is would have done, had we been in their situation. "The bloody and tyrannical house of Stewart" may be said with propriety and justice, when com pared with the present royal family, and the sentiments of our days; but is there no allowance to be made for the manners of the times? Were the royal contemporaries of the Stewarts more attentive to their subjects' rights? Might not the epithets of "bloody and tyrannical" be, with at least equal justice, applied to the house of Tudor, of York, or any other of their predecessors? The simple state of the case, sir, seems to be this-At that period, the science of government, ~the knowledge of the true relation between king and subject, was, like other sciences and other knowledge, just in its infancy, emerging from dark ages of ignorance and barbarity. The Stewarts only contended for prerogatives which they knew their predecessors enjoyed, and which they saw their contemporaries enjoying; but these prerogatives were inimical to the happiness of a nation, and the rights of subjects. In this contest between prince and people, the consequence of that light of science, which had lately dawned over Europe, the monarch of France, for example, was victorious over the struggling Hiberties of his people: with us, luckily the monarch failed, and his unwarrantable pretensions fell a saerifice to our rights and happiness. Whether it was owing to the wisdom of leading individuals, or to the justling of parties, I cannot pretend to determine; but likewise happily for us, the kingly power was shifted into another branch of the family, who, as they owed the throne solely to the call of a free people, could claim nothing inconsistent with the covenanted terms which placed them there. The Stewarts have been condemned and laughed at for the folly and impracticability of their attempts in 1715 and 1745. That they failed, I bless. God; but cannot join in the ridicule against them. Who does not know that the abilities or defects of leaders and commanders are often hidden until put to the touchstone of exigency; and that there is a caprice of fortune, an omnipotence in particular accidents and conjunctures of circumstances, which exalt us as heroes, or brand us as madmen, just as they are for or against us? Man, Mr. Publisher, is a strange, weak, incon sistent being who would believe, sir, that, in this our Augustan age of liberality and refinement, while we seem so justly sensible and jealous of our rights and liberties, and animated with such indig nation against the very memory of those who would have subverted them-that a certain people, under our national protection, should complain, not against our monarch and a few favourite advisers, but against our whole legislative body, for similar oppression, and almost in the very same terms, as our forefathers did of the house of Stewart! I will not, I cannot enter int the merits of the cause, but I dare say the American congress, in 1776, will be allowed to be as able and as enlightened as the English convention was in 1688; and that their posterity will celebrate the centenary of their deliverance from us, as duly and sincerely as we do ours from the oppressive measures of the wrong-headed house of Stewart. To conclude, sir; let every man who has a tear for the many miseries incident to humanity, feel for a family illustrious as any in Europe, and unfortunate beyond historie precedent; and let every Briton (and particularly every Scotsman), who ever looked with reverential pity on the dotage of a parent, cast a veil over the fatal mistakes of the kings of his forefathers. This letter was sent to the publisher of some newspaper, probably the publisher of the Edin burgh Evening Courant. E. No. LIX. To Mrs. DUNLOP. Ellisland, 17th December, 1788. My dear honoured friend, Yours, dated Edinburgh, which I have just read, makes me very unhappy. Almost "blind and wholly deaf," are melancholy news of human nature; but when told of a much-loved and honoured friend, they carry misery in the sound. Goodness on your part, and gratitude on mine, began a tie, which has gradually and strongly entwisted itself among the dearest chords of my bosom; and I tremble at the omens of your late and present ailing habit and shattered health. You miscalculate matters widely, when you forbid my waiting on you, lest it should hurt my worldly concerns. My small scale of farming is exceedingly more simple and easy than what you have lately seen at Moreham Mains. But be that as it may, the heart of the man, and the fancy of the poet, are the two grand considerations for which I live: if miry ridges and dirty dunghills are to engross the best part of the functions of my soul immortal, I had better been a rook or a magpie at once, and then I should not have been plagued with any ideas superior to breaking of clods, and picking up grubs not to mention barn-door cocks and mallards, creatures with which I could almost exchange lives at any time.-If you continue sa deaf, I am afraid a visit will be no great pleasure to either of us; but if I hear you have got so well again as to be able to relish conversation, look you to it, madam, for I will make my threatenings good. I am to be at the new-year-day fair of Ayr, and by all that is sacred in the world, friend! I will come and see you. Your meeting, which you so well describe, with your old schoolfellow and friend, was truly inte resting. Out upon the ways of the world!-They spoil these "social offsprings of the heart." Two veterans of the "men of the world" would have met with little more heart-workings than two old hacks worn out on the road. Apropos, is not the old Scotch phrase, "Auld lang syne," exceedingly expressive? There is an old song and tune which has often thrilled through my soul. You know I am an enthusiast in old Scoteh songs. I shall give you the verses on the other sheet, as I suppose Mr. Ker will save you the postage*. Light be the turf on the breast of the Heaveninspired poet who composed this glorious fragment! There is more of the fire of native genius in it, than in half a dozen of modern English Bacchanalians. Now I am on my hobby-horse, I cannot help inserting two other old stanzas, which please me mightily, Go fetch to me a pint o'wine, Fu' loud the wind blaws frae the ferry; The ship rides by the Berwick-law, And I maun lea'e my bonnie Mary. The trumpets sound, the banners fly, The shouts o' war are heard afar, The battle closes thick and bloody: It's leaving thee, my bonnie Mary. Here follows the song of Auld lang syne, as printed in vol. i. p. 349. No. LX. To Miss DAVIES, A young lady who had heard he had been making a ballad on her, inclosing that ballad.) Madam, December, 1788. I understand my very worthy neighbour, Mr. Riddel, has informed you that I have made you the subject of some verses. There is something so provoking in the idea of being the burden of a ballad, that I do not think Job or Moses, though such patterns of patience and meekness, could have resisted the curiosity to know what that ballad was so my worthy friend has done me a mischief, which I dare say he never intended; and reduced me to the unfortunate alternative of leav ing your curiosity ungratified, or else disgusting you with foolish verses, the unfinished production of a random moment, and never meant to have met your ear. I have heard or read somewhere of a gentleman, who had some genius, much eccentri city, and very considerable dexterity with his pen cil. In the accidental group of life into which one is thrown, wherever this gentleman met with a character in a more than ordinary degree congenial to his heart, he used to steal a sketch of the face, merely, he said, as a nota bene to point out the agreeable recollection to his memory. What this gentleman's pencil was to him, is my muse to me; and the verses I do myself the honour to send you, are a memento exactly of the same kind that he indulged in. It may be more owing to the fastidiousness of my caprice, than the delicacy of my taste, but I am so often tired, disgusted, and hurt with the insipidity, affectation, and pride of mankind, that when I meet with a person " after my own heart," I positively feel what an orthodox protestant would call a species of idolatry, which acts on my fancy |