For the Anthology. GENTLEMEN, To such as respect the warm, vivid genius, and lament the hard, cruel fortune of Burns, no apology need be necessary for printing, as it was never pub. lished in America, the following letter of the Ayrshire Bard, written to Francis Grose, while collecting materials for "the Antiquities of Scotland." I send it to you for publication, not because it displays in full and free exercise either of his discriminative powers of mind, for it neither melts to tenderness, nor charms to rapture;-it neither glows with the breathing thoughts of pathos, nor beams with the burning words of fancy. It is however a letter of information, written, as such a letter ought to be written, in a clear, concise style; without eloquence to dazzle, without verbiage to weary. If required to compare their characters, as Burns and Cowper appear in their respective letters, I should say, that Cowper always engages those feelings, which interest the reader in the fortune of the writer; but of Burns what should I say? I could only heighten the encomium, and say,that what Cowper with great labour does very well, Burns does incomparably better with no ex, ertion. In Burns there is more of rustick honesty, more of frank, native politeness; in Cowper there is more of courtly sincerity, more of sly, acquired civility. Cowper plays upon the ear, he amuses, and instructs; Burns inter. ests and delights, he steals into the heart. Burns always discovers "naked feeling"; Cowper, I am afraid, sometimes betrays "aching pride." Cowper is coldly liked his foibles are pitied; Burns is warmly loved, his vices are pardoned. We read Cowper, as a husband treats his wife, with affection mellowing to esteem; we read Burns, as a lover courts his mistress, with esteem ripening to affection. LETTER OF ROBERT BURNS TO FRANCIS GROSE, F.A.S. CONCERNING WITCH-STORIES. AMONG the many Witch Stories I have heard relating to Alo, way Kirk, I distinctly remember only two or three. Upon a stormy night, amid whirling squalls of wind and bitter blasts of hail, in short, on such a 'night as the devil would choose to take the air in, a farmer or far mer's servant was plodding and plashing homeward with his plough-irons on his shoulder, having been getting some repairs on them at a neighbouring smithy. His way lay by the Kirk of Aloway, and being rather on the anxious look-out in approaching a place so well known to be a fa vourite haunt of the devil and the devil's friends and emissaries, he was struck aghast by discovering through the horrours of the storm and stormy night, a light, which on his nearer approach, plainly shewed itself to proceed from the haunted edifice. Whether he had been fortified from above on his devout supplication, as is custom, ary with people when they suspect the immediate presence of Satan ; or whether, according to another custom, he had got courageously drunk at the smithy, I will not pretend to determine; but so it was that he ventured to go up to, nay into the very kirk. As good luck would have it, his temerity came off unpunished. The members of the infernal junto were all out on some midnight business or other, and he saw nothing but a kind of kettle or caldron, depending from the roof, over the fire, simmering some heads of unchristened children, limbs of executed malefactors, &c. for the business of the night. It was in for a penny, in for a pound,' with the honest ploughman : so without ceremony he unhooked the caldron from off the fire, and pouring out the damnable ingredients, inverted it on his head, and carried it fairly home, where it remained long in the family a living evidence of the truth of the story. Another story, which I can prove to be equally authentick,was as follows. On a market day in the town of Ayr, a farmer from Carrick, and consequently whose way lay by the very gate of Aloway kirk-yard, in order to cross the river Doon at the old bridge, which is about two or three hundred yards further on than the said gate, had been detained by his business, till, by the time he reached Aloway, it was the wizard hour, between night and morning. Though he was terrified with a blaze streaming from the kirk,yet, as it is a well known fact, that to turn back on these occasions is running by far the greatest risk of mischief, he prudently advanced on his road. When he had reached the gate of the kirk-yard, he was surprised and entertained, through the ribs and arches of an old gothick window, which still faces the highway, to see a dance of witches merrily boting it round their old sooty blackguard master, who was keeping them all alive with the powers of his bag-pipe, The farmer, stopping his horse to observe them a little, could plainly descry the faces of many old women of his acquaintance and neigbbourhood. How the gentleman was dressed, tradition does not say; but the la dies were all in their smocks: and one of them happening unluckily to have a smock, which was considerably too short to answer all the purpose of that piece of dress, our farmer was so tickled that he involuntarily burst out, with a loud laugh, "Weel luppen Maggy, wi' the short sark!" and recollecting himself, instantly spurred his horse to the top of his speed. I need not mention the universally known fact, that no diabolical power can pursue you beyond the middle of a running stream.