But this, to us, is nothing. This is not our lot. If we shall know truth, we must know it partially, imperfectly, with many interruptions. We have heard another call. We have a necessity that we must obey. We have a work to perform,-a servitude to be accomplished,-functions to which our powers are bound. We have a life set before us, and the path on which we tread prescribes our steps. But amidst these avocations, under this bondage of necessity, and in the conflict and toil of life, we require truth; and truth, in some degree,-to some effect,-to the enlargement of our peace, and to some acquisition of power, we are able to obtain; and the question of moment to us is, how shall we begin to seek it? If we are to seek it within ourselves, it is some encouragement that the field of inquiry at least is always at hand. If all that is required to direct the search be clear purpose and pure desire, the means are not difficult to the understanding, if they should prove so to the will. But what does it mean, to seek truth within ourselves? What truth? Why, that truth which all men seek; that truth, the understanding of which is wisdom, and which, blended in our lives, is peace, and liberty, and power. Let each man understand for himself. He should know his own need. He remembers little of the past, if he has not to tell that he has often felt a fearful void in life, -an oppressive existence of inexplicable evils,―a capacity within himself of good that was not to be found,desires and wants of something that reality should give, and does not give. He seeks therefore for something which is to satisfy his understanding and fill his heart,-which shall make stedfast his unstable life,-bind together his inconsistent purposes,-give clearness to all the relations of life,-harmony to all the movements of his mind,unity to his being; that truth which shall be his friend, his monitor, speaking to him at every moment of lifecounselling him to do and to leave undone. We find within ourselves conflicts, tumults, changes of passion, fluctuating thoughts, desires, loves, fears, joys, oppressions of sorrow and pain, a whole world moving within ourselves, in answering motion to an external life. Is truth any thing that is here? I am a creature living to joy and pain. Do I know even what gives me joy or pain? what gave them yesterday perhaps, and will give them to-morrow? But do I know what my capacities are for joy and pain? or what there is in this world in which I breathe adapted to fill them? in this overflowing inexhaustible world in which I feel that I am unsatisfied? I have a life which I fulfil as a slave; and I have a power of life in which I should be sovereign and free. What is it? and where shall I find it? Surely in myself only, who AM what I desire to know. But how shall I direct my thought to this inquisition? How begin my search? How shall I lay hold upon that knowledge, of which this inward life,-my whole complicated, immeasurable, unordered, unintelligible life,-may furnish the materials? I know them,-I can find them well in my painful, passionate, memory,—I can heap together their incongruous mass-But what is the potent alchemy to which they shall yield their hidden essence, and breathe the pure being of truth? up Within myself I must seek, I cannot doubt it. Shall others tell me what is there? Or if the words of their wisdom are borne by my ear, what is it that shall arrest them as they pass, call them down into my heart, and believe them? but that spirit which is searching within, which finds evil and good that it cannot comprehend, and leaps as the light darts in,-that shews it what it sought? Here let me seek. But what the process of search must be, or what the fruits it shall gather, -or how or when they shall be yielded,-let me leave to discovering time. How should it be understood by the poor dark, wavering, perplexed, perturbed being, who knows only that he is unsatisfied? DR SIR, I AM very sensible a correspondence from a most retired corner in the country can be of no value or delight to one ever midst the brightest and most Improving Company. Tho' I cannot but have these thoughts, yet it is an inexpressible satisfaction and relief to me any way to communicate with the place and visit the Company I love and feelingly want. I hope therefor tho' I can communicate nothing of value to you, yet you will kindly wellcome and receive these views and remembrances of my former delights and Company. I refresh myself with the belief, when I review the Golden Dreams of Glasgow, that I shall retain them in my remembrance, when time has brightened them and worn off all the anxieties that mixed with them. The remembrance of summer in winter, of youthfull delights in old age, of Paradise after the expulsion, and knight errands in a wilderness meeting their mistresses, may something resemble my condition when thus I forget a half years absence and constant cares amongst strangers to remember that ease freedom and past delight I enjoyed then. But to participate with and understand me it were necessary to have felt and known the same and I believe tho' I find People take pleasure to tell their dreams, others take no delight in hearing