ssities to plead,
riots nightly in the same guilty trade.

Well! divines may say of it what they please; but execration is to the
mind what phlebotomy is to the body: the vital sluices of both are
wonderfully relieved by their respective evacuations.

R. B.

* * * * *

CCV.

TO MR. CUNNINGHAM.

[To Alexander Cunningham the poet generally communicated his favourite
compositions.]

_Ellisland, 23d January, 1791._

Many happy returns of the season to you, my dear friend! As many of
the good things of this life, as is consistent with the usual mixture
of good and evil in the cup of being!

I have just finished a poem (Tam o' Shanter) which you will receive
enclosed. It is my first essay in the way of tales.

I have these several months been hammering at an elegy on the amiable
and accomplished Miss Burnet. I have got, and can get, no farther than
the following fragment, on which please give me your strictures. In
all kinds of poetic composition, I set great store by your opinion;
but in sentimental verses, in the poetry of the heart, no Roman
Catholic ever set more value on the infallibility of the Holy Father
than I do on yours.

I mean the introductory couplets as text verses.

ELEGY

ON THE LATE MISS BURNET, OF MONBODDO.

Life ne'er exulted in so rich a prize
As Burnet lovely from her native skies;
Nor envious death so triumph'd in a blow,
As that which laid th' accomplish'd Burnet low.

Let me hear from you soon.

Adieu!

R. B.

* * * * *

CCVI.

TO A.F. TYTLER, ESQ.

["I have seldom in my life," says Lord Woodhouselee, "tasted a higher
enjoyment from any work of genius than I received from Tam o'
Shanter."]

_Ellisland, February, 1791._

SIR,

Nothing less than the unfortunate accident I have met with, could have
prevented my grateful acknowledgments for your letter. His own
favourite poem, and that an essay in the walk of the muses entirely
new to him, where consequently his hopes and fears were on the most
anxious alarm for his success in the attempt; to have that poem so
much applauded by one of the first judges, was the most delicious
vibration that ever thrilled along the heart-strings of a poor poet.
However, Providence, to keep up the proper proportion of evil with the
good, which it seems is necessary in this sublunary state, thought
proper to check my exultation by a very serious