er was anything more lucky, as I have but the time to write this,
that Mr. Nicol, on the opposite side of the table, takes to correct a
proof-sheet of a thesis. They are gabbling Latin so loud that I cannot
hear what my own soul is saying in my own skull, so I must just give
you a matter-of-fact sentence or two, and end, if time permit, with a
verse de rei generatione. To-morrow I leave Edinburgh in a chaise;
Nicol thinks it more comfortable than horseback, to which I say, Amen;
so Jenny Geddes goes home to Ayrshire, to use a phrase of my mother's,
wi' her finger in her mouth.

Now for a modest verse of classical authority:

The cats like kitchen;
The dogs like broo;
The lasses like the lads weel,
And th' auld wives too.

CHORUS.

And we're a' noddin,
Nid, nid, noddin,
We're a' noddin fou at e'en.

If this does not please you, let me hear from you; if you write any
time before the 1st of September, direct to Inverness, to be left at
the post-office till called for; the next week at Aberdeen, the next
at Edinburgh.

The sheet is done, and I shall just conclude with assuring you that

I am, and ever with pride shall be,

My dear Sir, &c.

R. B.

Call your boy what you think proper, only interject Burns. What do you
say to a Scripture name? Zimri Burns Ainslie, or Architophel, &c.,
look your Bible for these two heroes, if you do this, I will repay the
compliment.

* * * * *

LXXVI.

TO MR. ROBERT MUIR.

[No Scotsman will ever read, without emotion, the poet's words in this
letter, and in "Scots wha hae wi Wallace bled," about Bannnockburn and
its glories.]

_Stirling, 26th August, 1787._

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,
Borrowstouness, 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 glori