duty at Dunlop-House.

R. B.

* * * * *

XCIX.

TO MRS. DUNLOP.

[The levity with which Burns sometimes spoke of things sacred, had
been obliquely touched upon by his good and anxious friend Mrs.
Dunlop: he pleads guilty of folly, but not of irreligion.]

_Edinburgh, February 12, 1788._

Some things in your late letters hurt me: not that _you say them_, but
that _you mistake me._ Religion, my honoured Madam, has not only been
all my life my chief dependence, but my dearest enjoyment. I have,
indeed, been the luckless victim of wayward follies; but, alas! I have
ever been "more fool than knave." A mathematician without religion is
a probable character; an irreligious poet is a monster.

R. B.

* * * * *

C.

TO THE REV. JOHN SKINNER.

[When Burns undertook to supply Johnson with songs for the Musical
Museum, he laid all the bards of Scotland under contribution, and
Skinner among the number, of whose talents, as well as those of Ross,
author of Helenore, he was a great admirer.]

_Edinburgh, 14th February, 1788._

REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,

I have been a cripple now near three months, though I am getting
vastly better, and have been very much hurried beside, or else I would
have wrote you sooner. I must beg your pardon for the epistle you sent
me appearing in the Magazine. I had given a copy or two to some of my
intimate friends, but did not know of the printing of it till the
publication of the Magazine. However, as it does great honour to us
both, you will forgive it.

The second volume of the songs I mentioned to you in my last is
published to-day. I send you a copy which I beg you will accept as a
mark of the veneration I have long had, and shall ever have, for your
character, and of the claim I make to your continued acquaintance.
Your songs appear in the third volume, with your name in the index;
as, I assure you, Sir, I have heard your "Tullochgorum," particularly
among our west-country folks, given to many different names, and most
commonly to the immortal author of "The Minstrel," who, indeed, never
wrote anything superior to "Gie's a sang, Montgomery cried." Your
brother has promised me your verses to the Marquis of Huntley's reel,
which certainly deserve a place in the collection. My kind host, Mr.
Cruikshank, of the High-school here, and said to be one of the best
Latins in this age, begs me to make you his grate