she is returned.

I am ever, dear Sir,

Your deeply indebted,

R. B.

* * * * *

LXIX.

TO WILLIAM CRUIKSHANK, ESQ.

ST. JAMES'S SQUARE, EDINBURGH.

[At the house of William Cruikshank, one of the masters of the High
School, in Edinburgh, Burns passed many agreeable hours.]

_Auchtertyre, Monday morning._

I have nothing, my dear Sir, to write to you but that I feel myself
exceedingly comfortably situated in this good family: just notice
enough to make me easy but not to embarrass me. I was storm-staid two
days at the foot of the Ochillhills, with Mr. Trait of Herveyston and
Mr. Johnston of Alva, but was so well pleased that I shall certainly
spend a day on the banks of the Devon as I return. I leave this place
I suppose on Wednesday, and shall devote a day to Mr. Ramsay at
Auchtertyre, near Stirling: a man to whose worth I cannot do justice.
My respectful kind compliments to Mrs. Cruikshank, and my dear little
Jeanie, and if you see Mr. Masterton, please remember me to him.

I am ever,

My dear Sir, &c.

R. B.

* * * * *

LXX.

TO MR. JAMES SMITH.

LINLITHGOW.

[The young lady to whom the poet alludes in this letter, was very
beautiful, and very proud: it is said she gave him a specimen of both
her temper and her pride, when he touched on the subject of love.]

_June 30, 1787._

MY DEAR FRIEND,

On our return, at a Highland gentleman's hospitable mansion, we fell
in with a merry party, and danced till the ladies left us, at three in
the morning. Our dancing was none of the French or English insipid
formal movements; the ladies sung Scotch songs like angels, at
intervals; then we flew at Bab at the Bowster, Tullochgorum, Loch
Erroch Side, &c., like midges sporting in the mottie sun, or craws
prognosticating a storm in a hairst day.--When the dear lasses left
us, we ranged round the bowl till the good-fellow hour of six; except
a few minutes that we went out to pay our devotions to the glorious
lamp of day peering over the towering top of Benlomond. We all
kneeled; our worthy landlord's son held the bowl; each man a full
glass in his hand; and I, as priest, repeated some rhyming nonsense,
like Thomas-a-Rhymer's prophecies I suppose.--After a small
refreshment of the gifts of Somnus, we proceeded to spend the day on
Lochlomond, and reach Dumbarton in the evening. We dined at another
good fellow's house, and conse