some of the provinces of North America, and, being recollected, make an inaccurate auditor returned to England in 1766.

He now resumed his studies, and in 1771, produced "An Introduction to the History of Great Britain and Ireland," 4to. a work which, he says, "without any of the ordinary incitements to literary labour, he was induced to proceed in by the sole motive of private amusement." This work is not inelegantly written, but his hypotheses on Celtic origin, brought upon him the resentment of some critics, who preserved very little decency on a subject that might certainly have been discussed in an amicable manner. His next performance was more justly entitled to contempt, as it showed him to be utterly destitute of taste, and consequently produced him neither reputation nor profit. This was "The Iliad of Homer" translated, in two volumes 4to. 1773, a work fraught with vanity and self-consequence, and which met with the most mortifying recep. tion from the public.

imagine, by the help of Caledonian bigotry, that he has formerly heard the whole." Again," I have yet supposed no imposture but in the publisher, yet I am far from certainty, that some translations have not been lately made, that may now be obtruded as parts of the original work. Credulity on one part is a strong temptation to deceit on the other, especially to deceit of which no personal injury is the consequence, and which flatters the author with his own ingenuity. The Scots have something to plead for their easy reception of an improbable fiction: they are seduced by their fondness for their supposed ancestors. A Scotchman must be a sturdy moralist who does not love Scotland better than truth; he will always love it better than inquiry, and, if falsehood flatters his vanity, will not be very diligent to detect it. Neither ought the English to be much influenced by Scotch authority; for of the past and present state of the whole Erse nation, the Lowlanders are at least as ignorant as ourselves. To be ignorant is painful, but it is dangerous to quiet our uneasiness by the delusive opiate of hasty persuasion."

About this time seems to be the period of Mr. Macpherson's literary mortifications. In 1773, Dr. Johnson and Mr. Boswell made the tour to the Hebrides; and in the course of it, the former took some pains to examine into the proofs of The opinions above declared by Dr. Johnson, the authenticity of Ossian. The result of his incensed our author so much, that he was promptinquiries he gave to the public in 1775, in his ed by his evil genius to send a menacing letter to narrative of the tour, and his opinion was un-his antagonist, which produced the most severe, favourable. "I believe they (i. e. the poems, spirited, and sarcastic reply ever written. says he) never existed in any other form than that Whether his warmth abated, or whether he had which we have seen. The editor or author never been made sensible of his folly by the interposicould shew the original; nor can it be shewn by tion of friends, we know not; but certain it is, any other. To revenge reasonable incredulity by we hear no more afterwards of this ridiculous refusing evidence is a degree of insolence with affair, except that our author is supposed to have which the world is not yet acquainted; and stub-assisted Mr. Mac Nicol in an answer to Dr. Johnborn audacity is the last refuge of guilt. It would be easy to shew it if he had it; but whence could it be had? It is too long to be remembered, and the language had formerly nothing written. He has doubtless inserted names that circulate in popular stories, and may have translated some wandering ballads, if any can be found; and the names and some of the images

son's Tour, printed in 1779. This supposition, says one of his biographers, we are inclined to consider as well founded, because we have been told by a gentleman of veracity, that Mr. Mac Nicol affirms, that the scurrility of his book, which constitutes a great part of it, was inserted, unknown to him, after the manuscript was sent for publication to London.

In 1775, Mr. Macpherson published "The History of Great Britain, from the restoration to the accession of the House of Hanover," in 2 vols. 4to. a work which has been decried with much clamour, but without much argument or proof. The author may, perhaps, have been influenced by his prejudices in favour of the tory party; but he certainly acted with great fairness, as along with it he published the proofs upon which his facts were founded, in two quarto volumes, entitled " Original Papers, containing the secret History of Great Britain, from the restoration to the accession of the House of Hanover. To which are prefixed, extracts from the life of James II. as written by himself." These papers were chiefly collected by Mr. Carte, but are not of equal authority. They, however, clear up many obscurities, and set the characters of many persons in past times in a different light from that in which they have been usually viewed.

published "Letters from Mahommed Ali Chan, nabob of Arcot, to the Court of Directors. To which is annexed, a state of facts relative to Tanjore, with an appendix of original papers," 1777, 4to. and he was supposed to be the author of "The History and Management of the East India Company, from its origin in 1600, to the present times, vol. 1. containing the affairs of the Carnatic; in which the rights of the nabob are explained, and the injustice of the company proved," 1779, 4to.

