BIB_ID
362918
Accession number
MA 43.2
Creator
Burns, Robert, 1759-1796.
Display Date
1789 Apr. 2.
Credit line
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1902.
Description
1 item (4 p., with address) ; 32.5 cm
Notes
"Printed v2 75" and "C 220" written between the date and the body of the letter on p. [1] in two different hands.
Addressed to "Mr. Peter Hill / Bookseller / Parliament Cross / Edinr." Also marked "Single" by Burns.
Docketed "Robert Burns / Ellisland 2 April / 1789." Also with the notes "a good Rhapsody on frugality in the Bard's high-coloured stile" and "Folio 31" in two different hands.
Part of a collection of ten autograph letters signed from Robert Burns to Peter Hill. Letters in the collection are described in individual records (MA 43.1-10).
With postmark (Dumfries) and seal.
Addressed to "Mr. Peter Hill / Bookseller / Parliament Cross / Edinr." Also marked "Single" by Burns.
Docketed "Robert Burns / Ellisland 2 April / 1789." Also with the notes "a good Rhapsody on frugality in the Bard's high-coloured stile" and "Folio 31" in two different hands.
Part of a collection of ten autograph letters signed from Robert Burns to Peter Hill. Letters in the collection are described in individual records (MA 43.1-10).
With postmark (Dumfries) and seal.
Provenance
George Wilson, grandson of Peter Hill; purchased by Pierpont Morgan from the London dealer Pearson, 1902.
Summary
Commenting at length on the "wretched paper" on which he is writing this letter; asking "Frugality" to lead him to "these glittering cliffs of Potosi where the all-sufficient, all-powerful deity, WEALTH, holds his immediate court of joys & pleasures"; requesting his trunk and additional books, including "a Shakespear" and "an English dictionary, Johnson's I suppose is best"; noting that "the cheapest is always the best for me"; asking him to give Mr. Robert Cleghorn "ten shillings' worth" of books because he owes him "a small debt of honor"; mentioning a "library scheme" -- the "Monkland friendly Society" -- that he is directing with Capt. [Robert] Riddell , and saying that "a copy of the Spectator, Mirror & Lounger, [Henry Mackenzie's] Man of feeling, [Mackenzie's] Man of the world, [William] Guthrie's Geographical grammar, with some religious pieces, will likely be [their] first order"; giving additional directions concerning errands in Edinburgh and what should be sent to him in Dumfries.
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