No More Learning

TO BISHOP GEDDES.

[Alexander Geddes was a controversialist and poet, and a bishop of the
broken remnant of the Catholic Church of Scotland: he is known as the
author of a very humorous ballad called "The Wee bit Wifickie," and as
the translator of one of the books of the Iliad, in opposition to
Cowper. ]

_Ellisland, 3d Feb. 1789. _

VENERABLE FATHER,

As I am conscious that wherever I am, you do me the honour to interest
yourself in my welfare, it gives me pleasure to inform you that I am
here at last, stationary in the serious business of life, and have now
not only the retired leisure, but the hearty inclination, to attend to
those great and important questions--what I am? where I am? and for
what I am destined?

In that first concern, the conduct of the man, there was ever but one
side on which I was habitually blameable, and there I have secured
myself in the way pointed out by Nature and Nature's God. I was
sensible that to so helpless a creature as a poor poet, a wife and
family were encumbrances, which a species of prudence would bid him
shun; but when the alternative was, being at eternal warfare with
myself, on account of habitual follies, to give them no worse name,
which no general example, no licentious wit, no sophistical
infidelity, would, to me, ever justify, I must have been a fool to
have hesitated, and a madman to have made another choice. Besides, I
had in "my Jean" a long and much-loved fellow-creature's happiness or
misery among my hands, and who could trifle with such a deposit?

In the affair of a livelihood, I think myself tolerably secure: I have
good hopes of my farm, but should they fail, I have an excise
commission, which on my simple petition, will, at any time, procure me
bread. There is a certain stigma affixed to the character of an Excise
officer, but I do not pretend to borrow honour from my profession; and
though the salary be comparatively small, it is luxury to anything
that the first twenty-five years of my life taught me to expect.

Thus, with a rational aim and method in life, you may easily guess, my
reverend and much-honoured friend, that my characteristical trade is
not forgotten. I am, if possible, more than over an enthusiast to the
muses. I am determined to study man and nature, and in that view
incessantly; and to try if the ripening and corrections of years can
enable me to produce something worth preserving.
You will see in your book, which I beg your pardon for detaining so
long, that I have been tuning my lyre on the banks of Nith. Some large
poetic plans that are floating in my imagination, or partly put in
execution, I shall impart to you when I have the pleasure of meeting
with you; which, if you are then in Edinburgh, I shall have about the
beginning of March.

That acquaintance, worthy Sir, with which you were pleased to honour
me, you must still allow me to challenge; for with whatever unconcern
I give up my transient connexion with the merely great, those
self-important beings whose intrinsic * * * * [con]cealed under the
accidental advantages of their * * * * I cannot lose the patronizing
notice of the learned and good, without the bitterest regret.

R. B.

* * * * *




CL.


TO MR. JAMES BURNESS.

[Fanny Burns married Adam Armour, brother to bonnie Jean, went with
him to Mauchline, and bore him sons and daughters. ]

_Ellisland, 9th Feb. 1789. _

MY DEAR SIR,

Why I did not write to you long ago, is what, even on the rack, I
could not answer. If you can in your mind form an idea of indolence,
dissipation, hurry, cares, change of country, entering on untried
scenes of life, all combined, you will save me the trouble of a
blushing apology. It could not be want of regard for a man for whom I
had a high esteem before I knew him--an esteem which has much
increased since I did know him; and this caveat entered, I shall plead
guilty to any other indictment with which you shall please to charge
me.

After I had parted from you for many months my life was one continued
scene of dissipation. Here at last I am become stationary, and have
taken a farm and--a wife.