has something good about him; though very often nothing else than a happy temperament of constitution inclining him to this or that virtue. For this reason, no man can say in what degree any other person, besides himself, can be, with strict justice, called wicked. Let any of the strictest character for regularity of conduct among us, examine impartially how many vices he has never been guilty of, not from any care or vigilance, but for want of opportunity, or some accidental circumstance intervening; how many of the weaknesses of mankind he has escaped, because he was out of the line of such temptation; and, what often, if not always, weighs more than all the rest, how much he is indebted to the world's good opinion, because the world does not know all: I say, any man who can thus think, will scan the failings, nay, the faults and crimes, of mankind around him, with a brother's eye.

I have often courted the acquaintance of that part of mankind commonly known by the ordinary phrase of blackguards, sometimes farther than was consistent with the safety of my character; those who, by thoughtless prodigality or headstrong passions, have been driven to ruin. Though disgraced by follies, nay sometimes" stained with guilt,

*

* *" I have yet found among them, in not a few instances, some of the noblest virtues, magnanimity, generosity, disinterested friendship, and even modesty.

April.

As I am what the men of the world, if they knew such a man, would call a whimsical mortal, I have various sources of pleasure and enjoyment, which are, in a manner, peculiar to myself, or some here and there such other out-of-the-way person. Such is the peculiar pleasure I take in the season of the winter, more than the rest of the year. This, I believe, may

be partly owing to my misfortunes giving my mind a melancholy cast; but there is something even in the

"Mighty tempest, and the hoary waste

Abrupt and deep, stretch'd o'er the buried earth,"which raises the mind to a serious sublimity, favorable to every thing great and noble. There is scarcely any earthly object gives me more-I do not know if I should call it pleasure-but something which exalts me, something which enraptures me-than to walk in the sheltered side of a wood, or high plantation, in a cloudy winter-day, and hear the stormy wind howling among the trees, and raving over the plain. It is my best season for devotion: my mind is rapt up in a kind of enthusiasm to Him, who, in the pompous language of the Hebrew bard, " walks on the wings of the wind." In one of these seasons, just after a train of misfortunes, I composed the following:

The wintry west extends his blast,

And hail and rain does blaw;

Or, the stormy north sends driving forth
The blinding sleet and snaw:

While tumbling brown, the burn comes down,
An' roars frae bank to brae;

And bird and beast in covert rest,
And pass the heartless day.

"The sweeping blast, the sky o'ercast,"*
The joyless winter-day,

Let others fear, to me more dear

Than all the pride of May:

The tempest's howl, it soothes my soul,

My griefs it seems to join,

The leafless trees my fancy please,

Their fate resembles mine!

* Dr. Young.

T

Thou Pow'r Supreme, whose mighty scheme
These woes of mine fulfil,

Here. firm, I rest, they must be blest,
Because they are Thy will!
Then all I want (O, do thou grant

This one request of mine!)
Since to enjoy thou dost deny,
Assist me to resign.

Shenstone finely observes, that love-verses, writ without any real passion, are the most nauseous of all conceits; and I have often thought that no man can be a proper critic of love-composition, except he himself, in one or more instances, have been a warm votary of this passion. As I have been all along a miserable dupe to love, and have been led into a thousand weaknesses and follies by it, for that reason I put the more confidence in my critical skill, in distinguishing foppery and conceit, from real passion and nature. Whether the following song will stand the test, I will not pretend to say, because it is my own; only I can say it was, at the time, genuine from the heart. Behind yon hills where Lugar flows, 'Mang moors an' mosses many, O, The wint❜ry sun the day has clos❜d, And I'll awa to Nannie, O.

The westlin wind blaws lowd an' shrill;
The night's baith mirk and rainy, O,
But I'll get my plaid an' out I'll steal,
An' owre the hills to Nannie, O.
My Nannie's charming, sweet, an' young;
Nae artfu' wiles to win ye, O:
May ill befa' the flattering tongue
That wad beguile my Nannie, O.
Her face is fair, her heart is true,
As spotless as she 's bonnie, O;
The op'ning gowan, wet wi' dew,
Nae purer is than Nannie, O.

A country lad is my degree,

An' few there be that ken me, O;
But what care I how few they be,
I'm welcome ay to Nannie, O.
My riches a's my penny-fee,

An' I maun guide it cannie, O;
But warl's gear ne'er troubles me,
My thoughts are a' my Nannie, O.
Our auld guidman delights to view
His sheep an' kye thrive bonnie, ();
But I'm as blythe that hauds his pleugh,
An' has nae care but Nannie, O.

Come weel come woe, I care na by,
I'll tak what Heav'n will sen' me, O;
Nae ither care in life have I,

But live, an' love my Nannie, O.

March, 1784.

There was a certain period of my life that my spirit was broke by repeated losses and disasters, which threatened, and indeed effected, the utter ruin of my fortune. My body too was attacked by the most dreadful distemper, a hypochondria, or confirmed melancholy: In this wretched state, the recollection of which makes me yet shudder, I hung my harp on the willow trees, except in some lucid intervals, in one of which I composed the following

O THOU Great Being! what thou art
Surpasses me to know;

Yet sure I am, that known to thee
Are all thy works below.

Thy creature here before thee stands,
All wretched and distrest;

Yet sure those ills that wring my soul
Obey thy high behest.

Sure Thou, Almighty, canst not act
From cruelty or wrath;

O, free my weary eyes from tears,
Or close them fast in death!,

But if I must afflicted be,

To suit some wise design;

Then man my soul with firm resolves
To bear and not repine!

April.

The following song is a wild rhapsody, miserably deficient in versification, but as the sentiments are the genuine feelings of my heart, for that reason I have a particular pleasure in conning it over.

SONG.

Tune-The Weaver and his Shuttle, O.

My Father was a Farmer upon the Carrick border, O
And carefully he bred me in decency and order, O
He bade me act a manly part, though I had ne'er a
farthing, O

For without an honest manly heart, no man was worth regarding, O.

Then out into the world my course I did determine, O Tho' to be rich was not my wish, yet to be great was charming, O

My talents they were not the worst; nor yet my education: O

Resolv'd was I, at least to try, to mend my situation, O. In many a way, and vain essay, I courted fortune's favor; O

Some cause unseen, still stept between, to frustrate each endeavour; O

Sometimes by foes I was o'erpower'd; sometimes by friends forsaken; O

And when my hope was at the top, I still was worst mistaken, O.