however, somewhat alarmed about the effect of his now comparatively sedentary and luxurious life, when he confessed to me, the first night he spent in my house after his winter's campaign in town, that he had been much disturbed when in bed, by a palpitation at his heart, which, he said, was a complaint to which he had of late become subject.

In the course of the same season, I was led by curiosity to attend for an hour or two a ma son-lodge in Mauchline, where Burns presided. He had occasion to make some short unpremeditated compliments to different individuals from whom he had no reason to expect a visit, and every thing he said was happily conceived, and forcibly, as well as fluently expressed. If I am not mistaken, he told me, that in that village, be fore going to Edinburgh, he had belonged to a small club of such of the inhabitants as had a taste for books, when they used to converse and debate on any interesting questions that occurred to them in the course of their reading. His man ner of speaking in public, had evidently the marks of some practice in extempore elocution.

"I must not omit to mention, what I have always considered as characteristical in a high degree of true genius, the extreme facility and good nature of his taste, in judging of the compositions of others, where there was any real ground for praise. I repeated to him many passages of English poetry, with which he was unacquainted, and have more than once witnessed the tears of admiration and rapture, with which he heard them, The collection of songs by Dr. Aikin, which I first put into his hands, he read with unmixed delight, notwithstanding his former efforts in that very difficult species of writing; and I have little doubt that it had some effect in polishing his subsequent compositions.

"In judging of prose, I do not think his taste was equally sound. I once read to him a passage or two in Franklin's Works, which I thought

very happily executed, upon the model of Addison; but he did not appear to relish, or to perceive the beauty which they derived from their exquisite simplicity; and spoke of them with indifference, when compared with the point, and antithesis, and quaintness of Junius. The influ

ence of this taste is very perceptible in his own prose compositions, although their great and various excellencies render some of them scarcely less objects of wonder than his poetical perfor mances. The late Dr. Robertson used to say, that, considering his education, the former seemed to him the more extraordinary of the two.

"His memory was uncommonly retentive, at least for poetry, of which he recited to me fre quently long compositions with the most minute accuracy. They were chiefly ballads, and other pieces in our Scottish dialect; great part of them (he told me) he had learned in his childhood, from his mother, who delighted in such recitations, and whose poetical taste, rude as it probably was, gave, it is presumable, the first direction to her son's genius.

"Of the more polished verses which accidentally fell into his hands, in his early years, he mentioned particularly the recommendatory poems by different authors, prefixed to Hervey's Meditations; a book which has always had a very wide circulation among such of the country people of Scotland, as affect to unite some degree of taste with their religious studies. And these poems (although they are certainly below mediocrity) he continued to read with a degree of rapture beyond expression. He took notice of this fact himself, as a proof how much the taste is liable to be influenced by accidental circumstances.

"His father appeared to me, from the account he gave of him, to have been a respectable and worthy character, possessed of a mind superior to what might have been expected from his station in life. He ascribed much of his own principles and feelings, to the early impressions he had re

56517B

ceived from his instructions and example. I recollect that he once applied to him (and he added, that the passage was a literal statement of fact) the two last lines of the following passage in the Minstrel; the whole of which he repeated with great enthusiasm.

Shall I be left forgotten in the dust,

When fate, relenting, lets the flower revive? Shall nature's voice, to man alone unjust, Bid him, though doom'd to perish, hope to live?

Is it for this fair virtue oft must strive

With disappointment penury, and pain? No: heaven's immortal spring shall yet arrive; And man's majestic beauty bloom again, Bright through th' eternal year of love's triumphant reign.

This truth sublime, his simple sire had taught; In sooth, 'twas almost all the shepherd knew.

"With respect to Burns' early education, I cannot say any thing with certainty. He always spoke with respect and gratitude of the schoolmaster who had taught him to read English, and who, finding in his scholar a more than ordinary ardour for knowledge, had been at pains to instruct him in the grammatical principles of the language. He began the study of Latin, but dropped it before he had finished the verbs. I have sometimes heard him quote a few Latin words, such as omnia vincit amor, &c., but they seemed to be such as he had caught from conversation, and which he repeated by rote. I think he had a project, after he came to Edinburgh, of prosecuting the study under his intimate friend, the late Mr. Nicol, one of the masters of the grammar-school here; but I do not know that he ever proceeded so far as to make the attempt.

"He certainly possessed a smat.ering of French; and, if he had an affectation in any

thing, it was in introducing occasionally a word or phrase from that language. It is possible that his knowledge, in this respect, might be more extensive than I suppose it to be; but this you can learn from his more intimate acquaintance. It would be worth while to inquire, whether he was able to read the French authors with such facility, as to receive from them any improvement to his taste. For my own part, I doubt it muchnor would I believe it, but on very strong and pointed evidence.

"If my memory does not fail me, he was well instructed in arithmetic, and knew something of practical geometry, particularly of surveying,All his other attainments were entirely his own.

A

"The last time I saw him was during the winter 1788-89, when he passed an evening with me at Drumseugh, in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, where I was then living. My friend Mr. Alison was the only other person in company. I never saw him more agreeable or interesting. present which Mr. Alison sent him afterwards of his Essays on Taste, drew from Burns a letter of acknowledgment, which I remember to have read with some degree of surprise at the distinct conception he appeared from it to have formed, of the general principles of the doctrine of associa

tion.

When I saw Mr. Alison in Shropshire, last autumn, I forgot to inquire if the letter be still in existence. If it is, you may easily procure it, by means of our friend Mr. Houlbrooket."

THE scene that opened on our bard in Edin burgh was altogether new, and, in a variety of

"Or rather 1789-90. I cannot speak with confidence, with respect to the particular year. Some of my other dates may possibly require correction, as I keep no journal of such occurrences.

+ See General Correspondence, No. CXI.

other respects, highly interesting; especially to one of his disposition of mind. To use an expression of his own, he found himself "suddenly translated from the veriest shades of life," into the presence, and, indeed, into the society, of a number of persons, previously known to him by report as of the highest distinction in his country, and whose characters it was natural for him to examine with no common curiosity.

From the men of letters, in general, his reception was particularly flattering. The late Dr. Robertson, Dr. Blair, Dr. Gregory, Mr. Stewart, Mr. Mackenzie, and Mr. Fraser Tytler, may be men. tioned in the list of those who perceived his uncommon talents, who acknowledged more especially his powers in conversation, and who interested themselves in the cultivation of his genius. In Edinburgh, literary and fashionable society are a good deal mixed. Our bard was an acceptable guest in the gayest and most elevated circles, and frequently received from female beauty and elegance, those attentions, above all others, most grateful to him. At the table of lord Monboddo he was a frequent guest; and while he enjoyed the society, and partook of the hospitalities of the venerable judge, he experienced the kindness and condescension of his lovely and accomplished daughter. The singular beauty of this young lady was illuminated by that happy expression of countenance which results from the union of cultivated taste and superior understanding, with the finest affections of the mind. The influence of such attractions was not unfelt by our poet. "There has not been any thing like Miss Burnet," said he, in a letter to a friend," in all the combination of beauty, grace, and goodness, the Creator has formed, since Milton's Eve on the first day of her existence*." In his Address to Edinburgh, she is celebrated in a strain of still greater elevation:

* See General Correspondence, No, IX.