bation below, shall be forever removed from my eyes,-and that, those numerous sources of vexation and sorrow, which have so often, and so long, distracted my atttention from the most noble of all pursuits," the contemplation of HIS WORKS -the GREAT-DIVINE ;" and still continue to threaten, nay contribute their share, to bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave; and have made me assume, on more occasions than one, the mournful designation of "A MAN OF SORROWS, AND ACQUAINTED WITH GRIEFS," will be forever done away, in the sensible fruition of THAT BEING, in whose presence there is fulness of joy-at whose right hand, “ are pleasures ever more."

May that wisdom ever be mine, that not only teaches patience and resignation, under all the disappointments and calamities of life, and heartfelt gratitude and thankfulness, for every blessing and mercy received, but the most unfeigned and sincere, though humble acquiescence, in all the dispensations of that ADORABLE BEING, who, by mingling so many mercies in my cup of mortal calamity, and having, in so many instances, to use a homely and familiar phrase, "made the back meet for the burden,"-given me so much reason to hope, that He will never leave me, nor forsake me;—that as, His goodness and mercy, hath hitherto, been made to keep pace with my existence, and to follow me all the days of my life, He will not now cast me off, when the discases and infirmities of age have begun to overtake me,-that, even, when called to walk through the dark valley of the shadow of death, I need fear no evil, but humbly resign myself to His care and keeping, whose staff, and whose rod, even in this last extremity, can still bear me up,-whose blessed presence, can still comfort me,

"For where his presence is, there must be joy." That so, the perpetual sacrifice of a sweet smelling savour, may ever arise from the living altar of my heart ;-that aspirations of gratitude may be made continually to ascend up as incense from my lips-and, when my voice is lost, in the approaches of death, as it must soon be, and the time of my evening oblation is come, I may be the better enabled to render up my account with joy, by completing the sacrifice with

cheerfulness and alacrity, and in endeavouring to lisp, when utterance faileth,

"Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." Without such a principle as this, continually living and operating in us, what, alas! would earth be, and all its enjoyments at such a solemn, passing moment? Poor comforters, indeed, to a soul immortal! But, indeed, how empty and fallacious must they prove, even when the hope of life is not extinct, in a state of severe mental anguish, and excruciating bodily suffering!

66

A continual sense of the divine presence and favour, is, indeed, the best antidote against the afflictions, and crosses, and struggles, and storms of life-but particularly so against the fear of death. Of this no one seems to have been more sensible than the pious and enlightened Addison, with whose sentiments I shall conclude this, the last, of these introductory chapters to my " Latter Struggles." "Latter Struggles." "I know but one way of fortifying my soul," says this excellent person, against those gloomy presages and terrors of mind, and that is, by securing to myself the friendship and protection of that Being, who disposes of events, and governs futurity. He sees, at one view, the whole thread of my existence, not only that part of it, which I have already passed through, but that which runs forward into all the depths of eternity. When I lay me down to sleep, I recommend myself to his care;-when I awake, I give myself up to his direction.Amidst all the evils that threaten me, I will look up to him for help, and question not but He will either avert them, or turn to my advantage.

"Though I know neither the time, nor the manner of the death I am to die, I am not, at all, solicitous about it; because, I am sure that He knows them both, and that He will not fail to comfort and support me under them."

CHAPTER IX.-1815.

The time WHEN my Latter Struggles may be said to have commenced.-How ascertained to have been just upon the eve of my passing the boundary line betwixt my forty-fifth and forty-sixth year.-Or, between the NOON TIDE and AFTERNOON of my life.-Lamentable consideration.-Sundry reasons for establishing the fact, that, these struggles had not commenced sooner.-Evidences of the happy composure and serenity of mind, in which, I entered the year 1815.Little pleasant excursion to Paper Mill.-Visit to a neighbouring village.— Ingenious piece of mechanism.-A memorial of the manner in which some of the French prisoners had been employed.-Favourite hobby of the public in those days. The grateful scholars and schoolmasters dinner at Dunbar.Who was the prime mover, or first suggester on the occasion. The happy event again recorded. Such exhibitions ought to be kept up.-Good consequences that may be expected to flow from them.-The schoolmasters a most deserving set of men.-Acknowledged obligations of the author to them. -A secret divulged of more consequence for them to know, than who wrote the Waverley Novels.-How the fact stands corroborated.-Other causes that may have contributed to the calm I seem to have enjoyed at this time.-Testimony of Lindley Murray to the utility of the Cheap Magazine, and favourable attestations of the Presbytery of Dunbar, as to the manner in which I had conducted it.-Prospects in embryo, or as yet in the distance. Congeniality of my new task, to my habits and turn of thinking.

