to his family could not but be acceptable to the author, had he known the sound judgement and the exquisite taste which that excellent man possessed.  But he saw no more of the productions of the Muse he admired; whose originality was not the least charm.  He is dead—­the friend whom he loved and honoured, and to whose character thou dost so much justice in the preface to ‘The Parish Register’, is also gone to the house appointed for all living.  A splendid constellation of poets arose in the literary horizon; I looked around for Crabbe.  Why does not he, who shines as brightly as any of these, add his lustre?  I had not long thought thus when, in an Edinburgh Review, I met with reflections similar to my own, which introduced ’The Parish Register’.  Oh, it was like the voice of a long-lost friend, and glad was I to hear that voice again in ’The Borough’!—­still more in ‘The Tales,’ which appear to me excelling all that preceded them!  Every work is so much in unison with our own feelings, that a wish for information concerning them and their author is strongly excited.

One of our friends, Dykes Alexander, who was in Ballitore in 1810, I think, said he was personally acquainted with thee, and spoke highly of thy character.  I regretted I had not an opportunity of conversing with him on this subject, as perhaps he would have been able to decide arguments which have arisen; namely, whether we owe to truth or to fiction that ‘ever new delight’ which thy poetry affords us.  The characters, however singular some of them may be, are never unnatural, and thy sentiments so true to domestic and social feelings, as well as to those of a higher nature, have the convincing power of reality over the mind, and I maintain that all thy pictures are drawn from life.  To inquire whether this be the case is the excuse which I make to myself for writing this letter.  I wish the excuse may be accepted by thee, for I greatly fear I have taken an unwarrantable liberty in making the inquiry.  Though advanced in life, yet from an education of peculiar simplicity, and from never having been long absent from my retired native village, I am too little acquainted with decorum.  If I have now transgressed the rules it prescribes, I appeal to the candour and liberality of thy mind to forgive a fault caused by a strong enthusiasm.

PS.  Ballitore is the village in which Edmund Burke was educated by Abraham Shackleton, whose pupil he became in 1741, and from whose school he entered the college of Dublin in 1744.  The school is still flourishing.

ROBERT BURNS

1759-1796

TO MISS CHALMERS

Marriage with Jean

Ellisland, near Dumfries, 16 Sept. 1788.

Where are you? and how are you? and is Lady M’Kenzie recovering her health? for I have had but one solitary letter from you.  I will not think you have forgot me, Madam; and for my part—­