[Footnote 43: The foregoing biographical letter brings us down to Burns's 29th year.] * * * * LVIL.--To MR. ARCHIBALD LAWRIE.[44] EDINBURGH, 14_th August_ 1787. MY DEAR SIR,--Here am I. That is all I can tell you of that unaccountable being, myself. What I am doing no mortal can tell; what I am thinking, I myself cannot tell; what I am usually saying is not worth telling. The clock is just striking--one, two, three, four...twelve, forenoon; and here I sit in the attic storey, the garret, with a friend on the right hand of my standish, a friend whose kindness I shall largely experience at the close of this line--there, thank you!--a friend, my dear Lawrie, whose kindness often makes me blush--a friend who has more of the milk of human kindness than all the human race put together, and what is highly to his honour, peculiarly a friend to the friendless as often as they come his way; in short, Sir, he is wthout the least alloy a universal philanthropist, and his much-beloved name is a bottle of good old Port! In a week, if whim and weather serve, I set out for the north, a tour to the Highlands. I ate some Newhaven broth--in other words, boiled mussels--with Mr. Farquharson's family t'other day. Now I see you prick up your ears. They are all well, and mademoiselle is particularly well. She begs her respects to you all--along with which please present those of your humble servant. I can no more. I have so high a veneration, or rather idolatrization, for the clerical character, that even a little _futurum esse_ priestling, with his _penna pennae_, throws an awe over my mind in his presence, and shortens my sentences into single ideas. Farewell, and believe me to be ever, my dear Sir, yours, ROBERT BURNS. [Footnote 44: Son, and successor, to the minister of Loudon.] * * * * LVIII.--To MR. ROBERT MUIR, KILMARNOCK. STIRLING, 26_th 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, Borrowstounness, 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 glorious prospect of the windings of Forth through the rich carse of Stirling, and skirting the equally rich carse of Falkirk. The crops are very strong, but so very late that there is no harvest except a ridge or two perhaps in ten miles, all the way I have travelled from Edinburgh.