green glass decanter, at taking the first of which I was so philosophically and divertingly mistaken, that I could not help, when I got to the bottom of the decanter, laughing outrely at how one may be misled by prepossession and hypothesis. The first mouthful tasted so strongly of sulphur, that I exclaimed," Good's my life, my body is still impregnated with that damn'd

that the inside of his stockings was w singed likewise. I desired the stock ings might be sent in to me; but they are never yet come to hand. I have the honour to be, Sir, your most obeas dient servant,

(Sigired) Thos. SHARP 20 Montamalie, 17676994 kg 10 HIST JAN 29349

seems to taste of it!" When I came to the bottom of the décanter, I found the mystery explained by a piece of very ill toasted bread being there, which was most villanously smoked, and which Mr Watkins's servants would have heard loudly of, had he come in alive. After this, 1 stepped to the entry, to look out for the chaise, and, seeing it approach, called out to the servants, "Is he dead or alive?" They returned, "Quite dead!"." I suspected it before I left him," says I.

As the corpse were bringing into the house, I at first ordered thein to lay the body in the bed he slept in; but, on recollecting it was an alcove bed, round which they would not get cleverly to dress him, I ordered them to lay him in the bed I had slept in, which had posts, and stood free in the middle of the room. While they were laying the body on the bed, and during the carrying it into the house, and from the one room to the other, I easily perceived the usual stiffness in his limbs, contrary to the vulgarit opinion that every body killed by lightning must have all the bones broken, and be as soft as wool, &e.

I left the room (during this disa greeable scene of stripping the corpse) to a parcel of women and servants, to go with Sir James Clerk and the minister (who had now come down from church, in consequence of my having sent for the latter) through the house, and seal up every repository, to pres. vent embezzlement when I left the house, which I had intended, if the accident had not happened, to have done that evening. Amongst the rest I sealed up his watch, shillings, half pennies, &c. brought to me by one of the servants, while the others were stripping the corpse. I could not per ceive any influence on the keys, which were in his waistcoat pocket was toll by the servants that their of his breast and legs was singel, and

THE BRITISH ESSAYISTS.

THE intense activity of the humanis mind during the last thirty years, l has produced revolutions in the literary,ai as well as the political world. Among ourselves a new race of authors has sprung up within that period, who, whether they are men of genius ore not, have monopolised so great a shareot of public attention as to throw many's of their predecessors into the shade Perhaps the public could afford to ada mire both classes, bnt new author insensibly introduce new subjects, andis new modes of thinking, and ather change effected in the popular taste! operates like a sentence of proscrip tion on many writers who have not!! been otherwise superseded. It has been observed by critics of high an thority, that the wits of Queen Anso reign have lost their supremacy but d the observation may, fin truth, bes tended to that long pile of essayed writers who followed in the steps of Steele and Addison, and terminatel with Mackenzie and Cumberland. If Johnson is in some degree an exception, it is because he has less of thei genuine character of the essayist than any of the others, and the very cir cumstances which rendered the Ram bler the least popular of all these works at the date of its first publicae tion, may, perhaps, keep it in favour when the rest are forgotten! Most of these authors are, no doubt stills read, and may perhaps find admirersis for centuries to come, but they are visibly losing the high rank they quee held, as manuals to form our sen-u timents, and models to guide donro taste. The symptoms of their decline ing popularity shew themselves ind many sinall circumstances. It it prettys obvious, even to those who know ng z thing of the secrets of booksellinged that new editions of the essayists are not sogeommom as they were, and aros much more rare than those of workste

י}

which are deemed popular. Besides, they furnish few materials for conversation, and nobody appears now to be proud of their acquaintance. Writers ambitious of being thought fashionable, who catch and reflect the taste of the day, no longer expect to gain credit or popularity by strewing their pages with beauties of thought and expression culled from the essayists. In fact, the whole forty volumes of these works do not afford so much matter for quotation and allusion, at the present day, as the Arabian Tales. But the most decisive circumstance is, that their imitators, who were so numerous to a recent period, are now afast disappearing. Those who are best acquainted with the public taste, seem at length to be aware that this form of writing has lost its charm, and is a passport to nothing but oblivion. It has fallen chiefly into the hands of unfledged youths, full of the prejudices of the nursery, who are eager to see themselves in print, and make the Oracle, the Censor, or the Plain Dealer, an outlet for remarks which are as threadbare as the titles they bear. But when men of sense and talent have abandoned the field, it is an evidence that laurels are no longer to be won in it. Even the magazines have almost ceased to use those running titles, no doubt because they have become so stale, that a good thing could not be presented in a form so likely to repel curiosity. The Round Table, by Mr Hazlitt, is the last work of the kind by a man of talent; but though written with great power, and adapted to the taste of the day both by its style and choice of subjects, its success has certainly been less than the same quantity of good writing would have commanded in any other shape. ::

