’Upon the whole, the book cannot displease, for it has no pretensions.  The author neither says he is a Geographer, nor an Antiquarian, nor very learned in the History of Scotland, nor a Naturalist, nor a Fossilist[1132].  The manners of the people, and the face of the country, are all he attempts to describe, or seems to have thought of.  Much were it to be wished, that they who have travelled into more remote, and of course, more curious, regions, had all possessed his good sense.  Of the state of learning, his observations on Glasgow University[1133] shew he has formed a very sound judgement.  He understands our climate too, and he has accurately observed the changes, however slow and imperceptible to us, which Scotland has undergone, in consequence of the blessings of liberty and internal peace.  I could have drawn my pen through the story of the old woman at St. Andrews, being the only silly thing in the book[1134].  He has taken the opportunity of ingrafting into the work several good observations, which I dare say he had made upon men and things, before he set foot on Scotch ground, by which it is considerably enriched[1135].  A long journey, like a tall May-pole, though not very beautiful itself, yet is pretty enough, when ornamented with flowers and garlands; it furnishes a sort of cloak-pins for hanging the furniture of your mind upon; and whoever sets out upon a journey, without furnishing his mind previously with much study and useful knowledge, erects a May-pole in December, and puts up very useless cloak-pins[1136].

’I hope the book will induce many of his countrymen to make the same jaunt, and help to intermix the more liberal part of them still more with us, and perhaps abate somewhat of that virulent antipathy which many of them entertain against the Scotch:  who certainly would never have formed those combinations[1137] which he takes notice of, more than their ancestors, had they not been necessary for their mutual safety, at least for their success, in a country where they are treated as foreigners.  They would find us not deficient, at least in point of hospitality, and they would be ashamed ever after to abuse us in the mass.

’So much for the Tour.  I have now, for the first time in my life, passed a winter in the country; and never did three months roll on with more swiftness and satisfaction.  I used not only to wonder at, but pity, those whose lot condemned them to winter any where but in either of the capitals.  But every place has its charms to a cheerful mind.  I am busy planting and taking measures for opening the summer campaign in farming; and I find I have an excellent resource, when revolutions in politicks perhaps, and revolutions of the sun for certain, will make it decent for me to retreat behind the ranks of the more forward in life.

’I am glad to hear the last was a very busy week with you.  I see you as counsel in some causes which must have opened a charming field for your humourous vein.  As it is more uncommon, so I verily believe it is more useful than the more serious exercise of reason; and, to a man who is to appear in publick, more eclat is to be gained, sometimes more money too, by a bon-mot, than a learned speech.  It is the fund of natural humour which Lord North possesses, that makes him so much the favourite of the house, and so able, because so amiable, a leader of a party[1138].