ive me a spirit like my favourite hero, Milton's Satan:

Hail, horrors! hail,
Infernal world! and thou proufoundest hell,
Receive thy new possessor! he who brings
A mind not be chang'd by _place_ or _time_!

I cannot settle to my mind.--Farming, the only thing of which I know
anything, and heaven above knows but little do I understand of that, I
cannot, dare not risk on farms as they are. If I do not fix I will go
for Jamaica. Should I stay in an unsettled state at home, I would
only dissipate my little fortune, and ruin what I intend shall
compensate my little ones, for the stigma I have brought on their
names.

I shall write you more at large soon; as this letter costs you no
postage, if it be worth reading you cannot complain of your
pennyworth.

I am ever, my dear Sir,

Yours,

R. B.

P.S. The cloot has unfortunately broke, but I have provided a fine
buffalo-horn, on which I am going to affix the same cipher which you
will remember was on the lid of the cloot.

* * * * *

LXV.

TO WILLIAM NICOL, ESQ.

[The charm which Dumfries threw over the poet, seems to have dissolved
like a spell, when he sat down in Ellisland: he spoke, for a time,
with little respect of either place or people.]

_Mauchline, June 18, 1787._

MY DEAR FRIEND,

I am now arrived safe in my native country, after a very agreeable
jaunt, and have the pleasure to find all my friends well. I
breakfasted with your gray-headed, reverend friend, Mr. Smith; and was
highly pleased both with the cordial welcome he gave me, and his most
excellent appearance and sterling good sense.

I have been with Mr. Miller at Dalswinton, and am to meet him again in
August. From my view of the lands, and his reception of my bardship,
my hopes in that business are rather mended; but still they are but
slender.

I am quite charmed with Dumfries folks--Mr. Burnside, the clergyman,
in particular, is a man whom I shall ever gratefully remember; and his
wife, Gude forgie me! I had almost broke the tenth commandment on her
account. Simplicity, elegance, good sense, sweetness of disposition,
good humour, kind hospitality are the constituents of her manner and
heart; in short--but if I say one word more about her, I shall be
directly in love with her.

I never, my friend, thought mankind very capable of anything generous;
but the stateliness of the patricians in Edinburgh, and the servilit