count for the difference of disposition and pursuits between my elder brother and myself. Our younger years were passed in a manner precisely similar, but we never thought or acted alike. It is not my intention, however, to draw a parallel between us; it is sufficient for my purpose if I mention one or two circumstances, which either gave a bias to my mind, or discovered and drew into action its natural inclination. My mother, a woman whose natural powers of mind and cultivation far exceeded the greater part of women in her station, took the charge of our early education, and exerted herself so well, that I had read through the Bible in a very tolerable manner before I ever saw a school. During the time when she was instructing me in the knowledge of letters, it was long to me a very irksome concern. A lady who took an interest in me having made me a present of a little book, I thought myself compelled in honour to learn her book well, and by so doing, prepared myself unconsciously for the reading of the New Testament. Still, however, my lesson was to me very disagreeable; I was much more inclined to wander, though alone, among the woods, delighted with the swaying of the branches when the wind was high; or to lay in some "bieldy" place, and gaze upon the clouds drifting across the sky. After such rambles, I used to tell my mother the most wonderful and incredible stories of what I had fancied in my unconscious reveries; and when she checked me, my simple answer was-" but, mother, I'm sure I thought I saw them; may be I was dreaming, though.'" After having toiled unwillingly through the greater part of the New Testament, I commenced reading the book of the Revelations. The wonders contained in it arrested my attention, and fixed me in astonishment. It was of no consequence that I could not comprehend what I yet believe no man can: I sought for no meaning but what the literal signification of the words imported, and I read them again and again with increasing pleasure. When my mother bad me read her a lesson, I used to request permission to read a chapter of the Revelations, when I had

VOL. XVI.

finished my other task: to this, you may be sure, she was by no means averse, as it had the effect, both of causing me read with spirit, and read a double quantity. From that time forward, reading constituted, as it still does, my chief source of gratification. Shortly after this, I began to read every book which I could get hold of: but my chief favourites were " the History of Wallace," modernised from Blind Harry, by Hamilton, and "Gordon's Bruce." Often when my brother and sisters were at play, have I been engaged reading and weeping over the illmerited misfortunes of Wallace, till, in a fit of enthusiasm, I would rush among the nettles and thistles, and mow them down, as if destroying the "false Southrons."

This taste for reading, like all other tastes, grew upon me by indulgence, till I laid every one, with whom I could make so free, under contribution for books; and though poetry, war, and romance, were what gave me most delight, yet I found means to peruse the History of England, of Scotland, Rollin's Ancient History, Guthrie's Geography, and a considerable number of other valuable and instructive works, and with no little attention. Thus I early began to have pursuits which tended to withdraw me from the sports of my compeers. So attached to reading did I become, that I often stole away from amongst my playfellows, to continue the pursuit of some book which had engaged my attention. By this means, even before I had left school, I was tolerably intimate with nearly all the best authors in the language, whether in poetry, history, or romance. The consequence was, that I learned to think in a very different manner from those who were in other respects my equals, and amongst whom I was compelled to be, or seek for more congenial companions in my books. While I continued at school, a boy among boys, it was a matter of no great concern in what manner I employed my play-hours, nor were the taunts of my companions either very frequent or very galling. I was never at any loss in repelling insults; and that boy must have been very confident in his superiority of G

strength, who would have wantonly ventured to provoke my resentment. The same romantic feelings which caused me in private act the avenging or liberating hero, caused me despise the idea of yielding to one who was not exceedingly an overmatch for me. My personal contests, however, were desperate, rather than frequent; for though I did not shun, I by no means sought quarrels.

Such is a slight outline of my past days, from boyhood till now, when I find myself obliged to bear my part of the active duties of life: and though I can make no pretensions to learning, yet I have acquired a taste, and a desire for it, which in other circumstances might have been to me a source of the purest pleasure. What may be its ultimate consequence I cannot foresee; but I now proceed to mention a few of the inconveniences at present attending it.

