No More Learning

I have sent you four copies, as I have no less than eight dozen, which
is a great deal more than I shall ever need.

Be sure to remember a poor poet militant in your prayers. He looks
forward with fear and trembling to that, to him, important moment
which stamps the die with--with--with, perhaps, the eternal disgrace
of,

My dear Sir,

Your humble,

afflicted, tormented,

ROBERT BURNS.

* * * * *




XVII.


TO MR. JOHN KENNEDY.

["The small piece," the very last of his productions, which the poet
enclosed in this letter, was "The Mountain Daisy," called in the
manuscript more properly "The Gowan. "]

_Mossgiel, 20th April, 1786. _

SIR,

By some neglect in Mr. Hamilton, I did not hear of your kind request
for a subscription paper 'till this day. I will not attempt any
acknowledgment for this, nor the manner in which I see your name in
Mr. Hamilton's subscription list. Allow me only to say, Sir, I feel
the weight of the debt.

I have here likewise enclosed a small piece, the very latest of my
productions. I am a good deal pleased with some sentiments myself, as
they are just the native querulous feelings of a heart, which, as the
elegantly melting Gray says, "melancholy has marked for her own.
"

Our race comes on a-pace; that much-expected scene of revelry and
mirth; but to me it brings no joy equal to that meeting with which
your last flattered the expectation of,

Sir,

Your indebted humble servant,

R. B.

* * * * *




XVIII.


TO MON. JAMES SMITH,

MAUCHLINE.

[James Smith, of whom Burns said he was small of stature, but large of
soul, kept at that time a draper's shop in Mauchline, and was comrade
to the poet in many a wild adventure. ]

_Monday Morning, Mossgiel, 1786. _

MY DEAR SIR,

I went to Dr. Douglas yesterday, fully resolved to take the
opportunity of Captain Smith: but I found the Doctor with a Mr. and
Mrs. White, both Jamaicans, and they have deranged my plans
altogether. They assure him that to send me from Savannah la Mar to
Port Antonio will cost my master, Charles Douglas, upwards of fifty
pounds; besides running the risk of throwing myself into a pleuritic
fever, in consequence of hard travelling in the sun. On these
accounts, he refuses sending me with Smith, but a vessel sails from
Greenock the first of September, right for the place of my
destination. The Captain of her is an intimate friend of Mr. Gavin
Hamilton's, and as good a fellow as heart could wish: with him I am
destined to go. Where I shall shelter, I know not, but I hope to
weather the storm.