No More Learning

I will make no
apology for presenting you with a few unconnected thoughts that
occurred to me in my repeated perusals of your poem. I want to show
you that I have honesty enough to tell you what I take to be truths,
even when they are not quite on the side of approbation; and I do it
in the firm faith that you have equal greatness of mind to hear them
with pleasure.

I had lately the honour of a letter from Dr. Moore, where he tells me
that he has sent me some books: they are not yet come to hand, but I
hear they are on the way.

Wishing you all success in your progress in the path of fame; and that
you may equally escape the danger of stumbling through incautious
speed, or losing ground through loitering neglect.

R. B.

* * * * *




CLXX.


TO MR. JOHN LOGAN.

[The Kirk's Alarm, to which this letter alludes, has little of the
spirit of malice and drollery, so rife in his earlier controversial
compositions. ]

_Ellisland, near Dumfries, 7th Aug. 1789. _

DEAR SIR,

I intended to have written you long ere now, and as I told you, I had
gotten three stanzas and a half on my way in a poetic epistle to you;
but that old enemy of all _good works_, the devil, threw me into a
prosaic mire, and for the soul of me I cannot get out of it. I dare
not write you a long letter, as I am going to intrude on your time
with a long ballad.
I have, as you will shortly see, finished "The
Kirk's Alarm;" but now that it is done, and that I have laughed once
or twice at the conceits in some of the stanzas, I am determined not
to let it get into the public; so I send you this copy, the first that
I have sent to Ayrshire, except some few of the stanzas, which I wrote
off in embryo for Gavin Hamilton, under the express provision and
request that you will only read it to a few of us, and do not on any
account give, or permit to be taken, any copy of the ballad. If I
could be of any service to Dr. M'Gill, I would do it, though it should
be at a much greater expense than irritating a few bigoted priests,
but I am afraid serving him in his present _embarras_ is a task too
hard for me. I have enemies enow, God knows, though I do not wantonly
add to the number. Still as I think there is some merit in two or
three of the thoughts, I send it to you as a small, but sincere
testimony how much, and with what respectful esteem,

I am, dear Sir,

Your obliged humble servant,

R. B.

* * * * *




CLXXI.


TO MRS. DUNLOP.

[The poetic epistle of worthy Janet Little was of small account: nor
was the advice of Dr. Moore, to abandon the Scottish stanza and
dialect, and adopt the measure and language of modern English poetry,
better inspired than the strains of the milkmaid, for such was Jenny
Little. ]

_Ellisland, 6th Sept. , 1789. _

DEAR MADAM,

I have mentioned in my last my appointment to the Excise, and the
birth of little Frank; who, by the bye, I trust will be no discredit
to the honourable name of Wallace, as he has a fine manly countenance,
and a figure that might do credit to a little fellow two months older;
and likewise an excellent good temper, though when he pleases he has a
pipe, only not quite so loud as the horn that his immortal namesake
blew as a signal to take out the pin of Stirling bridge.

I had some time ago an epistle, part poetic, and part prosaic, from
your poetess, Mrs. J.