I shall be in Edinburgh some time next month.—I have the honour to be, Sir, your highly obliged, and very humble servant, R. B.
CXVII.—TO MR. ROBERT CLEGHORN, SAUGHTON MILLS.
ELLISLAND, 23
rd Jan
. 1789.
I must take shame and confusion of face to myself, my dear friend and brother Farmer, that I have not written you much sooner. The truth is I have been so tossed about between Ayrshire and Nithsdale that, till now I have got my family here, I have had time to think of nothing except now and then a stanza or so as I rode along. Were it not for our gracious monarch's cursed tax of postage I had sent you one or two pieces of some length that I have lately done. I have no idea of the Press. I am more able to support myself and family, though in a humble, yet an independent way; and I mean, just at my leisure, to pay court to the tuneful sisters in the hope that they may one day enable me to carry on a work of some importance. The following are a few verses which I wrote in a neighbouring gentleman's hermitage to which he is so good as let me have a key.
CXVIII.—To BISHOP GEDDES, EDINBURGH.
ELLISLAND,