LXXIII.—TO MRS. DUNLOP.
EDINBURGH,
February
12, 1788.
Some things in your late letters hurt me—not that you say them, but that you mistake me. Religion, my honoured Madam, has not only been all my life my chief dependance, but my dearest enjoyment. I have, indeed, been the luckless victim of wayward follies; but, alas! I have ever been "more fool than knave." A mathematician without religion is a probable character; an irreligious poet is a monster.
R. B.
LXXIV.—TO THE REV. JOHN SKINNER.
EDINBURGH, 14