FIRST EPISTLE
TO ROBERT GRAHAM, ESQ.
OF FINTRAY.
[In his manuscript copy of this Epistle the poet says "accompanying a
request." What the request was the letter which enclosed it relates.
Graham was one of the leading men of the Excise in Scotland, and had
promised Burns a situation as exciseman: for this the poet had
qualified himself; and as he began to dread that farming would be
unprofitable, he wrote to remind his patron of his promise, and
requested to be appointed to a division in his own neighbourhood. He
was appointed in due time: his division was extensive, and included
ten parishes.]
When Nature her great master-piece designed,
And fram'd her last, best work, the human mind,
Her eye intent on all the mazy plan,
She form'd of various parts the various man.
Then first she calls the useful many forth;
Plain plodding industry, and sober worth:
Thence peasants, farmers, native sons of earth,
And merchandise' whole genus take their birth:
Each prudent cit a warm existence finds,
And all mechanics' many-apron'd kinds.
Some other rarer sorts are wanted yet,
The lead and buoy are needful to the net;
The _caput mortuum_ of gross desires
Makes a material for mere knights and squires;
The martial phosphorus is taught to flow,
She kneads the lumpish philosophic dough,
Then marks th' unyielding mass with grave designs,
Law, physic, politics, and deep divines:
Last, she sublimes th' Aurora of the poles,
The flashing elements of female souls.
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