The Second Epistle follows a reply from Lapraik to Burns' first Epistle to J. Lapraik, An Old Scotch Bard and is mostly autobiographical in content and details the bad luck which has been the ...

Rankine’s sister Margaret was the first wife of John Lapraik about whom Burns also composed an Epistle. Rankine was one of the first to find out that Burns had impregnated Elizabeth Paton ...