I must again tell you that I have the kindest possible letter, all heart, all herself, from dearest Mrs. Furzer, whom I love better than anybody out of my own family. She earnestly requests you to visit her, and I as earnestly advise you to do it. She says the passage by sea from Bristol to Plymouth is made at a very moderate expense. Go by all means when you return from Bath. Next summer, please God, we

shall meet again.

Frequent and earnest devotion is the first resource I advise you to; the next you will think childish, silly, and ill-bred, yet you will find it very efficacious

-it is a little egotism once removed. Speak often to Mrs. Protheroe who will bear it first patiently, and then pleasantly—of your absent friends, of our cottage and its inmates, of your dear father and his dear children, of Highland customs. By degrees this, though foreign at first, will interest her; and that again will make her more interesting to you. There is a native eloquence that gives life to our language when we speak of those we love. You will become amusing to her, and then be interested in her localities. I wonder very much that gratitude does not make your heart warm. Love, and make yourself beloved, and all the azure demons will return to the place from whence they came.

The garden here is in full glory: convolvolus, poppies, roses, and nasturtium thriving beyond example with warm soft rains, which have renewed the face of nature, and covered the earth with an abundant prospect; the flowers abovementioned blowing daily in rich redundance. The porch is enchanting past all con

ception; numbers of pansies spring in your borders, and pinks, the wonder of all beholders for number and variety; and I, Adam and Eve in one, propping, weeding, and handling the hoe and spade with equal dexterity. Then for fruit, there is such a quantity, that we are giving jam and jelly to all the neighbours. The abundance of black currants is incredible.

I have Mary Macpherson with me, just come from Cluny, where she paid a visit for ten days. She grew upon me much: she is an admirable creature, rude from the hands of nature. Mr. Arbuthnot was charmed with the Book. I have received numberless compliments on it. Rejoice, for his son tells me he is much the better of his Aberdeenshire jaunt, recovered from his late illness, and in great spirits. The Grants are all in glee, having foiled the Frasers with much ado at the election. Charles Grant, the new member, is my old friend Mrs. Sprott's brother. The country swarms with shooters, among whom are some of the heroes of Egypt. I had a levée on Monday, at which appeared the Marquis of Huntly, Colonel D. Gordon of Aberdour, and Sir John Gordon of Park. I will tell at more leisure what they said, and how they looked. I expect my father hourly. God bless my dear child, prays

ANNE GRANT.

LETTER LXIII.

TO GEORGE THOMSON, ESQ., TRUSTEES' OFFICE, EDINBURGH.

Dear Sir,

Laggan, September 3, 1802.

66

The great desideratum with me, in thought, word, and deed, is method. I wish I knew where a commodity of good methods were to be bought." I would be as willing to purchase them as Charteris would have been to buy a fair character, which he rated so high from a similar motive, knowing its value from its want. Some disarranged folks pretend to be above method; but I humbly own it to be above me. I am determined that this letter, as a proof of my honest endeavour to reform, shall proceed methodically, and never once reverse its march," as Laing most affectedly says, when any plain Christian or honest soldier would say "retreated."

66

I shall cut and alter all you bid me about the poem of the “Highlanders ;" and am daily more and more sensible, that without a pilot, such as I have been so happy as to find in you, it would be madness in me to venture from shore. Unaccustomed to disguise, and hitherto having no motive for it, I shall appear to the world such as I really am, formed by the accidents of education and situation,-a solitary anomalous being, not thinking in the common track, or classing with any sect or party. Such once was he, whose steady judgment directed, and whose intuitive penetration enlightened me! What class of

beings will now own or protect me? I shall be like the bat, whom mice and birds alike shunned and disclaimed. The Jacobites will not endure me, because I honour the memory of the Revolutionists. Whigs will detest me because I have a great liking for the Stuarts and their adherents, and dread all these factions who would make a cypher of their sovereign, and crown King Hydra, whom I always thought a worse monster than fables have yet feigned, or fear conceived. Philosophers will regard me as a superstitious bigot, because all the powers and faculties of my soul repose with full confidence and joyful hope on "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,

The God whom heaven's triumphant host,
And suffering saints on earth adore."

I quote the doxology to show that my faith is purely orthodox, and because I regard the sacred writings with admiring reverence, as the pure fountain and original prototype of all that is truly sublime and beautiful in composition, as well as of useful knowledge and sound morality. Devotees, again, will utterly renounce me. Piety, even when very sincere, has been lately driven by "the world and its dread laugh" to take shelter in tabernacles and conventicles, where spiritual pride is continually narrowing the limits of salvation, and within whose limits I could never confine myself.

It is among the lovers of truth and nature alone that I am to look for my partizans. Who that admires Mrs. Robinson or Miss Seward will ever tolerate me? I have read no modern authors, except in extracts that I have chanced upon here and there. But the

only female writers of poetry that I can recollect at present, who have kept their garments unspotted, are Carter, Barbauld, and Williams. All the rest have sat too long at their toilette, and are so bedizened,— they nod such spangled plumes, and trail such pompous trains,—that, like every other artificial and superficial thing, they are only calculated for the fashion of the day—to please and dazzle for a moment: But of the two former, particularly, one might say,

"The teeth of Time may gnaw Tantallon;

But they're for ever."

Miss Williams has since disfigured her style with the slang of party: But how elegant were her first productions! I am told the song,

"Where Avon mingles with the Clyde,"

is hers. I should have been charmed though I had seen that only. Burns's Poems always excepted, I have seen no lyrical production of latter days that has power over my feelings.

Pray do not omit to tell me how far your feminine poetic taste agrees with mine; and how you like Darwin's Botanical Garden, of which I got a sight lately. They are really Hesperian gardens, glittering all over the fruit gold, the leaves silver, and the stems brass.

It is odd how many people, without comparing opinions, should coincide in the same sentiment; but Mrs. Macintosh, Miss Dunbar, and Mrs. Furzer have all said to me just what you say about publishing Letters. The latter says, in her lively way, that she has herself of my letters what would make an interest