excerpt from the book..Dear ERSKINE,--No ceremony, I beseech you. Give me your hand. How is myhonest Captain Andrew? How goes it with the elegant gentle Lady A----?the lovely sighing Lady J----? and how, O how does that gloriousluminary Lady B---- do? You see I retain my usual volatility. TheBoswells, you know, came over from Normandy, with William the Conqueror,and some of us possess the spirit of our ancestors the French. I do forone. A pleasant spirit it is. _Vive la Bagatelle_, is the maxim. A lightheart may bid defiance to fortune. And yet, Erskine, I must tell you,that I have been a little pensive of late, amorously pensive, anddisposed to read Shenstone's Pastoral on Absence, the tenderness andsimplicity of which I greatly admire. A man who is in love is like a manwho has got the tooth-ache, he feels most acute pain while nobody pitieshim. In that situation am I at present: but well do I know that I willnot be long so. So much for inconstancy. As this is my first epistle toyou, it cannot in decency be a long one. Pray write to me soon. Yourletters, I prophecy, will entertain me not a little; and will besides beextremely serviceable in many important respects. They will supply mewith oil to my lamps, grease to my wheels, and blacking to my shoes.They will furnish me with strings to my fiddle, lashes to my whip,lining to my breeches, and buttons to my coat. They will make charmingspurs, excellent knee buckles, and inimitable watch-keys. In short,while they last I shall neither want breakfast, dinner, nor supper. Ishall keep a couple of horses, and I shall sleep upon a bed of down. Ishall be in France this year, and in Spain the next; with many otherparticulars too tedious to mention. You may take me in a metaphoricalsense; but I would rather choose to be understood literally.I am