‘My dear Rogers,—The son of an old friend, a man of much taste and science, Dr. James Russell of Edinburgh, is going to your metropolis on scientific and medical pursuits, and his father asks me for a line of introduction to some of my friends in the literary world. Alas! I have very few left. Our dear George Ellis is gone, and so are many others with whom I used to claim some interest. My tediousness must be the more liberally bestowed on those who remain, and as few have a greater share of my regard than yourself, you must look for a good portion of it. Luckily it never, or very seldom, breaks out into correspondence, but, like the philosophical parrot, pays it off by thinking.
‘Why will you never come down and see us? I have had Rose here for several weeks, and he, a greater invalid than you, finds himself comfortable in Conundrum Castle, for so this romance of a house should be called. As you have made the most classical museum I can conceive, I have been attempting a Gothic—no, not a Gothic by any means, but an old-fashioned Scotch museum, full of
‘Rusty iron coats and jingling jackets, |
‘Rose has been much indisposed, nevertheless killed a salmon of eighteen pounds weight after an hour and a half close struggle; this, as Robinson Crusoe says when he drinks his glass of rum, “to his exceeding refreshment.”
‘We have had horrid wet weather, and as rough as
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‘I do not much know the young bairn, but have seen him at his father’s scientific parties; a clever lad, I think. If you can, without inconvenience to yourself, shew him any notice, his respectable family here will be much gratified as well as, dear Rogers,
