DEDICATION. ΤΟ SIR WALTER FARQUHAR, BART: DEAR SIR, THOUGH I Well know that the recollection of your native land will ever be dear to you, though the manners and opinions that are about to pass away, and mingle with the things that have been, still retain an interest for you,and though I should feel pleasure in awakening that interest,-these are not the motives of this address. I know not that I ought, (even though I had the power,) to withdraw your attention from the weighty concerns which continually 339852 engross your time, and exercise your humanity Nor shall I, however it might gratify my private feelings to do so, take the liberty of expressing here what I think on this last subject; my intention in this address being merely to have an occasion for saying, that I am, With the highest esteem, Respect, and gratitude, Dear Sir, Your obliged and faithful servant, THE AUTHOR. TO THE READER. I CONSIDER this work as a kind of adjunct to those poems and letters of mine which have already met with so mnch indulgence from the Public. The superstitions of the highlands, and the national manners that blend with, or originate from them, are here fully delineated. In connection with the writings already mentioned, this work completes that picture of highland life, of which my other writings presented casual sketches or broken features. These volumes are not offered to the public as the result of labour or study. They contain merely the overflowings of a mind filled with retrospective views of the past, and reflections suggested by deep feeling, and long and close observation among scenes of peculiar interest. I have been encouraged to pour forth these retrospections, by a conviction that my other writings derived their chief interest from the fidelity of the delineations they presented, and the images they reflected, of a mode of life more primitive than what is usually met with. The letters added were selected from many others, as in a manner completing the series already published. The au thor, when no longer connected with scenes so peculiar and so endeared to her recollections, cannot expect to preserve that interest in the minds of oothers, which she is conscious was in a great measure derived from local circumstances. Edinburgh, CONTENTS. ESSAY I. v On the Superstitions of the Highlands, their Origin, and Tendency. Page 1 ESSAY II. On the Obstacles, which so long prevented the Legends and Traditions, preserved in the Celtic or Gaelic Language from becoming the objects of learned research; and on the Causes which prevented those who understood them from giving them their due value and importance, in what regards General Science, ESSAY III. 11 On the Causes which, precluding Strangers from settling in the Highlands, prevented any knowledge of the Language or Customs of the Country from being obtained through such a medium, 44 |