I will pay the
sapientipotent
George, most cheerfully, to hear from
you ere I leave Ayrshire.
you ere I leave Ayrshire.
Robert Forst
It was dated the very day he had
received mine; and I am quite at a loss to say whether it was most
polite or kind.
Your criticisms, my honoured benefactress, are truly the work of a
friend. They are not the blasting depredations of a canker-toothed,
caterpillar critic; nor are they the fair statement of cold
impartiality, balancing with unfeeling exactitude the _pro_ and _con_
of an author's merits; they are the judicious observations of animated
friendship, selecting the beauties of the piece. I have just arrived
from Nithsdale, and will be here a fortnight. I was on horseback this
morning by three o'clock; for between my wife and my farm is just
forty-six miles. As I jogged on in the dark, I was taken with a poetic
fit as follows:
"Mrs. Ferguson of Craigdarroch's lamentation for the death of her son;
an uncommonly promising youth of eighteen or nineteen years of age. "
"Fate gave the word--the arrow sped,
And pierced my darling's heart. "[190]
You will not send me your poetic rambles, but, you see I am no niggard
of mine. I am sure your impromptus give me double pleasure; what falls
from your pen can neither be unentertaining in itself, nor indifferent
to me.
The one fault you found, is just; but I cannot please myself in an
emendation.
What a life of solicitude is the life of a parent! You interested me
much in your young couple.
I would not take my folio paper for this epistle, and now I repent it.
I am so jaded with my dirty long journey that I was afraid to drawl
into the essence of dulness with anything larger than a quarto, and
so I must leave out another rhyme of this morning's manufacture.
I will pay the sapientipotent George, most cheerfully, to hear from
you ere I leave Ayrshire.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 190: Poem XCII. ]
* * * * *
CXXXVII.
TO MR. PETER HILL.
["The 'Address to Lochlomond,' which this letter criticises," says
Currie in 1800, "was written by a gentleman, now one of the masters of
the High-school of Edinburgh, and the same who translated the
beautiful story of 'The Paria,' published in the Bee of Dr.
Anderson. "]
_Mauchline, 1st October, 1788. _
I have been here in this country about three days, and all that time
my chief reading has been the "Address to Lochlomond" you were so
obliging as to send to me. Were I impannelled one of the author's
jury, to determine his criminality respecting the sin of poesy, my
verdict should be "guilty! a poet of nature's making! ". It is an
excellent method for improvement, and what I believe every poet does,
to place some favourite classic author in his own walks of study and
composition, before him as a model. Though your author had not
mentioned the name, I could have, at half a glance, guessed his model
to be Thomson.
received mine; and I am quite at a loss to say whether it was most
polite or kind.
Your criticisms, my honoured benefactress, are truly the work of a
friend. They are not the blasting depredations of a canker-toothed,
caterpillar critic; nor are they the fair statement of cold
impartiality, balancing with unfeeling exactitude the _pro_ and _con_
of an author's merits; they are the judicious observations of animated
friendship, selecting the beauties of the piece. I have just arrived
from Nithsdale, and will be here a fortnight. I was on horseback this
morning by three o'clock; for between my wife and my farm is just
forty-six miles. As I jogged on in the dark, I was taken with a poetic
fit as follows:
"Mrs. Ferguson of Craigdarroch's lamentation for the death of her son;
an uncommonly promising youth of eighteen or nineteen years of age. "
"Fate gave the word--the arrow sped,
And pierced my darling's heart. "[190]
You will not send me your poetic rambles, but, you see I am no niggard
of mine. I am sure your impromptus give me double pleasure; what falls
from your pen can neither be unentertaining in itself, nor indifferent
to me.
The one fault you found, is just; but I cannot please myself in an
emendation.
What a life of solicitude is the life of a parent! You interested me
much in your young couple.
I would not take my folio paper for this epistle, and now I repent it.
I am so jaded with my dirty long journey that I was afraid to drawl
into the essence of dulness with anything larger than a quarto, and
so I must leave out another rhyme of this morning's manufacture.
I will pay the sapientipotent George, most cheerfully, to hear from
you ere I leave Ayrshire.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 190: Poem XCII. ]
* * * * *
CXXXVII.
TO MR. PETER HILL.
["The 'Address to Lochlomond,' which this letter criticises," says
Currie in 1800, "was written by a gentleman, now one of the masters of
the High-school of Edinburgh, and the same who translated the
beautiful story of 'The Paria,' published in the Bee of Dr.
Anderson. "]
_Mauchline, 1st October, 1788. _
I have been here in this country about three days, and all that time
my chief reading has been the "Address to Lochlomond" you were so
obliging as to send to me. Were I impannelled one of the author's
jury, to determine his criminality respecting the sin of poesy, my
verdict should be "guilty! a poet of nature's making! ". It is an
excellent method for improvement, and what I believe every poet does,
to place some favourite classic author in his own walks of study and
composition, before him as a model. Though your author had not
mentioned the name, I could have, at half a glance, guessed his model
to be Thomson.
