As to France, I was her enthusiastic votary in the beginning of the business. When she came to shew her old avidity for conquest by annexing Savoy and invading the rights of Holland, I altered my sentiments.
This, my honoured patron, is all. To this statement I challenge disquisition. Mistaken prejudice or unguarded passion may mislead, have often misled me; but when called on to answer for my mistakes, though no man can feel keener compunction for them, yet no man can be more superior to evasion or disguise.--I have the honour to be, Sir, your ever grateful, etc.,
[Footnote 127: Because of what Burns elsewhere called "Some temeraire conduct of mine, in the political opinions of the day."]
CLXXXI.--TO MR. ALEX. CUNNINGHAM, W.S., EDINBURGH.
What are you doing? What hurry have you got on your head, my dear Cunningham, that I have not heard from you? Are you deeply engaged in the mazes of the Jaw, the mysteries of love, or the profound wisdom of _politics_? Curse on the word!
_A_. It is a science wherewith, by means of nefarious cunning and hypocritical pretence, we govern civil politics (sic) for the emolument of ourselves and adherents.
A. An unprincipled fellow who, by the influence of hereditary or acquired wealth, by superior abilities or by a lucky conjuncture of circumstances, obtains a principal place in the administration of the affairs of government.
A. An individual exactly of the same description as a minister, only out of place.
I was interrupted in my Catechism, and am returned at a late hour just to subscribe my name, and to put you in mind of the forgotten friend of that name who is still in the land of the living, though I can hardly say in the place of hope.
I made the enclosed sonnet[128] the other day. Adieu!
[Footnote 128: "On Hearing a Thrush Sing."]
Since I wrote to you the last lugubrious sheet, I have not had time to write to you farther. When I say that I had not time, that, as usual, means that the three demons, indolence, business, and ennui, have so completely shared my hours among them, as not to leave me a five minutes' fragment to take up a pen in.
Thank Heaven, I feel my spirits buoying upwards with the renovating year. Now I shall in good earnest take up Thomson's songs. I dare say he thinks I have used him unkindly, and I must own with too much appearance of truth...