Just before, he had met a Mrs. McLehose who lived in Edinburgh
with her three children, while her husband, from whom she had
separated on account of ill-treatment, had emigrated to Jamaica. A
correspondence began immediately after the first meeting, with the
following letter:
"Madam:
"I had set no small store by my tea-drinking tonight, and have not
often been so disappointed. Saturday evening I shall embrace the
opportunity with the greatest pleasure. I leave this town this day
se'ennight, and probably I shall not return for a couple of
twelvemonths; but I must ever regret that I so lately got an
acquaintance I shall ever highly esteem, and in whose welfare I
shall ever be warmly interested. Our worthy common friend, Miss
Nimmo, in her usual pleasant way, rallied me a good deal on my new
acquaintance, and, in the humour of her ideas, I wrote some lines,
which I enclose to you, as I think they have a good deal of poetic
merit; and Miss Nimmo tells me that you are not only a critic but
a poetess. Fiction, you know, is the native region of poetry; and
I hope you will pardon my vanity in sending you the bagatelle as a
tolerable offhand _jeu d'esprit_. I have several poetic trifles,
which I shall gladly leave with Miss Nimmo or you, if they were
worth house-room; as there are scarcely two people on earth by
whom it would mortify me more to be forgotten, though at the
distance of nine score miles.
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