d been richer. But it is my
constant fate to be disappointed in everything I attempt; I do not
think I ever had a wish that was gratified; and never dreaded an
event that did not come. With this felicity of fate, I wonder how
the devil I could turn projector. I am now sorry that I left
London; and the moment that I have money enough to carry me back
to it, I shall set off. _I mortally detest and abhor this place,
and everybody in it._ Never was there a city where there was so
much pretension to knowledge, and that had so little of it. The
solemn foppery, and the gross stupidity of the Scottish literati,
are perfectly insupportable. I shall drop my idea of a Scots
newspaper. Nothing will do in this country that has common sense
in it; only cant, hypocrisy, and superstition will flourish here.
_A curse on the country, and all the men, women, and children of
it!_"

Again.--"The publication is too good for the country. There are very
few men of taste or erudition on this side of the Tweed. Yet every
idiot one meets with lays claim to both. Yet the success of the
Magazine is in reality greater than we could expect, considering
that we have every clergyman in the kingdom to oppose it, and that
the magistracy of the place are every moment threatening its
destruction."

And, therefore, this recreant Scot anathematizes the Scottish people
for not applauding blasphemy, calumny, and every species of literary
criminality! Such are the monstrous passions that swell out the
poisonous breast of genius, deprived of every moral restraint; and
such was the demoniac irritability which prompted a wish in Collot
d'Herbois to set fire to the four quarters of the city of Lyons;
while, in his "tender mercies," the kennels of the streets were
running with the blood of its inhabitants--remembering still that the
Lyonese had, when he was a miserable actor, hissed him off the stage!

Stuart curses his country, and retreats to London. Fallen, but not
abject; repulsed, but not altered; degraded, but still haughty. No
change of place could operate any in his heart. He was born in
literary crime, and he perished in it. It was now "The English Review"
was instituted, with his idol Whitaker, the historian of Manchester,
and others. He says, "To Whitaker he assigns the palm of history in
preference to Hume and Robertson." I have heard that he considered
himself higher than Whitaker, and ranked himself with Montesquieu. He