e you
left it. I hope this will find you as comfortably situated as
formerly, or, if heaven pleases, more so; but, at all events, I trust
you will let me know of course how matters stand with you, well or
ill. 'Tis but poor consolation to tell the world when matters go
wrong; but you know very well your connexion and mine stands on a
different footing.

I am ever, my dear friend, yours,

R. B.

* * * * *

LXXII.

TO ROBERT AINSLIE, ESQ.

[This letter, were proof wanting, shows the friendly and familiar
footing on which Burns stood with the Ainslies, and more particularly
with the author of that popular work, the "Reasons for the Hope that
is in us."]

_Mauchline, 23d July, 1787._

MY DEAR AINSLIE,

There is one thing for which I set great store by you as a friend, and
it is this, that I have not a friend upon earth, besides yourself, to
whom I can talk nonsense without forfeiting some degree of his esteem.
Now, to one like me, who never cares for speaking anything else but
nonsense, such a friend as you is an invaluable treasure. I was never
a rogue, but have been a fool all my life; and, in spite of all my
endeavours, I see now plainly that I shall never be wise. Now it
rejoices my heart to have met with such a fellow as you, who, though
you are not just such a hopeless fool as I, yet I trust you will never
listen so much to the temptations of the devil as to grow so very wise
that you will in the least disrespect an honest follow because he is a
fool. In short, I have set you down as the staff of my old age, when
the whole list of my friends will, after a decent share of pity, have
forgot me.

Though in the morn comes sturt and strife,
Yet joy may come at noon;
And I hope to live a merry, merry life
When a' thir days are done.

Write me soon, were it but a few lines just to tell me how that good
sagacious man your father is--that kind dainty body your mother--that
strapping chiel your brother Douglas--and my friend Rachel, who is as
far before Rachel of old, as she was before her blear-eyed sister
Leah.

R. B.

* * * * *

LXXIII.

TO ROBERT AINSLIE, ESQ.

[The "savage hospitality," of which Burns complains in this letter,
was at that time an evil fashion in Scotland: the bottle was made to
circulate rapidly, and every glass was drunk "clean caup out."]

_Mauchline, July, 1787._

MY DEAR SIR,