What I said in my last letter, the powers of fuddling sociality only know for me. By yours, I understand my good star has been partly in my horizon, when I got wild in my reveries. Had that evil planet, which has almost all my life shed its baneful rays on my devoted head, been, as usual, in my zenith, I had certainly blabbed something that would have pointed out to you the dear object of my tenderest friendship, and, in spite of me, something more. Had that fatal information escaped me, and it was merely chance, or kind stars, that it did not, I had been undone! You would never have written me, except perhaps once more! O, O, I could curse circumstances, and the coarse tie of human laws, which keep fast what common sense would loose, and which bars that happiness itself cannot give-happiness which otherwise Love and Honour would warrant! But hold-I shall make no more "hair breadth 'scapes." My friendship, Clarinda, is a life-rent business. My likings are both strong and eternal. I told you I had but one male friend: I have but two female. I should have a third, but she is surrounded by the blandishments of flattery and courtship. *** I register in my heart's core-****. Miss N can tell how divine she is. She is worthy of a place in the same bosom with my Clarinda. That is the highest compliment I can pay her. Farewell, Clarinda! Remember NO. XCII. SYLVANDER TO THE SAME. Saturday Morning, January 19th, 1788. YOUR thoughts on religion, Clarinda, shall be welcome. You may perhaps distrust me, when I say 'tis also my favourite topic; but mine is the religion of the bosom. I hate the very idea of a controversial divinity; as I firmly believe that every honest upright man, of whatever sect, will be accepted of the Deity. If your verses, as you seem to hint, contain censure, except you want an occasion to break with me, don't send them, I have a little infirmity in my disposition, that where I fondly love, or highly esteem, I cannot bear reproach. you Reverence thyself" is a sacred maxim, and I wish to cherish it. I think I told Lord Bolingbroke's saying to Swift:Adieu, dear Swift, with all thy faults I love thee entirely; make an effort to love me with all mine." A glorious sentiment, and without which there can be no friendship! I do highly, very highly esteem you indeed, Clarinda-you merit it all! Perhaps, too— I scorn dissimulation!-I could fondly love you: judge then, what a maddening sting your reproach would be. "O! I have sins to Heaven, but none to you !"-With what pleasure would I meet you to-day, but I cannot walk to meet the fly. I hope to be able to see you on foot about the middle of next week. I am interrupted-perhaps you are not sorry for it, you will tell me-but I won't anticipate blame. O, Clarinda! did you know how dear to me is your look of kindness, your smile of approbation! you would not, either in prose or verse, risk a censorious remark. "Curst be the verse, how well soe'er it flow, That tends to make one worthy man my foe!" NO. XCIII. SYLVANDER. TO MRS. DUNLOP. Edinburgh, January 21st, 1788. AFTER Six weeks' confinement I am beginning to walk across the room. They have been six horrible weeks; anguish and low spirits made me unfit to read, write, or think. I have a hundred times wished that one could resign life as an officer resigns a commission: for I would not take in any poor, ignorant wretch, by selling out. Lately I was a sixpenny private, and, God knows, a miserable soldier enough; now I march to the campaign, a starving cadet--a little more conspicuously wretched. I am ashamed of all this; for though I do want bravery for the warfare of life, I could wish, like some other soldiers, to have as much fortitude or cunning as to dissemble or conceal conceal my cowardice. As soon as I can bear the journey, which will be, I suppose, about the middle of next week, I leave Edinburgh; and soon after I shall pay my grateful duty at Dunlop-House. R. B. NO. XCIV. TO CLARINDA. Tuesday Morning, January 29th, 1788. I CANNOT go out to-day, my dearest Clarinda, without sending you half a line, by way of a sin-offering; but, believe me, 'twas the sin of ignorance. Could you think that I intended to hurt you by any thing I said yesternight? Nature has been too kind to you for your happiness, your delicacy, your sensibility.