Autograph letter signed : Loudoun Castle [near Galston], to Robert Burns, 1791 Apr. 6.

Record ID: 
363776
Accession number: 
MA 49.84
Author: 
Dunlop, Frances Anna Wallace, 1730-1815.
Credit: 
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan before 1913.
Description: 
1 item (4 p., with address) ; 24 cm
Notes: 

Addressed to "Mr. Robt. Burns / Ellisland near / Dumfries."
With postmark and trace of a seal.
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).
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.

Summary: 

Chiding him for not having someone write to her about his condition; worrying about whether he is recovering or suffering from "worse consequences than the fracture itself"; describing a nightmare she had about his injury; wondering if perhaps Willie Kerr did not mail the letter she wrote to him at the end of March; mentioning the upcoming inoculation of her grandson; commenting on the state of mind of her widowed daughter; crediting her reading of Burns's poems with giving her the strength to live through "the scenes to which [she has] been ... witness" during the past year.

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.