Letter from Robert Burns to James Smith, 28 April 1788

Mauchline 28 April 1788

Beware of your Strasburg, my good Sir! Look on
this as the opening of a correspondence, like the opening
of a twenty four gun battery! ----
There is no understanding a man properly, without
knowing something of his previous ideas (that is to
say if the Man has any ideas; for I know many
who in the Animal muster pays for Men who that
are the scanty Masters of only one idea on any given
subject, and by far the greatest part of your acquaintances
and mine can barely boast of ideas 1. 25,1.5,1.75, or
some such fractional matter) so to let you a little into the
secrets of my Pericranium, there is, you must know, a
certain clean-limb'd, handsome bewitching young
Hussy of your acquaintance to whome I have lately
and privately given a matrimonial title to my
Corpus. - "Bode a robe, and wear it;
"Bode a pock, and bear it," says the wise old
 

Scots Adage! I hate to presage ill ‘luck; and as my girl
in some late random trials has been doubly kinder
to me than ^even the best of women usually are to their partners
of our Sex, in similar circumstances; I reckon on
twelve times a brace of children against I celebrate
my twelfth wedding-day: these twenty four will give
my twenty gour Gossipings, twenty four christening
(I mean, one equal to two) and I hope by the blessing
of the God of my fathers to make them twenty four
dutiful children to their Parents, twenty four useful
Members of Society, and twenty four approved servants
of their God; not to mention, twenty four times
a hundred an eighty two Mason-meetings ^one the business I hope
have with their Mother into the bargain.-
"Light's heartsome, " quo' the wish when she was stealing
sheep: you see what a lamp I have hung up to
lighten your paths, when you are idle enough to expl-
the combinations and relations of my ideas. -
Tis now as plain as a pike staff why a twenty-four
gun battery was a Metaphor I would readily em-
ploy.-