illness. He died in his grandfather's house, in Glasgow; he expected his fate for a month before, and his patience and resignation were singular and exemplary. That sense of piety, which sunk deep and early into his mind, continued unimpaired during his short journey through life, and supported him in the close of it.

Now, my dear, dear Nancy, friend of my heart, whom I think of daily amidst all my cares and sorrows, and always with a glow of affection undiminished, should this be the last letter you receive from me, cherish my memory, and look forward to the time when, through the merits of our dear Redeemer, we shall meet to part no more. May the God we imperfectly worship, the prime source and affection of pure affection, bless you through life, and support you in the close of it, prays your true tender friend to the last, A. G.

LETTER XLIV.

TO MRS. BROWN, GLASGOW.

My dear Mrs. Brown,

Laggan, May 7, 1800.

Why am I so dead to memory? If you and your sister thought half as much of me as I

do of you, you could not be so forgetful and silent. Yet I will not blame you. I hear from Catherine you are both much occupied in the hard task of attending your brother in an illness which appears dangerous. You

may believe that he and his family have my sincerest sympathy. His goodness of heart, and constant kindness and good-will to me, made me always take a great interest in him. I am extremely concerned to find that the domestic comforts you all so eminently possessed, have of late been, in different ways, interrupted and embittered; but this is the lot of humanity. The cup of sorrow is in constant circulation; we must all drink, and most of us drink deeply. It is not material whether your turn or mine comes first; the thing is, to benefit by the draught; for it requires very little self-examination to convince us that we are unequal to prosperity, and unable to sustain it without either growing careless and selfish, or attaching ourselves too strongly to the things that perish, to the utter exclusion of those which are shortly to be our all. For my own part, the truth of the Psalmist's emphatic description of our nature, that "Man walketh in a vain show, and disquieteth himself in vain," was never so strongly impressed on my mind as at this very time. There is not a person I care for in this country that is not sunk in grief, from the loss of some near and dear connexion-lost, some of them, in the most aggravating manner, by dreadful accidents, duels from trifling causes, and the scourge of war, which has so long desolated the nations, though we are but beginning to feel its worst horrors. In Holland, there fell five or six officers whom I well knew, or was some way connected with. My reflections are to the last degree solemn and gloomy, and I still imagine myself surrounded by the hovering shades of the departed. It is lucky for me that the task of

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nursing, besides unusual exertions in domestic matters, which I am obliged to make, so far engross me, that I am not at full leisure to contemplate the dark scenery which imagination continually presents. Indeed, there is no room for the play of fancy; real evil surrounds me; sickness, aggravated by famine, calls our attention daily, hourly, to new objects of distress. I once thought to snatch a fortnight to see my children in Glasgow, and embrace you both; but it will not be. The Pastor is appointed by the Duke to overlook the distribution of grain which he charitably allots to his tenants. He does not, on that account, go to the General Assembly at Edinburgh, as he once intended, and I cannot leave him.

LETTER XLV.

TO MRS. FURZER, PLYMPTON, DEVON.

My dear, kind Friend,

Laggan, May 9, 1800.

I have long been indebted to you, which is not usual and if you consider my multiplied cares and duties, you should not wonder at some wide chasms. But when there is an interruption, you may impute it to want of health, to the irresolute delay of a mind worn with ardent solicitude, and constant exertionto anything but the selfish chill of increased years, which I declare has never shed its torpid influence over me. An enthusiast I was born, and an enthusiast I will die. When I prefer my ease to the duties of friendship, it is all over with me, and my faculties

must be on the decline; but while they remain entire, and my heart continues to beat, it will glow with those affections which have "warmed and charmed it" through the short journey of life. Time has done little to alter me; and the impetuous tide of vanity and luxury, which has overwhelmed and pervaded all habitable space, has produced no other effect on me than exciting my scorn and pity. I declare, had I my pilgrimage to begin anew through the wilderness, I would not give my share of the endearing charities of life, my bustles and struggles to procure ease and comfort to those I love, my faithful friendships, and

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My humble toils and destiny obscure,"

for all that wealth and fashion can bestow. I have seen just enough of it to show me how little is its real value; and could I get a little health, a little leisure, and a little sunshine, I know not whom I would exchange with; though I know very few would relish the state I am so reconciled to. But ease, liberty, and a kind of rough plenty, are become habitual to me; and I could scarcely find them in the same degree anywhere else. Yet the kind of ease I talk of is quite a distinct thing from leisure; that is an inheritance I am not born to.

I like very much the description you give of the manner in which you pass your time, and almost envy your reading leisure of evenings, and your fine climate, and flower-garden. We are just beginning to have a little elbow room after the temporary pinch occasioned by setting out our children; and now that we are easier and could do it, were I revisited with

such an attack as I had last spring, it might be found expedient for me to go a little nearer the sun, though the little birds of those gayer regions should wonder at me, like an owl come into the sunshine. I wish you were not so fearfully remote; Devonshire lies almost beyond the reach of hope. Yet I have a strong presentiment that I shall yet embrace you; I have many inducements to carry me a part of the way, and do not make desperate resolutions, like you, of never stirring out of the place, though I have so many ties to confine me. I have already told you so much of what I think of wealth, that you are in no danger of being pitied by me for not being rich, according to the kind usage of the world. Nay, I insist, that in all modest and rational computation, you are rich. You contrive to be beneficent, munificent indeed in one instance, after supplying all your wants; and then the luxuries of a library and flower-garden are yours in a superior degree, because both are, in a manner, of your own creating, and you taste them so exquisitely. At the same time that I admire your generous exertions for your little protegé,* I regret the self-denial you must exercise to enable you to do what others, less self-denying, must and would do, if you did not save them the trouble. I think, as the world would give us no credit for our Quixotism, even though we were of consequence enough to be known as Quixotes, we must even laud and praise each other. The approbation of a dear friend is certainly the very next thing

* Mrs. Furzer having been left a widow some time before, had adopted a young boy, a relative of her late husband, Captain Furzer, who is the protegé here alluded to.