ing to open on _The
Cotter's Saturday Night_, she read it over with the greatest pleasure
and surprise; the poet's description of the simple cottagers operating
on her mind like the charm of a powerful exorcist, expelling the demon
_ennui_, and restoring her to her wonted inward harmony and
satisfaction. Mrs. Dunlop sent off a person express to Mossgiel,
distant fifteen or sixteen miles, with a very obliging letter to my
brother, desiring him to send her half a dozen copies of his poems, if
he had them to spare, and begging he would do her the pleasure of
calling at Dunlop House as soon as convenient. This was the beginning
of a correspondence which ended only with the poet's life. Nearly the
last use he made with his pen was writing a short letter to this lady
a few days before his death."

The success of the first edition of his poems naturally made Burns
anxious to see a second edition begun. He applied to his Kilmarnock
printer, who refused the venture, unless Burns could supply ready
money to pay for the printing. This he could not do. But the (p. 038)
poems by this time had been read and admired by the most cultivated
men in Edinburgh, and more than one word of encouragement had reached
him from that city. The earliest of these was contained in a letter
from the blind poet, Dr. Blacklock, to whom Mr. Laurie, the kindly and
accomplished minister of Loudoun, had sent the volume. This Mr. Laurie
belonged to the more cultivated section of the Moderate party in the
Church, as it was called, and was the friend of Dr. Hugh Blair,
Principal Robertson, and Dr. Blacklock, and had been the channel
through which Macpherson's fragments of Ossian had first been brought
under the notice of that literary circle, which afterwards introduced
them to the world. The same worthy minister had, on the first
appearance of the poems, made Burns' acquaintance; and had received
him with warm-hearted hospitality. This kindness the poet
acknowledged, on one of his visits to the Manse of Loudoun, by leaving
in the room in which he slept a short poem of six very feeling
stanzas, which contained a prayer for the family. This is the last
stanza,--

When soon or late they reach that coast,
O'er life's rough ocean driven,
May they rejoice, no wanderer lost,
A family in heaven!

As soon as Mr. Laurie received the letter from Dr. Blacklock, written
on the 4th September, in whi