"Dear Sir,—To show you that I am not such an affecter of singularity as to entertain prejudices against ministers of state,[25:2] I am resolved to congratulate you on your return to power, and to express my wishes, that, both for your sake and the public's, your ministry, and that of your friends, may be more durable than it was before. We even hope it will, though the strange motley composition which it consists of, gives us some apprehensions. However, we are glad to find, from past experience, that you can neither rise nor fall, without credit and reputation. You know that, according to the whimsical way in this country, it is more difficult to rise than fall with reputation.
"I suppose that, by this time, you have undoubtedly read and admired the wonderful production of the Epigoniad, and that you have so much love for arts, and for your native country, as to be very industrious in propagating the fame of it. It is certainly a most singular production, full of sublimity and genius,
adorned by a noble, harmonious, forcible, and even correct versification. We generally think the story deficient and uninteresting; but perhaps the new fancy of crossing the invention of all modern romance-writers may make some atonement, and even bestow an air of novelty on the imitation of Homer. As I cannot but hope that this work will soon become the subject of conversation in London, I shall take this opportunity of supplying you with some anecdotes with regard to the author, besides such as you already know,—of his being a very worthy and a very entertaining man, adorned with all that simplicity of manners, so common to great men, and even with some of that rusticity and negligence which serve to abate that envy to which they are so much exposed.
"You know he is a farmer's son, in the neighbourhood of this town, where there are a great number of pigeon-houses. The farmers are very much infested with the pigeons, and Wilkie's father planted him often as a scarecrow (an office for which he is well qualified) in the midst of his fields of wheat. It was in this situation that he confessed he first conceived the design of his epic poem, and even executed part of it. He carried out his Homer with him, together with a table, and pen and ink, and a great rusty gun. He composed and wrote two or three lines, till a flock of pigeons settled in the field, then rose up, ran towards them, and fired at them; returned again to his former station, and added a rhyme or two more, till he met with a fresh interruption.
"Two or three years ago, Jemmy Russel put a very pleasant trick on an English physician, one Dr. Roebuck, who was travelling in this country. Russel carried him out one day on horseback to see the outlets of the town, and purposely led him by Wilkie's
farm. He saw the bard at a small distance, sowing his corn, with a sheet about him, all besmeared with dirt and sweat, with a coat and visage entirely proportioned to his occupation. Russel says to his companion, 'Here is a fellow, a peasant, with whom I have some business: let us call him.' He made a sign, and Wilkie came to them: some questions were asked him with regard to the season, to his farm and husbandry, which he readily answered; but soon took an opportunity of digressing to the Greek poets, and enlarging on that branch of literature. Dr. Roebuck, who had scarce understood his rustic English, or rather his broad Scotch, immediately comprehended him, for his Greek was admirable; and on leaving him, he could not forbear expressing the highest admiration to Russel, that a clown, a rustic, a mere hind, such as he saw this fellow was, should be possessed of so much erudition. 'Is it usual,' says he, 'for your peasants in Scotland to read the Greek poets?'—'O Yes,' replies Russel, very coolly, 'we have long winter evenings; and in what can they employ themselves better, than in reading the Greek poets?' Roebuck left the country in a full persuasion that there are at least a dozen farmers in every parish who read Homer, Hesiod, and Sophocles, every winter-evening, to their families; and, if ever he writes an account of his travels, it is likely he will not omit so curious a circumstance.
"Wilkie is now a settled minister at Ratho, within four miles of the town.[27:1] He possesses about £80 or £90 a-year, which he esteems exorbitant riches. Formerly, when he had only £20, as helper, he said that he could not conceive what article, either of human convenience or pleasure he was deficient in,
nor what any man could mean by desiring more money. He possesses several branches of erudition, besides the Greek poetry; and, particularly, is a very profound geometrician, a science commonly very incompatible with the lively imagination of a poet. He has even made some new discoveries in that science; and he told me, that, when a young man, he threw cross and pile, whether he should devote himself chiefly to mathematics or to poetry, and fears that rather he crossed the bent of his genius in taking to the latter. Yet this man, who has composed the second epic poem in our language! understands so little of orthography, that, regularly through the whole poem, he spelled the word yield in this manner, 'ealde;' and I had great difficulty to convince him of his mistake.
"I fancy our friend, Robertson, will be able to publish his History next winter. You are sufficiently acquainted with the merit of this work; and really it is admirable how many men of genius this country produces at present. Is it not strange that, at a time when we have lost our princes, our parliaments, our independent government,—even the presence of our chief nobility; are unhappy, in our accent and pronunciation; speak a very corrupt dialect of the tongue we make use of,—is it not strange, I say, that, in these circumstances, we should really be the people most distinguished for literature in Europe?
"Having spoke so much to Mr. Elliot, the man of letters, you must now allow me to say a few words to Mr. Elliot, the lord of the admiralty. There is a cousin-german of mine, Alexander Edgar, who is midshipman in the Vestal, off Harwich, and has passed his trials, above four months ago, for a lieutenantcy. He always behaved well in all his service, which has been very long; and, almost from his infancy, he has