My reading has been so diversified, that there are few things can occur which I have not seen treated of by some able writer. I have thus, by the help of a tolerable memory, got a number of opinions much superior to what I could otherwise have had, and greatly different from what my companions have any notion of. This makes them appear to me a parcel of uncultivated and thick-headed creatures, at whose foolish notions, or still more foolish ignorance, I cannot but laugh: but when I attempt to give them some truer ideas, I am hooted as a crack-brained fool, halfturned in the head by reading; or perhaps hated for my impudence, as they esteem it, in daring to set my opinions in opposition to those of men who might well be any of them my father. In spite of the contempt which I feel for their ignorant and obstinate prejudices, it is by no means agreeable to know myself the object of dislike or of ridicule. All my highraised ideas of virtue, honour, and generosity, are in like manner treated as crazy reveries; I must either conceal them, or, by mentioning them, feel myself become an objeet of derision. When I gaze around me, and behold all Nature smiling with the expanding beauties of spring and summer, or enriched with the bountiful productions of autumn, my heart glows with a warmth and gratitude

which longs for utterance; but it longs in vain. These things are beheld by almost all with careless unconcern, scarcely noticed, or noticed only with that gratification which results from the prospect of indulgence to selfish enjoyment. I can find no one with whom to taste the sweetest of all delights, the reciprocal communion of the heart. If I venture to express my feelings, I am answered by a scornful sneer, and some silly remark about books and their authors, who had nothing else to do but waste their time in writing a deal of idle nonsense about matters of which, after all their pretence, they knew nothing. They have learned by experience that spring will bud, summer blossom, and autumn produce, if the season be favourable, and that is all they know, or seek to know, regarding all other thoughts about the matter as quite idle, and nothing to the purpose. I am obliged, therefore, either to wage a continual warfare with those amongst whom I am placed, or to amuse myself as I best can with my own thoughts and fancies. This, perhaps, is not a matter of much moment; but I find myself as little able to bring my mind to relish their manner of thinking and acting, as they are to mine. The common people do not suit me for companions, far less for friends; and those of cultivated minds are in a rank too high for me to aspire to their notice, or for them to condescend to pay any attention to me. Am I then doomed to be a lonely, companionless being? I believe I am; and if the definition. which philosophers give of man be correct, viz. a social, gregarious animal, then am I excluded from amongst my own species. The world around me is beautiful, and fills my bosom with gladness when I behold its beauties; but they are not for me. They are neither mine by the laws of property, nor even by that law which gives all creatures, after their kind, a right to subsistence. I cannot claim kindred with the great family of man, for none of its grades will receive me. I gaze with feelings of awe and wonder, mingled with delight, upon the sublime expanse of heaven; but when my soul is filled with transport and adiniration by the

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majestic grandeur of the scene, I feel my enthusiasm checked by the want of some one of kindred nature to whom I might communicate my sentiments and feelings, and whose sympathy might even increase their purity and elevation. With those of my own station, in all their coarseness and stupidity, I cannot, will not associate, and with those above me I may not. With the former I believe I could better bring myself to at least a temporary agreement, than with the latter. I am disgusted with the manners of the one, but my soul revolts when I see the overweening haughtiness of the other. Yet I can better endure their stately and prideful distance than their insulting condescension. If they choose to stalk past me with lofty pride, there is something within my breast which tells me that I can be as proud as they when they seem to think that I must feel myself greatly honoured by their very gracious notice, my cheek burns with indignation. What right have they to assume such airs of superiority? Is it because Fortune has given them that wealth which she has denied to me? Let them show, by their superior merits, that her kindness has been justly bestowed. Is it in their noble blood? Let them prove its nobility by their illustrious actions, rather than empty haughtiness; and yet in this respect I too might boast an equal, if not a superior extraction to many of them. I am content to endure my inferiority of station, since fate and misfortune have so willed; but why should it be thrust upon my observation, by their show of letting themselves down to a level with me for a few minutes, as if that were a mighty matter? Fretted by these disagreeable peculiarities in my situation and habits of thought, I have no resource but in venting my feelings in my letters to you, and indulging in lonely wanderings by the side of my little favourite stream, when the shades of evening cover the sky with a congenial melancholy hue. At such times I often feel inclined almost to blame the dispensations of Providence, though I am well assured that my doing so is highly culpable. Why was my youth spent in acquiring tastes which can now be no longer

