Your highly obliged, and very
Humble servant,
R. B.
CXLIX.
TO BISHOP GEDDES.
[Alexander Geddes was a controversialist and poet, and a bishop of the broken remnant of the Catholic Church of Scotland: he is known as the author of a very humorous ballad called “The Wee bit Wifickie,” and as the translator of one of the books of the Iliad, in opposition to Cowper.]
Ellisland, 3d Feb. 1789.
Venerable Father,
As I am conscious that wherever I am, you do me the honour to interest yourself in my welfare, it gives me pleasure to inform you that I am here at last, stationary in the serious business of life, and have now not only the retired leisure, but the hearty inclination, to attend to those great and important questions—what I am? where I am? and for what I am destined?