 an amiable creature.
    We shall set out to-morrow or next day for Stirling and Glasgow; and we
propose to penetrate a little way into the Highlands, before we turn our course
to the southward - In the mean time commend me to all our friends round Carfax,
and believe me to be, ever yours,
                                                                      J. MELFORD
    Edinburgh, Aug. 8.
 

                                   Volume III

                                  To Dr. Lewis

I should be very ungrateful, dear Lewis, if I did not find myself disposed to
think and speak favourably of this people, among whom I have met with more
kindness, hospitality, and rational entertainment, in a few weeks, than ever I
received in any other country during the whole course of my life. - Perhaps, the
gratitude excited by these benefits may interfere with the impartiality of my
remarks; for a man is as apt to be prepossessed by particular favours as to be
prejudiced by private motives of disgust. If I am partial, there is, at least,
some merit in my conversion from illiberal prejudices which had grown up with my
constitution.
    The first impressions which an Englishman receives in this country, will not
contribute to the removal of his prejudices; because he refers every thing he
sees to a comparison with the same articles in his own country; and this
comparison is unfavourable to Scotland in all its exteriors, such as the face of
the country in respect to cultivation, the appearance of the bulk of the people,
and the language of conversation in general. - I am not so far convinced by Mr.
Lismahago's arguments, but that I think the Scots would do well, for their own
sakes, to adopt the English idioms and pronunciation; those of them especially,
who are resolved to push their fortunes in South-Britain. - I know, by
experience, how easily an Englishman is influenced by the ear, and how apt he is
to laugh, when he hears his own language spoken with a foreign or provincial
accent. - I have known a member of the house of commons speak with great energy
and precision, without being able to engage attention, because his observations
were made in the Scotch dialect, which (no offence to lieutenant Lismahago)
certainly gives a clownish air even to sentiments of the greatest dignity and
decorum. - I have declared my opinion on this head to some of the most sensible
men of this country, observing, at the same time, that if they would employ a
few natives of England to teach the pronunciation of our vernacular tongue, in
twenty years there would be no difference, in point of dialect, between the
