No More Learning

"

I had been for some days skulking from covert to covert, under all the
terrors of a jail; as some ill-advised people had uncoupled the
merciless pack of the law at my heels. I had taken the last farewell
of my few friends; my chest was on the road to Greenock; I had
composed the last song I should ever measure in Caledonia--"The gloomy
night is gathering fast," when a letter from Dr. Blacklock to a friend
of mine, overthrew all my schemes, by opening new prospects to my
poetic ambition. The doctor belonged to a set of critics for whose
applause I had not dared to hope. His opinion, that I would meet with
encouragement in Edinburgh for a second edition, fired me so much,
that away I posted for that city, without a single acquaintance, or a
single letter of introduction. The baneful star that had so long shed
its blasting influence in my zenith, for once made a revolution to the
nadir; and a kind Providence placed me under the patronage of one of
the noblest of men, the Earl of Glencairn. _Oublie-moi, grand Dieu, si
jamais je l'oublie! _

I need relate no farther. At Edinburgh I was in a new world; I mingled
among many classes of men, but all of them new to me, and I was all
attention to "catch" the characters and "the manners living as they
rise. " Whether I have profited, time will show.

* * * * *

My most respectful compliments to Miss Williams. Her very elegant and
friendly letter I cannot answer at present, as my presence is
requisite in Edinburgh, and I set out to-morrow.

R. B.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 175: Idiot for idiotic.
]

[Footnote 176: Paradise Lost, b. iv]

[Footnote 177: "Rob the Rhymer's Welcome to his Bastard Child. "--See
Poem XXXIII. ]

* * * * *




LXXV.


TO ROBERT AINSLIE, ESQ. ,

BERRYWELL DUNSE.

[This characteristic letter was first published by Sir Harris Nichols;
others, still more characteristic, addressed to the same gentleman,
are abroad: how they escaped from private keeping is a sort of a
riddle. ]

_Edinburgh, 23d August_, 1787.

"As I gaed up to Dunse
To warp a pickle yarn,
Robin, silly body,
He gat me wi' bairn. "

From henceforth, my dear Sir, I am determined to set off with my
letters like the periodical writers, viz. prefix a kind of text,
quoted from some classic of undoubted authority, such as the author of
the immortal piece, of which my text is part. What I have to say on my
text is exhausted in a letter which I wrote you the other day, before
I had the pleasure of receiving yours from Inverkeithing; and sure
never was anything more lucky, as I have but the time to write this,
that Mr. Nicol, on the opposite side of the table, takes to correct a
proof-sheet of a thesis. They are gabbling Latin so loud that I cannot
hear what my own soul is saying in my own skull, so I must just give
you a matter-of-fact sentence or two, and end, if time permit, with a
verse de rei generatione. To-morrow I leave Edinburgh in a chaise;
Nicol thinks it more comfortable than horseback, to which I say, Amen;
so Jenny Geddes goes home to Ayrshire, to use a phrase of my mother's,
wi' her finger in her mouth.

Now for a modest verse of classical authority:

The cats like kitchen;
The dogs like broo;
The lasses like the lads weel,
And th' auld wives too.