109 



much time with them as you can afford from your 

 pursuits in a science the most noble, and the most 

 worthy of an enlightened mind. I should have been 

 truly fortunate, if in the younger part of my life I 

 had fallen into your line of study; for I perceive 

 those who have done so, by their unwearied attach- 

 ment, meet with charms which I am absolutely for- 

 bidden to enjoy; — and now, alas ! it is too late: the 

 imagination is no longer vivid enough at sixty-seven 

 to become enthusiastic; and without some degree of 

 enthusiasm everything in nature becomes dull and 

 torpid. Is not this true, my dear Sir, whatever the 

 philosopher may urge to the contrary ? I now ex- 

 pect, my good friend, you will exclaim — Enthusiasmf 

 — what but this passion could reconcile you to a 

 red coat at your time of life? And this charge will 

 at first sight appear but too well grounded, more 

 especially so when I declare that the military cha- 

 racter is the most foreign of all my inclinations; — 

 but dread of falling an unarmed victim into the 

 hands, probably subjected to the persecution of an in- 

 veterate enemy, — with this further incentive, a desire 

 natural to an Englishman, to offer, at such a period 

 as the present, all that was in his power to offer, to 

 his king and his native country, — this led me ij the 

 adoption of my scheme for the immediate defence 

 of our own neighbourhood. Had I been a younger 

 man, I would have offered at this crisis my services 

 in a more extensive way. Should our threatening 

 enemy succeed in landing a powerful force, dreadful 

 will be the consequence, let the conflict end which 

 way it will : but those unemployed, unengaged in 



