BIB_ID
363790
Accession number
MA 49.87
Creator
Dunlop, Frances Anna Wallace, 1730-1815.
Display Date
1791 July 12.
Credit line
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan before 1913.
Description
1 item (8 p.) ; 24.5 and 24.8 cm
Notes
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).
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.
The second sheet of the letter is bound before the first one.
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.
The second sheet of the letter is bound before the first one.
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
Offering her opinions on his "Psalms and Prayers," and saying, "I take it for granted this request of my friend includes an unrestrained priviledge to speak my mind likewise of all or any part of the rest, and that you renounce all right to be offended with my doing so"; lamenting passages in his work that she considers indecent: "passages that it is next to impossible for me even to arraign, which I blush to mention, and cannot recall to your remembrance without injuring myself in your esteem"; drawing his attention to "six stanzas to be found in the Edinburgh edition at pages 26, 39, 97, 256, 283"; objecting to his making only minor changes: "In my opinion, you have no alternative but to print just as it stands, or make a thorough reformation such as may become the refinements expected from the last five or six years, more extensive acquaintance with polite scenes, polite authors, and those female companies to which your own merit has introduced you, and which, if you regard them, ought to set you above the little affectations of vice or ribaldry that are allowable in none, but contemptible in those who know better things, and are equal to the very best"; urging him to omit "Tam O'Shanter" and "Queen Mary's Lament"; mentioning Burns's recent visit to her on the occasion of his brother's wedding; asking about his brother's bride; alluding to "Mr. [Edmund] Burke's book on the French Revolution" and [Thomas] Paine's pamphlet; reporting that Lady Wallace is ill.
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