-O why should such glorious qualifications be the fruitful source of woe! You have "murdered sleep" to me last night. I went to bed, impressed with an idea that you were unhappy: and every time I closed my eyes, busy Fancy painted you in such scenes of romantic misery that I would almost be persuaded you were not well this morning. of ideas, my sentiments of love and friend- rable. You are an angel, Clarinda; you are surely no mortal that "the earth owns." To kiss your hand, to live on your smile, is to me far more exquisite bliss that the dearest favours that the fairest of the sex, yourself excepted, can bestow. Sunday Evening. You are the constant companion of my thoughts. How wretched is the condition of one who is haunted with conscious guilt, and trembling under the idea of dreaded vengeance! and what a placid calm, what a charming secret enjoyment it gives, to bosom the kind feelings of friendship, and the fond throes of love! "If I unwittingly have offended, Impute it not.' "But while we live, But one short hour, perhaps, between us two If Mary is not gone by the time this reaches you, give her my best compliments. She is a charming girl, and highly worthy of the noblest love. If Out upon the tempest of anger, the acrimonious gall of fretiul impatience, the sullen frost of louring resentment, or the corroding poison of withered envy! They eat up the immortal part of man! they spent their fury only on the unfortunate objects of them, it would be something in their favour: but these miserable passions, like traitor Iscariot, betray their lord and master. Thou Almighty Author of peace, and I send you a poem to read, till I call on goodness, and love! do thou give me the you this night, which will be about nine. I social heart that kindly tastes of every man's wish I could procure some potent spell, some cup!-Is it a draught of joy ?-warm and fairy charm that would protect injury, or open my heart to share it with cordial, unenrestore to rest that bosom-chord, "trem-vying rejoicing! Is it the bitter potion of blingly alive all o'er," on which hangs your on which hangs your sorrow?-melt my heart with sincerely sympeace of mind. I thought, vainly, I fear, pathetic woe! Above all, do thou give me thought that the devotion of love-love the manly mind that resolutely exemplifies, strong as even you can feel-love guarded, in life and manners, those sentiments which invulnerably guarded, by all the purity of I would wish to be thought to possess ! virtue, and all the pride of honour; I thought The friend of my soul-there, may I never such a love would make you happy-will I deviate from the firmest fidelity and most be mistaken? I can no more for hurry * active kindness! Clarinda, the dear object of my fondest love; there may the most sacred, inviolate honour, the most faithful kindling constancy, ever watch and animate my every thought and imagination! NO. XCV. TO THE SAME. Sunday Morning, February 3rd, 1788. Did you ever meet with the following lines spoken of Religion, your darling topic? !" "Tis this, my friend, that streaks our morning bright! 'Tis this that gilds the horrors of our night; When wealth forsakes us, and when friends Disarms affliction, or repels its dart : less skies." I met with these verses very early in life, and was so delighted with them that I have them by me, copied at school. Good night and sound rest, my dearest Clarinda! SYLVANDER. NO. XCVI. TO THE SAME. I WAS on the way, my Love, to meet you, (I never do things by halves) when I got your card. M goes out of town tomorrow morning to see a brother of his who is newly arrived from I am determined that he and I shall call on you to gether; so, look you, lest I should never see to-morrow, we will call on you to-night! and you may put off tea till about seven; at which time, in the Galloway phrase, 'an the beast be to the fore, an the branks bide hale, expect the humblest of your humble servants, and his dearest friend. We propose staying only half an hour, 'for ought we ken.' I could suffer the lash of misery eleven months in the year, were the twelfth to be composed of hours like yesternight. You are the soul of my enjoyment: all else is of the stuff and stocks of stones. SYLVANDER. temper on whenever she was in ill-humour. One time I conjectured that, as Fortune is the most capricious jade ever known, she may have taken, not a fit of remorse, but a paroxysm of whim, to raise the poor devil out of the mire, where he had so often and so conveniently served her as a stepping stone, and given him the most glorious boon she ever had in her gift merely for the maggot's this fool head and his fool heart will sake, to see how bear it. At other times I was vain enough to think that Nature, who has a great deal to