Imagens da página
PDF
ePub

tered my pineal gland, that such trifling rebuffs, for the most peevish wretch on earth would not call them misfortunes, would have had so much influence on your sober self, as to convert you into a flat, insipid, fretting misanthrope.

*

WHAT Comes next? A descant on botany, I suppose. I violently suspect that some of your northern conjurers have bribed Eolus; and the rascal seems noways averse to be tipt, for he has these four weeks clung fast to the east and north-east, and has by that means cut the throats of many a beautiful creature of the vegetable tribe. Argal, you cannot expect any thing on that subject. I intend, however, when vegetation begins to increase in the land, to wait upon Orator HOPE. This is no reflection on the Doctor; for in RUDIMANS Rudiments you will see CICERO Orator, which is precisely the same thing with Orator CICERO.

THE Newtonian Society was prorogued on the 1st instant till the 12th of November next; but having resolved into a committee of the whole house on the 8th of May, took the

ways and means into consideration for sup plying a dozen of gormandizing Newtonians with lamb-legs, fat geese, minced collops, pork, trouts, pease, &c. and then ordered the bills, unread, to lie on the table till the fore said 12th of November.

"

NASMYTH, MILLER, and all the good fellows, are gone to the country. I am so much of your opinion that I abhor all triflers; and shall therefore rather chuse to converse with you than to chatter about news, good and bad weather, charming dances, buxom lasses, &c. I formerly promised to answer if you wrote me; I now give it under my hand, that I shall answer you as frequently as you please, and on whatever subjects you may propose. But, if possible, I would recommend such subjects as were never yet attempted in prose or rhyme. Miss BELLAMY shines with much splendour*; but I have so far mortified my inclinations as not to give her half-a-crown.

SEND no more of your letters to HALL, as he keeps them till they begin to foist and breed moths; besides, I am not much

* Miss BELLAMY the celebrated actress, then acting at Edin burgh in conjunction with DIGGES.

in love with second-hand hats, second-hand breeches, or second-hand buckles; but, above all, my very marrow fries and ferments at the idea of second-hand women. These grievances being duly considered, I hope you'll direct to me at MACKAYS, or at COCHRAN & MURRAYS, printers in Craigs Close.

I SHALL inquire after your kittle kalents* as soon as I can. Next week I shall be gaping like a raw gorb† for a swinging letter. Consider, Mounsieur, I am a mathematician, and remarkably fond of the rule in arithmetic called proportion. My leisure hours are not above one sixth of yours; argal:

S. S.: W. S. :: 6 : 1.

REMEMBER this, and I shall continue to be Yours, &c.

WILLIAM SMellie.

* A Scots term meaning slippery boys; but the particular allusion here is unknown.

↑ A raw unfledged bird in a nest, gaping for food.

No. XXXV.

Mr WILLIAM SMELLIE to *

DEAR SIR,

No date.

Thunder! thou frolic of Omnipotence! Though this elegant and spirited exclamation, the author and occasion of which I take it for granted you are sufficiently acquainted with, was furiously beat down by the dull dictates of ignorance and authority, Would to Heaven that these qualities were less frequently coupled! yet, to a man of my cast, it contains a more tremenduous, more striking, more elevated idea of the immensity of that Power which forms, regulates, and puts the match to these majestic explosions, than either the breaking of cedars or the calving of hinds. The Jewish poet, very emphatically indeed, calls thunder the voice of the Lord. He could not have hit perhaps on a better epithet for strengthening that reverential dread which is the natural effect of this phenomenon. But does not the idea it involves represent that of a person summoning up the

whole power and dignity of his soul, collecting these in his countenance, and adding to them the terrors of awful vociferation, in order the more forcibly to strike the timorous imagination of earthly pigmies? Not so the Scottish bard.-Thou frolic! Here is neither pomp nor preparation. It exhibits the idea of ease and indifference; and presumes that thunder-bolts are fabricated and darted with the same facility as a man would cast pease in his mouth, scratch his head, or crook his little finger. Henceforward, let not the bards of fertile Palestina be likened unto those of barren Caledonia!

As to the effects you so justly ascribe to the influence of thunder, I'll bet my head to a halfpenny, that the very same thing happened to the cattle on the plains of Minden, when two or three hundred cannons roared forth their thunder; especially if the dismalness of the scene was heightened by a calm still atmosphere, and torrents of rain and hailstones. Besides, the sudden effusion of milk in the lactiferous, or of urine or fæces in the purliferous animals, is purely the effect of surprise, and ought not to be ascribed to any peculiarity in the rattling of thunder. SurVOL. I. M

« AnteriorContinuar »