Having had my house full of relations till this evening, I could not answer the favour of your letter Sooner; and now I am ashamed of not being able to tell you that I have finished reading your “Essay on the Ancient History of Scotland.”  I am so totally unversed in the story of original nations, and I own always find myself so little interested in savage manners unassisted by individual characters, that, though you lead me with a firmer hand than any historian through the dark tracts, the clouds rose round me the moment I have passed them, and I retain no memory of the ground I have trod.  I greatly admire your penetration, and read with wonder your clear discovery of the kingdom of Strathclyde; but, though I bow to you, as I would to the founder of an empire, I confess I do not care a straw about your subjects, with whom I am no more acquainted than with the ancient inhabitants of Otaheite.  Your origin of the Piks is most able; but then I cannot remember them with any precise discrimination from any other hyperborean nation; and all the barbarous names at the end of the first volume, and the gibberish in the Appendix, was to me as unintelligible as if Repeated Abracadabra; and made no impression on me but to raise respect of your patience, and admire a sagacity that could extract meaning and suite from what seemed to me the most indigestible of all materials.  You rise in my estimation in Proportion to the disagreeable mass of your ingredients.  What gave me pleasure that I felt, was the exquisite sense and wit of your Introduction; and your masterly handling and confutation of the Macphersons, Whitaker, etc. there and through your work.  Objection I have but one, I think you make yourself too much a party against the Colts.  I do not think they were or are worthy of hatred.

Upon the whole, dear Sir, you see that your work is too learned and too deep for my capacity and shallow knowledge.  I have told you that my reading and knowledge is and always was trifling and superficial, and never taken up or pursued but for present amusement.  I always was incapable of dry and unentertaining studies; and of all studies the origin of nations never was to my taste.  Old age and frequent disorders have dulled both my curiosity and attention, as well as weakened my memory; and I cannot fix my attention to long deductions.  I say to myself, “What is knowledge to me who stand on the verge, and must leave any old stores as well as what I may add to them; and how little could that be?”

Having thus confessed the truth, I am sure you are too candid and liberal to be offended — you cannot doubt of my high respect for your extraordinary abilities I am even proud of having discovered them of myself without any clue.  I should be very insincere, if I pretended to have gone through with eagerness your last work, which demands more intense attention than my age, eyes, and avocations will allow.  I cannot read long together; and you are sensible that your work is not a book to be`rea’d’ by snatches and intervals; especially as the novelty, to me at least, requires some helps to connect it with the memory.