<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0064" id="link2H_4_0064"></SPAN></p>
<h2> To Sir WATKIN PHILLIPS, Bart. at Oxon. </h2>
<h3> DEAR KNIGHT, </h3>
<p>Once more I tread upon English ground, which I like not the worse for the
six weeks' ramble I have made among the woods and mountains of Caledonia;
no offence to the land of cakes, where bannocks grow upon straw. I never
saw my uncle in such health and spirits as he now enjoys. Liddy is
perfectly recovered; and Mrs Tabitha has no reason to complain.
Nevertheless, I believe, she was, till yesterday, inclined to give the
whole Scotch nation to the devil, as a pack of insensible brutes, upon
whom her accomplishments had been displayed in vain.—At every place
where we halted, did she mount the stage, and flourished her rusty arms,
without being able to make one conquest. One of her last essays was
against the heart of Sir George Colquhoun, with whom she fought all the
weapons more than twice over.—She was grave and gay by turns—she
moralized and methodized—she laughed, and romped, and danced, and
sung, and sighed, and ogled, and lisped, and fluttered, and flattered—but
all was preaching to the desart. The baronet, being a well-bred man,
carried his civilities as far as she could in conscience expect, and, if
evil tongues are to be believed, some degrees farther; but he was too much
a veteran in gallantry, as well as in war, to fall into any ambuscade that
she could lay for his affection—While we were absent in the
Highlands, she practised also upon the laird of Ladrishmore, and even gave
him the rendezvous in the wood of Drumscailloch; but the laird had such a
reverend care of his own reputation, that he came attended with the parson
of the parish, and nothing passed but spiritual communication. After all
these miscarriages, our aunt suddenly recollected lieutenant Lismahago,
whom, ever since our first arrival at Edinburgh, she seemed to have
utterly forgot; but now she expressed her hopes of seeing him at Dumfries,
according to his promise.</p>
<p>We set out from Glasgow by the way of Lanerk, the county-town of
Clydesdale, in the neighbourhood of which, the whole river Clyde, rushing
down a steep rock, forms a very noble and stupendous cascade. Next day we
were obliged to halt in a small borough, until the carriage, which had
received some damage, should be repaired; and here we met with an incident
which warmly interested the benevolent spirit of Mr Bramble—As we
stood at the window of an inn that fronted the public prison, a person
arrived on horseback, genteelly, tho' plainly, dressed in a blue frock,
with his own hair cut short, and a gold-laced hat upon his head.—Alighting,
and giving his horse to the landlord, he advanced to an old man who was at
work in paving the street, and accosted him in these words: 'This is hard
work for such an old man as you.'—So saying, he took the instrument
out of his hand, and began to thump the pavement.—After a few
strokes, 'Have you never a son (said he) to ease you of this labour?'
'Yes, an please Your honour (replied the senior), I have three hopeful
lads, but, at present, they are out of the way.' 'Honour not me (cried the
stranger); but more becomes me to honour your grey hairs. Where are those
sons you talk of?' The ancient paviour said, his eldest son was a captain
in the East Indies; and the youngest had lately inlisted as a soldier, in
hopes of prospering like his brother. The gentleman desiring to know what
was become of the second, he wiped his eyes, and owned, he had taken upon
him his old father's debts, for which he was now in the prison hard by.</p>
<p>The traveller made three quick steps towards the jail, then turning short,
'Tell me (said he), has that unnatural captain sent you nothing to relieve
your distress?' 'Call him not unnatural (replied the other); God's
blessing be upon him! he sent me a great deal of money; but I made a bad
use of it; I lost it by being security for a gentleman that was my
landlord, and was stript of all I had in the world besides.' At that
instant a young man, thrusting out his head and neck between two iron bars
in the prison-window, exclaimed, 'Father! father! if my brother William is
in life, that's he!' 'I am!—I am!—(cried the stranger,
clasping the old man in his arms, and shedding a flood of tears)—I
am your son Willy, sure enough!' Before the father, who was quite
confounded, could make any return to this tenderness, a decent old woman
bolting out from the door of a poor habitation, cried, 'Where is my bairn?
