No More Learning

But, my dear Sir, little ones that look up to you for paternal
protection are an important charge. I have already two fine, healthy,
stout little fellows, and I wish to throw some light upon them. I have
a thousand reveries and schemes about them, and their future destiny.
Not that I am a Utopian projector in these things. I am resolved never
to breed up a son of mine to any of the learned professions. I know
the value of independence; and since I cannot give my sons an
independent fortune, I shall give them an independent line of life.
What a chaos of hurry, chance, and changes is this world, when one
sits soberly down to reflect on it! To a father, who himself knows the
world, the thought that he shall have sons to usher into it must fill
him with dread; but if he have daughters, the prospect in a thoughtful
moment is apt to shock him.

I hope Mrs. Fordyce and the two young ladies are well. Do let me
forget that they are nieces of yours, and let me say that I never saw
a more interesting, sweeter pair of sisters in my life. I am the fool
of my feelings and attachments. I often take up a volume of my Spenser
to realize you to my imagination, and think over the social scenes we
have had together. God grant that there may be another world more
congenial to honest fellows beyond this. A world where these rubs and
plagues of absence, distance, misfortunes, ill-health, &c.
, shall no
more damp hilarity and divide friendship. This I know is your throng
season, but half a page will much oblige,

My dear Sir,

Yours sincerely,

R. B.

* * * * *




CLXXXV.


TO MRS. DUNLOP.

[Falconer, the poet, whom Burns mentions here, perished in the Aurora,
in which he acted as purser: he was a satirist of no mean power, and
wrote that useful work, the Marine Dictionary: but his fame depends
upon "The Shipwreck," one of the most original and mournful poems in
the language. ]

_Ellisland, 25th January, 1790. _

It has been owing to unremitting hurry of business that I have not
written to you, Madam, long ere now. My health is greatly better, and
I now begin once more to share in satisfaction and enjoyment with the
rest of my fellow-creatures.

Many thanks, my much-esteemed friend, for your kind letters; but why
will you make me run the risk of being contemptible and mercenary in
my own eyes? When I pique myself on my independent spirit, I hope it
is neither poetic license, nor poetic rant; and I am so flattered with
the honour you have done me, in making me your compeer in friendship
and friendly correspondence, that I cannot without pain, and a degree
of mortification, be reminded of the real inequality between our
situations.

Most sincerely do I rejoice with you, dear Madam, in the good news of
Anthony. Not only your anxiety about his fate, but my own esteem for
such a noble, warm-hearted, manly young fellow, in the little I had of
his acquaintance, has interested me deeply in his fortunes.

Falconer, the unfortunate author of the "Shipwreck," which you so much
admire, is no more. After witnessing the dreadful catastrophe he so
feelingly describes in his poem, and after weathering many hard gales
of fortune, he went to the bottom with the Aurora frigate!