f competent
fortune leaves his sons and daughters independency and friends; while
I--but I shall run distracted if I think any longer on the subject!

To leave talking of the matter so gravely, I shall sing with the old
Scots ballad--

"O that I had ne'er been married,
I would never had nae care;
Now I've gotten wife and bairns,
They cry crowdie! evermair.

Crowdie! ance; crowdie! twice;
Crowdie! three times in a day;
An ye crowdie! ony mair,
Ye'll crowdie! a' my meal away."--

* * * * *

_December 24th._

We have had a brilliant theatre here this season; only, as all other
business does, it experiences a stagnation of trade from the
epidemical complaint of the country, _want of cash._ I mentioned our
theatre merely to lug in an occasional Address which I wrote for the
benefit-night of one of the actresses, and which is as follows:--

ADDRESS,

SPOKEN BY MISS FONTENELLE ON HER BENEFIT-NIGHT, DEC. 4, 1795, AT
THE THEATRE, DUMFRIES.

Still anxious to secure your partial favour, &c.

_25th, Christmas-Morning._

This, my much-loved friend, is a morning of wishes--accept mine--so
heaven hear me as they are sincere! that blessings may attend your
steps, and affliction know you not! In the charming words of my
favourite author, "The Man of Feeling," "May the Great Spirit bear up
the weight of thy gray hairs, and blunt the arrow that brings them
rest!"

Now that I talk of authors, how do you like Cowper? Is not the "Task"
a glorious poem? The religion of the "Task," bating a few scraps of
Calvinistic divinity, is the religion of God and nature; the religion
that exalts, that ennobles man. Were not you to send me your "Zeluco,"
in return for mine? Tell me how you like my marks and notes through
the book. I would not give a farthing for a book, unless I were at
liberty to blot it with my criticisms.

I have lately collected, for a friend's perusal, all my letters; I
mean those which I first sketched, in a rough draught, and afterwards
wrote out fair. On looking over some old musty papers, which, from
time to time, I had parcelled by, as trash that were scarce worth
preserving, and which yet at the same time I did not care to destroy;
I discovered many of these rude sketches, and have written, and am
writing them out, in a bound MS. for my friend's library. As I wrote
always to you the rhapsody of the moment, I cannot find a single
scroll