No More Learning

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LXV.


TO WILLIAM NICOL, ESQ.

[The charm which Dumfries threw over the poet, seems to have dissolved
like a spell, when he sat down in Ellisland: he spoke, for a time,
with little respect of either place or people. ]

_Mauchline, June 18, 1787. _

MY DEAR FRIEND,

I am now arrived safe in my native country, after a very agreeable
jaunt, and have the pleasure to find all my friends well. I
breakfasted with your gray-headed, reverend friend, Mr. Smith; and was
highly pleased both with the cordial welcome he gave me, and his most
excellent appearance and sterling good sense.

I have been with Mr. Miller at Dalswinton, and am to meet him again in
August. From my view of the lands, and his reception of my bardship,
my hopes in that business are rather mended; but still they are but
slender.

I am quite charmed with Dumfries folks--Mr. Burnside, the clergyman,
in particular, is a man whom I shall ever gratefully remember; and his
wife, Gude forgie me! I had almost broke the tenth commandment on her
account. Simplicity, elegance, good sense, sweetness of disposition,
good humour, kind hospitality are the constituents of her manner and
heart; in short--but if I say one word more about her, I shall be
directly in love with her.

I never, my friend, thought mankind very capable of anything generous;
but the stateliness of the patricians in Edinburgh, and the servility
of my plebeian brethren (who perhaps formerly eyed me askance) since I
returned home, have nearly put me out of conceit altogether with my
species.
I have bought a pocket Milton, which I carry perpetually
about with me, in order to study the sentiments--the dauntless
magnanimity, the intrepid, unyielding independence, the desperate
daring, and noble defiance of hardship, in that great personage,
SATAN. 'Tis true, I have just now a little cash; but I am
afraid the star that hitherto has shed its malignant, purpose-blasting
rays full in my zenith; that noxious planet so baneful in its
influences to the rhyming tribe, I much dread it is not yet beneath my
horizon. --Misfortune dodges the path of human life; the poetic mind
finds itself miserably deranged in, and unfit for the walks of
business; add to all, that thoughtless follies and hare-brained whims,
like so many _ignes fatui_, eternally diverging from the right line of
sober discretion, sparkle with step-bewitching blaze in the
idly-gazing eyes of the poor heedless bard, till, pop, "he falls like
Lucifer, never to hope again. " God grant this may be an unreal picture
with respect to me! but should it not, I have very little dependence
on mankind. I will close my letter with this tribute my heart bids me
pay you--the many ties of acquaintance and friendship which I have, or
think I have in life, I have felt along the lines, and, damn them,
they are almost all of them of such frail contexture, that I am sure
they would not stand the breath of the least adverse breeze of
fortune; but from you, my ever dear Sir, I look with confidence for
the apostolic love that shall wait on me "through good report and bad
report"--the love which Solomon emphatically says "is strong as
death. " My compliments to Mrs. Nicol, and all the circle of our common
friends.

P. S. I shall be in Edinburgh about the latter end of July.

R. B.

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LXVI.


TO MR. JAMES CANDLISH.