The tranquil, affectionate, and contented spirit that shines out in the "Attempts" is in keeping with the tone of this letter; and if Burns was right when he told Dugald Stewart that no man could understand the pleasure he felt in seeing the smoke curling up from a cottage chimney, who had not been born and bred, like himself, in such abodes, and therefore knew how much worth and happiness they contain; and if the works of that great poet have, in spite of many licentious passages, been found, on the whole, productive of a wholesome effect in society, through their aim and power to awaken sympathy and respect between classes whom fortune has placed asunder, surely this old man's verses ought to meet with no cold reception among those who appreciate the value of kindly relations between masters and dependents. In them they will trace the natural influence of that old system of manners which was once general throughout England; under which the young domestic was looked after, by his master and mistress, with a sort of parental solicitude--admonished kindly for petty faults, commended for good conduct, advised, and encouraged--and which held out to him, who should spend a series of years honestly and dutifully in one household, the sure hope of being considered and treated in old age as a humble friend. Persons who breathe habitually the air of a crowded city, where the habits of life are such that the man often knows little more of his master than that master does of his next-door neighbour, will gather instruction as well as pleasure from the glimpses which John Jones's history and lucubrations afford of the interior machinery of life in a yet unsophisticated region of the country. His little complimentary stanzas on the birthdays, and such other festivals of the family--his inscriptions to their neighbour Mrs. Laurence, of Studley Park, and the like, are equally honourable to himself and his benevolent superiors; and the simple purity of his verses of love or gallantry, inspired by village beauties of his own station, may kindle a blush on the cheeks of most of those whose effusions are now warbled over fashionable piano-fortes. The stanzas which first claimed and won the favourable consideration of the poet laureate were these 'To a Robin Red-breast:' "Sweet social bird, with breast of red, How prone's my heart to favour thee! Thy look oblique, thy prying head, Thy gentle affability; "Thy cheerful song in winter's cold, And, when no other lay is heard, Thy visits paid to young and old, Where fear appals each other bird; "Thy friendly heart, thy nature mild, Thy meekness and docility, Creep to the love of man and child, And win thine own felicity. "The gleanings of the sumptuous board, Convey'd by some indulgent fair, Are in a nook of safety stored, And not dispensed till thou art there.