them. News and affairs are the most ordinary subjects of correspondence and of them this country is as barren as of corn and plenty. There is nothing new here; the hills stand and the rocks are piled up the same way as they opposed the shock of the flood and have since sustained thro' ages of years successions of tempests, while under them have sprung fountains and streams that constantly run with murmurs and warblings as ancient as the world itself and have given drink to far distant generations of animals, while succeeding generations of grass and woods are nourished by them, descended by an exact lineal descent from that which first clothed the world, and at its nativity raised the songs of morning stars, and has given food since to distant generations of animals of as ancient clans as the oldest Inhabitants. Thus you see there is nothing new or changes here; for nature has ever held an undisputed and uninvaded sway con stantly here, and in these antient scenes solely reigns and retired works. But in the variable Human Mind we do not want our novelties and curiosities. I know you love Natural History and that especially of Men and Characters. Since I have now and in my first Letter given some account of the place and country, I shall describe two very particular characters I have met with in this country. The one is very serious the other as fantastick and comicall. Some time ago there served in this family as Gentlewoman to My Ldy Henriett Campbell, a young woman of the gayest and most jovial (even to extravagance) temper one can imagine. She (as they express it) with her high mirth kept an whole house stirring; she had been exceeding serviceable with this temper to my Lady in her refuge in Holland when her Husband was oblidged to fly thither after 1685. Yet in these few years, she has been several times taken with the deepest blackest melancholy to that degree that for a long time she would not speak. She is now under it, and for these two years has not spoken to any but her Husband and very little to him scarce more ever than yes or no. She is married to the minister of the Paroch. She has been ever lying these two years without any other trouble almost. Such influence has it had on her and so killed her mind that last winter when Colonel Campbell (whose sons are Mr Butler's pupils) her Brother whom she particularly had loved, returned after many years absence, she seemed insensible to him and was nothing moved at the sight of him. Some pretend 'tis witchcraft that troubles her and others give reasons considering the person and her friends and station I cannot well communicate this way. This temper runs much in blood, and her Father who was an excellent minister here was lyable to some melancholy damps and sometimes would shun speaking for some weeks. I have insisted on this because I think it a very remarkable experiment anent the passions and their balance, considering her change from high extravagant chearfullness to such a melancholy; which confirms that the extremes in passions are most easily convertable and shews that proportion obtains much in this balance. I think this horrible instance may be usefull to caution against the least encouragement of that black passion, which I think company not the securest remedy against, but rather the filling the vacancies of our minds with the highest degree of those noble ardors and affections to the good of mankind and of doing good and gallant actions which may enlarge and cultivate and exalt our minds and keep them still keen and bright. After this melancholy account I am not disposed to give a suitable relation of the living Don Quixot our Cook who having travelled many parts of Europe, though born in the isle of Sky has gathered some real knowledge of the world which he in all companys mixes with the strangest fictions on taking occasion to extoll some wondrous exploits of his own which he relates with that assurance and constancy and eagerness that all think he believes them himself at least. His family he tells us is 372 years 5 moneths 12 days &c. old. His humour and talk is constantly imaginary and so fertile is his invention that every day some new flight surprises us: He could never read, yet the other day he seriously lamented to me he had got a pair of the finest spectacles broken to him in the kitchen shortly after he came here and could never get any pleased and fitted him since so that he believed he had not read four times since he came here; yesterday he took me aside and after many compliments for my care of his friend (my pupill) he told me he was about to leave us, that he needed not serve the best in Britain he had enough of his own Hang him if he could not live on 4000 merks a-year. He has got many Spanish airs about him and by his perpetual drinking and ranting I believe he does dream these things he tells us. He says always he would not lie for the world; He is the sport of the country and the gentlemen all think him a Jewell. He is an excellent skillfull cook and there is some ground for the great accounts he gives of himself his power and riches abroad, for we hear that he was esteemed there and valued for his skill, having served the Duke of