IT is injuring some hearts, those hearts

that elegantly bear the impression of the good Creator, to say to them, you give them the trouble of obliging a friend; for this reason, I only tell you that I gratify my own feelings in requesting your friendly offices with respect to the inclosed, because I know it will gratify yours to assist me in it to the utmost of your power.

I have sent you four copies, as I have no less than eight dozen in whole, which is a great deal more than 1 shall ever need.

Be sure to remember a poor Poet militant in your prayers. He looks forward with fear and trembling to that, to him, important moment which stamps the die with-with-with, perhaps, the eternal disgrace of,

My dear Sir, your humbled,

afflicted, tormented,

Mosgiel, 17th. April, 1786.

R. BURNS.

HERE have I sat, my dear Madam, in the stony attitude of perplexed study for fifteen vexatious minutes, my head askew, bending over the intended card; my fixed eye insensible to the very light of day poured around; my pendulous goose-feather, loaded with ink, hanging over the future letter; all for the important purpose of writing a complimentary card to accompany your trinket.

Compliments is such a miserable Greenland expression; lies at such a chilly polar distance from the torrid zone of my constitution, that I cannot, for the very soul of me, use it to any person for whom I have the twentieth part of the esteem every one must have for you whe knows you.

As I leave town in three or four days, I can give myself the pleasure of calling for you only for a minute. Tuesday evening, sometime about seven, or after, I shall wait on you, for your farewell commands.

The hinge of your box, I put into the hands of the proper connoisseur; but it is, like Willy Gaw's skate, past redemption.-The broken

glass, likewise, went under review; but deliberative wisdom thought it would too much endanger the whole fabric. I am, Dear Madam, With all sincerity of Enthusiasm,

Your very humble Servant,

ROBERT BURNS.

I HAVE partly changed my ideas, my dear Friend, since I saw you. I took old Glenconner with me to Mr. Miller's farm, and he was so pleased with it, that I have written an offer to Mr. Miller, which, if he accepts, I shall sit down a plain farmer, the happiest of lives when a man can live by it. In this case I shall not stay in Edinburgh above a week. I set out on Monday, and would have come by Kilmarnock, but there are several small sums owing me for my first edition, about Galston and Newmills; and I shall set off so early as to dispatch my business, and reach Glasgow by night. When

I return, I shall devote a forenoon two to make some kind of acknowledgment for all the kindness I owe your friendship. Now that I hope to settle with some credit and comfort at home, there was not any friendship or friendly correspondence, that promised me more pleasure than yours; I hope I will not be disappointed. I trust the Spring will renew your shattered frame, and make your friends happy. You and I have often agreed that life is no great blessing on the whole. The close of life, indeed, to a reasoning eye, is,

"Dark as was chaos, ere the infant sun

"Was roll'd together, or had try'd his beams
"Athwart the gloom profound"

But an honest man has nothing to fear. If we lie down in the grave, the whole man a piece of broken machinery, to moulder with the clods of the valley, be it so; at least, there is an end of pain, care, woes, and wants; if that part of us called Mind, does survive the apparent destruction of the man-away with old-wife prejudices and tales! Every age and every nation has had a different set of stories; and as the many are always weak, of consequence they have often, perhaps always, been deceived: a man, conscious of having acted an honest part among his fellow creatures; even granting that he may have been the sport, at times, of passions and instincts; he goes to a great unknown Being,

who could have no other end in giving him existence but to make him happy; who gave him those passions and instincts, and well knows their force.

These, my worthy friend, are my ideas! and I know they are not far different from yours. It becomes a man of sense to think for himself; particularly in a case where all men are equally interested, and where, indeed, all men are equally in the dark.

Adieu, my dear Sir! God send us a cheerful meeting!

ROBERT BURNS.

FINIS

MARSHALL, PRINTER, NEWCASTLE.