merits my hearty thanks. From what has been said, the conclusion is this; that my hearty thanks and my best wishes are all that you and my sister must expect from.

No. II.

W. B.

Newcastle, 24th Jan. 1790.

DEAR BROTHER,

I WROTE you about six weeks ago, and I have expected to hear from you every post since, but I suppose your excise business which you hinted at in your last, has prevented you from writing. By the bye, when and how have you got into the excise; and what division have you got about Dumfries? These questions please answer in your next, if more important matter do not occur. But in the mean time let me have the letter to John Murdoch, which Gilbert wrote me you meant to send; enclose it in yours to me, and let me have them as soon as

possible,

possible, for I intend to sail for London, in a fortnight, or three weeks at farthest.

You promised me when I was intending to go to Edinburgh, to write me some instructions about behaviour in companies rather above my station, to which I might be eventually introduced. As I may be introduced into such companies at Murdoch's or on his account when I go to London, I wish you would write me some such instructions now: I never had more need of them, for having spent little of my time in company of any sort since I came to Newcastle, I have almost forgot the common civilities of life. To these instructions pray add some of a moral kind, for though (either through the strength of early impressions, or the frigidity of my constitution) I have hitherto withstood the temptation to those vices, to which young fellows of my station and time of life are so much addicted, yet, I do not know if my virtue will be able to withstand the more powerful temptations of the metropolis: yet, through God's assistance and your instructions I hope to weather the storm.

Give the compliments of the season and my love to my sisters, and all the rest of your family. Tell Gilbert the first time you write

him

him that I am well, and that I will write him either when I sail or when I arrive at London.

I am, &c.

No. III.

W. B.

DEAR BROTHER,

London, 21st March, 1790.

I HAVE been here three weeks come Tuesday, and would have written you sooner but was not settled in a place of work.-We were ten days on our passage from Shields; the weather being calm I was not sick, except one day when it blew pretty hard. I got into work the Friday after I came to town, I wrought there only eight days, their job being done. I got work again in a.shop in the Strand, the next day after I left my former master. It is only a temporary place, but I expect to be settled soon in a shop to my mind, although

it will be a harder task than I at first imagined, for there are such swarms of fresh hands just come from the country that the town is quite overstocked, and except one is a particularly good workman (which you know I am not, nor I am afraid ever will be), it is hard to get a place: However, I don't yet despair to bring up my lee-way, and shall endeavour if possible to sail within three or four points of the wind. The encouragement here is not what I expected, wages being very low in proportion to the expense of living; but yet, if I can only lay by the money that is spent by others in my situation in dissipation and riot, I expect soon to return you the money I borrowed of you, and live comfortably besides.

In the mean time I wish you would send up all my best linen shirts to London, which you may easily do by sending them to some of your Edinburgh friends, to be shipped from Leith. Some of them are too little, don't send any but what are good, and I wish one of my sisters could find as much time as to trim my shirts at the breast, for there is no such thing to be seen here as a plain shirt, even for wearing, which is what I want these for. I mean to get one or two new shirts here for Sundays, but I assure you that linen here is a very expensive

article.

article. I am going to write to Gilbert to send me an Ayrshire cheese; if he can spare it he will send it to you, and you may send it with the shirts, but I expect to hear from you before that time. The cheese I could get here; but I will have a pride in eating Ayrshire cheese in London, and the expense of sending it will be little, as you are sending the shirts any how.

I write this by J. Stevenson, in his lodgings, while he is writing to Gilbert. He is well and hearty, which is a blessing to me as well as to him: We were at Covent Garden chapel this forenoon, to hear the Calf preach, he is grown very fat, and is as boisterous as ever. There is a whole colony of Kilmarnock people here, so we don't want for acquaintance.

Remember me to my siters and all the family. I shall give you all the observations I have made on London in my next, when I shall have seen more of it.

I am, Dear Brother, yours, &c.

W. B.

No.

* Vide Poetical Address to The Calf. Dr. Currie's

edition, vol. iii. p. 68.