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The Works of Robert Burns (7); With His Life, by A. Cunningham
The Works of Robert Burns With His Life by A Cunningham - 7 Author:Robert Burns Volume: 7 General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1834 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a m... more »illion books for free. Excerpt: No. CXL. TO Mrs. DUNLOP. EMsland, 4th April, 1789. I No sooner hit on any poetic plan or fancy, but I wish to send it to you : and if knowing and reading these give half the pleasure to you, that communicating them to you gives to me, I am satisfied. I have a poetic whim in my head, which I at present dedicate, or rather inscribe, to the Right Hon. Charles James Fox ; but how long that fancy may hold, I cannot say. A few of the first lines I have just rough-sketched as follows : Sketch. How wisdom and folly meet, mix, and nnlte . . f , , How virtue and vice blend their black and their white I, . ; How genius, the illustrious father of fiction, Confounds role and law, reconciles contradiction -- I sing: If these mortals, the critics, should bustle, I care not, not I, let the critics go whistle. But now for a patron, whose name and whose glory, At once may illustrate and honour my story. Thou first of our orators, first of our wits; . ... Yet whose parts and acquirements seem mere lucky hits ; With knowledge so vast, and with judgment so strong, No man with the half of 'em e'er went far wrong; With passions so potent, and fancies so bright. No man with the half of 'em e'er went quite right; A sorry, poor misbegot son of the muses, . , . For using thy name offers fifty excuses. [S vol. ill. page i03.] On the 20th current I hope to have the honour of assuring you, in person, how sincerely I am -- R. B, No. CXU. TO Mrs. M'MURDO, bi" -..- :. Vi ' ' ' . -'I DRUMLANRI0. Ellisland, 2nd May, 1?89. Madam, I Have finished the piece which had the happy fortune...« less