The obscurity that seems to be settling upon these authors ought to check the confidence of those who have succeeded to their popularity. Except the great poets, whose works are written in the universal and immutable characters of human nature, no other class of writers appeared to have a fairer chance for a considerable degree of lasting celebrity. Their subjects can never lose their interest, because they are bottomed on the constant relations of social life, and they seemed to be placed beyond the sphere of those revolutions which so often

VOL. IT.

change the face of science and philosophy. As in the arts of painting and sculpture, almost every thing here depended on the taste and observation of the individual; time could add little to the materials he possessed, and the progress of knowledge could give his successors few advantages over him. In truth, if the reputation of, these writers has sunk, it is not because they have been supplanted in their own department, for Addison and Steele still maintain an unrivalled superiority over all who have followed them. But whether their fame perish or remain, they have good claims to the gratitude of posterity. It has been said that common signboards shew there has been a Titian in the world; so, perhaps, the manners to be found in every tavern afford traces of Addison's influence. That the authors of the Tatler and Spectator taught propriety and elegance of manners, is but a part of their praise. They spread the colours of fancy and sentiment over_the_routine of existence, and taught that most useful philosophy which consists in occupying our sensibility and taste with the objects of common and domestic life immediately around us. Considering the nature of their writings, there is won derfully little of a perishable charac ter in them. Their wisdom does not need the stimulus of great events or dignified objects to call it into action; but, from the simplest incidents, can find occasion to throw out the most interesting reflections, and truths of great permanent value.

With all these merits, it is pretty clear that their reputation is now in the wane; but it is to the credit of the founders of the school, that their works retained their place in public estimation, till the mode of writing they followed fell into disrepute. For this change in the public taste it does... not seem very difficult to account. In the first place, their decline is partly to be attributed to the undue honours... they enjoyed in the early part of their career. Though their merits entitled them to the first rank in their own class, it did not entitle them to be regarded as standards and models of the highest species of literary excellence. Models are useful chiefly to kindle us to higher conceptions than we could reach with our usual habits of thought, and should therefore be cho

3 Z

sen from writers of a vigorous and daring genius. As their leading qualities, however, were only perspicuity, propriety, and grace; to exalt these to the first rank, was to proscribe what are truly the highest beauties of good writing; and as imitators naturally fall below their models, the first step below such a standard could only be into monotony and tameness. The character of mediocrity which our literature retained for the first fifty years of the last century, was in a great measure the fruits of Addison's influence; and his credit as an essayist must, in some degree, have sunk when his authority as a leader was overthrown by the appearance of writers of greater power and spirit. In the next place, the rapid growth of other branches of our literature has necessarily reduced the importance of individual writers, and of classes of writers on particular subjects. Besides, it is the misfortune of works which aim at refining manners, that their interest must diminish as their precepts take effect. Many of those rules and maxims which had the charm of novelty when delivered by Steele and Addison to a society comparatively unpolished, have been insensibly blended with manners, and have become as stale to us as the principles of grammar are to a person who has learned by practice to speak and write correctly. On the other hand, the popularity of these writers wore itself out, and wore out the interest of their subjects too, by the swarm of imitators it brought into existence. Steele and Addison, who opened up this new field for themselves, if they did not actually exhaust it, at least seized all the best materials for speculation. Every reader must have felt that their most legitimate followers Johnson, Hawkesworth, Moore, Colman, Cumberland, and Mackenzie, when they confined themselves to topics connected with life and manners, were doing little else than beating round the same circle of ideas, though they all preserved a certain degree of originality in other points. Even in the hand of these writers this species of literature did not rise in popularity. But no class of subjects appeared so inviting to those who had few ideas, or little skill in composition; and this department, above all

others, has always been thronged by adventurers of the lowest class.

By these imitators the finest thoughts and images of the original writers, with their imaginary characters and machinery, were copied so often, mixed up with so much inanity, and tortured into so many unmeaning forms, as to lose the power of producing any other sensations than those of weari ness and disgust. When we look back into the original authors, those feelings accompany us, and not only throw a veil over their beauties, but create a prejudice against all who ap pear in the same character. In fact, the title of a periodical paper of this kind at the present day suggests nothing but reminiscences of ideas be come tiresome by repetition, and the shadows of characters which have been copied a hundred times before.

