sentence of recollection, information, or remark | conjugal derived from jugum, a yoke?) Well, worth putting pen to paper for. then, the scale of good-wifeship I divide into I feel, I feel the presence of supernatural as- ten parts.-Good-nature, four; Good Sense, sistance! circled in the embrace of my elbow-two; Wit, one; Personal Charms, viz. a sweet chair, my breast labours, like the bloated Sybil face, eloquent eyes, fine limbs, graceful carriage, on her three-footed stool, and like her too, la-(I would add a fine waist too, but that is so bours with Nonsense.-Nonsense, auspicious soon spoilt, you know), all these, one; as for name! Tutor, friend, and finger-post in the the other qualities belonging to, or attending on, mystic mazes of law; the cadaverous paths of a wife, such as Fortune, Connections, Educaphysic; and particularly in the sightless soar- tion, (I mean education extraordinary), Family ings of SCHOOL DIVINITY, who, leaving Com- Blood, &c. divide the two remaining degrees mon Sense confounded at his strength of pinion, among them as you please; only, remember Reason delirious with eyeing his giddy flight, that all these minor properties must be expressand Truth creeping back into the bottom of her ed by fractions, for there is not any one of well, cursing the hour that ever she offered her them, in the aforesaid scale, entitled to the digscorned alliance to the wizard power of Theolo- nity of an integer. gic Vision-raves abroad on all the winds. "On As for the rest of my fancies and reveries— earth Discord! a gloomy Heaven above, open- how I lately met with Miss Lesly Baillie, the ing her jealous gates to the nineteen thousandth most beautiful, elegant woman in the world part of the tithe of mankind! and below, an in--how I accompanied her and her father's faescapable and inexorable hell, expanding its le-mily fifteen miles on their journey, out of pure viathan jaws for the vast residue of mortals!!!" devotion, to admire the loveliness of the works -O doctrine! comfortable and healing to the of God, in such an unequalled display of ther weary, wounded soul of a man! Ye sons and-how, in galloping home at night, I made a daughters of affliction, ye pauvres miserables, to ballad on her, of which these two stanzas make whom day brings no pleasure, and night yields a partno rest, be comforted!"'Tis but one to nineteen hundred thousand that your situation will mend in this world ;" so, alas! the experience of the poor and the needy too often affirms; and 'tis nineteen hundred thousand to one, by the dogmas of that you will be damned

eternally in the world to come!

But of all Nonsense, Religious Nonsense is the most nonsensical; so enough, and more than enough of it. Only, by the bye, will you, or can you tell me, my dear Cunningham, why

Thou, bonnie Lesly, art a queen,

Thy subjects we before thee;
Thou, bonnie Lesly, art divine,

The hearts o' men adore thee.

The very Deil he could na scaith
Whatever wad belang thee!
He'd look into thy bonnie face

And say, 66 I canna wrang thee.

a sectarian turn of mind has always a tendency-behold all these things are written in the to narrow and illiberalize the heart? They are chronicles of my imagination, and shall be read orderly; they may be just; nay, I have known by thee, my dear friend, and by thy beloved them merciful but still your children of sanc-spouse, my other dear friend, at a more convetity move among their fellow-creatures with a nient season. nostril snuffing putrescence, and a foot spurning filth, in short, with a conceited dignity that your titled

Now, to thee, and to thy before-designed bosom-companion, be given the precious things brought forth by the sun, and the precious things brought forth by the moon, and the benignest influence of the stars, and the living streams which flow from the fountains of life, and by the tree of life, for ever and ever!

or any other of your Scottish lordlings of seven centuries standing, display when they accidentally mix among the many-aproned sons of mechanical life. I remember, in my ploughboy days, I could not conceive it possible that a Amen! noble lord could be a fool, or a godly man could be a knave. How ignorant are plough-boys!— Nay, I have since discovered that a godly woman may be a — -!-But hold Here's t'ye again this rum is generous Antigua, so a very unfit menstruum for scandal.

Apropos, how do you like, I mean really like the married life! Ah, my friend! matrimony is quite a different thing from what your love-sick youths and sighing girls take it to be! But marriage, we are told, is appointed by God, and I shall never quarrel with any of his institutions. I am a husband of older standing than you, and shall give you my ideas of the conjugal state(en passant, you know I am no Latinist, is not

No. CLXVIII.

TO MRS. DUNLOP.

