whose lives were too active, and too social for much mental improvement; but during this recess from the world, he made considerable literary attainments.

No. 5.

"The hopeless mourners cheer'd.-P. 154.

He died near Boulogne, as far as the Author recollects, and was buried, on account of his close adherence to the Protestant faith, in his own garden: This was a great additional grief to his friends, Highlanders holding the rights of sepulture in high veneration, which indeed is always the case where people are eminent for filial piety: Luxury looks neither backward nor forward, but merely dwells on the present, and centres in Self.

A

JOURNAL

FROM

GLASGOW TO LAGGAN:

ADDRESSED TO MRS F*****.

WRITTEN IN FEBRUARY

1794.

AS the following Poem contains intrinsic evidence of having been written in an easy familiar manner, with haste too great for accuracy, merely to amuse a few partial Friends, it would be no compliment to the Reader's discernment, to endeavour to convince him of a truth so obvious. It will be more difficult to ascertain the propriety of submitting to the Public eye a careless effusion, so very local, that its interest might seem confined to the Dramatis Persone who appear on the scene. It so happened, however, that some Friends who were pleased with the Poem, breaking through all injunctions to the contrary, not only took, but gave copies, to the great discredit of the performance itself, in which errors and absurdities were multiplied. This must be the Author's apology for including it in the present Volume.

A

JOURNAL

FROM

GLASGOW TO LAGGAN:

ADDRESSED TO MRS FURZER.

"Then let me go, and hinder not my course." "I'll make a pastime of each weary step, "Till the last step have brought me to my home; "And then I'll rest, as after much turmoil "A blessed soul doth in Elysium.”

SHAKESPEARE.

DEAR NANCY, well you

know

my way,

I always do whate'er I say;

Of moral obligation fond,

I count my promise as my bond.
K

That you, who rhyme and rhymsters spurn all,
In verse should bid me write my journal,
At first excited speculation,

Till after solemn cogitation,

And much conjecture spent in vain,
The cause appear'd distinct and plain.
Your friend, and may I boast her mine,
LOUISA decks the Muses' shrine:

Late on their altars I survey'd

A bright but harmless weapon laid;
The gift, inscrib'd with NANCY's praise,
Innoxious gleam'd thro' twining bays,
And shew'd how kind and true that heart
Where NANCY claims so great a part *.

You, fondly partial, wish to cheer
With music wild, LOUISA's ear;

And vainly think my trembling hand

Can still that rustic lyre command,

Which once, when youth and fancy bloom'd,
Through Inchnacardoch's caves presum'd
To call sweet echo to my aid,

And every wood-nymph of the shade,

And

every Naiad of the waves,

Where Ness romantic mountains laves;

*

Allusive to a few elegant lines sent by the one lady to the other, with the present of a fruit-knife.