WRITE me by next carrier, under the pè nalty of anathematization. The carriers will call punctually enough at MILLERS shop. I have not yet thought of your climax: But it has long been a fancy of mine that there is but one capital passion, and that all the rest are but mere cringing dependants. I shall think of this afterwards more at length.

I AM again entirely buried in law-fústian * I pray you, therefore, from mere humanity, to give me a reviving draught as frequently as possible. Yours, &c.

WILLIAM SMellie.

P. S.—I HAVE wrote down P. S. but have nothing to tack to its tail.

FROM these and many similar letters, it is obvious that Mr SMELLIE had become discontented at his professional situation, as dooming him to what he considered mechanical drudgery, hopeless of bettering his condition in life, and precluded from the enjoy

*

Alluding to the dull employment of revising and correcting the printed law arguments which are presented to the Court of Session in all causes.

ment of literary ease. His companions and friends, falling into his views of the matter, appear to have fostered this discontent, by proposals of altering his condition into one of the learned professions; and the following is evidently an answer to a letter on this topic from one of his early friends. It was written in the year 1763, but the remainder of the date is omitted in the copy. It opens a new scene, however, in his life, matrimony, on which he entered soon afterwards.

No. XXX.

Mr WILLIAM SMELLIE to *****,

DEAR SIR,

1763.

To study physic to the bottom, as I would wish, is perfectly impracticable. A penury of precious metal is indeed the principal cause of this impracticability. I formerly expressed my difficulties as to divinity. Were I to prosecute that study, I could not with a clear conscience declare, as I am told every minister at his ordination is obliged to do, that my sole motive for assuming the sacred VOL. I.

L

office was purely to advance the glory of GOD, and to promote the eternal interests of mankind. How amiable the principle! But,

alas! the highest stretch of vanity, and the most enthusiastic self-approbation, will never be able to make me dream that I am possessed of such a God-like heart. The converse of this idea is shocking and nauseous; therefore let me speedily banish it. Besides, bating all scruples of this nature, supposing I had got a charge, read Pictet, commenced preacher, held forth in all the pulpits in Edinburgh, and ten miles round; at last shut up in a country cloister with L. 60 or L.70 a-year, excluded from all rational converse with mankind, I mean the ingenious part of the species, afraid to speak my genuine sentiments of men and things, and, to crown all, perhaps hated by nine-tenths of the parish. I put the case to yourself. What satisfaction, what pleasure, what society, what mighty profit, can such an employment afford to a man of my kidney? Even supposing I had the good fortune to be admired by some; but the supposition is indeed extremely absurd; for however elegant the composition, yet elocution, O sovereign elocution! thou canst never flow from SMELLIES

awkward tongue; by consulting my own imagination, I learn that I have a passion for novelty, and for straining things to their utmost pitch: A very dangerous and very unpopular turn for a clergyman!

I SHALL NOW inform you of an affair which will surprise you more than if I had turned a worshipper of MAHOMET. Nature has deemed me to be a violent lover for some years past. Many expedients have I tried to overcome the passion; vain and unsuccessful, however, every attempt of this kind has been. Neither books, conversation, or philosophy, have been able to eradicate the deep-rooted affection. What is still more singular, the flame had seized both our hearts long before either of us were aware of or suspected the secret cause, which forcibly determined us to be no where so easy as in the simple society of two. I have coolly and deliberately, and warmly and passionately, alternis vicibus, considered what was most proper to be done. To give up all correspondence would have hurt me extremely; but I have every reason to believe, it would have proved fatal to a female who is constitutionally constant in affection, and whose mind is

sensibility itself. I often resolved, and as often tried to forsake her; and had several times almost diverted the natural bias of my heart. But, when I beheld the very cause of my pain, tortured beyond expression, unless flint or adamant had been the principal ingredients of my composition, I must infallibly have dissolved, retracted my former resolution, and resumed my former passion.

THE result of all this is, that in a few days I shall perhaps be personally acquainted with the right-worshipful HYMEN. Like the common herd of younkers, you will no doubt pronounce this a mad and distracted resolution. But pause a moment, and listen to the following thoughts. Old Reikie* gave me birth, and in Old Reikie have I lived these twenty-three years and some more. Most of my blood relations have long been in their graves. By a don't know what nor how, I have gained several friends and well wishers, besides a tolerable competency of good acquaintances, in the said Old Reikie. I might probably have lived as long, and per

† A customary quaint name for the old part of the city of Edinburgh, signifying Old Smokey.