Letter from Robert Burns to Alexander Cunningham, 7 July 1796

Written two weeks before his death, Burns on the first page is perceptive writing "Alas! My friend, I fear the voice of the Bard will soon be heard among you no more". His problem he says is "excruciating rheumatism" and has been sent to Brow on the Solway coast on medical advice for a sea bathing, country living and riding cure.

He describes himself "Pale, emaciated, & so feeble" and that "my spirits fled! fled!", which is perhaps no surprise when he reveals that his medical folks tell him that this is " his last and only chance" of a cure.

In page two Burns explains that as he is on sick leave, the Excise commissioners will only pay him a reduced salary. He asks him to lean on the commissioners whom he expects to be friends of Cunningham to make an exception or else "I must lay my account with an exit en poet, if I die not of disease I must perish with hunger".

His thoughts then turn to home where he tells Cunningham that his wife is close to giving birth and that he intends to name the child "if of the right gender" Alexander Cunningham Burns, mentioning that his previous child was named James Glencairn (after another patron).

The last page contains a transcript of the poem "Lord Gregory", one of two which Burns intends ( or may have been asked) to send but he admits that his memory "does not serve me" and he will send it when he gets home.

Lord Gregory was a poem which Burns had written some time past and had it committed to memory and is recorded as having recited at a dinner with the Earl of Selkirk in 1793 during his Galloway tour with John Syme.