No More Learning

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XI.


TO MISS ----.

[This has generally been printed among the early letters of Burns.
Cromek thinks that the person addressed was the "Peggy" of the
Common-place Book. This is questioned by Robert Chambers, who,
however, leaves both name and date unsettled. ]

MY DEAR COUNTRYWOMAN,

I am so impatient to show you that I am once more at peace with you,
that I send you the book I mentioned directly, rather than wait the
uncertain time of my seeing you. I am afraid I have mislaid or lost
Collins' Poems, which I promised to Miss Irvin. If I can find them, I
will forward them by you; if not, you must apologize for me.

I know you will laugh at it when I tell you that your piano and you
together have played the deuce somehow about my heart. My breast has
been widowed these many months, and I thought myself proof against the
fascinating witchcraft; but I am afraid you will "feelingly convince
me what I am. " I say, I am afraid, because I am not sure what is the
matter with me. I have one miserable bad symptom; when you whisper, or
look kindly to another, it gives me a draught of damnation. I have a
kind of wayward wish to be with you ten minutes by yourself, though
what I would say, Heaven above knows, for I am sure I know not. I have
no formed design in all this; but just, in the nakedness of my heart,
write you down a mere matter-of-fact story. You may perhaps give
yourself airs of distance on this, and that will completely cure me;
but I wish you would not: just let us meet, if you please, in the old
beaten way of friendship.
I will not subscribe myself your humble servant, for that is a phrase,
I think at least fifty miles off from the heart; but I will conclude
with sincerely wishing that the Great Protector of innocence may
shield you from the barbed dart of calumny, and hand you by the covert
snare of deceit.

R. B.

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XII.


TO MR. JOHN RICHMOND,

OF EDINBURGH.

[John Richmond, writer, one of the poet's Mauchline friends, to whom
we are indebted for much valuable information concerning Burns and his
productions--Connel was the Mauchline carrier. ]

_Mossgiel, Feb. _ 17, 1786.

MY DEAR SIR,

I have not time at present to upbraid you for your silence and
neglect; I shall only say I received yours with great pleasure. I have
enclosed you a piece of rhyming ware for your perusal. I have been
very busy with the muses since I saw you, and have composed, among
several others, "The Ordination," a poem on Mr. M'Kinlay's being
called to Kilmarnock; "Scotch Drink," a poem; "The Cotter's Saturday
Night;" "An Address to the Devil," &c. I have likewise completed my
poem on the "Dogs," but have not shown it to the world. My chief
patron now is Mr. Aiken, in Ayr, who is pleased to express great
approbation of my works.