£50 
«« When dappled grey first streaks the 
Z eastern sky, 
With quick dispatch the cottage-matrons vie, 
Who first shall load the steed that leads the 
sway ; 
And wheels and vessels in due order lay. 
Then in collected numbers, duly rang’d, 
With lichten’d hearts, to’ care and fear 
estrang’d, 
The train proceed ;—and first the motley herd, 
For greater strength, or agile force preferr'd, 
Lead on ;—the milky mother following near, 
Their sportive young behold with matron fear: 
Then come the bleating kind with plaintive 
crys 
And children overjoy'd, they know not why; 
And mothers, ‘smiling on the guiltless race, 
Or clasping infants in their fond embrace. 
« High on the mountain's side, or in the 
wood, 
Where nature reigns in savage solitude ; 
Or deep embosom’d in some narrow glen, 
Where coy retirement shuns the haynts of 
men, — 
The shelter'd bothys rise to shield the train, 
Who joy to view their summer haunts again ; 
For here again the sylvan age returns, 
Nor man the curse of ceaseless labour mourns: 
Hair Freedom walks abroad, unties her zone, 
And joys to see the landscape all her own. 
“© "Phrown careless on the slope—see va- 
sors) gant Ease 
Raskin the sun, or court the cooling breeze ; 
And musing Fancy, by some brook rechn’d, 
Tn Janguage Clothe the murmurs of the wind ; 
Or frame to vocal reeds the native lay, 
Or form of mountain-flowers the chaplet gay. 
See Sportwith Exercise and Health combin'd, 
Jn happy union, fleeter than the wind, 
Thro’ pathless wastes the sprightly game pur- 
suc, » : 
#Oft out of reach, but never out of view :” 
While eager //ope impetuous grasps the prize, 
And Ardour lightens in the hunter’s eyes. 
At length, exulting o'er the trembling spoil, 
They see the dun deer fall to crown their toil. 
«© And when calin. evening ‘bathes the 
flow’rs in dew, 
And bids the thrush his mellow note renew, 
With answering music maidens pour the lay, 
And drain the listening kine at close of day: 
Delighted echoes pee the cheerful strains, 
And rapt attention bolds the silent swains : 
Bat holds not long—for every thicket round 
Young voices mix’d in cheerful chorus sound, 
Fach lone recess the wand’ring tribes explore, 
And now return exulting with their store 
Of Lerrics,. that in rich luxuriance spread, 
O’er the dark heath their crimson lustre shed ; 
Or trailing o'er the rocky fragment’s side, 
The glossy foliage spreads tts verdant pride 5 
While raspberries richly flavour’d, climb on 
isk: ’ 
And bask im all the radiance of the sky ; 
Or: brambles, on the brook’s wild margin 
«spread, 
With jetty lustre deck their peblly: bed + _ 
POETRY. 
Where with coy wing the p/armigan retires, 
And high beyond the rolling mist aspires, 
In safest solitude and purest air, 
To rear her young with fond maternal care: 
And mountain hares,white as the drifted snow, 
Ascend, while fear and danger pant below ; 
Or, where the cagle darts his vigorous flight 
From tat sublime, to trace the realms of 
ight.” ere Oa 
The escape of the Chevalier; the he- 
roism of Flora Macdonald; the cruelty 
of the English troops, after the battle of 
Culloden; the universal dejection and 
depopulating emigrations of the high- 
landers, consequent on the Disarming 
Act, are subjects which, in a poem like 
the present, could not be passed over in 
silence; and in the hands of Mrs. Grant, 
they are far from being destitute of in- 
terest. Whatever may be thought of 
our author as a philosopher or politician; 
whatever fault may be found with her 
want of method, and occasional pro- 
lixity, few, we imagine, will peruse the 
Highlanders, without admiration of the 
patriotic spirit which inspires it, and the 
gleams of genuine poetry by which it is 
enlivened. 
The smaller pieces are principally in 
the familiar style, and were intended 
only for the amusement of the particular 
friends of the writer; thus it has hap- 
. pened that they have somewhat too 
much of locality. to be thoroughly re- 
lished by the public at large; yet they 
are easy, and by no means destitute of 
humour and fancy. The best of them 
have considerable tenderness and par 
thos. 
«“ A Familiar Epistle to a Friend,’? 
notwithstanding some negligence and 
incorrectness, is a remarkably pleasing 
poem, and inspires us with the utmost 
respect and affection for the author; it 
proves (what indeed it is highly illiberal, 
however common, to deny) the possi- 
bility of a female poet’s turning aside 
from her darling pursuit at the sum- 
mons of duty, and stooping to fulfil the 
humble offices of the nurse and the 
housewife—the wife and the mother— 
and again returning to these pursuits, 
after the busiest years of life are past 
for the entertainment of her friends and 
the benefit of her family. 
There are two poems translated from 
the Gaelic. ‘They possess considerable 
beauty, but partake of the prolixity and 
obscurity so disgusting in the poems of 
Ossian: the prose dissertation prefixed 
is sensible and elegant. Mrs. Grant ap~ 