Dumfries, 24th September, 1792. I HAVE this moment, my dear Madam, yours of the twenty-third. All your other kind reproaches, your news, &c. are out of my head when I read and think on Mrs. H's situation. Good God! a heart-wounded helpless young woman-in a strange. foreign land,‍ and

that land convulsed with every horror, that can cept that which religion holds out to the chilharrow the human feelings-sick-looking, dren of affliction-children of affliction !— longing for a comforter, but finding none-a how just the expression! and like every other mother's feelings, too-but it is too much he family, they have matters among them which who wounded (he only can) may He heal!

I wish the farmer great joy of his new acquisition to his family.

they hear, see, and feel in a serious, all-important manner, of which the world has not, nor cares to have, any idea. The world looks indifferently on, makes the passing remark, and proceeds to the next novel occurrence.

Alas, Madam! who would wish for many years! What is it but to drag existence until

I cannot say that I give him joy of his life as a fariner. 'Tis, as a farmer paying a dear, unconscionable rent, a cursed life! As to a lairdour joys gradually expire and leave us in a night

farming his own property; sowing his own corn in hope, and reaping it, in spite of brittle weather, in gladness; knowing that none can say unto him, "what dost thou ?"-fattening his herds; shearing his flocks; rejoicing at Christmas; and begetting sons and daughters, until he be the venerated, grey-haired leader of a little tribe-'tis a heavenly life but Devil take the life of reaping the fruits that another

must eat.

of misery; like the gloom which blots out the stars one by one, from the face of night, and leaves us, without a ray of comfort, in the howling waste!

I am interrupted, and must leave off. shall soon hear from me again.

No. CLXA.

TO THE SAME.

You

Dumfries, 6th December, 1792. I SHALL be in Ayrshire, I think, next week; and if at all possible, I shall certainly, my muchesteemed friend, have the pleasure of visiting at Dunlop-house.

Well, your kind wishes will be gratified, as to seeing me when I make my Ayrshire visit. I cannot leave Mrs. B, until her nine months' race is run, which may perhaps be in three or four weeks. She, too, seems determined to make me the patriarchal leader of a band However, if Heaven will be so obliging as let me have them on the proportion of three boys to one girl, I shall be so much the more pleased. Alas, Madam! how seldom do we me meet I hope, if I am spared with them, to show a set in this world, that we have reason to congratu of boys that will do honour to my cares and late ourselves on occasions of happiness! I have name; but I am not equal to the task of rear- not passed half the ordinary term of an old man's ing girls. Besides, I am too poor; a girl should life, and yet I scarcely look over the obituary of always have a fortune. Apropos, your little a newspaper, that I do not see some names that god-son is thriving charmingly, but is a very devil. He, though two years younger, has completely mastered his brother. Robert is indeed the mildest, gentlest creature I ever saw. He has a most surprising memory, and is quite the pride of his schoolmaster.

You know how readily we get into prattle upon a subject dear to our heart: you can excuse t. God bless you and yours!

No. CLXIX.

TO THE SAME.

SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN WRITTEN ON THE
DEATH OF MRS. H, HER DAUGHTER.

I HAD been from home, and did not receive your letter until my return the other day. What shall I say to comfort you, my much-valued, much-afflicted friend! I can but grieve with you; consolation I have none to offer, ex

This much-lamented lady was gone to the south

of,France with her infant son, where she died soon after

I have known, and which I, and other acquaint
ances, little thought to meet with there so soon.
Every other instance of the mortality of our
kind, makes us cast an anxious look into the
dreadful abyss of uncertainty, and shudder with
apprehensions for our own fate. But of how
different an importance are the lives of different
individuals? Nay, of what importance is one
period of the same life, more than another? A
few years ago, I could have lain down in the
dust,"careless of the voice of the morning;"
and now not a few, and these most helpless in-
dividuals, would, on losing me and my exer-
tions, lose both their "staff and shield."
By
the way, these helpless ones have lately got an
addition, Mrs. B. having given me a fine girl
since I wrote you.
There is a charming pas-
sage in Thomson's Edward and Eleanora.
"The valiant, in himself, what can he suffer-
Or what need he regard his single woes?" &c.

