No More Learning

[Burns was much attached to Brown; and one regrets that an
inconsiderate word should have estranged the haughty sailor. ]

_Mauchline, 21st May, 1789. _

MY DEAR FRIEND,

I was in the country by accident, and hearing of your safe arrival, I
could not resist the temptation of wishing you joy on your return,
wishing you would write to me before you sail again, wishing you would
always set me down as your bosom friend, wishing you long life and
prosperity, and that every good thing may attend you, wishing Mrs.
Brown and your little ones as free of the evils of this world, as is
consistent with humanity, wishing you and she were to make two at the
ensuing lying-in, with which Mrs. B. threatens very soon to favour me,
wishing I had longer time to write to you at present; and, finally,
wishing that if there is to be another state of existence, Mr. B. ,
Mrs. B. , our little ones, and both families, and you and I, in some
snug retreat, may make a jovial party to all eternity!

My direction is at Ellisland, near Dumfries

Yours,

R. B.

* * * * *




CLXII.


TO MR. JAMES HAMILTON.
[James Hamilton, grocer, in Glasgow, interested himself early in the
fortunes of the poet. ]

_Ellisland, 26th May, 1789. _

DEAR SIR,

I send you by John Glover, carrier, the account for Mr. Turnbull, as I
suppose you know his address.

I would fain offer, my dear Sir, a word of sympathy with your
misfortunes; but it is a tender string, and I know not how to touch
it. It is easy to flourish a set of high-flown sentiments on the
subjects that would give great satisfaction to--a breast quite at
ease; but as ONE observes, who was very seldom mistaken in
the theory of life, "The heart knoweth its own sorrows, and a stranger
intermeddleth not therewith. "

Among some distressful emergencies that I have experienced in life, I
ever laid this down as my foundation of comfort--_That he who has
lived the life of an honest man, has by no means lived in vain! _

With every wish for your welfare and future success,

I am, my dear Sir,

Sincerely yours,

R. B.

* * * * *




CLXIII.


TO WILLIAM CREECH, ESQ.

[The poetic address to the "venomed stang" of the toothache seems to
have come into existence about this time. ]

_Ellisland, 30th May, 1789. _

SIR,

I had intended to have troubled you with a long letter, but at present
the delightful sensations of an omnipotent toothache so engross all my
inner man, as to put it out of my power even to write nonsense.
However, as in duty bound, I approach my bookseller with an offering
in my hand--a few poetic clinches, and a song:--To expect any other
kind of offering from the Rhyming Tribe would be to know them much
less than you do. I do not pretend that there is much merit in these
_morceaux_, but I have two reasons for sending them; _primo_, they are
mostly ill-natured, so are in unison with my present feelings, while
fifty troops of infernal spirits are driving post from ear to ear
along my jaw-bones; and _secondly_, they are so short, that you cannot
leave off in the middle, and so hurt my pride in the idea that you
found any work of mine too heavy to get through.