MY DEAR SIR,—I intended to have written you from Edinburgh, and now write you from Stirling to make an excuse. Here am I, on my way to Inverness, with a truly original, but very worthy man, a Mr. Nicol, one of the masters of the High-school in Edinburgh. I left Auld Reekie yesterday morning, and have passed, besides by-excursions, Linlithgow, Borrowstounness, Falkirk, and here am I undoubtedly. This morning I knelt at the tomb of Sir John the Graham, the gallant friend of the immortal Wallace; and two hours ago I said a fervent prayer for old Caledonia over the hole in a blue whinstone, where Robert de Bruce fixed his royal standard on the banks of Bannockburn and just now, from Stirling Castle, I have seen by the setting sun the glorious prospect of the windings of Forth through the rich carse of Stirling, and skirting the equally rich carse of Falkirk. The crops are very strong, but so very late that there is no harvest except a ridge or two perhaps in ten miles, all the way I have travelled from Edinburgh.
I left Andrew Bruce[45] and family all well. I will be at least three weeks in making my tour, as I shall return by the coast, and have many people to call for.
My best compliments to Charles, our dear kinsman and fellow-saint; and Messrs. W. and H. Parkers. I hope Hughoc[46] is going on and prospering with God and Miss M'Causlin.
If I could think on anything sprightly, I should let you hear every other post; but a dull, matter-of-fact business like this scrawl, the less and seldomer one writes the better.
Among other matters-of-fact I shall add this, that I am and ever shall be, my dear Sir, your obliged,
ROBERT BURNS.
[45] A shopkeeper on the North Bridge, Edinburgh.
[46] The wee Hughoc mentioned in "Poor Maillie."
LIX.—TO MR. GAVIN HAMILTON.
STIRLING,