phisms of philosophy, and what gratification can equal that which arises from having made a first impression of christianity on a young and susceptible mind!

It was during this summer, and in consequence of some small infringement upon what I deemed the prerogative of a Tutor, that I made out the following,

"TUTOR'S CHARTER,

OR

BILL OF RIGHTS."

1. The offices of Tutor, Footman, and Chamber-maid, originally, and essentially different.

2. The Tutor not to be considered as accountable for any offence in point of cleanliness or dress; of hen or cat-slaughter, of which his pupil may be convicted.

3. The Tutor not bound in duty to walk, talk, or play at battle-door and shuttle-cock with his pupil during the hours of amusement.

4. The drawing-room no place of refuge from. the rod of correction.

my

About the latter end of harvest I was called away to witness the death of mother. My father had slept so long in the narrow house, that the oldest thing I can recollect is, visiting his grave, on a Sunday evening, along with my mother. She had supported, chiefly by her own efforts, an elder brother and me, during the period of our school-education.-Her health was in jured by the exertion, and it pains me to reflect on the high price paid for our future comfort. My brother was his master's favourite, and from being his pupil became his assistant. In this capacity, he was enabled, from a small salary, to assist my mother in my education, and, (by an unremitted and affectionate attention to her, after

my

entrance upon life), to smooth the asperities and helplessness of age.

I had frequently heard my mother express a hope that she might live to hear me preach. It was the summit of her ambition.-But when I arrived from Galloway the hand of death lay heavy on her; and though she continued to breathe for some hours, she never recognized me again. Peace to her departed spirit!-and may I, in whatever station placed, discharge the duties of it with as much faithfulness as she did those of hers. The interval betwixt her death and funeral, I dedicated to the recollections of the events, the places, and the days of other years. I traversed the wood in which I had formerly searched for bird-nests, and fishing rods, and filled my pockets with sloes and nuts.—I hung again over the pool, in which I had seen so frequently reflected my shining morning face, and I renewed my prayers to heaven on the same grassy altar from which my first orison had ascended.-There is a pleasure in such recollections, and at such an hour, to which if any of your readers is a stranger,

"He need not woo the Muse-he is her scorn,
"Let no such man be trusted."

I returned, not to my pupil, whose education, as far as I was concerned, was now completed, but to Edinburgh. It was during this melancholy period that I became acquainted with a young lady, a relation of my mother. I felt an indescribable satisfaction in recount

ing to her the source of my sorrows. I could observe the tear gather in her eye, and when I returned to solitude, my thoughts were more frequently re

1811.

DOCTOR CURRIE, in his admirable life of our celebrated countryman Burns, ascribes the spirit of travelling by which all orders of people in Scotland are possessed, to their superior knowledge and information. This position it is not my intention directly to contradict; but I cannot help thinking that men are more often instigated to travel from ignorance, than knowledge; from a vague notion of what is to await them at the place to which they are to remove, than from any thing like certain and specific information; and that were they really in possession of just and accurate views of what a change in their residence would produce, the desire to emigrate would be often very much, if not altogether extinguished. There is alas! in no corner of this world a pays de cocagne, a lubberly land in which a

worn

out emigrant may repose and fatten after his journey. In every region to which he may turn, he will find numbers under the dominion of want, and every loaf carefully counted out.. Should disease attack him; (and who can ensure himself one day from disease?) he has torn himself from his kindred and connections, from those

No. 43.

whom the feelings of nature would prompt to succour and assist him. Shall we say then, that the man who removes from his own land, removes from enlarged views, and not more frequently from limited ones. The Irish as well. as the Scotch, are wanderers; yet surely, there is no partnership of knowledge between them. The ignorant. native of Chiavenna and the Valteline, as well as the better educated Swiss, roam over the continent; the most ignorant may be said to rise the highest, for he becomes a chimney-sweep; while the other from knowing to read, is generally made a porter at some great

man's door. Sometimes it has been thought that the desire to travel is peculiar to mountainous countries; but Ireland though in some places a hilly, is far from being a mountainous country; yet there are more of the Irish from home than of the natives of any other land, while the Indian on the naked and arid summits of the mountains of New Spain, is never known to wander. I have been led into this train of reflections, Mr. Spy, from having been at the house of a friend the other evening, who being in want of an amanuensis, had thought proper to advertise in one of the morning papers. Application was made on application to him; letter succeeded letter; and some of the applicants seemed in such extreme dis.

tress, that my friend, who is a very humane and feeling man, was shocked to reflect on the number of wretched individuals whom the advertisement had brought to his knowledge. These men were mostly all of them adventurers from different parts of the country, to this great metropolis. They had left their homes, no doubt, under the influence of the most sanguine hopes, and would be astonished to find on their arrival, that their services were not eagerly courted. They had heard of instances of brilliant success, and had hoped, with the self flattery peculiar to every man, that in the lottery of fortune they also might obtain a prize. What these men may suffer in a place where self-interest seems peculiarly to predominate, where every being is forced to an unremitting attention to his own concerns, and where hospitality is only known because it still remains in the dictionary, before accident may throw them in the way of some employment, or their necessities may drive them to the workhouse, where poor Heron, and so many others before him have died, it is painful to reflect on.

