Fond as I may be of my own productions, it is not for their sake that
I am so anxious to send you them. I am ambitious, covetously ambitious
of being known to a gentleman whom I am proud to call my countryman; a
gentleman who was a foreign ambassador as soon as he was a man, and a
leader of armies as soon as he was a soldier, and that with an eclat
unknown to the usual minions of a court, men who, with all the
adventitious advantages of princely connexions and princely fortune,
must yet, like the caterpillar, labour a whole lifetime before they
reach the wished height, there to roost a stupid chrysalis, and doze
out the remaining glimmering existence of old age.
If the gentleman who accompanied you when you did me the honour of
calling on me, is with you, I beg to be respectfully remembered to
him.
I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your highly obliged, and most devoted
Humble servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXXIV.
TO MISS DAVIES.
[This accomplished lady was the youngest daughter of Dr. Davies, of
Tenby, in Pembrokeshire: she was related to the Riddels of Friar's
Carse, and one of her sisters married Captain Adam Gordon, of the
noble family of Kenmure.
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