318 THE JOURNEYMAN. 



I have little need for money, and need not risk any of 

 my happiness in striving to acquire it. I am nearly as 

 poor and as rich as the old cynic Diogenes, though, 

 I trust, not so ill-natured. I am poor in worldly goods, 

 rich in moderate desires. He who has lived con- 

 tentedly on half a crown per week is by no means so 

 much within the reach of fortune as thousands of the 

 people who would not scruple to term him a very poor 

 man. 



' Accept my thanks for your excellent advice regarding 

 the manner in which I ought to conduct myself with 

 respect to the partisans of Inverness. . . . About a 



fortnight ago I saw an article in the , the matter of 



which declared that paper to have a very long list of 

 subscribers, and the manner of which very satisfactorily 

 proved that it ought to have a very short one. I took 

 up the thing with all coolness, and perfectly free of 

 party prejudice; I laid it down boiling with indigna- 

 tion I found my friend Mr Carruthers treated 



by him in a manner in which no gentleman ever treated 

 any one ; and you know, madam, it is much easier 

 to forgive one's own enemy, than the enemy of one's 



friend I intend writing nothing but prose 



until 1 have improved my talent for this species of corn- 

 position to its utmost of my capability. I am at present 

 rather out of conceit with poetry ; and were it not for 

 one circumstange, I would deem the publication of my 

 little volume a subject of regret. That one is the 

 impulse which the coming in contact by its means with 

 the public has given to my mind. Formerly my mind 

 was slow and indolent ; it is now comparatively roused 

 into activity ; and I am led to think that the much which 

 is dull and tame in my printed poems, is rather to be 

 attributed to that apathetical indifference which, about 