In his capacity of agent to the nabob, it was probably thought requisite that he should have a seat in the British parliament. He was accord. ingly, in 1780, chosen member for Camelford, but it is not known that he ever attempted to speak in the house. He was also re-chosen in 1784 and 1790. He had purchased, before this last mentioned year, an estate in the parish in which he was born; and changing its name from Retz to Belville, built on it a large and elegant mansion, commanding a very romantic and picturesque view; and thither he retired when his health began to fail, in expectation of receiving benefit from the change of air. He continued, however, to decline; and after lingering some time, died at his seat at Belville, in Inverness, February 17th, 1796.

Soon after this period, the tide of fortune flowed very rapidly in Mr. Macpherson's favour, and his talents and industry were amply sufficient to avail himself of every favourable circumstance which arose. The resistance of the colonies called for the aid of a ready writer to combat the arguments of the Americans, and to give force to the reasons which influenced the conduct of government, and he was selected for the purpose. In Mrs. Grant's "Letters from the Mountains," Among other things he wrote a pamphlet, which we have some affecting particulars of his death. was circulated with much industry, entitled "The" Finding some inward symptoms of his apRights of Great Britain asserted against the Claims of the Colonies; being an answer to the declaration of the general congress," 1776, 8vo. and of which many editions were published. He also was the author of " A short History of the Opposition during the last session of parliament," 1779, 8vo. a pamphlet which on account of its merit, was by many ascribed to Mr. Gibbon.

proaching dissolution, he sent for a consultation, the result of which arrived the day after his confinement. He was perfectly sensible and collected, yet refused to take any thing prescribed to him to the last, and that on this principle, that his time was come, and it did not avail. He felt the approaches of death, and hoped no relief from medicine, though his life was not such as But a more lucrative employment was confer- one should like to look back on at that awful red on him about this time. He was appointed period. Indeed, whose is? It pleased the Alagent to the nabob of Arcot, and in that capacity mighty to render his last scene most affecting and exerted his talents in several appeals to the pub-exemplary. He died last Tuesday evening; and lic in behalf of his client. Among others, he from the minute he was confined till a very little

before he expired, never ceased imploring the at what is called the Cross of Edinburgh, and can divine mercy in the most earnest and pathetic in a few minutes, take fifty men of genius and manner. People about him were overawed and learning by the hand." The fact is well known; melted by the fervour and bitterness of his peni- but to a native of that city, who has been all his tence. He frequently and earnestly entreated the days familiarized with it, and who has not traprayers of good serious people of the lower class velled into other countries; that circumstance, who were admitted. He was a very good-natured though certainly remarkable, passes unnoticed. man; and now that he had got all his schemes of Upon strangers, however, it makes a deep iminterest and ambition fulfilled, he seemed to re-pression. In London, Paris, and all other great flect and grow domestic, and shewed of late a great inclination to be an indulgent landlord, and very liberal to the poor, of which I could relate various instances, more tender and interesting than flashy or ostentatious. His heart and temper were originally good. His religious principles were, I fear, unfixed and fluctuating; but the primary cause that so much genius, taste, benevolence, and prosperity, did not produce or diffuse more happiness, was his living a stranger to the comforts of domestic life, from which unhappy connexions excluded him, &c."

He appears to have died in very opulent circumstances, and by his will, dated June, 1793, gave various annuities and legacies to several persons to a great amount. He also bequeathed 10001. to Mr. John Mackenzie, of Figtree court, in the Temple, to defray the expense of printing and publishing Ossian in the original. He directed 3991. to be laid out in erecting a monument to his memory, in some conspicuous situation at Belville, and ordered that his body should be carried from Scotland, and interred in the Abbey church of Westminster, the city in which he had passed the greatest and best part of his life. He was accordingly brought from the place where he died, and buried in the Poet's corner of the church.

LITERARY ROYAL EXCHANGE.

