nerves, my personal vexations and cares, real or imaginary, become importunate in my thoughts, and acquire, by morbid exaggeration, an undue prominence and importance, what remedy then so infallible as to mount to my solitary seat in the look-out, and thence gaze awhile across the broad expanse, till in the presence of that vast horizon, my proper troubles shrink to their true proportions, and I look on the whole race of men, with their insignificant pursuits, as so many shrimpers! But this is a digression--We have made the harbour of Dundee, and it is time to step ashore in “stout and original Scotland,” as it is called by Doctor Adolphus Wagner, in his German edition of Burns[2]. Like other shipments, I had been regularly addressed to the care of a consignee:--but the latter, not anxious, probably, to take charge of a hobbledehoy, yet at the same time unwilling to incur the reproach of having a relative in the same town and not under the same roof, peremptorily declined the office. Nay, more, she pronounced against me a capital sentence, so far as returning to the place from whence I came, and even proceeded to bespeak my passage and reship my luggage. Judging from such vigorous measures the temper of my customer, instead of remonstrating, I affected resignation, and went with a grave face through the farce of a formal leave-taking; I even went on board, but it was in company with a stout fellow who relanded my baggage; and thus, whilst my transporter imagined, good easy soul! that the rejected article was sailing round St. Abb’s Head, or rolling off the Bass, he was actually safe and snug in Dundee, quietly laughing in his sleeve with the Law at his back. I have a confused recollection of meeting, some three or four days afterwards, a female cousin on her road to school, who at sight of me turned suddenly round, and galloped off towards home with the speed of a scared heifer.