THE exact time, when, these my SEVERE, and as I have styled them, "LATTER STRUGGLES," commenced, may be pretty accurately ascertained, from irrefragable documents, not only from my own recollections, but from facts recorded in my late retrospections. From all of which it appears, that it must have been just upon the eve of my passing the boundary line betwixt my 45th and 46th year; or nearly the end of 1815, that this unhappy beginning, to my since long protracted series of sorrows, took place.

This is a lamentable consideration to be sure, that, at the very time when according to the natural course of things, to use the seaman's expression, I should have been thinking of turning in, to indulge myself with my AFTERNOON'S nap, after having borne the burden and heat of my

N

laborious MID-DAY toils, I should be called out to more exertion than ever, in consequence of the tide of human calamity, all on a sudden, setting in, so strongly against me!

That the commencement of these severe struggles, as they must soon appear to have been, could not have happened sooner, is evident, from the happy temper and composed state of mind in which I entered upon this eventful year; which, it will be seen, evinced any thing but that of a mind oppressed with care, or anxiety of any description.-The great extent of my dealings, and transactions, in course of its progress, almost down to its termination, which fully evidenced the high ground upon which I had all along stood in point of credit, and the cheerfulness and alacrity, with which I went about my business, not only up to the period of the sale to which I shall soon have occasion to allude,-as taking place in Glasgow in the month of September;-but, in the activity I displayed in promoting the interests of my canvassing business, in the month of October following ;-My sales in Dunbar, which I conducted and concluded with so much satisfaction in November and December;-and the measures I adopted in course of the latter month towards the proper extension of my now already pretty widely extended publication business, by issuing the additions to my former list in that line, of two quarto pages, under date, December 1815;→ all go to shew, that up to that time, supposed to be about the period that I published the concluding number of my Monthly Monitor, in the middle of the month :-I had, as yet, met with nothing peculiarly alarming, or of a sufficiently harassing nature, to interrupt or disturb my pursuits.

As one evidence of the happy composure and serenity of mind, in which I must have entered the year 1815, I may mention the little pleasant jaunt, or pleasure excursion as I shall call it, in which I indulged myself, accompanied by my partner, on a visit to our hospitable friends at Paper Mill, towards the end of January-a matter, of whatever insignificance it may be thought by others, was rather something extraordinary, or out of the common way, with my accustomed habits, and no less so, with those of my help mate;

who, although like the spouse of the Vicar of Wakefield, she was ever inclined to give me my own way in most things, yet was most tenacious of her own opinion, in regard to the propriety of, a pretty strong adhesion to her post at the back of the counter; from which, it no doubt required all my eloquence, to persuade her to sever herself, for the long period of two or three days!

There is one reminiscence attending that journey, by which a very amiable gentleman, one of the partners of the firm to which the friend that we visited at the time belonged, and who accompanied me to a neighbouring village, may possibly be brought to the recollection of it, should these pages meet his eye, and that is, the call he made in my company upon a certain ingenious watchmaker, who exhibited to us the ope rations of that amusing piece of machinery, which in the form of a display of inanimate horse racing and jockeyship, served as a memorial of the perseverance and ingenuity, as well as the manner in which they had disposed of their time, of some of the poor French prisoners, who had long been confined to, and but recently relieved from, their quarters in that neighbourhood.

(

But I am rather doing myself injustice to put down this journey altogether to the score of pleasure, for, the very circumstance of my having at the time visited that village, brings to my recollection, that I had business there to transact. I am also inclined to think that I devoted part of the time which was spent, both in going through and returning by Edinburgh (if we returned that way) to making enquiry about some matters connected with the canvassing or general publication line, which was then the favourite hobby of the public, (as the penny and three-halfpenny weekly periodicals are now) and to which, I had, it appears, been for some time previous directing my attention.

Another circumstance to which I would call the attention of my readers, as indicative of the composure of mind 1 en

* I think his name was Allan, watchmaker in Pennycuick.