TO CAPTAIN RIDDEL.
[Robert Riddel kept one of those present pests of society—an album—into which Burns copied the Lines on the Hermitage, and the Wounded Hare.]
Ellisland, 1789.
Sir,
I wish from my inmost soul it were in my power to give you a more substantial gratification and return for all the goodness to the poet, than transcribing a few of his idle rhymes.—However, “an old song,” though to a proverb an instance of insignificance, is generally the only coin a poet has to pay with.
If my poems which I have transcribed, and mean still to transcribe into your book, were equal to the grateful respect and high esteem I bear for the gentleman to whom I present them, they would be the finest poems in the language.—As they are, they will at least be a testimony with what sincerity I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your devoted humble Servant,
R. B.