country labours, I know you experience that placid enjoyment, which is of all others the most delightful to your heart; but which still might have been mingled with purfuits, not more honourable, yet more active; and which leading to greater eminence in life, would (in a mind like yours). have in no way impaired thofe feelings, or weak-) ened thofe difpofitions, that were to adom and exhilarate the years of declining age. You have,, however, made your choice; and fince you were refolved, it is perhaps as well that you made the choice fo early. You are neither a man of folitude, nor a man of change. You have not retired to live like a hermit, but to enjoy fociety in the way you like it beft. Your friends are fure of your happiness; they can only regret (what you will not regret along with them) your fame.

r

For myself, (if you have at all erred) I have finned perhaps in the contrary extreme. While the pursuit of my objects has been (generally taken) always measured and regulated, yet I certainly thought that circumftances were more eafily maftered, than circumstances either are, or ever ought to be. I have found that both men and things are not (as indeed they ought not) to be estimated in all respects, by the fanguine calculations of untutored arithmetic. Even after experience fhould have made me wifer, my only confolation has been, that wisdom, when it does come, never comes too late. Yet though I have been sometimes mistaken in the

fum

fumming, I have no reason to think that I mifapprehended the rules. I have had more occafion to know men, than a lefs fanguine temperament, and more deliberate conduct would have caused. My opinion, I think, is made up for life. Its neceffary that a man fhould attend (and attend much) to his own individual intereft; it is a very facred duty that to ourselves, and the more facred that without it, we cannot well accomplish our duty to our neighbour; but there is much more virtue than vice among mankind. The faery viions of nineteen vanish with a few advancing years; but much reality ftill remains of pleaáfaut early contemplation. There is no caufe for any material change of conduct. I fhall follow fubftantially the fame courfe I have hitherto done; with mitigated hopes, but not with mitigated ardour..

You and I can thus ftill converse with one another on the fame footing, and nearly in the fame manner, as in more early years. I ftill find myfelf equally difpofed to proclaim, and to honour myfelf with your friendship. I now fulfil my youthful obligation, with the fame fentiments I contracted it; and infcribe the following Work to friendship and to you.

It is but a fragment; even of the bulk that it now appears. I mean by relating, in a friendly manner to you, the ftory of its beginnings and progrefs, to supply and explain fome of thofe circum

ftances; of which the want or the obfeurity, might make the thing be thought even lefs complete than it is. I fhall go a good way back; and allpeak (which in such a matter is by far the beft way) juft as if I were speaking to you privately.

My political fentiments you knew well; as indeed did all my friends; even thofe with whom my intimacy was lefs than with you, and with a few others who had and have the key of my bofom. I never, as you know, and indeed as every body knew, (for I made it a point of honour to declare, it,) belonged to any party in Scotland; though there were many of all defcriptions very keenly beating up for volunteers. I called myself (and

was) always a Rockingham Whig and nothing.

elfe. So far as others thought with that connec tion, or appeared to think, I thought with them and no farther and to that extent my unfur ed fervices (fuch as they could be) were ingredi หา nefs; at command, wish, or appearance of with. I acted alfo on my own impulfe of confcience. But the act was more delightful which fell in with common counfels; and of which the means and execution were of common contrivance and common toil.

It was eafy for any one to fee that (in Scotland). perfonal attachments or views of intereft, (generally at leaft) were the means which united men under the great divifions of party; whether on the

fide of adminiftration or of oppofition. The rea fon of this, it was eafy to fee also. From the union of the kingdoms, down to within but a late period, (the cause of other great diftinctions being done away) the only names of parties that remained, were thofe of Jacobites and Whigs. Two rebellions, both originating in Scotland, tended to keep up thefe names with us, after a diftinction of this kind in England was totally forgotten. Thefe events did more. They prevented the people of Scotland from obferving fo closely, as in England, the progrefs of government; and other caufes concurring, that confined our attention here to home affairs, no fyftem of parties on either fide was formed among us, by the events and measures of government, fuch as were formed and exifted fo ftrongly among our Southern neighbours. There were perfons, who were for more liberty; and others who were for lefs. There were those who admired republics; and those who venerated monarchies fome who ranged themfelves on the fide of the people, and others who ftood up for the throne. But these were all merely general principles, and applicable in no way to the body and fyftem of our conftitution; far different from what had characterised Scotland in the periods before the union. The majority of the kingdom, perhaps, (from plain enough causes) cared not a great deal even about these general principles. It could not, therefore, be otherwife, (and it is in the

which marked Parties, too, be

circumftances no matter of reproach) than that no fyftem of principles, applicable to the duty of the season, and combined with our constitution as it actually stood, could have been early formed in Scotland. The American war, and the events which followed it, brought in names of attachment; the first of the fort fince thofe had fallen, that chieftainfhip confecrated, or the zeal of Jacobites and Whigs. ing fo far advanced, and in fome refpects far degenerated from their original virtue, in England, their corruptions (as will always, and naturally, happen to late imitators) were fully as much copied as their excellencies. The idea of attaching yourfelf to a party (and, in the indifference of political opinion, this might be done, though without any virtue, yet without any dishonour) primarily to add ftrength to your own intereft, and to be borne forward to promotion on the general current, became in this manner too prevalent. It was the general feature of all Scottish parties. Yet I thought I faw the minds of many men forming to a connection (not excluding perfonal attachments; for these are effential to a virtuous and permanent party; nor forbidding to any perfon a prudent and regulated care of his intereft; for that public virtue must be frail and uncertain, and indeed is none, which ftates itself in regular oppofition to private duties; but a connection) rifing from, and founded upon, a known and defined system, appli

cable