TO ROBERT AINSLIE, ESQ.,
BERRYWELL DUNSE.
[This characteristic letter was first published by Sir Harris Nichols; others, still more characteristic, addressed to the same gentleman, are abroad: how they escaped from private keeping is a sort of a riddle.]
Edinburgh, 23d August, 1787.
“As I gaed up to Dunse
To warp a pickle yarn,
Robin, silly body,
He gat me wi’ bairn.”
From henceforth, my dear Sir, I am determined to set off with my letters like the periodical writers, viz. prefix a kind of text, quoted from some classic of undoubted authority, such as the author of the immortal piece, of which my text is part. What I have to say on my text is exhausted in a letter which I wrote you the other day, before I had the pleasure of receiving yours from Inverkeithing; and sure never was anything more lucky, as I have but the time to write this, that Mr. Nicol, on the opposite side of the table, takes to correct a proof-sheet of a thesis. They are gabbling Latin so loud that I cannot hear what my own soul is saying in my own skull, so I must just give you a matter-of-fact sentence or two, and end, if time permit, with a verse de rei generatione. To-morrow I leave Edinburgh in a chaise; Nicol thinks it more comfortable than horseback, to which I say, Amen; so Jenny Geddes goes home to Ayrshire, to use a phrase of my mother’s, wi’ her finger in her mouth.
Now for a modest verse of classical authority:
The cats like kitchen;
The dogs like broo;
The lasses like the lads weel,
And th’ auld wives too.
CHORUS.
And we’re a’ noddin,
Nid, nid, noddin,
We’re a’ noddin fou at e’en.
If this does not please you, let me hear from you; if you write any time before the 1st of September, direct to Inverness, to be left at the post-office till called for; the next week at Aberdeen, the next at Edinburgh.
The sheet is done, and I shall just conclude with assuring you that
I am, and ever with pride shall be,
My dear Sir, &c.
R. B.
Call your boy what you think proper, only interject Burns. What do you say to a Scripture name? Zimri Burns Ainslie, or Architophel, &c., look your Bible for these two heroes, if you do this, I will repay the compliment.