'[Letter to H.M. Esq.] I have purchased your friend "Currie's Life of Burns"; which, I confess, has operated like a charm on my benumbed imagination. Never have I been more highly gratified than by the perusal of his inestimable work, which is a [italics] chef-d'oeuvre [end italics] of cultivated and discriminating taste. On reading the poems that are added to the collection, I once more tasted of all that delicious enthusiasm with which the first productions of this child of nature and genius had feasted my soul'.