“I send you the newspaper article under a different
cover. I have studied so much to suppress my own feelings, and so to give a
just, calm, and temperate view of the excellent subject of our present sorrow,
such as I conceive might be drawn by one less partially devoted to him, that it has to my own eye a cold and
lifeless resemblance of an original so dear to me. But I was writing to the
public, and to a public less acquainted with him than a few years’
experience would have made them. Even his own tenantry were but just arrived at
the true estimation of his character. I wrote, therefore, to insure credit and
belief, in a tone greatly under my own feelings. I have ordered twenty-five
copies to be put in a
| MAY, 1819. | 271 |
“Nothing in the circumstances could have given me the satisfaction which I receive from your Lordship’s purpose of visiting Scotland, and bringing down the dear young ladies, who unite so many and such affecting ties upon the regard and affection of every friend of the family. It will be a measure of the highest necessity for the political interest of the family, and your Lordship will have an opportunity of hearing much information of importance, which really could not be made subject of writing. The extinction of fire on the hearths of this great house would be putting out a public light, and a public beacon in the time of darkness and storms. Ever your most faithful