Wittenberg and afterwards General Cuningham. He married an Irish gentlewoman who is now my Ld Presidents Stewart but she will not hear of him now. In short, this travelling with his drinking and the Vol. III. fumes of brewing, baking and cooking have made him the most fantastick vain yet something gentle fellow ever heard of. If I did not know you are curious in such characters I would not have insisted so long on this, which I look on as a very great curiosity: there are innumberable flights of his which are only ridiculous and absurd when related but most diverting when heard from himself, such as his exploits, and treasures in tuns of gold abroad, and his flying ships with which he would go to meet the King of Swedeland and his intimacy with the foreign Princes. I have written to you at this time chiefly that I might hear from you by this good and speedy occasion. If it be pleasant to me to write it must be much more delightful to hear from you and I was disappointed in my expectations to hear from you when I wrote last. I sent you about the end of March a long Letter chiefly on Enthusiasm. I know not if you got it. If you have I have double demand on you. You will excuse my confused and inaccurate way of writing, being much of the time amongst noise and company. Wishing you all health and joy and good things I am sir your Faithful friend & Humble Servant, COLIN M'LAURIN. Lochgare May 8 1717. THE FUDGE FAMILY IN PARIS." One We can imagine nothing more de- lives, and fought with all their nerves and sinews, have ever preserved towards each other, personally, a dignified and majestic forbearance,-have mutually attributed to each other honourable motives of action, and given a nobler character to their own cause, by the liberality of spirit manifested towards that of their opponents. That high-minded courtesy which all great men observe towards each other in life, is paid to them, when they die, by all who have hearts to feel the grandeur of the departed. Then, truly, do mere party feelings appear in their native abjectness. And him who could speak of a great dead statesman with bitterness and anger, we at once know to be a man of a perverted nature, and wholly incapable of understanding or feeling the strength, the beauty, or the glory, of any great cause. On fine and elevated intellects, therefore, party spirit can have no other effect than to stimulate and excite. The sacrifices are but few and unimportant which it calls upon them to make; it never troubles the pure well-head of their principles; it may occasionally ruffle the waters, but it never can change, from its natural channel, that stream of thought that obeys a nobler law, and flows on uninterruptedly to a magnificent destination. But upon weak and ungenerous minds, the effect of party spirit is most fatal. Unable to grasp general principles, they are pleased to seize upon some petty prejudice within the reach of their paltry understandings; ignorant of the constitutions of empires, and of the mighty events that have swayed their destinies, they are at least knowing enough in the ephemeral arcana of political scandal; untouched by the spirit of ancient times, they feel not in what true grandeur of soul consists, yet, with blind presumption, decide dogmatically on the qualities of the great men of their own day; without impulse to propel, or star to guide, they move in the gales of other men's understanding, and by the light that shines not for them; in the midst of ignorance, weakness, darkness, error, and insolence, they pass their abject lives,-judging, deciding, condemning, eulogising, in words that, to the unsuspicious, would seem issuing from an oracle, such is their pomp and stateliness; but which, to the wary and the wise, are mere puppet-sounds, unproductive and unprofitable, but reproduced everlastingly and the same, from the same worthless though unwearied machine. Of such persons every great city contains "numbers numberless." Do they not swarm in every coffee-house? do they not infest almost every private party of gentlemen? How often is the genial flow of urbane and humane conversation broken by the silly impertinence of some young Whig or some young Tory? The stripling to whom nature may have denied feeling, fancy, imagination, she may have cursed with a tenacious memory. He has studied politics,-he is a party man forsooth. He despises my Lord Castlereagh, and talks of the Irish Union, and the Irish Rebellion, and Martial Law, and Catholic Emancipation. Lying anecdotes take the place of true reasonings; the most outrageous absurdities are quoted and believed from newspaper authority; falsehoods that have been exposed to the light of day, and scattered to all the winds, are whispered as new and alarming_secrets; the most powerful of his Majesty's ministers is perhaps levelled to the dust by some yearling barrister bristling in the new borne glories of a rustling gown and a stiff periwig; and what is the wit of the Right Honourable George Canning, to the sarcasm of a young gentleman who, for a whole winter-session, may have adorned the chair of the Speculative Society of Edinburgh? It is not very easy to decide whether a young Whig, or a young Tory