he and the two blue cheeses, however, will, I trust, soon find their way; and with them you will receive an answer to part of your last letter. I have not yet seen Ralia, to hear how well you look, and how merry you are. My mirth and beauty, which he celebrates, are not much increased this fortnight, but, thank God, I am much better these two days. What is better, the whirlpool in my brain has in some measure subsided; nay, I find the relapse to calm sorrow, a relief from constant perturbation," Tha solas an tuireadh le sith, Ach claoidhidh fad thuirse soil doruin."* As I cannot cure the evil habit of quotation, you see I have changed ground, and taken shelter in another language; but Mr. Macintosh will translate it for you. I make no doubt of what you say of our dear departed friend still hanging about your heart, and am sure she will continue to do so "while memory holds her seat." If this is your case, amidst affluence, prosperity, and various society, judge what must be mine, in the utter seclusion to which I now devote myself,-in a place where seven years' residence had naturalized and domesticated Charlotte so much, that her image makes a part of every scene around me. Though the agitated state of my mind has for some time interrupted that kind of mystic intercourse which fancy delights to hold with the souls of the departed, I gratify myself by paying a kind of delicate homage to her memory, in showing kindness to those she loved, and doing *This quotation from Ossian has been elegantly, and not unfaithfully, translated by James Macpherson. It runs literally thus:"There is enjoyment in mourning with peace; yet long mourning wastes the children of calamity." things that I think would please her. The most soothing retrospect I ever can have, is in recollecting the many conversations we have had together upon that awful futurity, which she has entered on only a little before us; being, perhaps, prematurely ripened by a succession of sorrows such as few experience. My thoughts hover perpetually over the grave; yet I trust in that Infinite goodness which has hitherto supported me, that the gloomy prospect will be enlivened with some rays of hope and consolation. Speaking of those whom she regarded, her old friend, Mr Ewen Macpherson, who is a sincere mourner, is returned from Skye, merely that he may die in this country; and, no doubt, that his last days may be spent near that once happy cottage, which was a central refuge for affliction, before it was darkened by successive sorrows. I hope the persons you mention at the close of your letter will at all events respect themselves, and preserve their own esteem. It signifies little, when the short chapter closes, in what class one has stood; the great matter is, to have been near the head of that class. I would rather be the first of peasants than the last of kings; besides, the darker we find our prospects here, the more diligently we explore the light that leads to heaven. May that light shine on you, and comfort you when all other comforts fail! So prays your true friend, A. G. * This is the same gentleman previously referred to, by his familiar designation of " The Prophet." See Letter of July 8th, 1797. Dear Madam, LETTER L. TO MRS. MACINTOSH, GLASGOW. Laggan, January 15, 1801. I think I have it now in my power to fulfil the promise I made of sending you a translation from the Gaelic. You judge rightly that I am vain of knowing so much of that original and most emphatic language. I shall soon send you a literal translation, which I have by me, of part of an ancient fragment—a genuine one, remember, and hitherto untouched. The present subject, however, is modern. The mourner whom the bard personates is, indeed, "soft, modest, melancholy, fair;" and the deep and real distress which the song commemorates, is yet recent. Mrs. Reid, a lady in the neighbourhood of Athol, went to the summer shealings,* in the mountains, with three remarkably fine children, a boy and two girls; the boy, who was eldest, was distinguished by a remarkably good ear for music, and, though but eight years old, played on the violin very sweetly. The children caught a pestilential fever, which some poor neighbour had brought up into the glen, and, being very remote from all assistance and the convenience and attendance that sickness requires, the death of all the children was the consequence, at a very early period of the disease. *Summer pasturages, with temporary accommodation for the dairy-maids and others in charge of the cattle. VOL. II. M The bard who soothed the sorrows of the parents by this composition, appears to me to possess native genius. Let him speak for himself: "Ah! still must I languish, My heart's dearest treasure, The fair sunbeams that brighten'd my soul! The loud storm blew boldly, The bleak blast came coldly, My sweet buds all blighted: Forlorn, and benighted, Ah! nothing can ease or console! "Where was beauty, fresh blowing, All comfort refusing, I hear, through my groaning, Your voices low moaning, Oh, speak to me once from the tomb! "The sighs of my mourning Arise with the morning; And when evening's soft showers, Weep fresh o'er the flowers, My tears fall as silent, unseen. Who hears me lamenting, But, sadly consenting, Must pity my grieving, Since Heaven, thus bereaving, Has wither'd my fair plants so green! "The viol so sprightly Who touches so lightly? O, peace to its sounding, My troubl❜d heart wounding, For my son shall awake it no more! Nor my daughters, gay smiling, My cares once beguiling, From their cold bed returning, Shall banish my mourning, Or hear me their absence deplore! "O, children beloved, For the dark silent chambers of death! Shall light the new morning; Fresh grass on the mountains, Fresh flow'rs by the fountains, Shall wake with the spring's gentle breath: "But no morning, new breaking, My children shall waken; 'Tis hopeless to number The days of their slumber, The long sleep that awakens no more! Shall the cold earth's dark bosom Still hide each fair blossom? Have angel's not borne them Where bright rays adorn them, Where on wings of new rapture they soar? "On my fancy thus beaming, My eyes, ever streaming, My breast, ever heaving, Their image relieving, Shall soothe into pensive repose: In beauty transcendent, In brightness resplendent, I shall meet them where life has no close!" I have preserved, as far as possible, the simplicity of the original; but its tenderness, the solemn sadness that runs through it, its pathetic beauties, I am sensible I have not reached. I have left out many verses. Poetry, in the ancient style, knows nothing of concentrating thoughts; it was the object of undivided and unwearied attention to minds susceptible of all its beauties, unchilled by interest, unhardened by vanity. Children of nature did not turn wearied and satiated from the expression of genuine feeling, to listen to every rattle by which novelty allures frivolous minds. Now you have a modern poem, which, if I have not spoiled |