I have sent you a song never before known, for your collection; the air by M’Gibbon, but I know not the author of the words, as I got it from Dr. Blacklock.
Farewell, my dear Sir! I wished to have seen you, but I have been dreadfully throng, as I march to-morrow. Had my acquaintance with you been a little older, I would have asked the favour of your correspondence, as I have met with few people whose company and conversation gives me so much pleasure, because I have met with few whose sentiments are so congenial to my own.
When Dunbar and you meet, tell him that I left Edinburgh with the idea of him hanging somewhere about my heart.
Keep the original of the song till we meet again, whenever that may be.
R. B.
LXI.
TO WILLIAM CREECH, ESQ.
Edinburgh.
[This characteristic letter was written during the poet’s border tour: he narrowly escaped a soaking with whiskey, as well as with water; for according to the Ettrick Shepherd, “a couple of Yarrow lads, lovers of poesy and punch, awaited his coming to Selkirk, but would not believe that the parson-looking, black-avised man, who rode up to the inn, more like a drouket craw than a poet, could be Burns, and so went disappointed away.”]