As I am got in the way of quotations, I shall give you another from the same piece, peculiar. ly, alas! too peculiarly apposite, my dear Ma dam, to your present frame of mind:

Who so unworthy but may proudly deck him,
With his fair-weather virtue, that exults

sentence of recollection, information, or remark | conjugal derived from jugum, a yoke?) Well, worth putting pen to paper for. then, the scale of good-wifeship I divide into I feel, I feel the presence of supernatural as- ten parts.-Good-nature, four; Good Sense, sistance! circled in the embrace of my elbow-two; Wit, one; Personal Charms, viz. a sweet chair, my breast labours, like the bloated Sybil face, eloquent eyes, fine limbs, graceful carriage, on her three-footed stool, and like her too, la-(I would add a fine waist too, but that is so bours with Nonsense. -Nonsense, auspicious soon spoilt, you know), all these, one; as for name! Tutor, friend, and finger-post in the the other qualities belonging to, or attending on, mystic mazes of law; the cadaverous paths of a wife, such as Fortune, Connections, Educaphysic; and particularly in the sightless soar- tion, (I mean education extraordinary), Family ings of SCHOOL DIVINITY, who, leaving Com- Blood, &c. divide the two remaining degrees mon Sense confounded at his strength of pinion, among them as you please; only, remember Reason delirious with eyeing his giddy flight, that all these minor properties must be expressand Truth creeping back into the bottom of her ed by fractions, for there is not any one of well, cursing the hour that ever she offered her them, in the aforesaid scale, entitled to the digscorned alliance to the wizard power of Theolo-nity of an integer. gic Vision-raves abroad on all the winds. "On As for the rest of my fancies and reveriesearth Discord! a gloomy Heaven above, open- how I lately met with Miss Lesly Baillie, the ing her jealous gates to the nineteen thousandth most beautiful, elegant woman in the world part of the tithe of mankind! and below, an in--how I accompanied her and her father's faescapable and inexorable hell, expanding its le-mily fifteen miles on their journey, out of pure viathan jaws for the vast residue of mortals!!!" devotion, to admire the loveliness of the works -O doctrine! comfortable and healing to the of God, in such an unequalled display of ther weary, wounded soul of a man! Ye sons and-how, in galloping home at night, I made a daughters of affliction, ye pauvres miserables, to ballad on her, of which these two stanzas make whom day brings no pleasure, and night yields a partno rest, be comforted!"'Tis but one to nineteen hundred thousand that your situation will mend in this world;" so, alas! the experience of the poor and the needy too often affirms; and 'tis nineteen hundred thousand to one, by the dogmas of that you will be damned

eternally in the world to come!

Thou, bonnie Lesly, art a queen,

Thy subjects we before thee;
Thou, bonnie Lesly, art divine,

The hearts o' men adore thee.

The very Deil he could na scaith
Whatever wad belang thee!
He'd look into thy bonnie face
And say, "I canna wrang thee.

But of all Nonsense, Religious Nonsense is the most nonsensical; so enough, and more than enough of it. Only, by the bye, will you, or can you tell me, my dear Cunningham, why a sectarian turn of mind has always a tendency-behold all these things are written in the to narrow and illiberalize the heart? They are chronicles of my imagination, and shall be read orderly; they may be just; nay, I have known by thee, my dear friend, and by thy beloved them merciful but still your children of sanc-spouse, my other dear friend, at a more convetity move among their fellow-creatures with a nient season. nostril snuffing putrescence, and a foot spurning Now, to thee, and to thy before-designed bofilth, in short, with a conceited dignity that som-companion, be given the precious things your titled brought forth by the sun, and the precious things brought forth by the moon, and the benignest influence of the stars, and the living streams which flow from the fountains of life, and by the tree of life, for ever and ever!—

or any other of your Scottish lordlings of seven centuries standing, display when they accidentally mix among the many-aproned sons of mechanical life. I remember, in my ploughboy days, I could not conceive it possible that a Amen! noble lord could be a fool, or a godly man could be a knave. How ignorant are plough-boys!— Nay, I have since discovered that a godly woman may be a !-But hold—Here's t'ye again this rum is generous Antigua, so a very unfit menstruum for scandal.

Apropos, how do you like, I mean really like the married life! Ah, my friend! matrimony is quite a different thing from what your love-sick youths and sighing girls take it to be! But marriage, we are told, is appointed by God, and I shall never quarrel with any of his institutions. I am a husband of older standing than you, and shall give you my ideas of the conjugal state(en passant, you know I am no Latinist, is not

No. CLXVIII.

TO MRS. DUNLOP.

