The Ayrshire Legatees

Miss Becky Glibbans gave a satirical keckle at this, and showed her

superior learning, by explaining to Mrs. Craig the unbroken nature of the

kingly office. Mr. Snodgrass then read as follows:-

LETTER XXV

Andrew Pringle, Esq., to the Rev. Charles Snodgrass MY DEAR FRIEND--You are not aware of the task you impose, when you

request me to send you some account of the general way of living in

London. Unless you come here, and actually experience yourself what I

would call the London ache, it is impossible to supply you with any

adequate idea of the necessity that exists in this wilderness of mankind,

to seek refuge in society, without being over fastidious with respect to

the intellectual qualifications of your occasional associates. In a

remote desart, the solitary traveller is subject to apprehensions of

danger; but still he is the most important thing "within the circle of

that lonely waste"; and the sense of his own dignity enables him to

sustain the shock of considerable hazard with spirit and fortitude. But,

in London, the feeling of self-importance is totally lost and suppressed

in the bosom of a stranger. A painful conviction of insignificance--of

nothingness, I may say--is sunk upon his heart, and murmured in his ear

by the million, who divide with him that consequence which he

unconsciously before supposed he possessed in a general estimate of the

world. While elbowing my way through the unknown multitude that flows

between Charing Cross and the Royal Exchange, this mortifying sense of my

own insignificance has often come upon me with the energy of a pang; and

I have thought, that, after all we can say of any man, the effect of the

greatest influence of an individual on society at large, is but as that

of a pebble thrown into the sea. Mathematically speaking, the

undulations which the pebble causes, continue until the whole mass of the

ocean has been disturbed to the bottom of its most secret depths and

farthest shores; and, perhaps, with equal truth it may be affirmed, that

the sentiments of the man of genius are also infinitely propagated; but

how soon is the physical impression of the one lost to every sensible

perception, and the moral impulse of the other swallowed up from all

practical effect.

But though London, in the general, may be justly compared to the vast and

restless ocean, or to any other thing that is either sublime,

incomprehensible, or affecting, it loses all its influence over the

solemn associations of the mind when it is examined in its details. For

example, living on the town, as it is slangishly called, the most

friendless and isolated condition possible, is yet fraught with an

amazing diversity of enjoyment. Thousands of gentlemen, who have

survived the relish of active fashionable pursuits, pass their life in

that state without tasting the delight of one new sensation. They rise

in the morning merely because Nature will not allow them to remain longer

in bed. They begin the day without motive or purpose, and close it after

having performed the same unvaried round as the most thoroughbred

domestic animal that ever dwelt in manse or manor-house. If you ask them

at three o'clock where they are to dine, they cannot tell you; but about

the wonted dinner-hour, batches of these forlorn bachelors find

themselves diurnally congregated, as if by instinct, around a cozy table

in some snug coffee-house, where, after inspecting the contents of the

bill of fare, they discuss the news of the day, reserving the scandal, by

way of dessert, for their wine. Day after day their respective political

opinions give rise to keen encounters, but without producing the

slightest shade of change in any of their old ingrained and particular

sentiments.