No. LXXI. To MRS. DUNLOP. Ellisland, 4th March, 1789. HERE am I, my honored friend, returned safe from the capital. To a man, who has a home, however humble or remote-if that home is like mine, the scene of domestic comfortthe bustle of Edinburgh will soon be a business of sickening disgust. "Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate you!" When I must skulk into a corner, lest the rattling equipage of some gaping blockhead should mangle me in the mire, I am tempted to exclaim-"What merits has he had, or what "demerit have I had, in some state of pre-existence, that he is ushered into this state of being with the sceptre of rule, and the key 66 "of "of riches in his puny fist, and I am kicked "into the world, the sport of folly, or the victim "of pride?" I have read somewhere of a monarch, (in Spain I think it was), who was so out of humour with the Ptolemean system of astronomy, that he said, had he been of the CREATOR'S Council, he could have saved him a great deal of labour and absurdity. I will not defend this blasphemous speech; but often, as I have glided with humble stealth through the pomp of Princes' street, it has suggested itself to me, as an improvement on the present human figure, that a man, in proportion to his own conceit of his consequence in the world, could have pushed out the longitude of his common size, as a snail pushes out his horns, or as we draw out a perspective. This trifling alteration, not to mention the prodigious saving it would be in the tear and wear of the neck and limb-sinews of many of his majesty's liege subjects, in the way of tossing the head and tiptoe strutting, would evidently turn out a vast advantage, in enabling us at once to adjust the ceremonials in making a bow, or making way to a great man, and that too within a second of the precise spherical angle of reverence, or an inch of the particular point of respectful distance, which the important creature itself requires; as a measuring-glance at its towering altitude, would determine the affair like instinct. You You are right Madam, in your idea of poor Mylne's poem, which he has addressed to me. The piece has a good deal of merit, but it has one great fault-it is, by far, too long. Besides, my success has encouraged such a shoal of ill-spawned monsters to crawl into public notice, under the title of Scottish Poets, that the very term Scottish Poetry borders on the burlesque. When I write to Mr. Carfrae, I shall advise him rather to try one of his deceased friend's English pieces. I am prodigiously hurried with my own matters, else I would have requested a perusal of all Mylne's poetic performances; and would have offered his friends my assistance in either selecting or correcting what would be proper for the press. What it is that occupies me so much, and perhaps a little oppresses my present spirits, shall fill up a paragraph in some future letter. In the mean time, allow me to close this epistle with a few lines done by a friend of mine ** I give you them, that, as you have seen the original, you may guess whether one or two alterations I have ventured to make in them, be any real improvement. Like the fair plant that from our touch withdraws, Straight Straight as the fox-glove, ere her bells disclose, *These beautiful lines, we have reason to believe, are the production of the lady to whom this letter is addressed. E. No. No. LXXII. To the Rev. P. CARFRAE. 1789. REV. SIR, I Do not recollect that I have ever felt a severer pang of shame, than on looking at the date of your obliging letter which accompanied Mr. Mylne's poem. I am much to blame: the honor Mr. Mylne has done me, greatly enhanced in its value by the endearing, though melancholy circumstance, of its being the last production of his muse, deserved a better return. I have, as you hint, thought of sending a copy of the poem to some periodical publica VOL. II. tion; |