gratified? And to what has the cultivation of mind, resulting from the perusal of refined works, tended, but to make me more susceptible of unhappiness? Alas! I am like a butterfly, which some untimely smiles of spring have caused to cast aside its protecting crust, and left exposed to all the chilling storins which may assail it; clad, it may be, more elegantly, but certainly much less securely defended. I see before me what I might have enjoyed,-I feel how exquisitely I could have enjoyed,—but I know that such enjoyments are beyond my attainment. Had I never known to extend my wishes and my conceptions beyond my humble station, I might have passed my life in the same dull, contented thoughtlessness with my equals; neither knowing, nor seeking any thing farther, than how to procure a bare subsistence for the day that was passing over me, and desiring no higher degree of mental cultivation than my neighbours. Scarce can I refrain exclaiming, "Oh, happy state of contented ignorance! would that such were mine!" Yet, when I think upon the narrow and contracted scale of their understandings,-the grossness of their pleasures and pursuits,

and the barrenness and dulness of their ideas, together with their want of relish for the many beauties of Nature, I cannot consent, were it possible, to sink into such an abject littleness of mind. I have not a doubt that they enjoy more content than I ever shall, though I might have shared it, had not my youthful habits raised my mind a little above its sphere of attraction. I could wish my fate had been different, yet were my life to be begun anew, I would desire to cultivate my mind as far as possible. Is it not hard, that though my youth has not been spent in vicious pursuits, it should have left a sting behind it which will embitter all the remainder of my existence ?

I can easily conceive what would have greatly contributed to my happiness, even under my present circumstances; with one exception. Had you been near me, that I might have had an opportunity of soothing my fretted heart with the pleasures of your conversation, or if a young man with a disposition such as yours had

been my companion, then could I have mocked at much that now tortures me; and, together with my friend, I could have laughed alike at the rudeness of the rabble, or the pride of the wealthy. It is in vain that I attempt to reason away my vexations. When I ask myself, if I have not acquired more enlarged capacities of enjoyment, by enlarging my knowledge and refining my taste, I am ready, perfectly ready, to grant that I have; but though my capacities of enjoyment be enlarged, my opportunities are not; and I am thus only instructed in the knowledge of my own privations,-shown clearly pleasures the most exquisite, which are placed just beyond my reach, made practically acquainted with the punishment of Tantalus. Does it not aggravate the misery of the captive to give him, through the grated windows of his gloomy dungeon, a glimmering view of Nature's free and luxuriant beauties-awakening in his soul a panting, languishing desire for pleasures which he knows he is doomed never to enjoy? To cultivate his mental powers is certainly one of the most imperative duties of every man; but sad experience compels me to declare, that, in the present state of society, it is by no means an infallible guide in the search of happiness. I am strongly inclined to charge those writers who have painted the charms of learning and cultivation in such glowing colours, with a wilful misrepresentation of human nature. They declaim in such an enthusiastic manner concerning the deep and pure delight resulting from intellectual improvement, that one would imagine every advancement in know ledge was so much undoubted progress made in the path of true happiness. I can only declare that I have not found it so. On the contrary, the more that I have felt my ideas enlarged beyond those of men in my own station, the more bitter has been my discontent with my condition, and the more ardent my longings after what, with unavailing regret, I have been compelled to relinquish as unattainable. To point out to me pleasures which others possess, but from which I am excluded, will not certainly increase my happiness it is like displaying a

plentiful feast before a hungry man, and at the same time preventing him to partake; it aggravates what of itself was already sufficiently distressing.

Another great complaint which I have to bring against my little learning is, that it has caused me make a false estimate of the world and mankind. The poets described in strains of ardent gratitude the benevolence of their patrons,—men whose chief delight, they taught me to believe, was in exerting their influence to forward the aspiring wishes of depressed merit,-whose philanthropic hearts were always actuated by that sentiment, that "it is more blessed to give than to receive,"—who did not wait till their kindness was solicited, but sought out every fitting object upon whom to bestow their bounty,-who valued rank and wealth only as the means of doing good, not of assuming an insolent and overbearing superiority. Where are these patterns of beneficence to be found? They exist nowhere, perhaps never existed, but in the writings and imaginations of those poets by whom their praises were sung; and even those praises, if the truth were known, may be but the bitter irony of disappointed genius. They told me of friendship, pure, disinterested, inviolable-friendship which was more gratified by procuring another's advantage, though at the expense of privations, sufferings, life itself, than it could be by the highest personal good,-friendship which knits congenial hearts together with so fond, so intimate a tie, that every hope, every enjoyment was mutual,-nay, would have been despised, if not shared with the bosom friend. I gaze around me, and beholding all actuated alike by contracted selfishness, would exclaim that friendship too was merely a fabrication of the poet's brain; but the full swell of my heart, as memory directs my view to the days when the warm, cordial grasp of your hand was wont to awaken a thrilling glow of rapturous delight over all my frame, tells me that friendship, though rare, may yet be found in all its native purity. They celebrate, in enthusiastic strains of rapturous delight, the joys of love, and the seraphic virtues and beauties of woman.

