Glen Collection of printed music > Printed text > Poems and songs, chiefly in the Scottish dialect

VI
Our author, though partial to company, never
contracted habits of indulgence in the pleasures of
the bowl. Mental gratification was his delight, the
confidence of friendship was the prop on which
he rejoiced to lean. The candour of his own dis-
position, the absence of that suspicion which an en-
larged acquaintance with mankind generates, and
the esteem in which he was held, precluded him,
from acquiring that power of discriminating cha«»
racter on which man's success and respectability
in society in a great measure depend.
We may account for his making few efforts
to change his situation, from the dread he had
to encounter the difficulties of a new mode of life.
Considerations of this kind keep the most of man-
kind in their original condition. He used to paint
in pretty strong colours, the inconveniences which
he felt on settling for two years in Bolton, the only
period he was absent from his native place. To
it he returned, that he might attend the last days
of a dying father, and pay the last tribute to his
memory. He very strenuously dissuaded a com-
panion from removing to a distance of five miles,
where his situation could not have been much
changed in respect of society and habits, though