MY DEAR SIR,—Do, for heaven's sake, send Mrs. Armour here immediately. My wife is hourly expecting to be put to bed. Good God! what a situation for her to be in, poor girl, without a friend! I returned from sea-bathing quarters to-day, and my medical friends would almost persuade me that I am better, but I think and feel that my strength is so gone that the disorder will prove fatal to me.—Your son-in-law,
R. B.
[138] Mrs. Burns's father. This is the very last of Burns's compositions, being written only three days before his death.
[THE THOMSON LETTERS.]
PREFATORY NOTE.
This correspondence began in September 1792, when Burns had already been domiciled nine months in the town of Dumfries, and ended only with his death in July 1796. It originated in the request of a stranger for a series of songs to suit a projected collection of the best Scottish airs. The stranger was George Thomson, a young man of about Burns's own age, and head clerk in the office of the Board of Manufactures in Edinburgh. Thomson outlived his great correspondent by more than half a century. He died so recently as 1851, at the advanced age of ninety-two. Robert Chambers has described him as a most honourable man, of singularly amiable character and cheerful manners. It may interest some people to know that his granddaughter was the wife of Dickens, the famous novelist.
THE THOMSON LETTER.
I.
DUMFRIES,
16th September 1792.