I have at least a week of my sofa before me-so, instead of claret, and the writing of worldly epistles, I must e'en do the best I can with a sip of water-gruel, and the old luxury of conning over Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. Once more adieu!" A stout heart to a stiff brae," as we say in Scotland; which, being interpreted, signifies

"Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito."

P. M.

LETTER LVI.

TO THE REV. DAVID WILLIAMS.

MY DEAR DAVID,

I HAVE not written to you for these eight days, simply because I have not been able to do so. The fit has been a severe one, and I feel that I am weakened, and see that I am thinned by it, beyond almost any preceding example in my own experience. My friend W however, was quite indefatigable in his attentions; and every now and then, some of the new friends I have made in Edinburgh would be dropping in upon me to relieve the tedium or the agony, (as might happen,) by the charms of their good-humoured and sympathetic conversation. Mr. Jeffrey, in his way home from the Parliament-House-Mr. Playfair, immediately after delivering his lecture--and sometimes Professor Lesslie and the Ettrick Shepherd, in the course of their walks, were among my morning visiters; and I had a regular succession of poets, artists, and young lawyers, sipping coffee in my view every evening. An old maiden lady, nearly related to Mr. W---, was also particularly kind to me. She sent her foot-boy every morning, with compliments and inquiries, and some small jar of sweat meats, or bottle of cordial, of her own manufacture--or the like. Indeed, Winforms me, that one day she went so far as to throw out some hints respecting a visit to the sick man, in propria persona; but my friend easily spared me that addition to my uneasinesses, by one or two dry remarks about "malicious tongues," and the "rules of propriety." But now, my good friend, I am well nigh a sound man again, and intend, God willing, to walk out and sun myself in Prince's-Street a little while to-morrow forenoon.

In the meantime I have had my sofa removed close to the window, which commands a view of a short street communicating between St. Andrew's Square and Prince's-Streetand which is tolerably frequented, although not quite so much so as I could wish. This, indeed, is the only fault I. have to find with my hotel-it does not afford me a sufficient peep of the bustle and tumult of the city. In the country I like to be altogether in the country-but, I think in a town, above all in a town-hotel, the best situation is that which is nearest the heart of the hubbub. The heart is rather too strong an expression, but I think there is no use in having eyes to see and ears to hear, unless these avenues of knowledge are to be brought into something like contact with the busy sounds and sighs of the place. However, even as it is, by help of a bright pair of spectacles, and a quick pair of ears, I make shift to gather some food for my speculation. One thing has already struck me-and that is, that there is a much greater number of gentlemen in black coats walking about than before I was confined to my couch. They seem to have poured into the city during my illness-and, indeed, I see by the newspapers, that the General Assembly, or great Annual Convocation of the Kirk, is at hand. On these I shall of course keep an especial look-out.

Those I have already remarked, seem, in passing along, to be chiefly occupied in recognizing and shaking hands with each other-and sometimes with old acquaintances among the citizens of the place. Their greetings seem to be given and returned with a degree of heartiness and satisfaction which inspires a favourable idea of all parties concerned. I observed only this minute, a thin, hardy-looking minister, in a blue spenser over his sables, arrested immediately under my window, by a jolly-looking burgher, who, to judge by his obesity, may probably be in the magistracy, or council at least. "Hoo d'ye do, Mr. Such-a-thing?" said the cit, (for I could not help lifting the glass an inch or two,)" and hoo did ye leave all at Auchtertirloch Manse? You must come and take your broth with us." To which the man in black replies with a clerical blandness of modulation-" Most certainly--you are exceedingly good --and hoo fares it with your good leddy? You have lately had an addition to your family." "I understand from a friend in the North," cries the other, "that you are not behind me in that particular---twins, Doctor! O, the luck of

a manse!" A loud cachination follows from both parties, and after a bow and a scrape---" You will remember four o'clock on Tuesday, Dr. Macalpine."

In the course of an hour or two, I have an opportunity of witnessing several other rencounters of the same kind, and I feel a sort of contemplative pleasure in looking upon them, as so many fortuitous idyllia presenting themselves amidst the common thoroughfare of the streets. I saw, among the rest, one huge ecclesiastical figure, of an apoplectic and lethargic aspect, moving slowly along, with his eyes goggling in his head, and his tongue hanging out of his mouth. He was accosted by an old lawyer, whom I had often remarked in the Parliament-House, and who seemed to delight in reviving their juvenile remembrances, by using the broadest Scots dialect. Among other observations I beard, "Hech, man! I never think the yill so gude noo as when we war young"---and after some further interchange of sentiments, "Ye would hear that auld George Piper had pappit aff," &c. &c. &c. But I see Mr. W's old yellow chariot at the door--and, besides, my fingers won't serve me for a longer epistle.

