lypl* CHARACTER OF GEORGE BUCHANAN. 239 



a detail of his talents and his lufFerings, of perfecuted 

 virtue, and neglected merit. Buchanan,' too proud for 

 oftentation, never mentions himfelf or his writings, 

 but in a tone of the mod guarded propriety. His mind 

 was fuperior to vanity or grimace, and yet more to 

 that pitiful canting ftyle, which pollutes the endlefs 

 prefaces of the Englilh Laureate. To the Dunciad or 

 Macflecknoc there is nothing corrt-fpondent in the 

 verfes of Buchanan. Of contemporary poets he often 

 fpeaks, but always in the kindcft and mofl libera! terms. 

 If he ever had any poetical enemies, the laft traces of 

 their exiftence appear to have been long fmce oblite- 

 rated, for he never raifed them into antagonifts by 

 condefcending to revile them. This delicacy, which 

 marks fuch a manly fuperiority to the petulance of 

 fome modern poets, deferves the higher praife, as we 

 have feen that his paffions were violent, his courage 

 inflexible, and as he has left behind him full evidence 

 that on every other topic from the civil wars of a king- 

 dom, to the brawls of a bagnio, he was prepared and 

 prompt for battle. 

 Edinburgh, T T P 



oa. II, 1791. J* ^'^' 



Sir, 



O/i the Ainer'icaji States. 

 To the Editor of the Bee. 



JN o part of the world affords, at this time, a more 

 pleafing profpecl: to the lovers of mankind than the 

 United States of North America. — At the end of the 

 late war, their population, by the accounts of Congrefs, 

 amounted to lefs than 2,400,000. By an official ftate- 

 ment, publiflied in their newfpapers in January laft, it 

 appears, that including 700,000 negroes, their inha- 

 bitants are now 4,000,000. Thus, in the courfe of 



