[252] “The honorable Andrew Erskine, whose melancholy death Mr. Thomson had communicated in an excellent letter, which he has suppressed.”—Currie.
[254] Gavin Turnbull was author of a now forgotten volume, published at Glasgow, in 1788, under the title of “Poetical Essays.”
CCLXXVIII.
TO JOHN M’MURDO, ESQ.,
WITH A PARCEL.
[The collection of songs alluded to in this letter, are only known to the curious in loose lore: they were printed by an obscure bookseller, but not before death had secured him from the indignation of Burns.]
Dumfries, [December, 1793.]
Sir,
’Tis said that we take the greatest liberties with our greatest friends, and I pay myself a very high compliment in the manner in which I am going to apply the remark. I have owed you money longer than ever I owed it to any man. Here is Kerr’s account, and here are the six guineas; and now I don’t owe a shilling to man—or woman either. But for these d——d dirty, dog’s-ear’d little pages,[255] I had done myself the honour to have waited on you long ago. Independent of the obligations your hospitality has laid me under, the consciousness of your superiority in the rank of man and gentleman, of itself was fully as much as I could ever make head against; but to owe you money too, was more than I could face.