ark, disconsolate, yet
designing month--in fewer words, a month scarcely fit to live. Abhorring
all personalities, we repent having sometimes given in to this national
abuse of November. We know him well--and though we admit at once that he
is no beauty, and that his manners are at the best bluff, at the worst
repulsive, yet on those who choose to cultivate his acquaintance, his
character continues so to mellow and ameliorate itself, that they come
at last, if not to love, to like him, and even to prefer his company "in
the season of the year," to that of other more brilliant visitors. So
true is it with months and men, that it requires only to know the most
unpleasant of them, and to see them during a favourable phasis, in order
to regard them with that Christian complacency which a good heart sheds
over all its habits. 'Tis unlucky for November--poor fellow!--that he
follows October. October is a month so much admired by the world, that
we often wonder he has not been spoiled. "What a glorious October!"
"Why, you will surely not leave us till October comes!" "October is the
month of all months--and, till you see him, you have not seen the
Lakes." We acknowledge his claims. He is often truly delightful; but,
like other brilliant persons, thinks himself not only privileged to be
at times extremely dull, but his intensest stupidity is panegyrised as
wit of the first water--while his not unfrequent rudeness, of which many
a common month would be ashamed, passes for the ease of high birth or
the eccentricity of genius. A very different feeling indeed exists
towards unfortunate November. The moment he shows his face, all other
faces are glum. We defy month or man, under such a trial, to make
himself even tolerably agreeable. He feels that he is no favourite, and
that a most sinister misinterpretation will be put on all his motions,
manners, thoughts, words, and deeds. A man or a month so circumstanced
is much to be pitied. Think, look, speak, act as he will--yea, even more
like an angel than a man or a month--every eyebrow arches--every nostril
distends--every lip curls towards him in contempt, while blow over the
ice that enchains all his feelings and faculties, heavy-chill
whisperings of "who is that disagreeable fellow?" In such a frozen
atmosphere, eloquence would be congealed on the lips of an
Ulysses--Poetry prosified on those of an Apollo.

Edinburgh, during the dead of Summer, is a far more solitary place than
Glene