No More Learning

R. B.

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LXIV.


TO MR. JAMES SMITH,

AT MILLER AND SMITH'S OFFICE, LINLITHGOW.

[Burns, it seems by this letter, had still a belief that he would be
obliged to try his fortune in the West Indies: he soon saw how hollow
all the hopes were, which had been formed by his friends of "pension,
post or place," in his native land. ]

_Mauchline, 11th June, 1787. _

MY EVER DEAR SIR,

I date this from Mauchline, where I arrived on Friday even last. I
slept at John Dow's, and called for my daughter. Mr. Hamilton and your
family; your mother, sister, and brother; my quondam Eliza, &c. , all
well. If anything had been wanting to disgust me completely at
Armour's family, their mean, servile compliance would have done it.

Give me a spirit like my favourite hero, Milton's Satan:

Hail, horrors! hail,
Infernal world!
and thou proufoundest hell,
Receive thy new possessor! he who brings
A mind not be chang'd by _place_ or _time_!

I cannot settle to my mind. --Farming, the only thing of which I know
anything, and heaven above knows but little do I understand of that, I
cannot, dare not risk on farms as they are. If I do not fix I will go
for Jamaica. Should I stay in an unsettled state at home, I would
only dissipate my little fortune, and ruin what I intend shall
compensate my little ones, for the stigma I have brought on their
names.

I shall write you more at large soon; as this letter costs you no
postage, if it be worth reading you cannot complain of your
pennyworth.

I am ever, my dear Sir,

Yours,

R. B.

P. S. The cloot has unfortunately broke, but I have provided a fine
buffalo-horn, on which I am going to affix the same cipher which you
will remember was on the lid of the cloot.

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LXV.


TO WILLIAM NICOL, ESQ.

[The charm which Dumfries threw over the poet, seems to have dissolved
like a spell, when he sat down in Ellisland: he spoke, for a time,
with little respect of either place or people. ]

_Mauchline, June 18, 1787.