Page:The Poetical Works of William Motherwell, 1849.djvu/72

 will think with me, that they every way support Mr Carrick's claims to extensive literary and political acquirements, and furnish the best of all guarantees for the creditable discharge of his duties as an editor.

'My dear Sir, in conclusion, I have only again to beg, that you will use your best influence to back the feeble and inadequate testimony I have borne to the abilities of a common friend—of one who, in every relation of life, has always shown himself a most estimable character.

'Yours faithfully,'.'

It would be easy to multiply instances of this kind were I not afraid of trespassing upon the indulgence of the reader, for his correspondence abounds in them; but I cannot pass over in silence his intimacy with R. A. Smith, a man to whom he was sincerely attached, and with whom till his death he cultivated a friendship which was unbroken by even a passing cloud.

Smith was born at Reading, in Berkshire, in 1779. His father was a native of West Calder, in Lanarkshire, and his mother an Englishwoman of respectable connections. In the year 1773, his father emigrated to England in consequence of the dulness of the silk-weaving trade, but returned to Paisley in 1800 after an absence of seventeen years, bringing with him his son, whom he intended to educate to the loom. This, however, was found to be impossible. Nature had furnished the lad with the most