“Madam, having by the death of my mother, and the marriage of my sisters, a kind of vacancy in the family, that makes the house somewhat lonesome, I find I shall be obliged to enter into the matrimonial state. Understanding, from report, that you are not disinclineable to the married condition, I have thought of making you proposals. All my friends give you a very high character, that I assure you, not any consideration of property is what now induces me to make bold. Besides the extraordinary beauty of your face and person, the whiteness of your skin, your shining eyes, and the fine fall of your shoulders, the dignity of your walk, not to mention other charms, which, though invisible, may be well supposed, has created in me a passion, which preys upon my heart, and will, if not gratified, throw me into a consumption; which, as the Family Physician observes, is, in this country, a very frequent and dangerous distemper. Your fortune, I do assure you, is totally out of my thoughts, and, if you had not a shilling, I should prefer you to any other woman, though mistress of all the riches in the city of Glasgow. I hope, therefore, you will have compassion upon your sincere lover, who thinks of nothing but your charms. My lawyer will meet with yours whenever you may please to appoint.--I propose a jointure, which, if you should survive me, will give you ten per cent. for your money; the said money thereupon to become my property.--With the most disinterested love, I am, madam, your adoring swain, DUNCAN HAMILTON.” Though this letter, in many cases, answered pretty well, yet, in some, it did not altogether suit. Among the various objects of his passion was a Creole, to whom the praise of whiteness of skin did not entirely apply; a lady who squinted, that could not so properly be praised for her eyes. To a third, the fall of the shoulders had been as well left out, as she happened to be somewhat humpbacked; a fourth, that limped, might have dispensed with the encomiums bestowed on gracefulness of gesture.--The laird of Etterick having circulated his courtship to every opulent lady that he could hear of was soon smoaked. The portioned misses and dames began to compare notes, and found that as the object was the same in all his love pursuits, viz. the rent-roll, funded property, and cash at their bankers’, the means were similar in every case. At last the laird of Etterick’s courtship became a jest in the country, and he, now approaching forty, was a bachelor. His personal charms were not very likely to shorten his celibacy. He was about five feet four inches high, and extremely slender, with stooping shoulders, and a pair of legs, whose shape, though often rousing men to martial deeds, when beating on a kettle-drum, were not the most promising supporters for a lover.