Mr. Amyatt, the King's chemist, a very sensible and agreeable English gentleman, who resided some time at Edinburgh, once observed to Mr. Smellie, that Edinburgh enjoyed a noble privilege not possessed by any other city in Europe. On being asked his meaning, he said, "Here stand

cities of Europe, though they contain many lite-
rary men, the access to them is difficult; and even
after that is obtained, the conversation is shy and
constrained. In Edinburgh, the access to men of
parts is not only easy, but their conversation and
the communication of their knowledge, are at
once imparted to intelligent strangers with the
utmost liberality. The philosophers of Scotland
have no nostrums. They tell what they know,
and deliver their sentiments without disguise or
reserve. The above observations, which pro-
ceeded from the pen of Mr. Smellie, require some
notice. The fact as stated, was formerly strictly
true; Edinburgh, at that time, confined almost
exclusively to the old city, used to see almost a
daily concourse of all her respectable inhabitants
at the cross, a central part of the principal street,
between the hours of one and three. This served
two purposes; they met to discuss the topics of
the day, and to see their acquaintances without
the labour and waste of forenoon calls. They
were further led to this habit, because all the
coffee-houses and booksellers shops, the usual
lounges of literary idle hours, were then around
the cross. Matters have considerably changed by
the great extension of Edinburgh; both to the
south and north, coffee-houses and booksellers
shops are now dispersed in many places; and
literary men are not now to be found at the cross
in change hours as formerly.

ON ROBERT EDGAR AND ROBERT MITCHEL.
Halt passenger, tell if thou ever saw
Men shot to death without process of law.
We two of four who in this church-yard ly,
Thus felt the rage of popish tyranny.

THE VALIANT SERJEANT MACRAE.

wards accompanied his lordship to Paris. On his Serjeant John Macrae, a young man about return from the continent, Mr. Dalzell, at the retwenty-two years of age, in the expedition to commendation of the late Earl of Lauderdale, was Egypt in 1807, showed that the broad sword in a appointed to the professorship of Greek at Édinfirm hand is as good a weapon in close fighting as burgh, an office which he filled for many years the bayonet. If the first push of the bayonet with the highest reputation and advantage to the misses its aim, or happens to be parried, it is not university. He has the credit indeed of reviving easy to recover the weapon, and repeat the thrust a taste for that language, which from various when the enemy is bold enough to stand firm; causes, had been disused at Edinburgh, or studied but is not so with the sword, which may be readily very superficially. To enable his pupils to prodrawn from its blow, wielded with celerity, and secute this accomplishment with the more effect, directed to any part of the body, particularly to and imbibe a taste for what was elegant in the the head and arms while its motion defends the language, he compiled and printed, at a great experson using it. Macrae killed six men, cutting pense, a series of collections out of the Greek them down with his broad sword, (of the kind authors, including all those passages which he usually worn by serjeants of Highland corps) when wished to explain in the course of his teaching. at last he made a dash out of the ranks on a Turk These were printed in several 8vo volumes, under whom he cut down; but as he was returning to the titles of "Collectanea Minora," and "Colthe square he was killed by a blow from behind lectanea Majora." He added to each volume his head, being nearly split in two by the stroke short notes in Latin, explanatory of the difficult of a sabre. Lieutenant Christopher Macrae, who places, and the text was printed with great accubrought eighteen men of his own name to the re-racy. The notes, which are in elegant Latin, are giment as part of his quota of recruits for an en- admirable for brevity, perspicuity, and judgment. signcy, was killed in the affair, with six of his He at the same time composed and read to the stufollowers and namesakes besides the serjeant. On dents a series of lectures on the language and antithe passage to Lisbon, in October, 1805, the same quities, the philosophy and history, the literature, serjeant came to Colonel Stewart one evening cry-eloquence, poetry, and fine arts of the Greeks. By ing like a child, and complaining that the ship's cook, had called him English names which he did not understand, and thrown some fat in his face. Thus a lad, who in 1805 was so soft and childish, displayed in 1807 a courage worthy a hero of Os

sian.

ANTHONY. DALZELL.

these means he became eminently successful in disseminating a taste for classical literature in the university, nor was he less happy in the art of engaging the affections and fixing the attention of his pupils on the objects which he considered as the fundamentals of all genuine scholarship.

