No More Learning

Dunlop, "thy weaknesses were the aberrations of human nature; but thy
heart glowed with everything generous, manly, and noble: and if ever
emanation from the All-good Being animated a human form, it was
thine. "]

_Edinburgh, Dec. 20th, 1786. _

MY DEAR FRIEND,

I have just time for the carrier, to tell you that I received your
letter; of which I shall say no more but what a lass of my
acquaintance said of her bastard wean; she said she "did na ken wha
was the father exactly, but she suspected it was some o' the bonny
blackguard smugglers, for it was like them. " So I only say your
obliging epistle was like you. I enclose you a parcel of subscription
bills. Your affair of sixty copies is also like you; but it would not
be like me to comply.

Your friend's notion of my life has put a crotchet in my head of
sketching it in some future epistle to you. My compliments to Charles
and Mr. Parker.

R. B.

* * * * *




XXXVIII.


TO MR. WILLIAM CHALMERS,

WRITER, AYR.
[William Chalmers drew out the assignment of the copyright of Burns's
Poems, in favour of his brother Gilbert, and for the maintenance of
his natural child, when engaged to go to the West Indies, in the
autumn of 1786. ]

_Edinburgh, Dec. 27, 1786. _

MY DEAR FRIEND,

I confess I have sinned the sin for which there is hardly any
forgiveness--ingratitude to friendship--in not writing you sooner; but
of all men living, I had intended to have sent you an entertaining
letter; and by all the plodding, stupid powers, that in nodding,
conceited majesty, preside over the dull routine of business--a
heavily solemn oath this! --I am, and have been, ever since I came to
Edinburgh, as unfit to write a letter of humour, as to write a
commentary on the Revelation of St. John the Divine, who was banished
to the Isle of Patmos, by the cruel and bloody Domitian, son to
Vespasian and brother to Titus, both emperors of Rome, and who was
himself an emperor, and raised the second or third persecution, I
forget which, against the Christians, and after throwing the said
Apostle John, brother to the Apostle James, commonly called James the
Greater, to distinguish him from another James, who was, on some
account or other, known by the name of James the Less--after throwing
him into a cauldron of boiling oil, from which he was miraculously
preserved, he banished the poor son of Zebedee to a desert island in
the Archipelago, where he was gifted with the second sight, and saw as
many wild beasts as I have seen since I came to Edinburgh; which, a
circumstance not very uncommon in story-telling, brings me back to
where I set out.

To make you some amends for what, before you reach this paragraph, you
will have suffered, I enclose you two poems I have carded and spun
since I past Glenbuck.

One blank in the address to Edinburgh--"Fair B----," is heavenly Miss
Burnet, daughter to Lord Monboddo, at whose house I have had the
honour to be more than once. There has not been anything nearly like
her in all the combinations of beauty, grace, and goodness the great
Creator has formed since Milton's Eve on the first day of her
existence.

My direction is--care of Andrew Bruce, merchant, Bridge-street.

R. B.

* * * * *




XXXIX.


TO THE EARL OF EGLINTOUN.

[Archibald Montgomery, eleventh Earl of Eglinton, and Colonel Hugh
Montgomery, of Coilsfield, who succeeded his brother in his titles and
estates, were patrons, and kind ones, of Burns. ]

_Edinburgh, January_ 1787.