&c. will be very useful to me. I wish to see your Letter, and I rejoice to think that I shall be able to do justice to an injured woman.* The publishers are willing to wait your convenience respecting the transmission of the remaining letters and papers. They are printing Smollett in a separate volume, corrected and greatly enlarged. Our amiable and patriotic friend Sir R. Musgrave has given me an account of the abominable tragedy [murder of Lord Kilwarden, &c.+] that was lately acted in Dublin. Mr. Ledwich likewise.

"Make my kindest respects acceptable to Mrs. Percy. "I am, &c. R. ANDERSON."

Heriot's Green, Oct. 14, 1803.

"MY DEAR LORD, "Our worthy friend Dr. Trail was here yesterday, and brought me very agreeable intelligence from Dromore House respecting your Lordship's general health, and the fate of my last letter to you, written at different times, and dispatched hastily by a private conveyance. I had some uneasy apprehensions about it, and as it appears to have been strangely delayed, and in some danger of being lost, I believe I shall henceforth take the liberty you have given me to transmit my communications to you, even if they should happen to exceed the size of a single letter, by the common post.

"The absence of Miss Stewart, and of my daughter, who went into the country with her friend almost immediately after she returned from Alnwick, has prevented the transcription of the Ode from being completed, with the necessary alterations, before now. On Wednesday I had the pleasure of putting it under a cover to Mr. Ercke, and before this reach you, I doubt not, it will be in your possession. The number of stanzas does not, you will observe, correspond with the specimen sent before. There were even more, but it was thought proper to omit those that might be easily spared. As it is, it may yet be thought too long; and my young friend submits it to the inspection of the great judge and master of the wild and wonderful, with trembling hope. I have been anxious that you should see correctness united with enthusiasm, *Mrs. Grainger.

† Lord Kilwarden, chief justice of the King's Bench, was murdered in his carriage, together with the Rev. Rich. Wolfe, by stabbing them with pikes, July 23, 1803. See Gent. Mag. Lxxiii. pp. 687. 708. 786.

but several imperfections yet remain. The word exile is twice accented wrong, in the Scottish manner. The title 'On the Reliques,' &c. might be better, 'On reading,' &c. or more shortly, Ode to the Editor (or the original Editor) of the Reliques,' &c. But this is a matter for your consideration. The Stanzas to me accompany the Ode, as they refer to it; and as they exhibit a striking review of the process observed in the composition of it, and a fine testimony of my amiable friend's modest estimate of her own performance, and of her kindness and gratitude to me. The Ode and Stanzas have been read with almost equal admiration by the best judges here, and a general wish has been expressed that they should be printed, in some way or other, with your approbation. I have sometimes thought that the Ode at least would not be misplaced in the fourth volume of the 'Reliques,' which is expected from Dr. Percy. If this idea meet with your approbation, perhaps some other topics of illustration might be suggested, and the whole corrected and adapted to your wishes. Such a fine enumeration of some of the most universally interesting pieces in the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry' would, in my opinion, be an appropriate and suitable testimony to the value of the collection, and to the merit of the original editor. If I am wrong, I know your Lordship will have the goodness to pardon the suggestion.

"When Dr. Trail was here, I put into his hands the precious deposit of your Lordship's Letters to Lord Hailes, as he expects to have an opportunity very soon of sending them to Ireland by a safe conveyance. They came into my hands slowly and reluctantly, and I have been accused of aiding and abetting the removing them from this country. Your Lordship knows it was no suggestion of mine. At the desire of the gentleman alluded to by Lady Dalrymple, I solicited for him a sight of Lord Hailes's Letters to you, for the use of an intended edition of his original works. In the application to Lady Dalrymple I acted as your friend with good will, and with delicacy and respect towards her Ladyship, who is no way to blame for withholding them from you so long. I had a very polite letter from her Ladyship, apologizing for the delay, and mentioning her having written at the same time to you. As the loss of Lord Hailes's Letters to you is irreparable, Mr. Thomson wishes me to say that he would be greatly obliged to your Lordship to give him a

general account of their contents, as far as your recollection will serve, aided by your own part of the correspondence, for the use of his Memoirs of his Life, &c. Mr. Thomson is a man of excellent taste and learning, and will, I am sure, make a judicious use of any information you can give respecting your epistolary correspondence with Lord Hailes.

"As to our Grainger,' I have prevailed on the publishers to wait your Lordship's convenience, and I expect in due time further communications from you, to enable me to put him off my hands. Mr. Laing, Mr. Thomson, and other unbelievers in Ossian here, think your Lordship's testimony of the highest importance in the controversy, and concur in requesting you to put in writing a statement of your conversations with Sir John Elliott respecting Macpherson, and the impression which they made on your mind.

66

They are printing here a new edition of Bruce's Travels, in 7 vols. 8vo, with additions, and a Life, by Mr. Murray, a young Orientalist of my acquaintance. I could wish to see your narrative of Bruce's conversation at Alnwick Castle, written in Lobo's Travels, which I neglected to transcribe.