On the death of the learned professor of Oriental languages, Dr. James Robertson, he was chosen This learned Greek scholar was born in 1750, to succeed him as keeper of the university library; in the parish of Ratho, near Edinburgh, and was and likewise succeeded Dr. John Drysdale in the educated partly at the parish school, but princi- honourable appointment of principal clerk to the pally at Edinburgh, where his learning and moral general assembly of the church of Scotland, being conduct induced the late Earl of Lauderdale to the first layman who had ever been elected to that appoint him tutor to his eldest son, Lord Mait-office. Besides an intimacy with his learned conland, the present earl. With this young noble- temporaries at home, he corresponded with Heyne he attended a course of the lectures of the ce- and other eminent scholars abroad, and enriched lebrated professor Millar at Glasgow, and after- the Edinburgh Royal Society Transactions, with a

man,

variety of interesting communications in biography, or on subjects of erudition. He also translated and illustrated Chevalier's description of the plain of Troy; and was editor of the sermons of Dr. Drysdale, whose daughter he married. This learned professor, whose private character was in every respect amiable, and threw a lustre on his public services, died at Edinburgh, December 8th, 1806.

LACK OF BUSINESS.

A gossip of Cupar, Angus, asked the wife of the sexton of an adjoining parish, why she was now so indifferently dressed?" What way can I be otherwise," returned the grave-digger's rib, "when deevil a livin' soul's been buried here this three month ?"

POOR-RATES.

ously severe, and much infringing on the liberty of British subjects; we know, therefore, that they were never strictly, if at all, executed, for in the ballads relating to that age, the pleasures of begging are invitingly displayed, and it is in them represented as not unusual for some of the first men of the state to have occasionally taken the amusement of personating the beggar. A frolic even of the king, in the happier days of James V., is supposed to be described in a witty madrigal, titled the "Gaberloonzie Man."

Although it may not, perhaps, be difficult to account for the neglect of the acts respecting the punishment of the delinquents therein enumerated; yet, it will not now be so easy to explain how the whole kingdom, without exception, disregarded the act of Charles II. 1672, chap. 18, for providing correction houses.

The indigent and helpless poor had been for In Scotland the poor first became an object of many generations supported in the monasteries, legislation about the year 1421, in the reign of hospitals, and other religious establishmeuts, James I.; but for more than a century and a half, which superstition,conjoined with ostentation, had, its intent was the punishment of the disorderly, in early times, with an imprudent liberality, ennot the relief of the indigent. Some of the parti- dowed; and which the rapacity of the reforming culars, in which the state of society in that age barons had, with indiscriminating selfishness, apdiffered from the present, may be readily compre-propriated. It was thereupon found expedient hended from the acts of parliament then framed to make a legislative provision for the support of for preventing, or punishing the disorders com- the helpless and the impotent, as well as for the mitted by the poor: they are in those national due restraint of rapacity and arrogance; a number statutes, described as bards, minstrels, tale tellers, of acts, therefore, were made for this purpose, and vagabond scholars, not licenced to ask alms by the renewed with many alterations, between the years rector, or dean of faculty of the universities of 1579 and 1691. It has been, however, said that Glasgow, St. Andrew's, and Aberdeen; strong and it is impossible to execute any one of them withmasterful beggars, overlaying his majesty's liege out transgressing the enactment of some other, subjects with horses and hounds; feigned fools and and that by an action in the court of session, it gypsies, using unlawful games, such as fast and has been established, that there is no law in force loose, with charming and prophecies, and other in Scotland, by which an involuntary poor's-rate abused sciences, whereby they persuade the peo- can be established in any parish. Notwithstandple that they can tell their fortunes and other ing this, almost the ninth part of the parishes of phantastic imaginations; persons also pretending Scotland have admitted a poor's-rate, established to have been shipwrecked, or to have lost their generally on the interpretation of these acts, that all by burning. the proprietors pay the one half, and the inhabiThe punishments which were to have been in- tants the other, imposed by the proprietors in conflicted by these acts must appear to us as rigor-junction with the minister and elders of each pa