Chapter 971 of 984
CCCXXXVIII.
The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence.: With a New Life of the Poet, and Notices, Critical and Biographical by Allan Cunningham · Robert Burns, Allan Cunningham
CCCXXXVIII.
TO MR. GILBERT BURNS.
[This letter contained heavy news for Gilbert Burns: the loss of a brother whom he dearly loved and admired, was not all, though the worst.]
_10th July, 1796._
DEAR BROTHER,
It will be no very pleasing news to you to be told that I am dangerously ill, and not likely to get better. An inveterate rheumatism has reduced me to such a state of debility, and my appetite is so totally gone, that I can scarcely stand on my legs. I have been a week at sea-bathing, and I will continue there, or in a friend's house in the country, all the summer. God keep my wife and children: if I am taken from their head, they will be poor indeed. I have contracted one or two serious debts, partly from my illness these many months, partly from too much thoughtlessness as to expense, when I came to town, that will cut in too much on the little I leave them in your hands. Remember me to my mother.
Yours,
R. B.
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