I do not remember in all my reading, to have met with anything more truly the language of misery, than the exclamation in the last line. Misery is like love; to speak its language truly, the author must have felt it.
I am every day expecting the doctor to give your little godson[196] the small-pox. They are rife in the country, and I tremble for his fate. By the way, I cannot help congratulating you on his looks and spirit. Every person who sees him, acknowledges him to be the finest, handsomest child he has ever seen. I am myself delighted with the manly swell of his little chest, and a certain miniature dignity in the carriage of his head, and the glance of his fine black eye, which promise the undaunted gallantry of an independent mind.
I thought to have sent you some rhymes, but time forbids. I promise you poetry until you are tired of it, next time I have the honour of assuring you how truly I am, &c.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[195] The ballad is in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, ed. 1833, vol. iii. p. 304.
[196] The bard’s second son, Francis.