No More Learning

[The young lady to whom the poet alludes in this letter, was very
beautiful, and very proud: it is said she gave him a specimen of both
her temper and her pride, when he touched on the subject of love. ]

_June 30, 1787. _

MY DEAR FRIEND,

On our return, at a Highland gentleman's hospitable mansion, we fell
in with a merry party, and danced till the ladies left us, at three in
the morning. Our dancing was none of the French or English insipid
formal movements; the ladies sung Scotch songs like angels, at
intervals; then we flew at Bab at the Bowster, Tullochgorum, Loch
Erroch Side, &c. , like midges sporting in the mottie sun, or craws
prognosticating a storm in a hairst day. --When the dear lasses left
us, we ranged round the bowl till the good-fellow hour of six; except
a few minutes that we went out to pay our devotions to the glorious
lamp of day peering over the towering top of Benlomond. We all
kneeled; our worthy landlord's son held the bowl; each man a full
glass in his hand; and I, as priest, repeated some rhyming nonsense,
like Thomas-a-Rhymer's prophecies I suppose. --After a small
refreshment of the gifts of Somnus, we proceeded to spend the day on
Lochlomond, and reach Dumbarton in the evening. We dined at another
good fellow's house, and consequently, pushed the bottle; when we went
out to mount our horses, we found ourselves "No vera fou but gaylie
yet. " My two friends and I rode soberly down the Loch side, till by
came a Highlandman at the gallop, on a tolerably good horse, but which
had never known the ornaments of iron or leather. We scorned to be
out-galloped by a Highlandman, so off we started, whip and spur. My
companions, though seemingly gaily mounted, fell sadly astern; but my
old mare, Jenny Geddes, one of the Rosinante family, she strained past
the Highlandman in spite of all his efforts with the hair halter; just
as I was passing him, Donald wheeled his horse, as if to cross before
me to mar my progress, when down came his horse, and threw his rider's
breekless a----e in a clipt hedge; and down came Jenny Geddes over
all, and my bardship between her and the Highlandman's horse. Jenny
Geddes trode over me with such cautious reverence, that matters were
not so bad as might well have been expected; so I came off with a few
cuts and bruises, and a thorough resolution to be a pattern of
sobriety for the future.

I have yet fixed on nothing with respect to the serious business of
life. I am, just as usual, a rhyming, mason-making, raking, aimless,
idle fellow.
However, I shall somewhere have a farm soon. I was going
to say, a wife too; but that must never be my blessed lot. I am but a
younger son of the house of Parnassus, and like other younger sons of
great families, I may intrigue, if I choose to run all risks, but must
not marry.

I am afraid I have almost ruined one source, the principal one,
indeed, of my former happiness; that eternal propensity I always had
to fall in love. My heart no more glows with feverish rapture. I have
no paradisaical evening interviews, stolen from the restless cares and
prying inhabitants of this weary world. I have only * * * *. This last
is one of your distant acquaintances, has a fine figure, and elegant
manners; and in the train of some great folks whom you know, has seen,
the politest quarters in Europe. I do like her a good deal; but what
piques me is her conduct at the commencement of our acquaintance. I
frequently visited her when I was in ----, and after passing regularly
the intermediate degrees between the distant formal bow and the
familiar grasp round the waist, I ventured, in my careless way, to
talk of friendship in rather ambiguous terms; and after her return
to ----, I wrote to her in the same style. Miss, construing my words
farther I suppose than even I intended, flew off in a tangent of
female dignity and reserve, like a mounting lark in an April morning;
and wrote me an answer which measured me out very completely what an
immense way I had to travel before I could reach the climate of her
favour. But I am an old hawk at the sport, and wrote her such a cool,
deliberate, prudent reply, as brought my bird from her aerial
towerings, pop, down at my foot, like Corporal Trim's hat.

As for the rest of my acts, and my wars, and all my wise sayings, and
why my mare was called Jenny Geddes, they shall be recorded in a few
weeks hence at Linlithgow, in the chronicles of your memory, by

R. B.

* * * * *




LXXI.


TO MR.