Dumfries, 24th September, 1792. I HAVE this moment, my dear Madam, yours of the twenty-third. All your other kind reproaches, your news, &c. are out of my head when I read and think on Mrs. H's situa tion. Good God! a heart-wounded helpless young woman-in a strange, foreign land, and

369

that land convulsed with every horror, that can cept that which religion holds out to the chilharrow the human feelings-sick-looking, dren of affliction-children of affliction !— longing for a comforter, but finding none-a how just the expression! and like every other mother's feelings, too-but it is too much he who wounded (he only can) may He heal!•

I wish the farmer great joy of his new acquisition to his family.

I cannot say that I give him joy of his life as a fariner. 'Tis, as a farmer paying a dear, unconscionable rent, a cursed life! As to a laird farming his own property; sowing his own corn in hope, and reaping it, in spite of brittle weather, in gladness; knowing that none can say unto him, "what dost thou ?"—fattening his herds; shearing his flocks; rejoicing at Christmas; and begetting sons and daughters, until he be the venerated, grey-haired leader of a little tribe-'tis a heavenly life but Devil take the life of reaping the fruits that another

must eat.

family, they have matters among them which they hear, see, and feel in a serious, all-important manner, of which the world has not, nor cares to have, any idea. The world looks indifferently on, makes the passing remark, and proceeds to the next novel occurrence.

Alas, Madam! who would wish for many years! What is it but to drag existence until our joys gradually expire and leave us in a night of misery; like the gloom which blots out the stars one by one, from the face of night, and leaves us, without a ray of comfort, in the howling waste!

shall soon hear from me again.
I am interrupted, and must leave off.

No. CLXX.

TO THE SAME.

You

Dumfries, 6th December, 1792.

I SHALL be in Ayrshire, I think, next week; and if at all possible, I shall certainly, my muchesteemed friend, have the pleasure of visiting at Dunlop-house.

Well, your kind wishes will be gratified, as to seeing me when I make my Ayrshire visit. I cannot leave Mrs. B, until her nine months' race is run, which may perhaps be in three or four weeks. She, too, seems determined to make me the patriarchal leader of a band However, if Heaven will be so obliging as let me have them on the proportion of three boys to one girl, I shall be so much the more pleased. Alas, Madam! how seldom do we me meet I hope, if I am spared with them, to show a set in this world, that we have reason to congratu of boys that will do honour to my cares and late ourselves on occasions of happiness! I have name; but I am not equal to the task of rear- not passed half the ordinary term of an old man's ing girls. Besides, I am too poor; a girl should always have a fortune. Apropos, your little god-son is thriving charmingly, but is a very devil. He, though two years younger, has completely mastered his brother. Robert is indeed the mildest, gentlest creature I ever saw. He has a most surprising memory, and is quite the pride of his schoolmaster.

life, and yet I scarcely look over the obituary of a newspaper, that I do not see some names that I have known, and which I, and other acquaint ances, little thought to meet with there so soon. Every other instance of the mortality of our kind, makes us cast an anxious look into the dreadful abyss of uncertainty, and shudder with apprehensions for our own fate. But of how You know how readily we get into prattle up-different an importance are the lives of different on a subject dear to our heart: you can excuse t. God bless you and yours!

No. CLXIX.

TO THE SAME.

SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN WRITTEN ON THE
DEATH OF MRS. H, HER DAUGHTER.

I HAD been from home, and did not receive your letter until my return the other day. What shall I say to comfort you, my much-valued, much-afflicted friend! I can but grieve with you; consolation I have none to offer, ex

This much-lamented lady was gone to the south

of France with her infant son, where she died soon af

individuals? Nay, of what importance is one
period of the same life, more than another? A
few years ago, I could have lain down in the
dust, "careless of the voice of the morning;"
and now not a few, and these most helpless in-
dividuals, would, on losing me and my exer.
tions, lose both their "staff and shield." By
the way, these helpless ones have lately got an
addition, Mrs. B. having given me a fine girl
since I wrote you.
There is a charming pas
sage
in Thomson's Edward and Eleanora.
"The valiant, in himself, what can he suffer-
Or what need he regard his single woes?" &c.

As I am got in the way of quotations, I shall give you another from the same piece, peculiar. ly, alas! too peculiarly apposite, my dear Madam, to your present frame of mind:

Who so unworthy but may proudly deck him,
With his fair-weather virtue, that exults

Glad o'er the summer main? the tempest | Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention,