ON

VARIOUS SUBJECTS.

ESSAY VIII.

Recapitulation.-Prophecy of Ercildown.-Stream of tradition continually enlarging.-Manners not to be studied in this period of Society, but general nature more obvious and distinctly seen, when advanced beyond barbarity, yet not arrived at refinement.-Love of the marvellous inherent in human nature. Various illustrations.

"And do they only stand by ignorance? "Is that their happy state;

"The proof of their obedience and their love ?"-MILT.

THE reflections and observations which I have hazarded in the foregoing essays will, I am sensible, appear to many paradoxical and visionary; but the poetical records compared with existing tra

ditions and manner, and the general habits of thought and motives of action still prevailing among the unsophisticated highlanders, form a body of evidence, 'which will in a great degree corroborate, if not establish the hypothesis I have ventured to advance. I have endeavoured to point out,

First, That a people accustomed to freedom, ably contending for it, and finally flying to the fastnesses of their country to secure it, must needs have carried with them high and independent feelings, such as cherish noble sentiments, and produce heroic actions: That common dangers and privations, the dread of a common foe, and sharing the common honours due to the utmost exertion of courage, patience, and fortitude, must have greatly endeared them to each other.

Second, That their conscious origin from one common stock, and that in their

apprehension a noble one, must have mingled pride with that affection, which bound them to each other, and taught them to consider this common origin, and those warm affections which bound them to each other as the chief earthly good: As a dignity and privilege to be preserved at all hazards, and an abundant recompence for the severest privations.

Third, That the entire exclusion of science, and all the objects of interest and ambition, from the rocky abodes of these primitive hunters and graziers, left them free to the illusions of the imagination and the emotions of the heart. And that these circumstances, combined with the love of fame, derived from their past exploits, and only to be gratified in war or hunting, raised their minds to a highly sensitive and poetical state: That valour thus sublimed, affection thus concentrated, and imagination unchecked

by sober and cultivated reason, and fed by all the peculiarities of awful and gloomy scenery, sounds of horror, and sights of wonder, furnished abundant materials for the loftiest flights of the poet, and the darkest fears of the visionary.

Hence, poetry was earlier born, and sooner matured here than in any other country; and hence, the native poetry nourished superstition by kindling enthusiasm. The native superstition, in return, enriched poetry with images of unequalled tenderness and sublimity.

Poetry conducted the warrior to the field of battle, and from thence to the grave, with all the eulogies due to preeminent valour, patriotism, and generosity. For superstition, it remained to give a new theme to the poet, and open new sources of sorrow and tenderness to the fair mourner, who sat in solitude by some roaring stream, deploring her lost hero.

This dreary power brought the ghost of the departed, like a moon-beam, to the window of the bard's repose, to challenge the permanent reward of never-dying praise. On the blast of night, it brought the whispers of an unseen. form, to warn the visionary maid of her speedy re-union with the " dweller of "her secret soul;" and to furnish themes for dreams of mingled hope and terror.

The unbroken lineage, the unaltered language, the unconquered country, and the ties of affinity, daily renewed, and hourly strengthened and endeared preserved, unchanged, and undiminished, every tribute paid by affection, or by genius to departed worth or valour.

Those plants of fair renown, which, in a less genial climate of the heart, are nipped by chilling indifference, or which wither, like Jonah's gourd, before the 'too ardent beams of public exposure, were here perennial evergreens, che