My dear Cousin

I am truly pleased that you have found interest in the old Book, & pray do not hurry to return it. I only hope that your son may also derive pleasure from it—¹ The absurd verses about the Hare Hunt show us, at least, that our grandfather was not the first poet in the family! that his Brother John stammered, & that, beautiful as was his handwriting in his old age, (see his letter to my grandmother) he was, in his youth, sadly deficient both in his writing & in his spelling!—²

I cannot help you as to the Jockey story. I have often heard my Father tell it; but when it happened, & who the gentleman was, who owned the Horse that was to lose, I have no recollection—³ I do not know whether D^r D went to Edinburgh when Charles died: but I have this day found amongst my Fathers papers the scrap which I enclose. It is in my Father’s writing, & from it I should collect, as you probably will, that, knowing that his Father could never see his son again, D^r Duncan, or some loving friend, had the picture taken—⁴ I have no means of seeing the life of Sir H Rayburn.⁵ D^r Duncans vault, or burying place, when I saw it in 1840, was, like many others in Edinburgh & the neighbourhood before the “Anatomy Act”, an inclosure strongly railed in with Iron Rails, & the tablet to Charles was against the wall facing you—⁶ If you require an engraving of our Grandfather I may be able to help you, as I have the picture by Wright of Derby, mentioned in Miss Sewards life of D^r D. page 21, painted about 1770, when he would be under 40; & after waiting many years I have obtained the little engraving of the picture size 3 inches by 4—engraved by J. A. Wedgwood.⁷ I only know of two other copies—probably however you may have one.

I have also the picture by Rawlinson painted about 1800, & the engraving of it—⁸ I have but few articles which belonged to our Grandfather— the chair in which he always sat in his Library— His Library ladder, which shuts up into a plain pole, & which he invented— His Cheese Scoop, & Apple scoop, (made of Bone) which he always used—his silver repeater watch, & his two seals, one “E. D.” & the other, the one I have used for years with his adopted motto, & which motto I manage to avoid.⁹

Do you possess a small book printed for private circulation in 1859, “Sketch of the life of James Keir?”. It was sent me by the compiler, James Moilliet, & contains¹⁰