No More Learning

TO MR. JAMES HAMILTON.

[James Hamilton, grocer, in Glasgow, interested himself early in the
fortunes of the poet. ]

_Ellisland, 26th May, 1789. _

DEAR SIR,

I send you by John Glover, carrier, the account for Mr. Turnbull, as I
suppose you know his address.

I would fain offer, my dear Sir, a word of sympathy with your
misfortunes; but it is a tender string, and I know not how to touch
it. It is easy to flourish a set of high-flown sentiments on the
subjects that would give great satisfaction to--a breast quite at
ease; but as ONE observes, who was very seldom mistaken in
the theory of life, "The heart knoweth its own sorrows, and a stranger
intermeddleth not therewith. "

Among some distressful emergencies that I have experienced in life, I
ever laid this down as my foundation of comfort--_That he who has
lived the life of an honest man, has by no means lived in vain! _

With every wish for your welfare and future success,

I am, my dear Sir,

Sincerely yours,

R. B.

* * * * *




CLXIII.


TO WILLIAM CREECH, ESQ.

[The poetic address to the "venomed stang" of the toothache seems to
have come into existence about this time. ]

_Ellisland, 30th May, 1789.
_

SIR,

I had intended to have troubled you with a long letter, but at present
the delightful sensations of an omnipotent toothache so engross all my
inner man, as to put it out of my power even to write nonsense.
However, as in duty bound, I approach my bookseller with an offering
in my hand--a few poetic clinches, and a song:--To expect any other
kind of offering from the Rhyming Tribe would be to know them much
less than you do. I do not pretend that there is much merit in these
_morceaux_, but I have two reasons for sending them; _primo_, they are
mostly ill-natured, so are in unison with my present feelings, while
fifty troops of infernal spirits are driving post from ear to ear
along my jaw-bones; and _secondly_, they are so short, that you cannot
leave off in the middle, and so hurt my pride in the idea that you
found any work of mine too heavy to get through.

I have a request to beg of you, and I not only beg of you, but conjure
you, by all your wishes and by all your hopes, that the muse will
spare the satiric wink in the moment of your foibles; that she will
warble the song of rapture round your hymeneal couch; and that she
will shed on your turf the honest tear of elegiac gratitude! Grant my
request as speedily as possible--send me by the very first fly or
coach for this place three copies of the last edition of my poems,
which place to my account.

Now may the good things of prose, and the good things of verse, come
among thy hands, until they be filled with the _good things of this
life_, prayeth

R. B.

* * * * *




CLXIV.


TO MR. M'AULEY.

[The poet made the acquaintance of Mr. M'Auley, of Dumbarton, in one
of his northern tours,--he was introduced by his friend Kennedy. ]

_Ellisland, 4th June, 1789. _

DEAR SIR,

Though I am not without my fears respecting my fate, at that grand,
universal inquest of right and wrong, commonly called _The Last Day_,
yet I trust there is one sin, which that arch-vagabond, Satan, who I
understand is to be king's evidence, cannot throw in my teeth, I mean
ingratitude. There is a certain pretty large quantum of kindness for
which I remain, and from inability, I fear, must still remain, your
debtor; but though unable to repay the debt, I assure you, Sir, I
shall ever warmly remember the obligation. It gives me the sincerest
pleasure to hear by my old acquaintance, Mr.