"Mr. Park's new edition of Nuga Antiquæ' will soon be out. He wishes me to say that he is very sensible of your Lordship's kind intentions respecting the 'Reliques,' but that he has already a copy of the last edition; and that if it were easily in your power to procure him a copy of the Northumberland Household Book,' he would reckon it an inestimable favour.

"I believe I sent your Lordship my learned and worthy friend Dr. Jamieson's* Prospectus' of an 'Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language.' As you are an encourager of Mr. Boucher's work, which is essentially different, I did not venture to solicit your subscription, but I know he would reckon your name a distinguished honour.

"Mr. Cooper Walker's Essay on the Revival of the Drama in Italy' will soon proceed from Mundell's press, with Professor Richardson's Poems and Plays,' Mr. Beauford's 'Ossian, with notes,' &c. Mr. Boyd tells me he has a volume of Poems on its way from Ireland. He has finished the Araccara,' and wants a publisher;

Dr. John Jamieson died July 12, 1838, aged 80. See a memoir in Gent. Mag. 1838, ii. p. 445.

but it is too great an undertaking for Edinburgh publishers. I procured Mr. Winter's pamphlet 'On the present Temper, &c. of the Irish Nation,' to be reprinted here. It has been greatly admired. The author, a gentleman of large fortune in the county of Meath, and, in my opinion, a model of what a country gentleman ought to be, sent me a copy, and I thought the reprinting it would do some good here.

"Sir Richard Musgrave addressed to me a short narrative of the late insurrection in Dublin, which was printed in all our newspapers. From the late trials, it appears that the conspiracy was as irrational and wild in the design as it was savage and detestable in the execution.

"Mr. Rees, the partner of Mr. Longman, was here lately. He gave me such an account of the late edition of Goldsmith's Works, on the authority of Mr. Davies, as to make me wish very strongly to have an exact account of it from your Lordship, as far as you are concerned.

"I have made no use of Mrs. West's play, but I believe, with her permission, I could get it printed; in which case, it is probable she might wish to revise it. It would be improper to print any thing with her name that would lessen her reputation with the public as an ingenious and moral writer.

"Mr. Scott's 'Sir Tristrem,' printed more than two years ago, is still unpublished, for want of a preliminary dissertation and glossary. He has great difficulties in ascribing it to Learmont; and his able coadjutor Leyden is gone to India. He has a romance of his own ready for the press, entitled 'The Lay of the last Minstrel.' The third volume of the Minstrelsy of the Border' has, I understand, neither added to the reputation of the editor, nor increased the sale of the former volumes. Did your Lordship ever receive Mr. Scott's intended present of the volumes of the Minstrelsy?

"A letter came here a few days ago from Mr. George Chalmers, with the intelligence of the miserable end of that wretched man Joseph Ritson. According to Mr. Chalmers's account, he was taken in a state of mental derangement from his chambers in Gray's Inn, where he had previously destroyed all his MSS. &c., to a place of confinement in the neighbourhood of London, where he soon

* "Sir Tristrem" was published in the year 1804, with dissertation and a glossary.

after died.* Neither Mr. Park nor Mr. Heber have mentioned his death to me, nor has it appeared in the newspapers.

"I must conclude with requesting your Lordship to make no return, in the present state of your eyesight, but what is very brief. I will continue to write to you. "Remember me kindly to Mrs. Percy. I am, my dear Lord, your affectionate servant, Ro. ANDERSON."

"MY DEAR LORD,

Heriot's Green, 24th Jan. 1804. "I am conscious I must appear ungrateful; to receive so agreeable and affectionate a token of your friendship and regard as your letter to me of October 21, and not to acknowledge it immediately, will seem truly ungracious. Had I followed the first impulse of my mind, not a moment would have elapsed, but I recollected that it might seem inconsistent to be grateful in words and negligent in practice. I had a commission to execute for your Lordship which I trusted to accomplish by means of a safe private conveyance, and no opportunity has occurred since Dr. Trail returned the packet, in his departure for England, till the present moment, when I avail myself of my friend Mr. Thomson going to Dublin, to attend the sales at the Linen Hall, to confide the precious deposit to his care. I have requested him, if it be possible, in passing, to put it into your own hands, for the sake of security, and that he may gratify himself, and me on his return, by seeing your Lordship, and receiving a confirmation of the assurances I have had from every quarter of the restoration of your eyesight, and the continuance of your health. If he cannot spare time, I have desired him to commit it to the care of the Postmaster at Dromore, or our worthy friend Mr. Stott, to whom he is known.

"Soon after Dr. Trail's departure, my time and thoughts were occupied in the performance of duties the most melancholy and sacred in the world. On the 7th of November, in the evening, while my very dear and longtried friend, Mr. Alex. Thomson, author of 'Paradise of Taste,' Pictures of Poetry,' &c. was conversing with me, in the midst of his family, he was seized with a paralytic affection, which, in a moment, deprived him of

Mr. Ritson died Sept. 3, 1803. See an account of him in Lit. An. III. pp. 133-137. 350; and Index Vol. VII. pp. 353. 664. See also a Series of his Letters, with his portrait, in Lit. Illustrations, III. pp. 775-780.