and every shower that falls; and I
am only preserved from being chilled to death by being suffocated with
smoke. I do not find my farm that pennyworth I was taught to expect,
but I believe, in time, it may be a saving bargain. You will be
pleased to hear that I have laid aside idle _eclat_, and bind every
day after my reapers.

To save me from that horrid situation of at any time going down in a
losing bargain of a farm, to misery, I have taken my Excise
instructions, and have my commission in my pocket for any emergency of
fortune. If I could set all before your view, whatever disrespect you,
in common with the world, have for this business, I know you would
approve of my idea.

I will make no apology, dear Madam, for this egotistic detail; I know
you and your sister will be interested in every circumstance of it.
What signify the silly, idle gewgaws of wealth, or the ideal trumpery
of greatness! When fellow-partakers of the same nature fear the same
God, have the same benevolence of heart, the same nobleness of soul,
the same detestation at everything dishonest, and the same scorn at
everything unworthy--if they are not in the dependence of absolute
beggary, in the name of common sense are they not EQUALS? And
if the bias, the instinctive bias, of their souls run the same way,
why may they not be FRIENDS?

When I may have an opportunity of sending you this, Heaven only knows.
Shenstone says, "When one is confined idle within doors by bad
weather, the best antidote against _ennui_ is to read the letters of
or write to, one's friends;" in that case then, if the weather
continues thus, I may scrawl you half a quire.

I very lately--to wit, since harvest began--wrote a poem, not in
imitation, but in the manner, of Pope's Moral Epistles. It is only a
short essay, just to try the strength of my muse's pinion in that way.
I will send you a copy of it, when once I have heard from you. I have
likewise been laying the foundation of some pretty large poetic works:
how the superstructure will come on, I leave to that great maker and
marrer of projects--TIME. Johnson's collection of Scots songs
is going on in the third volume; and, of consequence, finds me a
consumpt for a great deal of idle metre. One of the most tolerable
things I have done in that way is two stanzas I made to an air, a
musical gentleman of my acquaintance composed for the anniversary of
his wedding-day, which happens on the seventh of November. Take it as