preceding year to as many as forty-four. The phenomenal increase is
partly explained by the success of his poems. He became a man that was
worth the knowing, whose correspondence was worth preserving. The six
years of his published correspondence previous to the discovery of his
genius in 1786 are represented by only fourteen letters in all. But in
those years his letters, though both numerous and prized above the
common, were not considered as likely to be of future interest, and were
therefore suffered to live or die as chance might determine. They mostly
perished, the recipients thinking it hardly worth their while to be sae
nice wi' Robin as to preserve them.

After the recognition of his power in 1786, the record of his preserved
letters shews, for the ten years of his literary life, several
fluctuations which admit of easy explanation. Commencing with 1787, the
numbers are:--78, 92, 54, 33, 44, 31, 66, 30, 27, 24. The first of these
years was totally severed from rural occupations, or business of any
kind, if we except the publication of the first Edinburgh edition of his
poems. It was a complete holiday year to him. He was either resident in
Edinburgh, studying men and manners, or touring about the country,
visiting those places which history, song, or scenery had made famous.
Wherever he was, his fame brought him the acquaintance of a great many
new people. His leisure and the novelty of his situation afforded him
both opportunity and subject for an extensive correspondence. For a
large part of the next year, 1788, he was similarly circumstanced, and
the number of his letters was exceptionally increased by his
entanglement with Mrs. M'Lehose. To her alone, in less than three months
of this year, he wrote at least thirty-six letters,--considerably over
one-third of the entire epistolary produce of the year. In 1789 we find
the number of his letters fall to fifty-four. This was, perhaps, the
happiest year of his life. He was now comfortably established as a