To Captain Riddell

Your News and Review, Sir, I've read through and through, Sir,
With little admiring or blaming:
The Papers are barren of home-news or foreign,
No murders or rapes worth the naming.

Our friends the Reviewers, those Chippers and Hewers,
Are judges of Mortar and Stone, Sir;
But of meet or unmeet, in a Fabric complete,
I'll boldly pronounce they are none, Sir.

My Goose-quill too rude is to tell all your goodness
Bestow'd on your servant, the Poet;
Would to God I had one like a beam of the Sun,
And then all the World, should know it!

Robert Burns