“Dear Fairley,—With this letter in his hand, presents himself before you a poor, forlorn, sea-sick minstrel, worn out with toils and watching, and scarcely able to open his eyes—an unhappy vagrant, now sent for the first time from the parental roof, and cast on the ocean of the world—whom we, to whom the care of the said vagrant appertains, cast with all confidence upon the professed kindness of Archibald Constable, and the kind friendship of John Fairley. Impart to him the charities of your hospital roof; give him a basin of water to refresh his skin; give him a dish of tea to moisten his burning lips, and accommodate him with an elbow-chair, where he may slumber for an hour or so unfuddled and unturmoiled by the rocking of the elements. . . . Mr Constable’s proposition is, that he will pay to the youth for his services a salary of £15 per annum, and that if we add £30 to that, the whole will be sufficient for his subsistence, upon the same footing as the other young men whom Mr Constable is in the habit of receiving. . . .
“Where art thou, my friend, my genius, my philosopher, the cultivator of Beaufort?—Your entire friend,
