BIB_ID
363358
Accession number
MA 49.27
Creator
Dunlop, Frances Anna Wallace, 1730-1815.
Display Date
1788 June 24.
Credit line
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan before 1913.
Description
1 item (4 p., with address) ; 25.5 cm
Notes
Addressed to "Mr. Robert Burns / Mauchline."
Docketed.
Dunlop likely reacquired these letters after Burns's death and left them to her descendants with the Lochryan manuscripts (42 of Burns's letters to Mrs. Dunlop and some autograph poems, now MA 46 in the Morgan's collection).
Franked by W. Kerr: "Glasgow Fifth July 1788."
Part of a large collection of letters from Frances Dunlop to Robert Burns. Letters in the collection are described in individual records; see MA 49 for more information.
With postmark and trace of a seal.
Docketed.
Dunlop likely reacquired these letters after Burns's death and left them to her descendants with the Lochryan manuscripts (42 of Burns's letters to Mrs. Dunlop and some autograph poems, now MA 46 in the Morgan's collection).
Franked by W. Kerr: "Glasgow Fifth July 1788."
Part of a large collection of letters from Frances Dunlop to Robert Burns. Letters in the collection are described in individual records; see MA 49 for more information.
With postmark and trace of a seal.
Provenance
General Sir John Wallace; by descent to Sir William Thomas Francis Agnew Wallace; bequeathed to his brother, Colonel F.J. Wallace; acquired by Robert Borthwick Adam before 1898; purchased by Pierpont Morgan before 1913, possibly from the London dealer Pearson.
Summary
Congratulating him on his marriage and asking him to acquaint her "with every particular that can influence your future happiness or figure in the world"; hoping that his wife possesses "activity and capacity in the domestic life"; asking whether his wife "was or is only now become the mother of [his] children," and observing that she "feel[s] all the indelicacy" of asking such a question"; warning him against jealousy; warning him that "if [he has] hitherto wandered in the devious path of pleasures, 'tis now time to strike into the straight road, for no truth is more uncontrovertible, than that matrimonial infidelity in even the most wealthy man hurts his family's interest, but in narrow circumstances leads to unavoidable ruin"; complaining that they are so far from one another now that she never knows how long it will take to receive his next letter; commenting on a note from her son.
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