The essayists might recover from the depression occasioned by this last circumstance, and rise again to a reasonable degree of popularity; but, from the course our literature has ta ken, those materials which were formerly worked up into essays are now given to the public in another form, and new habits have grown up, which seem to have destroyed the taste for this species of composition. Novels, which were almost unknown in the time of Addison, not only occupy, at the present day, the time and thoughts of those readers for whom periodical essays were intended, but have in a great measure superseded the latter, by dealing in the same subjects. Works of fiction are now the medium by which men of wit and talent communicate to the world their remarks on living manners, satires on reigning follies, and portraits of individual or national character. It is in these that the minor duties and finer moralities are discussed, the passions, prejudices, virtues, the very form and pressure of the times, exhibited. The power of the novelist to instruct or persuade is unlimited, from the command he gains over the reader's feelings. Fiction almost realizes the pretended wonders of magic; it annihilates space and time, and makes men forget the lapse of hours and the length of volumes. The serious purpose of the novelist, however, if he has one, must be veiled; and nothing so certainly destroys the interest of the story

which they had been built, which were still to be seen in their natural order, and even the turf that covered the head of the dike remained undisturbed.

"As my informer appeared fully convinced of the accuracy of this statement, and declared his entire belief in its being consistent with the facts, averring, that, although he had not been on the scene himself, and consequently could not speak from ocular demonstration, yet the facts were reported to him by different persons whose veracity was unquestionable, and who had gone to the place for the purpose of inspecting it, I too felt a strong desire to examine the truth of his curious relation, and accordingly resolved, in compliance with his suggestion, to repair to the spot, although my previous intention was to pursue a different course.

With this object in my view, I tra velled up through the fertile and sequestered vale of Fortingal, and in passing had an opportunity of examining the mutilated remains of the ce lebrated yew tree in the church-yard of that parish. Of this remarkable tree Pennant has given a very striking and full description in one of his Tours through Scotland. In the vigour of its strength and fulness of its glory, it measured 52 feet in circumference; but it is now in the last stage of decrepitude.

I next proceeded towards the Roman Camp, situated in the western extremity of the Vale of Fortingal. This very interesting scene, by many regarded as the ne plus ultra of Agricola's progress among the Grampians, I surveyed with minute attention. I found that of the Fossa and of the Vallum scarcely a vestige can be discerned; but the Prætorium is very complete, and the tract of the channel through which water was conveyed

Those of our readers who are conversant with the Statute Book of Scotland, while it Dyet remained an independent kingdom.must be aware, that by a special act of the Scot tish Parliament, the date of which we have not an opportunity of ascertaining, it was - ordained that a yew tree should be planted bts in every church-yard in the kingdom for the purpose of supplying wood for bows in the era of Scottish archery; and the aged yew of Fortingal is, we believe, the only tree remaining of those planted in terms of this enactment. 93 6

from the river Lyon to the camp, can be traced. The line of circumvallation inclosed a space consisting of 80 acres of ground, part of which is now broken up by the plough, and part covered with broom pasture. Many years ago, the late Earl of Breadal bane employed some workmen to dig up the ground for antiquities, and three Roman urns were found in the progress of these excavations; Roman coins have also been dug up in the site of the camp, and in several parts of the adjacent districts.

At the west end or head of the vale of Fortingal, I entered the pass which opens into Glenlyon, one of the grandest and most picturesque Alpine scenes which is to be found in the Highlands of Scotland, visited the farm of Chesthill, once the residence of Captain Robert Campbell of Glenlyon, the bloody perpetrator of the massacre of Glenco, and soon af terwards proceeded to the scene of the physical phenomenon, the investiga tion of which was the object of my journey. I travelled up through the narrow but beautiful valley of Glenlyon, so variegated with woods and water, with well cultivated fields, and with natural meadows, and then climbing the sides of precipitous and almost impassable hills for three miles, came into a line with the base of Bendearg, which stretches its roots to the bed of the brook in the bottom of the ravine, and there my march terminated. This brook, or burn, is called Aidbhreaca in, (the burn of the plaid,) and the march-dike of which I was in quest is on the east side of it. The phenomenon which occasioned my journey was now be fore me, and the statement which I had heard upon the whole corresponded with the appearance which it exhibited. I found 54 yards of the march-dike torn from the rest and removed from its foundation. The stones of which the dike was built are dispersed on the east side of the ravine, and cover a space of more than a quarter of an acre in extent. Many of the stones from the bed of the brook being waterworn, can be distinguished scattered among those which had com posed the dike. The turf which covered the head of the dike to defend it from the effects of the rain, had likewise been driven in various direc tions, and now forms little hillocks that bear a considerable resemblance