t.

You must know I have just met with the Mirror and Lounger for the
first time, and I am quite in raptures with them; I should be glad to
have your opinion of some of the papers. The one I have just read,
Lounger, No. 61, has cost me more honest tears than anything I have
read of a long time. Mackenzie has been called the Addison of the
Scots, and in my opinion, Addison would not be hurt at the comparison.
If he has not Addison's exquisite humour, he as certainly outdoes him
in the tender and the pathetic. His Man of Feeling (but I am not
counsel learned in the laws of criticism) I estimate as the first
performance in its kind I ever saw. From what book, moral or even
pious, will the susceptible young mind receive impressions more
congenial to humanity and kindness, generosity and benevolence; in
short, more of all that ennobles the soul to herself, or endears her
to others--than from the simple affecting tale of poor Harley?

Still, with all my admiration of Mackenzie's writings, I do not know
if they are the fittest reading for a young man who is about to set
out, as the phrase is, to make his way into life. Do not you think,
Madam, that among the few favoured of heaven in the structure of their
minds (for such there certainly are) there may be a purity, a
tenderness, a dignity, an elegance of soul, which are of no use, nay,
in some degree, absolutely disqualifying for the truly important
business of making a man's way into life? If I am not much mistaken,
my gallant young friend, A * * * * * *, is very much under these
disqualifications; and for the young females of a family I could
mention, well may they excite parental solicitude, for I, a common
acquaintance, or as my vanity will have it, an humble friend, have
often trembled for a turn of mind which may render them eminently
happy--or peculiarly miserable!

I have been manufacturing some verses lately; but when I have got the
most hurried season of excise business over, I hope to have more
leisure to transcribe anything that may show how much I have the
honour to be, Madam,

Yours, &c.

R. B.

* * * * *

CXCI.

TO COLLECTOR MITCHELL.

[Collector Mitchell was a kind and considerate gentle man: to his
grandson, Mr. John Campbell, surgeon, in Aberdeen, I owe this
characteristic letter.]

_Ellisland, 1790._

SIR,

I shall not fail to wait on Captain Riddel to-night--I wish and pray
that the goddess of justic