I do not mean here to throw out any insinuation against the people among whom I now live. They have many virtues that may be successfully copied be successfully copied by their northern neighbours. They They possess an independence of character which it is impossible not to admire; and, if to be open and free from deceit, can be with propriety applied to any human being, it must be to an English

he does not mean to perform. There is a punctiliousness and propriety of behaviour too, which is not peculiar to the great, but descends to the lowest individual in the community, who, in the expressive language of one of our best poets, has learned to venerate himself as a man. In all these respects, the English may well be held out as an example to the natives of North Britain; where, we must own, there is by no means, the same frankness and honesty of character, the same industry and activity, or the same manly independence. But, while I am willing to allow these virtues to the Englishman, I cannot exculpate him from an inordinate love of selfish enjoyment.He will not forego one luxury to which he has been accustomed, for the sake of any living soul; and, putting himself in the least about for the sake of another person, is what he has no conception of. He knows that he has nothing himself to expect from another, and he resolves that all which his fortune or industry puts within his reach, shall centre in himself. He runs about from one place of enjoyment to another, he hunts from Coffeehouse to Coffeehouse, for the most comfortable meal, as he calls it, and licks his lips with satisfaction over his solitary luxury. To such a being, what is a poor friendless stranger? He might as well be in the wilds of America.

That man who reflects on the current of emigration which is perpetually setting in for London, must have a great confidence in his powers, or his own good fortune, when he thinks that among so many he shall be able to find distinction. He may be a first rate cha

racter in his own village, or his own town, and yet rank very low here.The difficulty of success must be so much the more enhanced, where there are so many candidates. And yet who reflects on this? Who reflects on the difficulty of succeeding against a million of competitors? O! truth, truth, what beautiful illusions dost thou frequently destroy! And how deadly an enemy art thou to enterprize! When in my boyish years I observed the setting sun sink behind the mountains that inclosed my native glen, gilding their tops with his radiance, my imagination painted the country beyond, in the same rich colours, and I longed to cross over to it; but I knew not then that it was a dreary and monstrous heath..

But the pleasure of living in London! Every thing that can minister to physical enjoyment, every thing that can please the eye or gratify the taste, is to be met with in London! and to a being not accustomed, to thinking the crowd of objects that every where strike the attention, must afford a very great relief. But there are beings to whose happiness something more than this is necessary, to whom even the politics of a coffee-house are not at all times acceptable; and who long for the occasional feast of reason, the play of fancy, and the flow of soul, in a select and congenial circle. Such a being arriving in London is truly in a solitude. He has probably reached that period of life when the mind, though strongest and most vigorous, has lost its first ductility, and cannot so easily bend to the habits of a strange people. He will find that a man may know the lan guage of Swift, Johnson, and Addison,

and yet enter slowly into many of the allusions to be every day heard in conversation. To the people he is among, his accent will appear harsh, and his humour coarse, inelegant, and perhaps unintelligible. He will find himself among men who have neither time nor inclination to think long or deeply on any subject, but pass from one to another with all the rapidity with which one event succeeds another in a crowd. ed city. What was the subject of conversation yesterday, will be no longer the subject of conversation to day, and to-day's, will in like manner be obsolete to-morrow. There is a great deal of truth in the observation of the philosopher of Geneva," that there is infinitely more originality of idea in a small town than in a great city, because the human mind is less dissipated and less drowned amidst vulgar opinions and works; and ferments (s'elabore et fermente) more in the tranquillity of solitude, where there is no less to be seen, and more to be imagined, and where there is more. leisure to extend and diThe same view has gest its ideas." been taken by the eloquent Dugald Stewart, who seems to look down with pity and compassion from his accademical elevation, on the automatous crowds of a capital. Not that it is impossible to meet with the most pleasing and accomplished individuals in such a place; but those whom it is your good fortune to know, are spread over such an extent of space as forbids every thing like frequent intercourse.

One great reason, I am persuaded, why so many are eager to remove to a large capital, is to be able to indulge in vice with security. In a small town