say with Fortune, had given the coquettish goddess some such hint as, "Here is a paragon of female excellence, whose equal, in all my former compositions, I never was lucky enough to hit on, and despair of ever doing so again; you have cast her rather in the shades of life; there is a certain poet of my making; among your frolics it would not be amiss to attach him to this masterpiece of my hand, to give her that immortality among mankind which no woman of any age ever more deserved, and which few rhymsters of this age are better able to confer." NO. XCVII. TO THE SAME. Thursday Morning, February 7th, 1788. "Unlavish Wisdom never works in vain." I HAVE been tasking my reason, Clarinda, why a woman who for native genius, poignant wit, strength of mind, generous sincerity of soul, and the sweetest female tenderness, is without a peer, and whose personal charms have few, very, very few parallels among her sex; why, or how she should fall to the blessed lot of a poor harum scarum poet, whom Fortune had kept for her particular use, to wreak her NO. XCVIII. TO THE SAME. Saturday Morning, February 9th, 1788. THERE is no time, my Clarinda, when the conscious thrilling chords of Love and Friendship give such delight as in the pensive hours of what our favourite, Thomson, calls "Philosophic Melancholy." The sportive insects who bask in the sunshine of prosperity; or the worms that luxuriant crawl amid their ample wealth of earth-they need no Clarinda: they would despise Sylvander if they durst. The family of Misfortune, a numerous group of brothers and sisters: they need a resting-place to their souls: unnoticed, often condemned by the world; in some degree, perhaps, condemned by themselves, they feel the full enjoyment of ardent love, delicate tender endearments, mutual esteem, and mutual reliance. What trifling silliness is the childish fondness of the every-day children of the world! 'tis the unmeaning toying of the younglings of the fields and forests: but where Senti In this light I have often admired religion.ment and Fancy unite their sweets, where In proportion as we are wrung with grief, or distracted with anxiety, the ideas of a compassionate Deity, an Almighty Protector, are doubly dear. "'Tis this, my Friend, that streaks our morning bright; 'Tis this that gilds the horrors of our night." I have been this morning taking a peep through, as Young finely says, "the dark postern of time long elaps'd;" and, you will easily guess, 'twas a rueful prospect. What a tissue of thoughtlessness, weakness, and folly! My life reminded me of a ruined temple; what strength, what proportion in some parts! what unsightly gaps, what prostrate ruins in others! I kneeled down before the Father of mercies, and said, "Father, I have sinned against Heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son!" I rose, eased and strengthened. I despise the superstition of a fanatic, but I love the religion of a "The future," said I to myself, "is still before me;" there let me man. 'Tis nought to me: Since God is ever present, ever felt, In the void waste as in the city full; Taste and Delicacy refine; where Wit adds the flavour, and Goodness gives strength and spirit to all, what a delicious draught is the hour of tender endearment !-Beauty and Grace, in the arms of Truth and Honour, in all the luxury of mutual love. Clarinda, have you ever seen the picture realized? Not in all its very richest colouring. shade, was the glorious picture. Last night, Clarinda, but for one slight -Innocence Look'd gaily smiling on; while rosy Pleasure Hid young Desire amid her flowery wreath, And pour'd her cup luxuriant; mantling high, The sparkling heavenly vintage, Love and Bliss! Clarinda, when a poet and poetess of Nature's making-two of Nature's noblest productions !-when they drink together of the same cup of Love and Bliss, attempt not, ye coarser stuffs of human nature, profanely to measure enjoyment ye never can know!-Good night, my dear Clarinda! SYLVANDER. NO. XCIX. TO THE SAME. February, 1788. MY EVER DEAREST CLarinda. I make a numerous dinner party wait me while I read yours, and write this. Do not And where He vital breathes, there must be require that I should cease to love you, to joy!" Saturday Night-half-after Ten. What luxury of bliss I was enjoying this time yester-night! My ever-dearest Clarinda, you have stolen away my soul: but you have refined, you have exalted it: you have given it a stronger sense of virtue, and a stronger relish for piety.