where is my dear Willy?'—The captain no sooner beheld her, than he
quitted his father, and ran into her embrace.</p>
<p>I can assure you, my uncle, who saw and heard every thing that passed, was
as much moved as any one of the parties concerned in this pathetic
recognition—He sobbed, and wept, and clapped his hands, and
hollowed, and finally ran down into the street. By this time, the captain
had retired with his parents, and all the inhabitants of the place were
assembled at the door.—Mr Bramble, nevertheless, pressed thro' the
crowd, and entering the house, 'Captain (said he), I beg the favour of
your acquaintance. I would have travelled a hundred miles to see this
affecting scene; and I shall think myself happy if you and your parents
will dine with me at the public house.' The captain thanked him for his
kind invitation, which, he said, he would accept with pleasure; but in the
mean time, he could not think of eating or drinking, while his poor
brother was in trouble. He forthwith deposited a sum equal to the debt in
the hands of the magistrate, who ventured to set his brother at liberty
without farther process; and then the whole family repaired to the inn
with my uncle, attended by the crowd, the individuals of which shook their
townsman by the hand, while he returned their caresses without the least
sign of pride or affectation.</p>
<p>This honest favourite of fortune, whose name was Brown, told my uncle,
that he had been bred a weaver, and, about eighteen years ago, had, from a
spirit of idleness and dissipation, enlisted as a soldier in the service
of the East-India company; that, in the course of duty, he had the good
fortune to attract the notice and approbation of Lord Clive, who preferred
him from one step to another, till he attained the rank of captain and
pay-master to the regiment, in which capacities he had honestly amassed
above twelve thousand pounds, and, at the peace, resigned his commission.—He
had sent several remittances to his father, who received the first only,
consisting of one hundred pounds; the second had fallen into the hands of
a bankrupt; and the third had been consigned to a gentleman of Scotland,
who died before it arrived; so that it still remained to be accounted for
by his executors. He now presented the old man with fifty pounds for his
present occasions, over and above bank notes for one hundred, which he had
deposited for his brother's release.—He brought along with him a
deed ready executed, by which he settled a perpetuity of four-score pounds
upon his parents, to be inherited by their other two sons after their
decease.—He promised to purchase a commission for his youngest
brother; to take the other as his own partner in a manufacture which he
intended to set up, to give employment and bread to the industrious; and
to give five hundred pounds, by way of dower, to his sister, who had
married a farmer in low circumstances. Finally, he gave fifty pounds to
the poor of the town where he was born, and feasted all the inhabitants
without exception.</p>
<p>My uncle was so charmed with the character of captain Brown, that he drank
his health three times successively at dinner—He said, he was proud
of his acquaintance; that he was an honour to his country, and had in some
measure redeemed human nature from the reproach of pride, selfishness, and
ingratitude.—For my part, I was as much pleased with the modesty as
with the filial virtue of this honest soldier, who assumed no merit from
his success, and said very little of his own transactions, though the
answers he made to our inquiries were equally sensible and laconic, Mrs
Tabitha behaved very graciously to him until she understood that he was
going to make a tender of his hand to a person of low estate, who had been
his sweet-heart while he worked as a journeyman weaver.—Our aunt was
no sooner made acquainted with this design, than she starched up her
behaviour with a double proportion of reserve; and when the company broke
up, she observed with a toss of her nose, that Brown was a civil fellow
enough, considering the lowness of his original; but that Fortune, though
she had mended his circumstances, was incapable to raise his ideas, which
were still humble and plebeian.</p>
<p>On the day that succeeded this adventure, we went some miles out of our
road to see Drumlanrig, a seat belonging to the duke of Queensberry, which
appears like a magnificent palace erected by magic, in the midst of a
wilderness.—It is indeed a princely mansion, with suitable parks and
plantations, rendered still more striking by the nakedness of the
surrounding country, which is one of the wildest tracts in all Scotland.—This
wildness, however, is different from that of the Highlands; for here the
mountains, instead of heath, are covered with a fine green swarth,
affording pasture to innumerable flocks of sheep. But the fleeces of this
country, called Nithsdale, are not comparable to the wool of Galloway,
which is said to equal that of Salisbury plain. Having passed the night at
the castle of Drumlanrig, by invitation from the duke himself, who is one
of the best men that ever breathed, we prosecuted our journey to Dumfries,