of this stamp, is the most abject animal. The latter is generally a dull, stupid, well-meaning man, who, being a plodder himself, is well satisfied to see every thing plodding around him; and he therefore starts at the sound of innovation, as he would at the sudden rumbling of a waggon behind him on the street. He chooses his steps through old lifeless opinions, as if he were afraid of dirtying his shoes. He carries an umbrella in dry weather, he takes shelter in some shed at the first drop of rain; and when other more spirited people are walking home through the shower, his face is seen at the window of a glasscoach, as if afraid of an universal deluge. At table he carves a fowl with the same stately precision with which he divides an argument; and he swallows his mashed turnips with the same look of importance as if he were gulping a way or a mean from Mr Vansittart's budget. ed the progress of his daily career,have seen him gathering the droppings of opinion from some real or fancied oracle of his party at one hour, and bringing them out again hardened and encrusted into folly by their residence within his brain at another. With what a grin of demoniacal satisfaction would he see him retailing these second-hand dogmas to some lower circle, and taking the airs of a high priest among those who had never been permitted to penetrate beyond the outer "court of the Gentiles!" The more dogmatical his assertions, the more indiscriminate his abuse, the more rancorous his frothy indignation,—the more would the satirist or the demon be delighted with the spectacle. For us, we are too much lovers of our species, to enjoy the view of any of its degradations. With the contempt, which we cannot quell, there mingles at least an equal proportion of the milder element of pity. We cannot even consent to view the unhappy stripling as the victim entirely of his own follies; but reserve at least some portion of our blame for those men of superior minds, who have by flattery, or the love of patronage, been induced to countenance his empty airs, and foster the rank fungus of conceit in the bosom of this their otherwise unobserved and insignificant disciple. For our own parts, after a long acquaintance with some worthy representatives of both these classes, we prefer the stupid young Tory to the clever young Whig. He is occasionally contented to be silent. At the worst, he is inclined to be acquiescent. And though the church and state do not seem to require his immediate assistance to support them, yet, as his motives are good, with a smile of approbation we allow him to stand with his shoulder to the edifice, and to utter his benedictions. But Heaven forfend us from a clever young Whig! At an age wherein a grocer's apprentice would be supposed too raw in the properties of peppers and sugars to be allowed to set up for himself, wherein an understrapper of the Esculapian tribe would not be permitted to practice except on corpses,wherein a follower of the law would be compelled to sit dumb at a consultation, and reserve all his genius for taking stenographic notes of the "dicta Ictorum peritissimorum et consultissimorum,"-it is by no means a rare thing to sit at table with one who, at this green and tender age, conceives Amidst all our contempt and all himself quite entitled to dole out sen- our pity, we must not, however, hesitentious wisdom concerning the affairs tate to say, that we really do believe of the state; to quote acts of Parliament these beardless chatterers are, in so which he never saw except in a quo- far, acting prudently for themselves. tation; to rate the conduct of public Such absurdities have at least this men, in whose presence the innate merit, that they do draw upon their consciousness of inanity would render practitioners some little notice. him all one blank of confusion; men party out of place has no rewards to whose intentions, principles, and pur- distribute, except those which are of poses, he no more understands than a such a nature, that generosity, in refly does the laws of the steam-engine, spect to them, requires no great stretch against one of whose levers it is buz- of liberality. When people are conzing. To a Cynic of the genuine breed, tented with a few smiles and grins, -a Voltaire, a Labruyere, a Swift, an it is scarcely worth while to keep them Echard, or an Aristophanes,-what unsatisfied. So these striplings are pleasure would the contemplation of caressed a little and flattered a little, such precocious presumption afford. and by this means they are raised, not With what delight would one of them merely in their own opinion, and that have watched the oracular frown of of others equally shallow as themselves, the empty forehead,-the philosoph--but up to somewhat a higher rank ical screw of the round, fat features -whereby this infant reformer takes pains to testify that he is "no common observer of men and measures.' With what malicious delight would the witty devil of Le Sage have trac Α in the crazy ladder of popular estimation than their small faculties and worthless attainments could, in almost any other way, have secured for them. Their place is, indeed, after all, not a very lofty one; but they |