Though much inclined to question the sincerity of their panegyrics, and the truth of their representations, I must withhold my censure, and acknowledge my inability to form a proper judgment. Woman is lovely, and may be worthy the warmest admiration, for any thing I know to the contrary. Experience has given me no information there; and the language of love is to me a strange language. If I might form an opinion, however, I would suppose the joys which lovers boast, and the pains of which they complain, to be the idle ravings of a diseased imagination. Thus have the poets represented to me a world clothed in beauty, and inhabited by all that is good, noble, generous, and lovely: how different I have found it! They pointed out to me a path which should have conducted me to happiness; and they displayed before me a brilliant vision; alas! I find that I have been deceived, and have only followed after an empty phantom. They told me of the pleasures of refinement, and gave me a relish for enjoyments which I now find that I must never hope to obtain. I find myself deceived by my expectations, and bitterly disappointed in all my hopes. Mankind are not what I had imagined, and I cannot mingle with them. I thought I had loved them as I wished to love my fellow-creatures: I find that I was only enamoured of the productions of my own deceived imagination. I am indeed a lonely, solitary being, belonging to no condition of society. My heart pants and sickens for the joys of mutual confidence, and unrestrained communication, but its longings are in vain. When I see others afflicted, I feel gratified that I can sympathise with their distress; for my heart, though a companionless thing, is yet a human heart; but when I see mirth and revelry, my gloomy melancholy increases and grows upon me to such a degree, that it drives me away to indulge its wailing pensiveness, unrestrained, amidst the solitude and darkness of night. I cannot join in the scenes of gladness around me, and I wish for some retirement, where I might pass my life apart from the world, which has so grievoulsy disappointed me, and be

hold its pursuits and its follies no more.

No! 'tis in vain! it may not be !
I cannot join the sportive throng;
The mazy dance delights not me,
Nor yet the gay and sprightly song;
Even when the jest floats light along,
And all is gaiety and gladness,

I droop these brilliant scenes among,
In lonely, melancholy sadness.
Paint not to me the scenes of joy,
In all their flaunting hues of light,
That bid the bosom flutter high,

With wild and feverish delight: Their fascinating splendours bright, That gleaming, dazzling, flash before me, Soon vanish, and a gloomier night Sinks deeply, darkly lowering o'er me. These giddy pleasures fast decay;

They but excite, then mock the mind; They melt, like struggling dreams, away, Leaving a weariness behind:

None ever found, none e'er will find The radiance of their charms enduring, Bright they may shime, 'tis but to

blind,

From peace and bliss the heart alluring.
Oh! sweeter far, at fall of even,

With wandering steps to roam alone, While deeply-glowing tints of heaven Bright o'er the purpled skies are thrown,

To listen to the plaintive moan, Breath'd by the zephyr softly stealing; To bid soft music's melting tone Awake each spring of tenderest feeling.

Then, give me, Fate! to dwell apart

Far from life's pleasures, vain as fair; Blest with one kind congenial heart,

My griefs to soothe, my joys to share! No sick regrets could find me there, No vain ambitious longings wound me ; My chief delight, my only care, To spread true happiness around me!

Excuse my verses, if you cannot approve them; their subject is the same with my prose. Indeed it cannot be otherwise, both being the genuine sentiments of my heart. I might continue my unavailing complaints to any length, but I conceive you have by this time had quite enough of them; and if you are not yet sufficiently acquainted with the cause of my enduring melancholy, the fault must lie in my manner of explaining it. It would be of no avail to attempt to convince me that my loneliness is wrong, and may be hurt