is
father's fireside, to friends in his own station, who shared his own
tastes and feelings, they flow on in an easy stream of genial happy
spirits, in which kindly humour, wit, love of the outward world,
knowledge of men, are all beautifully intertwined into one strand of
poetry, unlike anything else that has been seen before or since. The
outward form of the verse and the style of diction are no doubt after
the manner of his two forerunners whom he so much admired, Ramsay and
Fergusson; but the play of soul and power of expression, the natural
grace with which they rise and fall, the vividness of every image, (p. 024)
and transparent truthfulness of every sentiment, are all his own. If
there is any exception to be made to this estimate, it is in the
grudge which here and there peeps out against those whom he thought
greater favourites of fortune than himself and his correspondents. But
taken as a whole, I know not any poetic epistles to be compared with
them. They are just the letters in which one friend might unbosom
himself to another without the least artifice or disguise. And the
broad Doric is so pithy, so powerful, so aptly fitted to the thought,
that not even Horace himself has surpassed it in "curious felicity."
Often, when harvests were failing and the world going against him, he
found his solace in pouring forth in rhyme his feelings to some
trusted friend. As he says in one of these same epistles,--

Leeze me on rhyme! it's aye a treasure,
My chief, amaist my only pleasure,
At hame, a-fiel', at wark, at leisure,
The Muse, poor hizzie!
Tho' rough an' raploch be her measure,
She's seldom lazy.

Of the poems founded on the customs of the peasantry, I shall speak in
the sequel. The garret in which all the poems of this period were
written is thus described by Chambers:--"The farmhouse of Mossgiel,
which still exists almost unchanged since the days of the poet, is
very small, consisting of only two rooms, a but and a ben as they are
called in Scotland. Over these, reached by a trap stair, is a small
garret, in which Robert and his brother used to sleep. Thither, when
he had returned from his day's work, the poet used to retire, and seat
himself at a small deal table, lighted by a narrow skylight in the roof,
to transcribe the verses which he had composed in the fields. His (p. 025)
favourite time for compositi