on Thursday last; the town is really neater, cleaner, and better than
you would imagine; but the country around is dismal; long gloomy moors,
and the extended ocean, are the only prospects that present themselves;
the whole region seems as if made in direct opposition to descriptive
poetry. You meet here with none of the lengthened meads, sunny vales
and dashing streams, that brighten in the raptured poet's eye; however,
as I believe you have been here, I shall trouble you with no farther
descriptions.

Never was parting more tender than that of mine with George Robertson
the postilion, and the Kelly chaise at Dundee water-side; we formed as
dolorous a trio as then existed upon the face of this valley of tears.
Oh George! Oh! Erskine! were the cries that echoed across the waves, and
along the mountains.

Tears trickled down the rugged boatman's face,
An unpaid freight he thought no harder case;
The seals no longer sported in the sea,
While ev'ry bell rung mournful in Dundee,
Huge ploughmen wept, and stranger still, 'tis said,
So strong is sympathy, that asses bray'd.

Farewell, lovely George, I roared out, and oh! if you should happen to
be dry, for such is the nature of sorrow, take this shilling, and spend
it in the sugared ale, or the wind-expelling dram: with sweet reluctance
he put forth his milk-white hand, cold with clammy sweat, and with a
faltering voice, feebly thanked me. Oh! I shall never forget my emotions
when he drove from me, and the chaise lessened in my view; now it
whirled sublime along the mountain's edge; now, I scarcely saw the head
of George nodding in the vale. Thus, on the summit of a craggy cliff,
which high overlooks the resounding waves, Jean, Susan, or Nell, sees in
a boat her lovely sailor, who has been torn from her arms by a cruel
press-gang; now it climbs the highest seas; now it is buried between
two billows, and vanishes from her sight. Weep not, sweet maid, he shall
return loaded with honours; a gold watch shall grace each fob, a pair of
silver buckles shall shine resplendent upon his shoes, and a silk
handkerchief shall be tied around his neck, which soon shall cover thy
snowy bosom.

When the chaise was totally lost, and my breast was distracted with a
thousand different passions; all of a sudden I broke out into the
following soliloquy.--Surely, surely mortal man is a chaise: now
trailing through the heavy sand of indolence, anon jolted to death