answer one another, or as a be-periwigged Edinr. Advocate answers his be-gowned brother, yet I cannot help thanking you particularly for the poetic compliment in your epistle the last I received but one. Now I talk of Poetry, what think you of the following character: 2 I mean the painting of it: A little, upright, pert, tart, tripping Wight, Who loves his own smart Shadow in the streets Still making work his selfish craft must mend. |