Addressed to "Mr. Robert Burns / Ellisland / Dumfries."
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 at "Edinr. Second May 1791."
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.
Explaining that she wrote to his brother for news of Burns when she did not hear from him for so long; congratulating him on the arrival of a baby boy; responding to his characterization of his wife in his last letter, and writing that "the real refinement and delicacy of a woman's mind is certainly independent of all education, and, like a genius for poetry, fire from Heaven falling on the embryo on its first existence"; alluding to [Laurence] Sterne's "illustration of the smooth shillings"; contrasting Burns's letters, which never answer the questions she poses, with his brother's letter to her, which "contained every information, and answered every word of mine"; reporting that her grandson has been inoculated for smallpox; commenting on her own struggles with rheumatism; asking what he thought of Jenny [Janet] Little when he met her.