WILLIAM SMELLIE. 
23 
forsake her; and had several times almost di- 
verted the natural bias of my heart. But, when 
I beheld the very cause of my pain, tortured be- 
yond expression, unless flint or adamant had been 
the principal ingredients of my composition, 
I must infallibly have dissolved, retracted my 
former resolution, and resumed my former 
passion. 
“ The result of all this is, that in a few days I 
shall perhaps be personally acquainted with the 
right-worshipful Hymen. Like the common 
herd of younkers, you will, no doubt, pronounce 
this a mad and distracted resolution. But pause 
a moment, and listen to the following thoughts. 
Old Reekie* gave me birth, and in Old Reekie 
have I lived these twenty-three years and some 
more. Most of my blood relations have long 
been in their graves. By a don’t know what nor 
how, I have gained several friends and well- 
wishers, besides a tolerable competency of good 
acquaintances, in the said Old Reekie. I might 
probably have lived as long, and perhaps much 
longer, in a different quarter of the globe, before 
I could have been so well known, or have met 
with such friendly reception from a strange 
people. Here, therefore, moneyless and rich- 
relationless, I have a better chance than any 
where else ; unless you plead that some lucky 
fortune is always ready to drop into a traveller’s 
pocket. But in the common run of adventures, 
* A customary quaint name for the old part of the city 
of Edinburgh. 
