have been too busy in offering my counsel where I was asked for
assistance.

A third rogue writes to tell me--rather of the latest, if the matter was
of consequence--that he approves of the first three volumes of the
_H[eart] of Midlothian_, but totally condemns the fourth. Doubtless he
thinks his opinion worth the sevenpence sterling which his letter costs.
However, authors should be reasonably well pleased when three-fourths of
their work are acceptable to the reader. The knave demands of me in a
postscript, to get back the sword of Sir W[illiam] Wallace from England,
where it was carried from Dumbarton Castle. I am not Master-General of
the Ordnance, that I know. It was wrong, however, to take away that and
Mons Meg. If I go to town this spring, I will renew my negotiation with
the Great Duke for recovery of Mons Meg.

There is no theme more awful than to attempt to cast a glance among the
clouds and mists which hide the broken extremity of the celebrated
bridge of Mirza.[66] Yet, when every day brings us nearer that
termination, one would almost think that our views should become
clearer, as the regions we are approaching are brought nigher. Alas! it
is not so: there is a curtain to be withdrawn, a veil to be rent, before
we shall see things as they really are. There are few, I trust, who
disbelieve the existence of a God; nay, I doubt if at all times, and in
all moods, any single individual ever adopted that hideous creed, though
some have professed it. With the belief of a Deity, that of the
immortality of the soul and of the state of future rewards and
punishments is indissolubly linked. More we are not to know; but neither
are we prohibited from our attempts, however vain, to pierce the solemn
sacred gloom. The expressions used in Scripture are doubtless
metaphorical, for penal fires and heavenly melody are only applicable to