No More Learning

[The poet calls for praise in this letter, a species of coin which is
always ready. ]

How cruel are the parents. [280]

Mark yonder pomp of costly fashion. [281]

Well, this is not amiss. You see how I answer your orders--your tailor
could not be more punctual. I am just now in a high fit for poetizing,
provided that the strait-jacket of criticism don't cure me. If you
can, in a post or two, administer a little of the intoxicating potion
of your applause, it will raise your humble servant's phrensy to any
height you want. I am at this moment "holding high converse" with the
muses, and have not a word to throw away on such a prosaic dog as you
are.

R. B.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 280: Song CCLIII. ]

[Footnote 281: Song CCLIV. ]

* * * * *




CCCXIV.


TO MR. THOMSON.
[Thomson at this time sent the drawing to Burns in which David Allan
sought to embody the "Cotter's Saturday Night:" it displays at once
the talent and want of taste of the ingenious artist. ]

_May, 1795. _

Ten thousand thanks for your elegant present--though I am ashamed of
the value of it, being bestowed on a man who has not, by any means,
merited such an instance of kindness. I have shown it to two or three
judges of the first abilities here, and they all agree with me in
classing it as a first-rate production. My phiz is sae kenspeckle,
that the very joiner's apprentice, whom Mrs. Burns employed to break
up the parcel (I was out of town that day) knew it at once. My most
grateful compliments to Allan, who has honoured my rustic music so
much with his masterly pencil. One strange coincidence is, that the
little one who is making the felonious attempt on the cat's tail, is
the most striking likeness of an ill-deedie, d--n'd, wee,
rumblegairie urchin of mine, whom from that propensity to witty
wickedness, and man-fu' mischief, which, even at twa days auld, I
foresaw would form the striking features of his disposition, I named
Willie Nicol, after a certain friend of mine, who is one of the
masters of a grammar-school in a city which shall be nameless.

Give the enclosed epigram to my much-valued friend Cunningham, and
tell him, that on Wednesday I go to visit a friend of his, to whom his
friendly partiality in speaking of me in a manner introduced me--I
mean a well-known military and literary character, Colonel Dirom.

You do not tell me how you liked my two last songs. Are they
condemned?

R. B.

* * * * *




CCCXV.


TO MR. THOMSON.