CCCXIV.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[Thomson at this time sent the drawing to Burns in which David Allan sought to embody the “Cotter’s Saturday Night:” it displays at once the talent and want of taste of the ingenious artist.]
May, 1795.
Ten thousand thanks for your elegant present—though I am ashamed of the value of it, being bestowed on a man who has not, by any means, merited such an instance of kindness. I have shown it to two or three judges of the first abilities here, and they all agree with me in classing it as a first-rate production. My phiz is sae kenspeckle, that the very joiner’s apprentice, whom Mrs. Burns employed to break up the parcel (I was out of town that day) knew it at once. My most grateful compliments to Allan, who has honoured my rustic music so much with his masterly pencil. One strange coincidence is, that the little one who is making the felonious attempt on the cat’s tail, is the most striking likeness of an ill-deedie, d—n’d, wee, rumblegairie urchin of mine, whom from that propensity to witty wickedness, and man-fu’ mischief, which, even at twa days auld, I foresaw would form the striking features of his disposition, I named Willie Nicol, after a certain friend of mine, who is one of the masters of a grammar-school in a city which shall be nameless.
Give the enclosed epigram to my much-valued friend Cunningham, and tell him, that on Wednesday I go to visit a friend of his, to whom his friendly partiality in speaking of me in a manner introduced me—I mean a well-known military and literary character, Colonel Dirom.
You do not tell me how you liked my two last songs. Are they condemned?
R. B.