Jam regit obliquo tramite Luna rotas: Perfice, que te iterum, nitidiffima, ducat ad ortus Nos tamen, ah miferos, delectat gloria mundi, Non tamen, affiduus quanquam dolor offa peredit, 20 25 Quippe novos flores et rore madentia prata, Et Zephyri et tepidum mane cito referent. 30 Frigora nec doleo, ventofque, hyemifque procellas, Ecquid erit tamen in gelido ver dulce fepulchro! Why has Mr. Butler omitted the beautiful and heavenly fentiments that close the poem? Does he think, with the heathen, that death is an eternal fleep?-No; we hope and truft. Yet, at this trembling hour of infidelity, when the very doctrine of an eternal fleep is reviving amongst us, and feems in France to have almoft fuperfeded the comfortable hope of immortality; fuch an omiffion (in a profeffed Chriftian writer of one of our English Universities,) feems utterly unaccountable; and, in the apprehenfion of fome persons, may be regarded as a fufpicious circumstance. "The oration, delivered in the schools," is a good specimen of claffical Latinity. The appendix contains "the Hymn of Cleanthes to Jupiter." A note of Mofheim "on the Stoic Theology :" two Hymns" of St. Clement, and H. Stephens's" #goopwas ad προσφώνησις Lectores novi Foederis." On the whole, this collection must leave on the public mind an impreffion favourable to Mr. Butler, as a scholar and a man of taste. ART. IX. Obfervations on a Tour through the Highlands and Part of the Western Isles of Scotland, &c. By Dr. Garnett. WE (Concluded from P. 382. Vol. V.) E have found much lefs information, and a much greater paucity of useful remarks, in the second volume of this Tour than we found in the firft. It affumes more the appearance of a journal, and the attention becomes wearied by inceffant defcriptions of mountain fcenery and water-falls, which, interesting as they may be to the fpectator, admit not of that variety in defcription which is effential to the amusement of the reader. Some few paffages, however, we have marked for extraction, and, without farther remark, fhall proceed to lay them before our readers. In the church-yard of the abbey of Dunkeld, there is the following curious epitaph on one Mary Scott, who was buried there in 1728. 66 Stop, paffenger, until my life you read : Such defolations in my days have been : The author's obfervations, refpecting the mode which feems to obtain of clearing moffes in Scotland, appear to be judicious and deferving of attention. "At the distance of about fix miles from Stirling, we paffed Blair Drummond, the feat of Mr. Drummond Home, and formerly the occafional refidence of his father, the enlightened and patriotic Lord Kames. The grounds are very extenfive, and have been ornamented with great tafte. Near the porter's lodge is a large water wheel, nearly on the principle of the Perfian wheel; it raifes fixty hogfheads of water from the Teath in a minute, which is conveyed by a canal to the mofs of Kincardine, in order to wash this mofs off the ground into the Forth. The conftruction of this water wheel is very ingenious; but a particular defcription of it will, I think, be unneceffary here, as a very full account, both of the machine, and the operations on the mofs, is given in the Encyclopædia Britannica.' "See Mofs of Kincardine. There is likewife a full account of this wheel, and the operations carried on with refpect to the mofs, in the 21ft vol. of Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Account." "This This mofs originally covered near two hundred acres, threefourths of which belongs to the eftate of Blair Drummond, and is in the upper parts from fix to twelve feet deep, and, in the lower, about three. It repofes upon a bed of clay, and the great object of the late and prefent proprietor, was to wash or float the mofs from the furface of the clay, which has been done to a confiderable extent; by conveying to the mofs the waters of the Teath, in the way that has been mentioned. This water conveys the moss into the Forth, abfolutely blackening its streams with the rich vegetable mould thus carried off. To accomplish this end trenches are dug through the mofs, into the clay, through which the waters fun; into these trenches the labourers throw the mofs, which is carried away to the Forth. In this way about 400 acres have been cleared and settled by a number of families of induftrious highlanders. "This Herculean labour, for fo it may be truly termed, might, in my opinion, have been spared, and fuch an immense quantity of rich vegetable earth, as well as the dung in the ftable of Augeas, might have been turned to much better ufe than by fending a river through it, to wash it off the ground. "It is now known, that the principal food of plants is carbon, of which this mofs almoft entirely confifts, and though it is neceffary that this carbon fhould become, in fome degree, foluble, before it can be abforbed by the roots of plants, and converted into vegetable fibre, yet this folubility may be promoted by various proceffes, one of which is, by mixing it with gypfum, (Sulphat of lime) which acts very powerfully upon it, and converts it into moft excellent manure. The ufe of this fubftance is not much known in this country, but in Germany and France it is much used. It is not ploughed into the ground in like many other manures, but ftrewed upon the furface of grafs land, which is to be taken into tillage, or intended for meadow, about the month of February; it fpeedily converts the old grafs into a putrid ftate, and thus renders the carbon foluble, fo as to be eafily taken up by plants, and applied to their nourishment. The fame substance, mixed with the furface of peat-mofs, which has been formed by the fucceffive decay of vegetable bodies, equally accelerates its putrefaction, and renders it fit for the nourishment of future vegetables.. "But as a confiderable quantity of this fubftance would be difficult to procure in this neighbourhood, there is another earth which may be eafily obtained, and which answers the fame purpose, this is lime; it quickly promotes the putrefaction of the vegetable matter with which it is mixed, and renders it fit for the nutriment of future vegetables. From the experiments, made by Mr. Smith,* of Swindrig muir, near Beith, in Ayrshire, it appears, that