No More Learning

--On the contrary, our
enemies, to complete our overthrow, contrived to make their guilt
appear the villany of a nation. --Your downfall only drags with you
your private friends and partisans: in our misery are more or less
involved the most numerous and most valuable part of the
community--all those who immediately depend on the cultivation of the
soil, from the landlord of a province, down to his lowest hind.

Allow us, Sir, yet further, just to hint at another rich vein of
comfort in the dreary regions of adversity;--the gratulations of an
approving conscience. In a certain great assembly, of which you are a
distinguished member, panegyrics on your private virtues have so often
wounded your delicacy, that we shall not distress you with anything on
the subject. There is, however, one part of your public conduct which
our feelings will not permit us to pass in silence: our gratitude must
trespass on your modesty; we mean, worthy Sir, your whole behaviour to
the Scots Distillers. --In evil hours, when obtrusive recollection
presses bitterly on the sense, let that, Sir, come like an healing
angel, and speak the peace to your soul which the world can neither
give nor take away.

We have the honour to be,

Sir,

Your sympathizing fellow-sufferers,

And grateful humble servants,

JOHN BARLEYCORN--Praeses.

* * * * *




CCCXXVII.


TO THE HON. PROVOST, BAILIES, AND

TOWN COUNCIL OF DUMFRIES.

[The Provost and Bailies complied at once with the modest request of
the poet: both Jackson and Staig, who were heads of the town by turns,
were men of taste and feeling. ]

GENTLEMEN,

The literary taste and liberal spirit of your good town has so ably
filled the various departments of your schools, as to make it a very
great object for a parent to have his children educated in them.
Still, to me, a stranger, with my large family, and very stinted
income, to give my young ones that education I wish, at the high fees
which a stranger pays, will bear hard upon me.

Some years ago your good town did me the honour of making me an
honorary burgess. --Will you allow me to request that this mark of
distinction may extend so far, as to put me on a footing of a real
freeman of the town, in the schools?
If you are so very kind as to grant my request, it will certainly be a
constant incentive to me to strain every nerve where I can officially
serve you; and will, if possible, increase that grateful respect with
which I have the honour to be,

Gentlemen,

Your devoted humble servant,

R. B.

* * * * *




CCCXXVIII.


TO MRS. RIDDEL.

[Mrs. Riddel was, like Burns, a well-wisher to the great cause of
human liberty, and lamented with him the excesses of the French
Revolution. ]

_Dumfries, 20th January, 1796. _

I cannot express my gratitude to you, for allowing me a longer perusal
of "Anacharsis. " In fact, I never met with a book that bewitched me so
much; and I, as a member of the library, must warmly feel the
obligation you have laid us under. Indeed to me the obligation is
stronger than to any other individual of our society; as "Anacharsis"
is an indispensable desideratum to a son of the muses.

The health you wished me in your morning's card, is, I think, flown
from me for ever. I have not been able to leave my bed to-day till
about an hour ago. These wickedly unlucky advertisements I lent (I did
wrong) to a friend, and I am ill able to go in quest of him.

The muses have not quite forsaken me. The following detached stanza I
intend to interweave in some disastrous tale of a shepherd.