honour to be prejudiced in my favour; this makes me hope that I have not outraged her beyond all forgiveness.-To all the other ladies please present my humblest contrition for my conduct, and my petition for their gracious pardon. O all ye powers of decency and decorum! whisper to them, that my errors, though great, were involuntary-that an intoxicated man is the vilest of beasts-that it was not in my nature to be brutal to any one-that to be rude to a woman, when in my senses, was impossible with me-but Regret! Remorse! Shame! ye three hellhounds that ever dog my steps and bay at my heels, spare me! spare me! Forgive the offences, and pity the perdition of, Madam, your humble slave. No. 139. TO MRS. DUNLOP. MY DEAR FRIEND, 15th December, 1795. As I am in a compleat Decemberish humour, gloomy, sullen, stupid, as even the deity of Dulness herself could wish, I shall not drawl out a heavy letter with a number of heavier apo logies for my late silence. Only one I shall mention, because I know you will sympathise' in it these four months, a sweet little girl, my youngest child, has been so ill, that every day, a week or less threatened to terminate her existence. There had much need be many pleasures annexed to the states of husband and father, for God knows, they have many peculiar cares. I cannot describe to you the anxious, sleepless hours these ties frequently give me. I see a train of helpless little folks; me and my exertions all their stay; and on what a brittle thread does the life of man hang! If I am nipt off at the command of fate; even in all the vigour of manhood as I am, such things happen every day-gracious God! what would become of my little flock! 'Tis here that I envy your people of fortune.-A father on his deathbed, taking an everlasting leave of his children, has indeed woe enough; but the man of competent fortune leaves his sons and daughters independency and friends; while I-but I shall run distracted if I' think any longer on the subject! To leave talking of the matter so gravely, I' shall sing with the old Scots ballad— "O that I had ne'er been married, "I would never had nae care; "They cry, crowdie, evermair. Crowdie! ance; crowdie! twice; "Crowdie! three times in a day : "An ye, crowdie! ony mair, "Ye'll, crowdie! a' my meal away." * December 24th. We have had a brilliant theatre here, this season; only, as all other business has, it experiences a stagnation of trade from the epidemical complaint of the country, want of cash. I mention our theatre merely to lug in an occasional Address which I wrote for the benefit night of one of the actresses.* 25th, Christmas Morning. This, my much loved friend, is a morning of wishes: accept mine-so Heaven hear me, as they are sincere! that blessings may attend your steps, and affliction know you not! In the charming words of my favourite author, The Man of Feeling," May the great spirit bear up "the weight of thy gray hairs; and blunt the "arrow that brings them rest! Now that I talk of authors, how do you like Cowper? Is not the Task a glorious poem? The religion of the Task, bating a few scraps of Calvinistic divinity, is the religion of God and Nature: the religion that exalts, that en nobles man. Were not you to send me your Zeluco in return for mine? Tell me how you like my marks and notes through the book. I would not give a farthing for a book, unless I were at liberty to blot it with my criticisms. I have lately collected, for a friend's perusal, all my letters; I mean those which I first sketched, in a rough draught, and afterwards wrote out fair. On looking over some old musty papers, which from time to time, I had parcelled by, as trash that were scarce worth preserving, and which yet at the same time I did not care to destroy; I discovered many of these rude sketches, and have written, and am writing them out, in a bound MS. for my friend's library. As I wrote always to you the rhapsody of the moment, I cannot find a single scroll to you, except one, about the commencement of our acquaintance. If there were any possible conveyance, I would send you a perusal of my book. No. 140. TO MRS. DUNLOP, IN LONDON. Dumfries, 20th December, 1795. I HAVE been prodigiously disappointed in this Loudon journey of yours. In the first place, when your last to me reached Dumfries, I was in the country, and did not return until too late to answer your letter; in the next place, I thought you would certainly take this route; and now I know not what is become of you, or whether this may reach you at all.-God grant that it health and good spirits. Do let me hear from you the soonest possible may find you and yours in prospering As I hope to get a frank from my friend Capt. Miller, I shall, every leisure hour, take up the pen, and gossip away whatever comes first, prose or poesy, sermon or song. In this last article I have abounded of late. I have of ten mentioned to you a superb publication of Scottish songs which is making its appearance in your great metropolis, and where I have the honour to preside over the Scottish verse, as no less a personage than Peter Pindar does over the English. December 29th. Since I began this letter, I have been appointed to act in the capacity of supervisor here, and I assure you, what with the load of business, and what with that business being new to me, I could scarcely have commanded ten minutes to have spoken to you, had you been in town, |