out into the world, fortified with good principles, and acquainted with sublimer pleasures than the world has to bestow. .. Now, here are two marked instances of virtue so modified, that have had no small influence on your own mind. I see you have greatly mistaken my political creed, which is borrowed from a much sounder judgment than my own, and much nearer your own than you are aware of. The only real grievance Scotland labours under, originates with landholders: perhaps, more remotely, in commerce, since the tide of wealth, which commerce has poured into the northern part of the island, has led our trading people to contend with our gentry, in all the exterior elegancies of life. The latter seem stung with a jealous solicitude to preserve their wonted ascendancy over their new rivals. This pre-eminence can only be kept up by heightening at all hazards the rents of their land. Thus the ancient adherents of their families are displaced. These, having been accustomed to a life of devotion, simplicity, and frugality, and being bred to endure hunger, fatigue, and hardship, while following their cattle over the mountains, or navigating the stormy seas that surround their islands, form the best resource of the state, when difficulties, such as the inhabitants of a happier region are strangers to, must be encountered for its service. When we consider this world as merely a passing scene, at the conclusion of which the question will not be, who has supported the most consequential character, but who has acted best the part allotted, we must look upon that as the best destination, which affords the widest scope for VOL. II. E the exercise and effects of various virtues. In civilized society, wealth does, and must give influence; but it would be a wretched state indeed, in which wealth should be the only distinction. A man whose ancestors have rendered themselves for a course of time eminent in the state, has generally some among them to whom he looks back for example, and whose virtues and abilities reflect lustre on his descendants. Though the depravity of our nature appears but too conspicuously among the higher classes of mankind, yet among these, too, talents and merit appear with greater splendour, and are of more ornament and service to mankind, than the same qualities in their inferiors. Condescension and affability, for instance, would vanish if we were all equal. The charity and hospitality of a nobleman will be more admired and imitated than the same qualities in a wealthy trades man: "A saint in crape, is twice a saint in lawn." In short, everything that decorates, or enlightens, is best seen from an eminence. Nothing but pure patriotism, great poverty, and perfect equality, an assemblage we shall never see combined, could make a republic on a large scale at all supportable. Believe me, I have no prejudice against monarchy mildly exercised, or duly limited; I consider it as an institution naturally growing out of that patriarchal sovereignty, which, in the primitive ages, the parent, doubly revered for his many years and great experience, was wont to exercise over his numerous and obedient offspring. In a state where no unal loyed good is indulged to us, we often show our best wisdom, when of many evils we choose the least. For my own part, though I were so French and so new-fangled as to consider all legal governments as monsters let loose to eat up liberty, I should still prefer the three-headed Cerberus, whose salutary terrors prevent the condemned from entering the regions of bliss, like our threefold government, whose terrors only affect the wicked; even this, I say, I should prefer to the many-headed hydra, who, breathing death and contagion indiscriminately, may represent the barbarous genius of mob government. Now that I am got into classical allusions, permit me to Burkify a little longer, and to assure you that I should be very much grieved to see that good old lady, or gentleman (I know not which to call it), the Constitution, cut up and dismembered because it has a few wrinkles or grey hairs; or to see Medea's old kettle put on again, while Mr. and Lord L. . stood chief cooks, and Tom Paine scullion. I think I see Mary W- and so many more public-spirited ladies bringing aprons-full of herbs, like witches, to the magic cauldron. The ways of the Almighty baffle our penetration. This temporary triumph of irreligion and false philosophy will tear the mask off the monster, who, wrapt in the specious disguise of moderation, and speaking the language of sentiment and liberality, has, for near a century past, been undermining the foundations of religion and morality. What pains have been taken to promulgate that profound discovery, "that bigotry and religious zeal have done more hurt in society, than scepticism and all the mere speculative evils of philosophy.” The reason is plain. Great bodies of people were confederated together, under the influence of bigotry and superstition. The crafty and ambitious few made the passions of the well-meaning though ignorant many, subservient to their cruelty and avarice, and thus produced those tragedies which deform the face of history. But hitherto these enlightened philosophers have been dispersed here and there, without numbers or cohesion to enable them to begin their practical operations. We have never, till now, seen a nation of refined enlightened infidels governed by the dictates of philosophy; and it is to be hoped that the world will be terrified and warned by the dreadful spectacle. I here dedicate to you the first fruits of my pen upon the arduous and intricate subject of politics; and as I am pretty much of opinion it will also be my last excursion into those unexplored regions, pray regard it with some fellow-feeling, it being like yourself, an only child. Mr. Grant has not yet conquered his astonishment at your growing fat. "Bless me, Miss Ourry fat! it is impossible:" his fancy had formed you a mere skeleton. A few grey hairs begin already to adorn my temples; the small portion which fell to my share of "celestial rosy red," has most ambitiously forsaken its native station, and mounted up to my "lack-lustre eyes." Constant solicitude and the cares of the nursery have made me "Like a meagre mope, adust and thin, In a loose night-gown of my own wan skin." I will describe no longer. Come, see, and conquer. Receive numberless loves from those I best love, and believe me yours from her heart, and unaltered, A. G. LETTER XIV. TO MISS OURRY. Laggan, January 26, 1793. You will not let me alone, nor will I give up my point. In spite of your raillery, I insist that the ties of blood bind stronger, and the duties of relationship are better understood, in the Highlands, than anywhere else. I by no means except the Low country of Scotland. This, too, is not a reflected moral sense of duty, but the mere effect of honest habits and salutary prejudices. It is a singular instance of the Almighty's goodness, that, in these poor barren countries, from which he has withheld so many of the blessings he bestows on others, the few who possess any portion of wealth should be stimulated by those kindly propensities to diffuse it among their remote relations. These last, besides the habitual pride and indolence attending imagined high birth, have not, from education or situation, the means of procuring a livelihood, as in wealthy and commercial countries. This, no doubt, forms no pleasant chain of dependence; but in this, as in many other instances, “What happier nature shrinks at with affright, Though I applaud this reverence for kindred, I do |