ly seen from the windows of Princes Street, between the Old and New
Town, reflecting the lights of the lofty city beyond--with a thousand
other delightful and romantic circumstances, which render it no longer
surprising that the Edinburgh folk should be, as they think themselves,
the most accomplished people in the world. But, alas! from the moment I
placed my foot on board that cruel vessel, of which the very idea is
anguish, all thoughts were swallowed up in suffering-swallowed, did I
say? Ah, my dear Bell, it was the odious reverse--but imagination alone
can do justice to the subject. Not, however, to dwell on what is past,
during the whole time of our passage from Leith, I was unable to think,
far less to write; and, although there was a handsome young Hussar
officer also a passenger, I could not even listen to the elegant
compliments which he seemed disposed to offer by way of consolation, when
he had got the better of his own sickness. Neither love nor valour can
withstand the influence of that sea-demon. The interruption thus
occasioned to my observations made me destroy my journal, and I have now
to write to you only about London--only about London! What an expression
for this human universe, as my brother calls it, as if my weak feminine
pen were equal to the stupendous theme!

But, before entering on the subject, let me first satisfy the anxiety of
your faithful bosom with respect to my father's legacy. All the
accounts, I am happy to tell you, are likely to be amicably settled; but
the exact amount is not known as yet, only I can see, by my brother's
manner, that it is not less than we expected, and my mother speaks about
sending me to a boarding-school to learn accomplishments. Nothing,
however, is to be done until something is actually in hand. But what
does it all avail to me? Here am I, a solitary being in the midst of
this wilderness of mankind, far from your sympathising affection, with
the dismal prospect before me of going a second time to school, and
without the prospect of enjoying, with my own sweet companions, that
light and bounding gaiety we were wont to share, in skipping from tomb to
tomb in the breezy churchyard of Irvine, like butterflies in spring
flying from flower to flower, as a Wordsworth or a Wilson would express
it.

We have got elegant lodgings at present in Norfolk Street, but my brother
is trying, with all his address, to get us removed to a more fashionable
part of the