I have written my long-thought-on letter to Mr. Graham, the Commissioner of Excise; and have sent a sheetful of poetry besides. [Footnote 88: On her first appearance in public in a new dress a young woman was subject to this tax, if claimed by the young man who happened first to meet her. ] * * * * * CIV.--To Miss CHALMERS, EDINBURGH. ELLISLAND, NEAR DUMFRIES, _Sept_. 16_th_, 1788. Where are you? and how are you? and is Lady Mackenzie recovering her health? for I have had but one solitary letter from you. I will not think you have forgot me, Madam and, for my part, When thee, Jerusalem, I forget, Skill part from my right hand! "My heart is not of that rock, nor my soul careless as that sea." I do not make my progress among mankind as a bowl does among its fellows-rolling through the crowd without bearing away any mark or impression, except where they hit in hostile collision. I am here, driven in with my harvest-folks by bad weather; and as you and your sister once did me the honour of interesting yourselves much _a l' egard de moi_, I sit down to beg the continuation of your goodness. I can truly say that, all the exterior of life apart, I never saw two whose esteem flattered the nobler feelings of my soul--I will not say more, but so much, as Lady Mackenzie and Miss Chalmers. When I think of you--hearts the best, minds the noblest of human kind--unfortunate even in the shades of life--when I think I have met with you, and have lived more of real life with you in eight days than I can do with almost anybody I meet with in eight years--when I think on the improbability of meeting you in this world again--I could sit down and cry like a child! If ever you honoured me with a place in your esteem, I trust I can now plead more desert. I am secure against that crushing grip of iron poverty, which, alas! is less or more fatal to the native worth and purity of, I fear, the noblest souls; and a late important step in my life has kindly taken me out of the way of those ungrateful iniquities, which, however overlooked in fashionable licence, or varnished in fashionable phrase, are indeed but lighter and deeper shades of villainy.