No More Learning

TO CAPTAIN MILLER,

DALSWINTON.

[Captain Miller, of Dalswinton, sat in the House of Commons for the
Dumfries district of boroughs. Dalswinton has passed from the family
to my friend James M'Alpine Leny, Esq. ]

DEAR SIR,

The following ode is on a subject which I know you by no means regard
with indifference. Oh, Liberty,

"Thou mak'st the gloomy face of nature gay,
Giv'st beauty to the sun, and pleasure to the day. "

ADDISON.

It does me so much good to meet with a man whose honest bosom glows
with the generous enthusiasm, the heroic daring of liberty, that I
could not forbear sending you a composition of my own on the subject,
which I really think is in my best manner.

I have the honour to be,

Dear Sir, &c.

R. B.

* * * * *




CCLXXXV.


TO MRS. RIDDEL.

[The dragon guarding the Hesperian fruit, was simply a military
officer, who, with the courtesy of those whose trade is arms, paid
attention to the lady. ]

DEAR MADAM,

I meant to have called on you yesternight, but as I edged up to your
box-door, the first object which greeted my view, was one of those
lobster-coated puppies, sitting like another dragon, guarding the
Hesperian fruit.
On the conditions and capitulations you so obligingly
offer, I shall certainly make my weather-beaten rustic phiz a part of
your box-furniture on Tuesday; when we may arrange the business of the
visit.

Among the profusion of idle compliments, which insidious craft, or
unmeaning folly, incessantly offer at your shrine--a shrine, how far
exalted above such adoration--permit me, were it but for rarity's
sake, to pay you the honest tribute of a warm heart and an independent
mind; and to assure you, that I am, thou most amiable and most
accomplished of thy sex, with the most respectful esteem, and fervent
regard, thine, &c.

R. B.

* * * * *




CCLXXXVI.


TO MRS. RIDDEL.

[The patient sons of order and prudence seem often to have stirred the
poet to such invectives as this letter exhibits. ]

I will wait on you, my ever-valued friend, but whether in the morning
I am not sure. Sunday closes a period of our curst revenue business,
and may probably keep me employed with my pen until noon. Fine
employment for a poet's pen! There is a species of the human genus
that I call _the gin-horse class:_ what enviable dogs they are! Round,
and round, and round they go,--Mundell's ox that drives his
cotton-mill is their exact prototype--without an idea or wish beyond
their circle; fat, sleek, stupid, patient, quiet, and contented; while
here I sit, altogether Novemberish, a d--mn'd melange of fretfulness
and melancholy; not enough of the one to rouse me to passion, nor of
the other to repose me in torpor, my soul flouncing and fluttering
round her tenement, like a wild finch, caught amid the horrors of
winter, and newly thrust into a cage. Well, I am persuaded that it was
of me the Hebrew sage prophesied, when he foretold--"And behold, on
whatsoever this man doth set his heart, it shall not prosper! " If my
resentment is awaked, it is sure to be where it dare not squeak: and
if-- * * * * *

Pray that wisdom and bliss be more frequent visiters of

R. B.