More than fat Falstaff lov'd a cup of sack, I begin to be afraid that we shall not see you here this winter, which will be a great loss to you, If ever you travel into foreign parts, as Machiavel used to say, every body abroad will require a description of New Tarbat* from you. That you may not appear totally ridiculous and absurd, I shall send you some little account of it. Imagine then to yourself what Thomson would call an interminable plain, interspersed in a lovely manner with beautiful green hills. The Seasons here are only shifted by Summer and Spring. Winter, with his fur cap and his cat-skin gloves, was never seen in this charming retreat. The castle is of Gothic structure, awful and lofty: there are fifty bed-chambers in it, with halls, saloons, and galleries without number. Mr. M's father, who was a man of infinite humour, caused a magnificent lake to be made just before the entry of the house. His diversion was to peep out of his window, and see the people who came to visit him skipping through it-for there was no other passage-then he used to put on such huge fires to dry their clothes, that there was no bearing them. He used to declare, that he never * A wild seat in the Western Highlands of Scotland, surrounded with mountains. thought a man good company till he was half drowned and half burnt; but if in any part of his life he had narrowly escaped hanging (a thing not uncommon in the Highlands), he would perfectly doat upon him; and whenever the story was told him, he was ready to choke himself. But to return. Every thing here is in the grand and sublime style. But, alas! some envious magician, with his d-----d enchantments, has destroyed all these beauties. By his potent art, the house, with so many bed-chambers in it, cannot conveniently lodge above a dozen people. The room which I am writing in just now is in reality a handsome parlour of twenty feet by sixteen; though in my eyes, and to all outward appearance, it seems a garret of six feet by four. The magnificent lake is a dirty puddle; the lovely plain, a rude wild country, covered with the most astonishing high black mountains: the inhabitants, the most amiable race under the sun, appear now to be the ugliest, and look as if they were over-run with the itch. Their delicate limbs, adorned with the finest silk stockings, are now bare, and very dirty; but to describe all the transformations would take up more paper than Lady B-, from whom I had this, would chuse to give me. My own metamorphosis is indeed so extraordinary, that I must make you acquainted with it. You know I am really very thick and short, prodigiously talkative, and wonderfully impudent. Now I am thin and tall, strangely silent, and very bashful. If these things continue, F More than fat Falstaff lov'd a cup of sack, f I begin to be afraid that we shall not see you here this winter, which will be a great loss to you, If ever you travel into foreign parts, as Machiavel used to say, every body abroad will require a description of New Tarbat* from you. That you may not appear totally ridiculous and absurd, I shall send you some little account of it. Imagine then to yourself what Thomson would call an interminable plain, interspersed in a lovely manner with beautiful green hills. The Seasons here are only shifted by Summer and Spring. Winter, with his fur cap and his cat-skin gloves, was never seen in this charming retreat. The castle is of Gothic structure, awful and lofty: there are fifty bed-chambers in it, with halls, saloons, and galleries without number. Mr. M's father, who was a man of infinite humour, caused a magnificent lake to be made just before the entry of the house. His diversion was to peep out of his window, and see the people who came to visit him skipping through it-for there was no other passage-then he used to put on such huge fires to dry their clothes, that there was no bearing them. He used to declare, that he never 懂 * A wild seat in the Western Highlands of Scotland, surrounded with mountains. thought a man good company till he was half drowned and half burnt; but if in any part of his life he had narrowly escaped hanging (a thing not uncommon in the Highlands), he would perfectly doat upon him; and whenever the story was told him, he was ready to choke himself. But to return. Every thing here is in the grand and sublime style. But, alas! some envious magician, with his d-d enchantments, has destroyed all these beauties. By his potent art, the house, with so many bed-chambers in it, cannot conveniently lodge above a dozen people. The room which I am writing in just now is in reality a handsome parlour of twenty feet by sixteen; though in my eyes, and to all outward appearance, it seems a garret of six feet by four. The magnificent lake is a dirty puddle; the lovely plain, a rude wild country, covered with the most asto→ nishing high black mountains: the inhabitants, the most amiable race under the sun, appear now to be the ugliest, and look as if they were over-run with the itch. Their delicate limbs, adorned with the finest silk stockings, are now bare, and very dirty; but to describe all the transformations would take up more paper than Lady B, from whom I had this, would chuse to give me. My own metamorphosis is indeed so extraordinary, that I must make you acquainted with it. You know I am really very thick and short, prodigiously talkative, and wonderfully impudent. Now I am thin and tall, strangely silent, and very bashful. If these things continue, F who is safe? Even you, Boswell, may feel a change. Your fair and transparent complexion may turn black and oily; your person little and squat; and who knows but you may eternally rave about the King of Great Britain's guards; a species of madness, from which good Lord deliver us! I have often wondered, Boswell, that a man of your taste in music cannot play upon the Jew's harp; there are some of us here that touch it very melodiously, I can tell you. Corelli's solo of Maggie Lauder, and Pergolesi's sonata of The Carle he came o'er the Craft, are excellently adapted to that instrument: let me advise you to learn it. first cost is but three halfpence, and they last a long time. I have composed the following ode upon it, which exceeds Pindar as much as the Jew's harp does the organ. ODE UPON A JEW'S HARP. 1. Sweet instrument! which fix'd in yellow teeth, Whether you breathe along the shore of Leith, Ah, softly in our ears thy pleasing murmurs slip! II. Where'er thy lively music's found, The |