What an hour of inspiration for a poet! It would have raised plain dull historic prose into metaphor and measure.
The inclosed song was the work of my return; and perhaps it but poorly answers what might have been expected from such a scene.—I have the honour to be, Madam, your most obedient and very humble servant,
R. B.
P.S.—Well, Mr. Burns, and did the lady give you the desired permission? No; she was too fine a lady to notice so plain a compliment. As to her great brothers, whom I have since met in life on more equal terms[22] of respectability—why should I quarrel with their want of attention to me? When fate swore that their purses should be full, nature was equally positive that their heads should be empty. Men of their fashion were surely incapable of being unpolite? Ye canna mak a silk-purse o' a sow's lug.
R. B., 1792.
[22] As Depute Master of St. James's Lodge, Burns admitted Claude Alexander, Esq., of Ballochmyle, an honorary member, in July 1789.
XXXI.—IN THE NAME OF THE NINE.
Amen
.