In his letters to his friends, at this time, he describes these vicissitudes of fortune; and indulges in a feeling to which he was very prone,--an uncertainty as to his future projects, and an indolent disinclination to make up his mind how to act.
"All the literati of my friends, who understand English, think your Dissertation one of the finest performances in our language. A gentleman, of my acquaintance, has translated it for his own satisfaction. He could not publish it without publishing "Ossian" at the same time. My scepticism extends no farther, nor ever did, than with regard to the extreme antiquity of those poems; and it is no more than scepticism.
"You may, perhaps, have heard of the rapid whirl of my fortune backwards and forwards of late. I had scarce received my commission, as secretary to the embassy, when I knew that that situation, the most agreeable in which I could have been placed, was not to last. Lord Hertford must go to Ireland, and resolved to carry me over as secretary to that kingdom, in conjoint commission with his son. On his arrival at London, he found the cry so loud against the promotion of Scotsmen, that he was obliged to give it up; which he did the more easily, as he knew my great reluctance to that office and scene of life. He has now got a pension of £400 a-year settled on me; and as he has prepared an apartment for me in the castle of Dublin, I shall hurry thither as soon as I leave France, and shall be afterwards free for the rest of my life.[289:1] I have not determined where I shall pass my latter days. This place should be the most agreeable to me; but a man who came late thither, and who is not supported by family connexions, may, perhaps, find himself misplaced, even in this centre of letters and good society. I have a reluctance to think of living among the factious barbarians of London; who will hate me because I am a Scotsman, and am not a Whig, and despise me because I am a man of letters. My attachment to Edinburgh revives as I turn my face towards it."[290:1]
"DEAR BROTHER,--I am now to inform you of another pretty rapid change in my fortune. Lord Hertford, on his arrival in London, found great difficulty of executing his intentions in my favour. The cry is loud against the Scots; and the present ministry are unwilling to support any of our countrymen, lest they bear the reproach of being connected with Lord Bute. For this reason, Lord Hertford departed from his project; which he did the more readily, as he knew I had a great reluctance to the office of secretary for Ireland; which requires a talent for speaking in public, to which I was never accustomed. I must also have kept a kind of open house, and have drunk and caroused with the Irish, a course of living to which I am as little accustomed. The Duke of Bedford, to whom I mentioned these objections, thought them very solid. I think myself, at present, much better provided for, by a pension of £400 a-year for life, which Lord Hertford has procured me. He also writes me, that an apartment is fitting up for me in the castle of Dublin. I shall go thither as soon as I can leave France; which will not be till the end of October or beginning of November, on the arrival of the Duke of Richmond. Meanwhile, I am _Chargé des affaires d'Angleterre à la cour de France_, which is the title under which you must write to me, if you favour me with a letter.