Letter from Robert Burns to Colonel William Fullarton, 3 October 1791

Sir,
I have just this minute got the frank, & next minute
must send it to post, else I purposed to have sent you two or
three other bagatelles, that might have amused a vacant hour
about as well as, "Six excellent new Songs" or "The Aberdeen
"Prognostication for the year to come." - I shall probably
trouble you soon with - another packet. About the gloomy
month of November, when the people of England hang & drown
themselves," any thing generally is better than one's own
thoughts. -

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, &
a Leader of Armies as soon as he was a Soldier; & that
with an éclat unknown to the usual minions of a Court,
men who with all the adventitious advantages of Princely
Connections & Princely Fortune, must yet, like the
Caterpillar
 

Caterpillar, labor a whole lifetime before they reached the wished
[?] there, to roost a stupid Chrysalis & doze out the
remaining glimmering existence of old age. -
If the gentleman who accompanied you when you did me
the honor of calling on me is with you, I beg to be respectfully
remembered to him. -
I have the honor to be
Sir,
Your highly obliged & most devoted humble serv.t
Rob.t Burns
Ellisland
Oct.r 3.d 1791