— Lucky it was for the poor farmer that the river Doon was so near, for notwithstanding the speed of his horse, which was a good one, against he reached the middle of the arch of the bridge, and consequently the middle of the stream, the pursuing, vengeful hags, were so close at his heels, that one of them actually sprung to seizę him; but it was too late, nothing was on her side of the stream but the horse's tail, which immediately gave way at her infernal grip, as if blasted by a stroke of lightning; but the farmer was beyond her reach. However, the unsightly, tail-less condition of the vigorous steed was, to the last hour of the noble creature's life, an awful warning to the Carrick farmers, not to stay too late in Ayr markets. The last relation I shall give, though equally true, is not so well identified as the two former, with regard to the scene: but as the Luppen, the Scots participle passive of the verb to leap. best authorities give it for Aloway, I shall relate it. On a summer's evening, about the time that nature puts on her sables to mourn the expiry of the cheerful day, a shepherd boy, belonging to a farmer in the immediate neighbourhood of Aloway Kirk, had just folded his charge, and was returning home. As he passed the kirk, in the adjoining field, he fell in with a crew of men and women, who were busy in pulling stems of the plant ragwort. He observed, that as each person pulled a ragwort, he or she got astride of it and called out, "Up horsie!" on which the ragwort flew off, like Pegasus, through the air with its rider. The foolish boy likewise pulled his ragwort,and cried with the rest "Up horsie!" and, strange to tell, away he flew with the company. The first stage at which the cavalcade stopt, was a merchant's wine cellar in Bourdeaux, where, without saying by your leave, they quaffed away at the best the cellar could afford, until the morning, foe to the imps and works of darkness, threatened to throw light on the matter, and frightened them from their carousals. The poor shepherd lad, being equally a stranger to the scene and the liquor, heedlessly got himself drunk; and when the rest took horse, he fell asleep, and was found so next day by some of the people belonging to the merchant. Somebody that understood Scotch, asking him what he was, he said he was such-a-one's herd in Aloway; and by some means or other getting home again, he lived long to tell the world the wondrous tale. I am, &c. &c. ROB. BURNS. AMUSEMENT. WE continue our observations on the elegant performance, of which we commenced the review in the last number of the Anthology; and it may not be improper to give some account of the system, under which we intend to arrange our remarks. This poem certainly deserves all the critick can bestow; and, although our limits will not permit us to insert the various notes, &c. supplementary to this review, yet, as soon as we can obtain a sufficient quantity of Hebrew types for the remarks of Abraham Sheva, the Jewish annotator, we intend to present a complete edition of all the pragmatical observations, notes and various readings, in twentyseven neat folios. But, in the present course of remarks, although they are intended as nothing more than the precursor of our contemplated edition, we shall treat the subject, as logically as possible: we have therefore considered it most convenient with our design, first, to go through this performance by a course of analytical observations, and, when we have obtained a complete view of the several parts, whereof the subject is composed, to reduce these several members, by the synthetick method, to their orig 176 inal combination. To determine to what order of poetry this performance belongs, to examine it by the rules of the scholiasts, and to compare it with other productions of the same order, will afford abundant matter for a separate essay. Having made this necessary digression, we proceed to the review. The cat's in the fiddle! Various have been the opinions of com quantity of its für, and even rub. can we. We therefore relinquish Human reason is limited to an investi- The beautiful abruptness, displayed in the introduction to the subject, immediately after the por tion of the poem, reviewed in the foregoing number, is, perhaps, without its parallel. Here no time is wasted in ridiculous invocations of mere creatures of the mind; neither does the poet consume three or four hundred lines in de scribing the contortions of the cat, at the time of her entrance into the fiddle. He barely states the fact, without any complication of imagery, which, he prudently foresaw, would unavoidably divert our attention from the main design. There is a poem, which has been deservedly celebrated, but which is certainly very far inferiour to that under review, although many of the learned have held it in equal estimation. I refer to the poem, beginning thus ; Ding-dong, bell! The cat's in the well! This does not charm us by its abruptness, like The cat's in the fiddle! although it possesses, in an eminent degree, all the beauty of elegiack composition. But the first line prepares us for something extremely solemn, since bells dingdong only on the most serious occasions. Dishclouteroff was therefore incorrect in supposing, that bells could be ding-dong'd for fires and town-meetings, since dingdong implies a slower motion of the "campane malleus," than is used on such occasions. We are informed of the singular and wonderful fact, that the cat is in the fiddle, without any thing like premonition; we are not informed how she came there, nor how she will be extricated: our admiration is therefore raised to the highest Vol. IV. No. 4. Y pitch, and we have to contemplate, not only the mode of her entrance into the fiddle, but how she will come out of it. On the contrary, in the poem, which some have pretended to compare with our unparalleled performance, we have nothing to cause our admiration ; for it is easy enough to suppose a cat may be in a well, although very wonderful how she could be in a fiddle and we could not wonder long, in the first instance, allowing our admiration had been raised; for the author continues thus; : Who put her in? So, we know the whole at once, and our admiration can exist no longer. In fact, these poems are not of the same class, and it is therefore ridiculous for any one to institute a comparison between them; it is absolutely "Gryphes cum equis." It is truly surprising, that, excepting the present, we have no great poem of antiquity, that is not burdened with an invocation of the Muse; and it is very wonderful, that the ancient poets could relate nothing of any consequence, with out the assistance of the Gods and Goddesses. Our author very reasonably concludes, that he can give us the necessary information, that the cat's in the fiddle, without invoking any supernatural agent to assist him in the narration. Had the poem now before us commenced with an invocation of the Muses; had the poet introduced a long and formal proposition of his subject; or had he attempted to describe the various attitudes, gestures, etc. of the cat, at the time of her entrance into the fiddle, the charm, by which we are now held in admiration, could have ex |