At Lights in the morning, nae blythe lads are scorning, Our faffes are lonely, and dowie, and wae: Nae daffing, nae gabbing, but fighing and fobbing. In harf at the flicaring, nae fwankies are jeering, At e'en in the glooming, nae youngsters are roaming Dool and wae fa' the order-fent our lads to the border! The English for once by a guile won the day: The flowers of the foreft, that fhone aye the foremost, The pride of our land now ligs cauld in the clay! We'll ha' nae mair lilting, at the ewes milking, Our women and bairns now fit dowie and wae: There's nought heard but moaning in ilka green loning, Since the flowers of the foreft are weeded away. • Bughts] Circular folds, where the ewes are milkedScarning] Bantering, jeering. Dorvie] Dowly, foli tary. Wae] Full of woe or forrow. Daffing] Waggifh fporting. Gabbing] Jestingly prating, talking gibble-gabble. Leglin] Can, or milking-pail:-'Swankies] Swains. Banfiers] Bandsters, binders-up of the fheaves. -Lyard] Hoary: being all old men:-A preaching] A preaching in Scotland is not unlike a country fair.• Fleetching] Fawning, flattering.Glooming.] Glimmering, twilight. Do you remember Chatterton's note on glommed, in my letter about him? Dool] Dolour, for-row.-'. Wae fa'] Woe befal, evil betide.-- Ligs] Lies.' LET 24th February, 1779%, Since we parted yesterday I have thought a good deal of what we talked about. Though I did not promife to write to you till to-morrow I take up my pen you see this morning. The bufinefs that is to forward our marriage (which can alone make me happy, and remove that melancholy you obferve) cannot be done till the evening-fo I may as well spend this morning in talking to you upon paper. The manner in which you account for the felf-deftruction of that most wonderful boy Chatterton is phyfical, I affure you, as well as fenfible. Tiflot, in his Effay on the Diseases incident to Literary Perfons, ftarts fome ideas very much like yours, only they are wrapped up in harder words. You fhall fee: When the mind, long time occupied, has forcibly impreffed an action upon the brain, she is unable to reprefs that forcible action. The fhock continues after its cause and, re-acting upon the mind, makes it experience ideas which are truly delirious: for they no longer answer to the external impreffions of objects, but to the internal dif pofition of the brain, some parts of which are now become incapable to receive the new movements transmitted to it by the fenfes. The The brain of Pafchal was fo vitiated by paffing his life in the laborious exercises of study, thought, and imagination, that certain fibres, agitated by inceffant motion, made him perpetually feel a sensation which seemed to be excited by a gulph of fire fituated on one fide of him; and his reafon, overpowered by the disorder of his nerves, could never banish the idea of this fiery abyfs. Spinello painted the fall of the rebel angels, and gave fo fierce a countenance to Lucifer, that he was ftruck with horror himself; and during the remainder of his life, his imagination was continually haunted by the figure of that dæmon, upbraiding him with having made his portrait so hideous. Gafpar Barlæus, the orator, poet, and physician, was not ignorant of these dangers. He warned his friend Hughens against them : but, blind with regard to himself, by immoderate studies he fo weakened his brain, that he thought his body was made of butter, and carefully fhunned the fire, left it should melt him; till at last, worn out with his continual fears, he leapt into a well. Peter Jurieu, fo famous in theological difpute, and for his Commentary on the Apocalypfe, difordered his brain in fuch a manner that, though he thought like a man of sense in other refpects, he was firmly perfuaded his frequent fits of the cholic were occafioned by a conftant engagement between seven horsemen who were shut up in his belly. There have been many inftances of literary perfons who thought themselves metamorphofed into lanterns; and who complained of having loft their thighs. No one can deny that Chatterton must have gone through as much wear and tear of the imagination as any perfon Tiflot mentions. But I would give a good deal, were it poffible for me never never again to think about Chatterton, or about his death, as long as I live-for I never do without being miferable. What you let fall about the propenfity of the English to fuicide, is not true; though a very popular idea. And yet I will relate to you, in the words of another perfon, an instance of English fuicide much more cool and deliberate than any you ever heard, I dare fay. It is a fact,. and happened in 1732. Richard Smith, a bookbinder, and prifoner for debt within the liberties of the King's-Bench, perfuaded his wife to follow his example, in making away with herself, after they Had murdered their little infant. This wretched pair were, in the month of April, found hanging in their bed-chamber at about a yard's distance from each other; and in a feparate apartment, the child lay dead in a cradle. They left two papers inclofed in a fhort letter to their landlord, whofe kindness they implored in favour of their dog and cat. They even left money to the porter who should carry the inclosed papers to the person to whom they were addressed, In one of thefe the husband thanked that perfon for the marks of friendship he had received at his hands; and complained of the ill offices he had undergone from a different quarter. The other papers, subscribed by the husband and wife, contained the reafons which induced them to act fuch a tragedy on themselves and their offspring. This let ter was altogether surprising for the calm refolution, the good humour, and the propriety, with which it was written. They declared, that they withdrew themfelves from poverty rags; evils that, through a train of unlucky accidents, were become inevitable. They appealed to their neighbours for the induftry with which they had endeavoured to earn a livelihood. They juftified the murder of their child, by faying, it was lefs cruelty to take her with them, than to leave her friendlefs in the world, exposed to igno rance and mifery. They profeffed their belief and confidence in an Almighty God, the fountain of goodness and beneficence, who could not poffibly take delight in the mifery of his creatures: they therefore refigned up their lives to him without any terrible apprehenfions; fubmitting themselves to those ways, which, in his goodness, he fhould appoint after death.--Thefe unfortunate fuicides had been always industrious and frugal, invincibly honest, and remarkable for conjugal affection. This tragedy I have fhown you, because I think France, lively France, in whose language fuicide is an Anglicifm, can fupply me with an anecdote as authentic of something still more cool and more deliberate, fince the motives to the crime (to which no motive can be fufficiently ftrong) were fo much weaker. On the day before Christmas-day, 1773, about eleven o'clock, two foldiers came to the CrossBow Inn at St. Dennis, and ordered dinner. Bordeaux, one of the foldiers, went out and bought a little paper of powder, and a couple of bullets, obferving to the person who fold them to him, that St. Dennis feemed to be so pleasant a place, he |