has followed me in my return to the shade of life, with assiduous benevolence. Often did I regret, in the fleeting hours of my late Will-o'-Wisp appearance, that "here I had no continuing city;" and, but for the consolation of a few solid guineas, could almost lament the time that a momentary acquaintance with wealth and splendour put me so much out of conceit with the sworn companions of my road through life, insignificance and poverty. There are few circumstances relating to the unequal distribution of the good things of this life, that give me more vexation (I mean in what I see around me), than the importance the opulent bestow on their trifling family affairs, compared with the very same things on the contracted scale of a cottage. Last afternoon I had the honour to spend an hour or two at a good woman's fireside, where the planks that composed the floor, were decorated with a splendid carpet, and the gay table sparkled with silver and china. "Tis now about term-day, and there has been a revolution among those creatures, who, though in appearance partakers, and equally noble partakers, of the same nature with madame, are from time to time, their nerves, their sinews, their health, strength, wisdom, experience, genius, time, nay a good part of their very thoughts, sold for months and years, * * * * not only to the necessities, the conveniences, but the caprices of the important few. We talked of the insignificant creatures'; nay, notwith *Servants, in Scotland, are hired from term to term; i, e. from Whitsunday to Martinmas, &c. standing their general stupidity and rascality, did some of the poor devils the honour to commend them. But, light be the turf upon his breast who taught―"Reverence thyself." We looked down on the unpolished wretches, their impertinent wives and clouterly brats, as the lordly bull does on the little dirty ant-hill, whose puny inhabitants he crushes in the carelessness of his ramble, or tosses in the air in the wantonness of his pride. XL. TO THE SAME. Ellisland, 13th June, 1788. "Where'er I roam, whatever realms I see, THIS is the second day, my honoured friend, that I have been on my farm. A solitary inmate of an old smoky Spence; far from every object I love, or by whom I am beloved; nor any acquaintance older than yesterday, except Jenny Geddes, the old mare I ride on while uncouth cares and novel plans hourly insult my awkward ignorance and bashful inexperience. There is a foggy atmosphere native to my soul in the hour of care, consequently the dreary objects seem larger than the life. Extreme sensibility, irritated and prejudged on the gloomy side by a series of misfortunes and disappointments, at that period of my existence when the soul is laying in her cargo of ideas for the voyage of life, is, I believe, the principal cause of this unhappy frame of mind. "The valiant, in himself, what can he suffer? Or what need he regard his single woes?" &c. Your surmise, madam, is just; I am indeed a husband. I found a once much-loved and still much-loved female, literally and truly cast out to the mercy of the naked elements; but as I enabled her to purchase a shelter; and there is no sporting with a fellow-creature's happiness or misery. The most placid good-nature and sweetness of disposition; a warm heart, gratefully devoted with all its powers to love me; vigorous health and sprightly cheerfulness, set off to the best advantage by a more than commonly handsome figure; these, I think, in a woman, may make a good wife, though she should never have read a page but the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, nor have danced in a brighter assembly than a penny-pay wedding. XLI. EXTRACT FROM HIS COMMON-PLACE BOOK. Ellisland, Sunday, 14th June, 1788. THIS is now the third day that I have been in this country. 'Lord, what is man!' What a bustling little bundle of passions, appetites, ideas, and fancies! And what a capricious kind of existence he has here! * ** There is indeed an elsewhere, where, as Thomson says, virtue sole survives. Tell us, ye dead; Will none of you in pity disclose the secret, Will make us wise as you are, and as close.' I am such a coward in life, so tired of the service, that I would almost at any time, with Milton's Adam, gladly lay me in my mother's lap, and be at peace.' But a wife and children bind me to struggle with the stream, till some sudden squall shall overset the silly vessel; or in the listless return of years, its own craziness reduce it to a wreck. Farewell now to those giddy follies, those varnished vices, which, though half-sanctified by the bewitching levity of wit and humour, are at best but thriftless idling with the precious current of existence; nay, often poisoning the whole, that, like the plains of Jericho, the water is naught and the ground barren, and nothing short of a supernaturally-gifted Elisha can ever after heal the evils. Wedlock, the circumstance that buckles me hardest to care, if virtue and religion were to be any thing with me but names, was what in a few seasons I must have resolved on; in my present situation it was absolutely necessary. Humanity, generosity, honest pride of character, justice to my own happiness for after-life, so far as it could depend (which it surely will a great deal) on internal peace; all these joined their warmest suffrages, their most powerful solicitations, with a rooted attachment, to urge the step I have taken. Nor have I any reason on her part to repent it.—I can fancy how, but have never seen where, I could have made a better choice. Come, then, let me act up to my favourite motto, that glorious passage in Young On reason build resolve, That column of true majesty in man!' XLII. TO MR. P. HILL. MY DEAR HILL. I SHALL say nothing at all to your mad present -you have long and often been of important service to me, and I suppose you mean to go on conferring obligations until I shall not be able to lift up my face before you. In the mean time, as sir Roger de Coverley, because it happened to be a cold day in which he made his will, ordered his ser.. vants great coats for mourning, so, because I have been this week plagued with an indigestion, I have sent you by the carrier a fine old ewe-milk cheese. Indigestion is the devil: nay, 'tis the devil and all. It besets a man in every one of his senses. I lose my appetite at the sight of successful knavery, and sicken, to loathing at the noise and nonsense of self-important folly. When the hollow-hearted wretch takes me by the hand, the feeling spoils my dinuer; the proud man's wine so offends my palate |