BRAMBLE
EDIN., August 8.
To Sir WATKIN PHILLIPS, Bart. of Jesus college, Oxon.
DEAR KNIGHT,
I am now little short of the Ultima Thule, if this appellation
properly belongs to the Orkneys or Hebrides. These last are now
lying before me, to the amount of some hundreds, scattered up and
down the Deucalidonian sea, affording the most picturesque and
romantic prospect I ever beheld -- I write this letter in a
gentleman's house, near the town of Inverary which may be deemed
the capital of the West Highlands, famous for nothing so much as
for the stately castle begun, and actually covered in by the late
duke of Argyle, at a prodigious expence -- Whether it will ever be
completely finished is a question. --
But, to take things in order -- We left Edinburgh ten days ago; and
the further North we proceed, we find Mrs Tabitha the less
manageable; so that her inclinations are not of the nature of the
loadstone; they point not towards the pole. What made her leave
Edinburgh with reluctance at last, if we may believe her own
assertions, was a dispute which she left unfinished with Mr
Moffat, touching the eternity of hell torments. That gentleman,
as he advanced in years, began to be sceptical on this head,
till, at length, he declared open war against the common
acceptation of the word eternal.
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