No More Learning

I have the honour to be,

My lady,

Your ladyship's obliged and obedient

Humble servant,

R. B.

* * * * *




CLXXIX.


TO PROVOST MAXWELL,

OF LOCHMABEN.

[Of Lochmaben, the "Marjory of the mony Lochs" of the election
ballads, Maxwell was at this time provost, a post more of honour than
of labour. ]

_Ellisland, 20th December, 1789. _

DEAR PROVOST,

As my friend Mr. Graham goes for your good town to-morrow, I cannot
resist the temptation to send you a few lines, and as I have nothing
to say I have chosen this sheet of foolscap, and begun as you see at
the top of the first page, because I have ever observed, that when
once people have fairly set out they know not where to stop. Now that
my first sentence is concluded, I have nothing to do but to pray
heaven to help me on to another. Shall I write you on Politics or
Religion, two master subjects for your sayers of nothing. Of the first
I dare say by this time you are nearly surfeited: and for the last,
whatever they may talk of it, who make it a kind of company concern, I
never could endure it beyond a soliloquy. I might write you on
farming, on building, or marketing, but my poor distracted mind is so
torn, so jaded, so racked and bediveled with the task of the
superlative damned to make _one guinea do the business of three_, that
I detest, abhor, and swoon at the very word business, though no less
than four letters of my very short sirname are in it.

Well, to make the matter short, I shall betake myself to a subject
ever fruitful of themes; a subject the turtle-feast of the sons of
Satan, and the delicious secret sugar-plum of the babes of grace--a
subject sparkling with all the jewels that wit can find in the mines
of genius: and pregnant with all the stores of learning from Moses and
Confucius to Franklin and Priestley--in short, may it please your
Lordship, I intend to write * * *

[_Here the Poet inserted a song which can only be sung at times when
the punch-bowl has done its duty and wild wit is set free. _]

If at any time you expect a field-day in your town, a day when Dukes,
Earls, and Knights pay their court to weavers, tailors, and cobblers,
I should like to know of it two or three days beforehand. It is not
that I care three skips of a cur dog for the politics, but I should
like to see such an exhibition of human nature.
If you meet with that
worthy old veteran in religion and good-fellowship, Mr. Jeffrey, or
any of his amiable family, I beg you will give them my best
compliments.

R. B.

* * * * *




CLXXX.


TO SIR JOHN SINCLAIR.

[Of the Monkland Book-Club alluded to in this letter, the clergyman
had omitted all mention in his account of the Parish of Dunscore,
published in Sir John Sinclair's work: some of the books which the
poet introduced were stigmatized as vain and frivolous. ]

1790.

SIR,

The following circumstance has, I believe, been committed in the
statistical account, transmitted to you of the parish of Dunscore, in
Nithsdale. I beg leave to send it to you because it is new, and may be
useful. How far it is deserving of a place in your patriotic
publication, you are the best judge.

To store the minds of the lower classes with useful knowledge, is
certainly of very great importance, both to them as individuals and to
society at large. Giving them a turn for reading and reflection, is
giving them a source of innocent and laudable amusement: and besides,
raises them to a more dignified degree in the scale of rationality.
Impressed with this idea, a gentleman in this parish, Robert Riddel,
Esq. , of Glenriddel, set on foot a species of circulating library, on
a plan so simple as to be practicable in any corner of the country;
and so useful, as to deserve the notice of every country gentleman,
who thinks the improvement of that part of his own species, whom
chance has thrown into the humble walks of the peasant and the
artisan, a matter worthy of his attention.

Mr.