nothing more is neceffary than to drain the mofs, and afterwards to mix its upper furface "A particular account of Mr. Smith's method of improving mofs has been lately published, in the form of a fmall pamphlet, entitled, "An Account of the Improvement of Mofs, &c. in a Letter to a Friend." NO. XXIII. VOL. VI. E With with a quantity of fresh lime: this not only confolidates the furface in a surprising manner, but will produce the first year an excellent crop of potatoes, which will be more than fufficient to defray the whole expence of draining, liming, &c. After this, it will produce a fucceffion of plentiful crops of grain, for a number of years, without any diminution. Indeed it is evident, that fuch a foil must be almost inexhauftible; for it confifts entirely of carbon, the proper food of plants; and nothing more would be neceffary than, perhaps, once in fix or seven years, to mix a quantity of lime, in order to accelerate the putrefaction, and confequent folution of the carbon; so that moss grounds, inftead of being the most barren and unprofitable, might, by proper management, be made more fertile and productive than any other whatever. Vegetation is nothing but the converfion of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen into trees and plants, by means of vegetable organization and irritability, fo that if vegetables be fupplied in proper quantity with the foluble carbonaceous principle, and water, they will flourish fo that the great business of agriculture may be resolved into two heads. I. "To fupply the plants with proper food, or nutriment. 2. "To fupply that nutriment in proper quantity. "The firft is accomplished by the application of manures, the bafes of which is carbon and water; the latter depends upon the foil in which the plants grow, being of such confiftency as to tranfmit the nourishment in proper quantity. "Such is the effect of lime in confolidating mofs, aided by drain. ing, that though, in Mr. Smith's experiments, before thefe operations, it would not bear a dog; often after the fecond, and always after the third year, it can be ploughed and harrowed by horfes, and the crops taken off by carts; when about half a dozen crops have been taken, the furface is converted into a fine rich dark mould, which naturally runs into sweet luxuriant grafs, and though before the mofs is thus improved, it would not let for a penny the acre, yet after it has been laid down in grafs, it is worth twenty-five or thirty fhillings. "The confolidation is fo great, that, at the end of five or fix years, if it be laid down with grafs, cattle may pafture without breaking or poaching it. As there is generally a fuperabundance of this vegetable earth in these moffes, part of it might be carried off, mixed with lime, and, after a proper time, thrown upon other grounds, on which it would operate as an excellent manure. "The potatoes produced from mofs lands are faid to be more free from blemish than any other, and are always preferred for planting again, to thofe grown on other foils. In Ireland, where the cultivation of potatoes is well understood, they are generally planted in bogs or moffes." A fingular mode of catching pike, formerly in ufe on the Loch of Monteath, is thus defcribed by the Doctor: "This lake abounds with perch and pike, which laft are very large. A curious method of catching this fifh ufed to be practifed. On On the iflands a number of geese were collected by the farmers, who occupied the furrounding banks of the lake. After baited lines of two or three feet in length had been tied to the legs of thefe geefe, they were driven into the water. Steering naturally homeward in different directions, the bait was foon fwallowed. A violent and often tedious ftruggle enfued, in which however the geefe at length prevailed, though they were frequently much exhaufted before they reached the fhore.* This method of catching pike is now used, but there are fome old perfons who remember to have seen it, and who were active promoters of this amusement." The statement of the progreffive improvement of the condition of the inhabitants of the parish of Campfic, and in other places, fimilarly circumftanced, is extremely interefting, and we should have been induced to extract it had not our citations been already fo copious. The reader will find it in P. 180, et feq. We fhall now conclude our account of these volumes, of which we have enabled our readers to form an adequate idea, by the author's brief remarks on the effect which the union produced upon Scotland. "The fpirit of commerce and enterprize which had already taken root, was most effentially benefited by the union of the two kingdoms; • an event from which we must certainly date the profperity of the city. I have, indeed, heard it afferted, that the union was advantageous to England, but detrimental to Scotland. There can be but little doubt, however, that this political event was, at leaft, equally advantageous to North Britain as to her fouthern neighbour. Before this the fpeculations of merchants had been much cramped, the ports to which alone they could trade lay all to the Eaftward, and the necessary and dangerous circumnavigation of the island, proved a very confiderable bar to the profperity of their commerce. At the union, they had the liberty of a free commerce to America and the West Indies; and, taking advantage of this favourable circumftance, they began to profecute a trade to Virginia and Maryland. When this American trade commenced, the merchants here had no veffels of their own fit for it, they therefore employed English bottoms, and chartered veffels from Whitehaven, and other ports. The first veffel, the property of Glasgow, that croffed the Atlantic, failed from the Clyde in the year 1718. This trade foon became fo thriving, that it excited the jealousy of the first commercial towns in England.” The brief account of George Buchanan, annexed to the fecond volume, is jejune and unfatisfactory. It breathes not the pure language of truth, but the impure incenfe of adulation, and the lame excufe attempted to be made for the grofs and fcandalous infidelities of the hiftorian, who seems to have transferred all his fiction from his poems to his history; and the * 46 M'Nayr's Guide.” E 2 ftudious |
