34 LETTER IV. TO THE SAME. MARCH 20. I BELIEVE, that had I given myself up entirely to the direction of my friend W, I should have known, up to this hour, very little about any part of Edinburgh more modern than the Canongate, and perhaps heard as little about any worthies she has produced since the murder of Archbishop Sharpe. He seemed to consider it a matter of course, that, morning after morning, the whole of my time ought to be spent in examining the structure of those gloomy tenements in wynds and closes, which had, in the old time, been honoured with the residence of the haughty Scottish barons, or the French ambassadors and generals, their constant visitors. In vain did I assure him, that houses of exactly the same sort were to be seen in abundance in the city of London, and that even I myself had been wearied of counting the fleurs-de-lis carved on every roof and chimney-piece of a green-grocer's habitation in Mincing-lane. Of such food, in his estimation, there could be no satiety; every land had its coat-of-arms, and every quartering called up to his memory the whole history of some unfortunate amour, or still more unfortunate marriage -in so much that, had I taken accurate notes of all his conversation, I am persuaded I might, before this time, have been in a condition to fill more sheets than you might be likely to peruse, with all the mysteries of the causes celebres, or, to speak more plainly, of the Scandalous Chronicle of Scotland.-What horrors of barbarismwhat scenes of murder, rape, incest-seem to have been the staple commodities of week-day life among these ferocious nobles! But, in good truth, I did not come to Scotland to learn such things as these; and although a little sprinkling of them might be very well in its way, I soon found it expedient to give my good friend a slight hint, that I wished he could contrive to afford me something else for the main woof of my meditations. . . . . . He begins to understand my drift, and will, I think, learn to accommodate himself to my humour, pas-a-pas. Notwithstanding all his devotion to the past, indeed, he is far from being an unconcerned or inept observer of more modern things-and I have already said as much. He is quite au fait, I have found, in regard to the history and performances of all the leading characters of the present day in Scotland; but, unless when questions are put to him, he seems, with a very few exceptions, to make a point of never alluding to their existence. It would appear as if he was not over anxious to remember that such people are; but when the conversation actually turns on them and their merits, he expresses himself apparently in no uncandid manner concerning the least-and in a tone of genuine admiration concerning the greatest of them. But I despair of making you comprehend the vagaries of such an original. I wish you had a few minutes' use of the magical mirror, if it were only that you might enjoy one view of him, as he sits wrapped up in his huge blue velvet robe-de-chambre, with a night-cap of the same, dashing execrations by the dozen upon the whigs, the presbyterians, and the Edinburgh reviewers; for his splenetic imagination jumbles them all together-disjecta membra poetae-in one chaos of abomination. 66 Could one enter into his premises of prejudice, one might perhaps find less difficulty in joining in his sweeping sentences of conclusion. He considers whiggery as having been the ruin of the independence of his country, and as forming, at this moment, the principal engine for degrading the character of his countrymen. I own I am rather at a loss to discover what he means by whiggery," (for he never deigns to give a definition ;) and all I know of the matter is, that it is something for which he equally vituperates Mr Halkston of Rathillet, and Mr Francis Jeffrey,-two persons, between whom, I suspect, few other people would find many circumstances of resemblance, and each of whom, I am quite sure, would disdain, with all his might, the idea of being coupled with the other. What you or I might be apt to designate by the same term, would, I am certain, coincide in very few points with any notion he may happen to affix to it. But, perchance, we may be able to get a little more light as we go on. In the mean time, W has gone into the country for a few days, upon some of his county politics. I wished to have gone with him, but had caught a vile cold, and did not care |