198 EDITOR. 



somewhat like a shrinking of heart when I think of the 

 undertaking. There is incessant labour and many a 

 hard battle before me ; and all my hopes of happiness 

 have been wrapped up in dreams of some quiet retire- 

 ment with abundance of leisure to devote to literature 

 and science. But my present choice is not between 

 literary leisure and a course of literary agitation. It is 

 between ceaseless employment of a less, for ceaseless 

 employment of a more, congenial character ; and I am 

 just making up my mind for the decision. You fear I 

 am in the wrong in taking part with the General Assembly 

 in its present quarrel. I have luckily no such fears for 

 myself, however ; and as I know you too well to suspect 

 that you will condemn me unheard, I have some hopes 

 of yet seeing you on the side of the Assembly too. I 

 have written two pamphlets on the subject ; the Letter 

 to Lord Brougham, to which you allude, and the Whig- 

 gism of the Old School. The first, after passing through 

 four editions in as many weeks, has been stereotyped, 

 the second, though it contains a larger amount of 

 thought, is circulating more slowly. 



' It is a sad thing to suffer among strangers, sick- 

 ness is sickness everywhere, but in a strange land it is 

 something more, I have experienced just enough of it 

 to know what it is, and to sympathize with those who 

 know more of it. Had you died in St lago de Cuba, it 

 is probable I would have been left to mere surmise and 

 conjecture regarding your fate ; it would have been one 

 of the many sad secrets of the same kind which await 

 the last day. I trust you will be able to lay in a large 

 stock of health and strength in Scotland ; the air of our 

 hills is keen and shrewish, but the same pair of lungs 

 may breathe it for a hundred years, and there is no sky 



