No More Learning

You cannot sit down and fancy the busy life I lead.

I laid down my goose-feather to beat my brains for an apt simile, and
had some thoughts of a country grannum at a family christening; a
bride on the market-day before her marriage; or a tavern-keeper at an
election-dinner; but the resemblance that hits my fancy best is, that
blackguard miscreant, Satan, who roams about like a roaring lion,
seeking, _searching_ whom he may devour. However, tossed about as I
am, if I choose (and who would not choose) to bind down with the
crampets of attention the brazen foundation of integrity, I may rear
up the superstructure of Independence, and from its daring turrets bid
defiance to the storms of fate. And is not this a "consummation
devoutly to be wished? "

"Thy spirit, Independence, let me share;
Lord of the lion-heart, and eagle-eye!
Thy steps I follow with my bosom bare,
Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky! "

Are not these noble verses? They are the introduction of Smollett's
Ode to Independence: if you have not seen the poem, I will send it to
you. --How wretched is the man that hangs on by the favours of the
great! To shrink from every dignity of man, at the approach of a
lordly piece of self-consequence, who, amid all his tinsel glitter,
and stately hauteur, is but a creature formed as thou art--and perhaps
not so well formed as thou art--came into the world a puling infant as
thou didst, and must go out of it, as all men must, a naked corse.

R. B.

* * * * *




CXCVII.


TO DR. ANDERSON.
[The gentleman to whom this imperfect note is addressed was Dr. James
Anderson, a well-known agricultural and miscellaneous writer, and the
editor of a weekly miscellany called the Bee. ]

SIR,

I am much indebted to my worthy friend, Dr. Blacklock, for introducing
me to a gentleman of Dr. Anderson's celebrity; but when you do me the
honour to ask my assistance in your proposed publication, alas, Sir!
you might as well think to cheapen a little honesty at the sign of an
advocate's wig, or humility under the Geneva band. I am a miserable
hurried devil, worn to the marrow in the friction of holding the noses
of the poor publicans to the grindstone of the excise! and, like
Milton's Satan, for private reasons, am forced

"To do what yet though damn'd I would abhor. "

--and, except a couplet or two of honest execration * * * *

R. B.

* * * * *




CXCVIII.


TO WILLIAM TYTLER, ESQ. ,

OF WOODHOUSELEE.

[William Tytler was the "revered defender of the beauteous Stuart"--a
man of genius and a gentleman. ]

_Lawn Market, August, 1790. _

SIR,

Enclosed I have sent you a sample of the old pieces that are still to
be found among our peasantry in the west.