a very elegant trading town near the borders of England, where we found
plenty of good provision and excellent wine, at very reasonable prices,
and the accommodation as good in all respects as in any part of
South-Britain. If I was confined to Scotland for life, I would chuse
Dumfries as the place of my residence. Here we made enquiries about
captain Lismahago, of whom hearing no tidings, we proceeded by the Solway
Frith, to Carlisle. You must know, that the Solway sands, upon which
travellers pass at low water, are exceedingly dangerous, because, as the
tide makes, they become quick in different places, and the flood rushes in
so impetuously, that the passengers are often overtaken by the sea and
perish.</p>
<p>In crossing these treacherous Syrtes with a guide, we perceived a drowned
horse, which Humphry Clinker, after due inspection, declared to be the
very identical beast which Mr Lismahago rode when he parted with us at
Feltonbridge in Northumberland. This information, which seemed to intimate
that our friend the lieutenant had shared the fate of his horse, affected
us all, and above all our aunt Tabitha, who shed salt tears, and obliged
Clinker to pull a few hairs out of the dead horse's tail, to be worn in a
ring as a remembrance of his master: but her grief and ours was not of
long duration; for one of the first persons we saw in Carlisle, was the
lieutenant in propria persona, bargaining with a horse-dealer for another
steed, in the yard of the inn where we alighted.—Mrs Bramble was the
first that perceived him, and screamed as if she had seen a ghost; and,
truly, at a proper time and place, he might very well have passed for an
inhabitant of another world; for he was more meagre and grim than before.—We
received him the more cordially for having supposed he had been drowned;
and he was not deficient in expressions of satisfaction at this meeting.
He told us, he had enquired for us at Dumfries, and been informed by a
travelling merchant from Glasgow, that we had resolved to return by the
way of Coldstream. He said, that in passing the sands without a guide, his
horse had knocked up, and he himself must have perished, if he had not
been providentially relieved by a return post-chaise.—He moreover
gave us to understand, that his scheme of settling in his own country
having miscarried, he was so far on his way to London, with a view to
embark for North-America, where he intended to pass the rest of his days
among his old friends the Miamis, and amuse himself in finishing the
education of the son he had by his beloved Squinkinacoosta.</p>
<p>This project was by no means agreeable to our good aunt, who expatiated
upon the fatigues and dangers that would attend such a long voyage by sea,
and afterwards such a tedious journey by land—She enlarged
particularly on the risque he would run, with respect to the concerns of
his precious soul, among savages who had not yet received the glad tidings
of salvation; and she hinted that his abandoning Great-Britain might,
perhaps, prove fatal to the inclinations of some deserving person, whom he
was qualified to make happy for life. My uncle, who is really a Don
Quixote in generosity, understanding that Lismahago's real reason for
leaving Scotland was the impossibility of subsisting in it with any
decency upon the wretched provision of a subaltern's half-pay, began to be
warmly interested on the side of compassion.—He thought it very
hard, that a gentleman who had served his country with honour, should be
driven by necessity to spend his old age, among the refuse of mankind, in
such a remote part of the world.—He discoursed with me upon the
subject; observing, that he would willingly offer the lieutenant an asylum
at Brambleton-hall, if he did not foresee that his singularities and
humour of contradiction would render him an intolerable housemate, though
his conversation at some times might be both instructive and entertaining:
but, as there seemed to be something particular in his attention to Mrs
Tabitha, he and I agreed in opinion, that this intercourse should be
encouraged and improved, if possible, into a matrimonial union; in which
case there would be a comfortable provision for both; and they might be
settled in a house of their own, so that Mr Bramble should have no more of
their company than he desired.</p>
<p>In pursuance of this design, Lismahago has been invited to pass the winter
at Brambleton-hall, as it will be time enough to execute his American
project in the spring.—He has taken time to consider of this
proposal; mean while, he will keep us company as far as we travel in the
road to Bristol, where he has hopes of getting a passage for America. I
make no doubt but that he will postpone his voyage, and prosecute his
addresses to a happy consummation; and sure, if it produces any fruit, it
must be of a very peculiar flavour. As the weather continues favourable, I
believe, we shall take the Peak of Derbyshire and Buxton Wells in our way.—At
any rate, from the first place where we make any stay, you shall hear
again from</p>
<p>Yours always, J. MELFORD CARLISLE, Sep. 12.</p>
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