Ever yours.

P. M.

P.S. By the way, during my days of convalescence, I have been so vain as to sit for my portrait to Mr. John Watson, the young painter, of whom I have said something in a former letter. I did this at the urgent request of Mr. Blackwood, the bookseller, who has taken a vehement desire to have my effigy among those of some other great men at his country-house. I fear, however, that the state of my health has made the painter give me a face at least ten years too old.

MR. W seeing that I had recovered a considerable measure of my vigour, insisted upon carrying me with him

to make my bow at the levee of the Earl of Morton, who has come down as the King's Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of this year. Detesting, as he does, the Kirk-its Creed-and its practice-to wait in all due form upon the representative of Majesty, at this its great festival, is a thing which he would think it highly indecorous in him, or in the head and representative of any ancient Scottish family, to omit; and, indeed; he is of opinion, that no gentleman of any figure who happens to be in Scotland at the time, should fail to appear in the same manner. He was, besides, more than commonly anxious in his devoirs on this occasion, on account of his veneration for the blood of the old Earls of Douglas, whose true representative he says the Earl of Morton is. My curiosity came powerfully in back of his zeal, and I promised to be in all readiness next morning at the hour he appointed.

In the meantime, His Grace (for such is the style of the Commissioner) had already arrived at the Royal Hotel, where, more avito, the provost and baillies, in all the gallantry of furred cloaks and gold chains, were in readiness to receive him, and present the ancient silver keys, symbolical of the long-vanished gates of the Gude Town of Edinburgh. The style in which the whole of this mock royalty is got up, strikes me as being extremely absurd. In the first place, I hold it a plain matter, that, if the King's majesty is to send a representative to preside over the disputes of the Scottish ministers and elders, this representative should be lodged no where but in the Palace of Holyrood, where he might hold his mimic state in the same balls and gaiteries which might have been dignified by the feet of the real monarchs of Scotland. Instead of this, the Commissioner is lodged in a common hotel--a magnificent one indeed-but which bas assuredly nothing royal about it but its name. And then, its situation is supposed to be too distant from the place where the Assembly meets, to allow of his walking all the way thither in procession, as it seems ancient custom requires him to do. So when the hour of meeting approaches, his Grace is smuggled over the bridge in a sedan chair, and stuck up in the Merchant's Hall to receive the company that come to swell the train of his procession. The undignified uses to which the apartment is applied at other times (for it serves as a reading-room all the rest of the year) is enough to throw an addition, and surely a needless addition, of ridicule over

the scenes of courtly greeting to which it is now devoted. But it is within an easy walk of St. Giles's Church, and that counterbalances all objections.

Meaning to be in London, and kiss the Prince's hand once more, before I return to Wales, I had brought my old court suit with me-the same suit of modest chocolate-coloured kerseymere, David, which has figured in the presence of King George and Queen Charlotte at St. James's-of Napoleon and Louis le désiré at the Thuilleries-of smooth Pius the Sixth at the Vatican-of solemn Francis at the Schloss of Vienna-of grim whiskered Frederick William at Berlinof pale monastic Augustus at Dresden-to say nothing of the late enormous Hector of Wirtemberg, the good worthy Grand Duke of Weimar and Eisenach, and some score of minor thrones, principalities, and dominations besides. I took it for granted, that I could not make my appearance in presence of the Ecclesiastical Lord Lieutenant, without mounting this venerable garb; so John had the coat, waistcoat, and breeches well aired, and amused himself half an evening in polishing the steel buttons and buckles-and my queue being dropped into a seemly bag, and my loins girded with my father's somewhat rusty rapier-I drove--once more cap-apee a courtier-to my rendezvous in the Lawn-Market.

I found Warrayed in a deputy-lieutenant's uniform of blue and red, with (albeit somewhat against the rules) the little cross of Dannebrog, which he had conferred on him many years ago, when he was in Denmark-on his breast; but in spite of his own splendour, he quizzed me unmercifully on the sober pomp of my own vestments-assuring me, that, except the Commissioner, and his purse-bearer and pages, I should find nobody in a court suit at the levee. It was too late, however, to change; and as I am not a very nervous man about trifles, I did not choose to miss the sight merely because I had over-dressed myself. W 's old coachman had combed his wig in full puff, and his lackey mounted behind us in a fine gala livery of green and white, as old as Queen Ann's sixpences-so I question not the contents of the yellow chariot, outside and inside, made rather a conspicuous appearance. However, we soon reached the Merchant's Hall, and were ushered into the Presence-chamber of his Grace.

You know Lord Morton, so I don't need to tell you that the heir of the Douglasses made a highly respectable ap

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