s begun while I was busy with _Percy's
Reliques of English Poetry._ By the way, how much is every honest
heart, which has a tincture of Caledonian prejudice, obliged to you
for your glorious story of Buchanan and Targe! 'Twas an unequivocal
proof of your loyal gallantry of soul, giving Targe the victory. I
should have been mortified to the ground if you had not.

I have just read over, once more of many times, your _Zeluco._ I
marked with my pencil, as I went along, every passage that pleased me
particularly above the rest; and one or two, I think, which with
humble deference, I am disposed to think unequal to the merits of the
book. I have sometimes thought to transcribe these marked passages, or
at least so much of them as to point where they are, and send them to
you. Original strokes that strongly depict the human heart, is your
and Fielding's province beyond any other novelist I have ever perused.
Richardson indeed might perhaps be excepted; but unhappily, _dramatis
personae_ are beings of another world; and however they may captivate
the unexperienced, romantic fancy of a boy or a girl, they will ever,
in proportion as we have made human nature our study, dissatisfy our
riper years.

As to my private concerns, I am going on, a mighty tax-gatherer before
the Lord, and have lately had the interest to get myself ranked on the
list of excise as a supervisor. I am not yet employed as such, but in
a few years I shall fall into the file of supervisorship by seniority.
I have had an immense loss in the death of the Earl of Glencairn; the
patron from whom all my fame and fortune took its rise. Independent of
my grateful attachment to him, which was indeed so strong that it
pervaded my very soul, and was entwined with the thread of my
existence: so soon as the prince's friends had got in (and every dog
you know has his day), my getting forward in the excise would have
been an easier business than otherwise it will be. Though this was a
consummation devoutly to be wished, yet, thank Heaven, I can live and
rhyme as I am: and as to my boys, poor little fellows! if I cannot
place them on as high an elevation in life, as I could wish, I shall,
if I am favoured so much of the Disposer of events as to see that
period, fix them on as broad and independent a basis as possible.
Among the many wise adages which have been treasured up by our
Scottish ancestors, this is one of the best, _Better be the head o'
the commonalty, than the