LXXXV.

TO MR. ROBERT AINSLIE,

EDINBURGH.

["I set you down," says Burns, elsewhere, to Ainslie, "as the staff of my old age, when all my other friends, after a decent show of pity, will have forgot me."]

_Edinburgh, Sunday Morning_,

_Nov._ 23, 1787.

I Beg, my dear Sir, you would not make any appointment to take us to Mr. Ainslie's to-night. On looking over my engagements, constitution, present state of my health, some little vexatious soul concerns, &c., I find I can't sup abroad to-night. I shall be in to-day till one o'clock if you have a leisure hour.

You will think it romantic when I tell you, that I find the idea of your friendship almost necessary to my existence.--You assume a proper length of face in my bitter hours of blue-devilism, and you laugh fully up to my highest wishes at my good things.--I don't know upon the whole, if you are one of the first fellows in God's world, but you are so to me. I tell you this just now in the conviction that some inequalities in my temper and manner may perhaps sometimes make you suspect that I am not so warmly as I ought to be your friend.

R. B.

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