-Clarinda, first of your sex, if ever I am the veriest wretch on earth to forget you; if ever your lovely image is effaced from my soul, "May I be lost, no eye to weep my end; And find no earth that's base enough to bury me!" adore you in my soul-'tis to me impossible; ---your peace and happiness are to me dearer than my soul; name the terms on which you wish to see me, to correspond with me, and you have them; I must love, pine, mourn, and adore in secret-this you must not deny me; you will ever be to me "Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes, Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart!" I have not patience to read the puritanic scrawl.-Vile sophistry!-Ye heavens! thou God of nature! thou Redeemer of mankind! ye look down with approving eyes on a passion inspired by the purest flame, and guarded by truth, delicacy, and honour; but the half-inch soul of an unfeeling, cold-blooded pitiful, presbyterian bigot cannot forgive any thing above his dungeon bosom and foggy head. Farewell; I'll be with you to-morrow evening; and be at rest in your mind ;-I will be yours in the way you think most to your happiness! I dare not proceed-I love, and will love you, and will with joyous confidence approach the throne of the Almighty Judge of men, with your dear idea, and will despise the scum of sentiment, and the mist of sophistry. NO. C. SYLVANDER. TO THE SAME. Tuesday Evening, Feb. 12th, 1788. THAT you have faults, my Clarinda, I never doubted; but I knew not where they existed, and Saturday night made me more in the dark than ever. O Clarinda, why will you wound my soul, by hinting that last night must have lessened my opinion of "behind the scenes with you? True, I was you;" but what did I see? A bosom glowing with honour and benevolence: a mind ennobled by genius, informed and refined by education and reflection, and exalted by native religion, genuine as in the climes of heaven; a heart formed for all the glorious meltings of friendship, love and pity. These I saw. I saw the noblest immortal soul creation ever showed me. I looked long, my dear Clarinda, for your letter; and am vexed that you are complaining. I have not caught you so far wrong as in your idea, that the commerce you have with one friend hurts you, if you cannot tell every tittle of it to another. Why have you so injurious a suspicion of a good God, Clarinda, as to think that Friendship and Love, on the sacred inviolate principles of Truth, Honour, and Religion, can be any thing else than an object of His divine approbation? I have mentioned, in some of my former scrawls, Saturday evening next. Do allow me to wait on you that evening. Oh, my angel! how soon must we part! and when can we meet again! I looked forward on the horrid interval with tearful eyes! What have I lost by not knowing you sooner! I fear, I fear my acquaintance with you is too "I AM distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan!" I have suffered, Clarinda, from your letter. My soul was in arms at the sad perusal; I dreaded that I had acted wrong. If I have robbed you of a friend, God forgive me! But, Clarinda, be comforted let us raise the tone of our feelings a little higher and bolder. A fellow-creature who leaves us, who spurns us without just cause, though once our bosom friend-up with a little honest pride-let him go! How shall I comfort you, who am the cause of the injury? Can I wish that I had never seen you? that we had never met? No! I never will. But have I thrown you friendless? there is almost distraction in that thought. have I sinned; through Thy grace I will enFather of mercies! against Thee often deavour to do so no more! She who, Thou knowest, is dearer to me than myself, pour Thou the balm of peace into her past wounds, and hedge her about with Thy peculiar care, all her future days and nights! Strengthen her tender noble mind, firmly to suffer, and magnanimously to bear! Make me worthy of that friendship she honours me with. May my attachment to her be pure as devotion, and lasting as immortal life! Almighty Goodness, hear me! Be to her at all times, particularly in the hour of distress or trial, a Friend and Comforter, a Guide and Guard. "How are Thy servants blest, O Lord, Their help, Omnipotence !" done you! To-night I shall be with you; Forgive me, Clarinda, the injury I have as indeed I shall be ill at ease till I see you. SYLVANDER. NO. CII.. TO THE SAME. Two o'clock. I JUST now received your first letter of yesterday, by the careless negligence of the penny-post. Clarinda, matters are grown |