TO ROBERT AINSLIE, ESQ.
[“Burns had a memory stored with the finest poetical passages, which he was in the habit of quoting most aptly in his correspondence with his friends: and he delighted also in repeating them in the company of those friends who enjoyed them.” These are the words of Ainslie, of Berrywell, to whom this letter in addressed.]
Arracher, 28th June, 1787.
My dear Sir,
I write on my tour through a country where savage streams tumble over savage mountains, thinly overspread with savage flocks, which sparingly support as savage inhabitants. My last stage was Inverary—to-morrow night’s stage Dumbarton. I ought sooner to have answered your kind letter, but you know I am a man of many sins.
R. B.