little of his father's sarcastic wit, and would have inherited the splendid estate of Dalswinton, but the vast outlay in the invention of steam-boats, improvements in the government packets, and experiments in artillery, reduced the family from great affluence. ED.] No. CCXXVIII. TO MRS. RIDDEL. DEAR MADAM, I MEANT to have called on you yesternight, but as I edged up to your box-door, the first object which greeted my view, was one of those lobstercoated puppies, sitting like another dragon, guarding the Hesperian fruit. On the conditions and capitulations you so obligingly offer, I shall certainly make my weather-beaten rustic phiz a part of your box-furniture on Tuesday; when we may arrange the business of the visit. Among the profusion of idle compliments, which insidious craft, or unmeaning folly, incessantly offer at your shrine-a shrine, how far exalted above such adoration-permit me, were it but for rarity's sake, to pay you the honest tribute of a warm heart and an independent mind; and to assure you, that I am, thou most amiable, and most accomplished of thy sex, with the most respectful esteem, and fervent regard, thine, &c. R. B. noon. No. CCXXIX. TO MRS. RIDDEL. I WILL wait on you, my ever valued friend, but whether in the morning I am not sure. Sunday closes a period of our curst revenue business, and may probably keep me employed with my pen until Fine employment for a poet's pen! There is a species of the human genus that I call the ginhorse class: what enviable dogs they are! Round, and round, and round they go,-Mundell's ox, that drives his cotton mill, is their exact prototype— without an idea or wish beyond their circle; fat, sleek, stupid, patient, quiet, and contented; while here I sit, altogether Novemberish, a d-mned melange of fretfulness and melancholy; not enough of the one to rouse me to passion, nor of the other to repose me in torpor; my soul flouncing and fluttering round her tenement, like a wild finch, caught amid the horrors of winter, and newly thrust into a cage. Well, I am persuaded that it was of me the Hebrew sage prophesied, when he foretold"And behold, on whatsoever this man doth set his heart, it shall not prosper !" If my resentment is awaked, it is sure to be where it dare not squeak; and if * * * * * * Pray that wisdom and bliss be more frequent visitors of R. B. No. CCXXX. TO MRS. RIDDEL. I HAVE this moment got the song from Syme, and I am sorry to see that he has spoilt it a good deal. It shall be a lesson to me how I lend him any thing again. I have sent you "Werter," truly happy to have any the smallest opportunity of obliging you. 'Tis true, Madam, I saw you once since I was at Woodlea ; and that once froze the very life-blood of my heart. Your reception of me was such, that a wretch meeting the eye of his judge, about to pronounce sentence of death on him, could only have envied my feelings and situation. But I hate the theme, and never more shall write or speak on it. One thing I shall proudly say, that I can pay Mrs. R. a higher tribute of esteem, and appreciate her amiable worth more truly, than any man whom I have seen approach her. R. B. No. CCXXXI. TO MRS. RIDDEL. I HAVE often told you, my dear friend, that you had a spice of caprice in your composition, and you have as often disavowed it; even perhaps while your opinions were, at the moment, irrefragably proving it. Could any thing estrange me from a friend such as you? - No! To-morrow I shall have the honour of waiting on you. Farewell, thou first of friends, and most accomplished of women; even with all thy little caprices! R. B. 66 [Beauty is sometimes a little whimsical, and it is said that Mrs. Riddel gave the bard the full benefit of the caprice" which he persists in saying was a part of her composition. She was no less sensible of his imperfections, but then she did not shut her eyes as many did on his high qualities, and chronicle nothing in her memory but that he was always "Crazed wi' love or daized wi' drink." ED.] No. CCXXXI TO MRS. RIDDEL. MADAM, I RETURN your common-place book, I have perused it with much pleasure, and would have continued my criticisms, but as it seems the critic has forfeited your esteem, his strictures must lose their value. If it is true that "offences come only from the heart," before you I am guiltless. To admire, esteem, and prize you, as the most accomplished of women, and the first of friends-if these are crimes, I am the most offending thing alive. In a face where I used to meet the kind complacency of friendly confidence, now to find cold neglect, and contemptuous scorn-is a wrench that my heart can ill bear. It is, however, some kind of miserable good luck, that while de haut-en-bas rigour may depress an unoffending wretch to the ground, it has a tendency to rouse a stubborn something in his bosom, which, though it cannot |