I return to
Mauchline
in about ten days.
Robert Forst
* * * * *
CXXVI.
TO MR. GEORGE LOCKHART,
MERCHANT, GLASGOW.
[Burns, more than any poet of the age, loved to write out copies of
his favourite poems, and present them to his friends: he sent "The
Falls of Bruar" to Mr. Lockhart. ]
_Mauchline, 18th July, 1788. _
MY DEAR SIR,
I am just going for Nithsdale, else I would certainly have transcribed
some of my rhyming things for you. The Miss Baillies I have seen in
Edinburgh. "Fair and lovely are thy works, Lord God Almighty! Who
would not praise thee for these thy gifts in thy goodness to the sons
of men! " It needed not your fine taste to admire them. I declare, one
day I had the honour of dining at Mr. Baillie's, I was almost in the
predicament of the children of Israel, when they could not look on
Moses' face for the glory that shone in it when he descended from
Mount Sinai.
I did once write a poetic address from the Falls of Bruar to his Grace
of Athole, when I was in the Highlands. When you return to Scotland,
let me know, and I will send such of my pieces as please myself best.
I return to Mauchline in about ten days.
My compliments to Mr. Purdon. I am in truth, but at present in haste,
Yours,--R. B.
* * * * *
CXXVII.
TO MR. PETER HILL.
[Peter Hill was a bookseller in Edinburgh: David Ramsay, printer of
the Evening Courant: William Dunbar, an advocate, and president of a
club of Edinburgh wits; and Alexander Cunningham, a jeweller, who
loved mirth and wine. ]
MY DEAR HILL,
I shall say nothing to your mad present--you have so long and often
been of important service to me, and I suppose you mean to go on
conferring obligations until I shall not be able to lift up my face
before you. In the mean time, as Sir Roger de Coverley, because it
happened to be a cold day in which he made his will, ordered his
servants great coats for mourning, so, because I have been this week
plagued with an indigestion, I have sent you by the carrier a fine old
ewe-milk cheese.
Indigestion is the devil: nay, 'tis the devil and all. It besets a man
in every one of his senses. I lose my appetite at the sight of
successful knavery, and sicken to loathing at the noise and nonsense
of self-important folly. When the hollow-hearted wretch takes me by
the hand, the feeling spoils my dinner: the proud man's wine so
offends my palate that it chokes me in the gullet; and the
_pulvilised_, feathered, pert coxcomb is so disgustful in my nostril
that my stomach turns.
If ever you have any of these disagreeable sensations, let me
prescribe for you patience; and a bit of my cheese.
