THE HIGHLANDS. 131 



dying ; and Byron is married. Herbert* is frozen to death in Scan- 

 dinavia. Moore has lost his manliness. Coleridge is always in a 

 fog. Joanna Baillie is writing a system of cookery. Montgomery 

 is in a madhouse, or ought to be. Campbell is sick of a constipa- 

 tion in the bowels. Hogg is herding sheep id Ettrick forest ; and 

 Wilson has taken the plague. O wretched writers ! Unfortunate 

 bards! What is Bobby Miller'sf back shop to do this winter! 

 Alas ! alas ! alas ! a wild doe is a noble animal ; write an address to 

 one, and it shall be inferior to one I have written — for half a barrel 

 of red herrings! J 



"The Highlanders are not a poetical people. They are too 

 national ; too proud of their history. They imagine that a colley- 

 shangy between the Macgregors and Campbells is a sublime event ; 

 and they overlook mountains four thousand feet high. If Ossian 

 did write the poems attributed to him, or any poems like them, he 

 was a dull dog, and deserved never to taste whiskey as long as he 

 lived. A man who lives forever among mist and mountains, 

 knows better than to be always prosing about them. Methinks I 

 feel about objects familiar to infancy and manhood, but when we 

 speak of them, it is only upon great occasions, and in situations of 

 deep passion. Ossian was probably born in a flat country !§ 



" Scott has written good lines in the ' Lord of the Isles,' but he 

 has not done justice to the Sound of Mull, which is a glorious 

 strait. 



"The Northern Highlanders do not admire Waverley, so I 

 presume the South Highlanders despise Guy Mannering. The 

 Westmoreland peasants think Wordsworth a fool. In Borrow- 

 dale, Southey is not known to exist. I met ten men at Hawick 

 who did not think Hogg a poet, and the whole City of Glasgow 

 think me a madman. So much for the voice of the people being 

 the voice of God. I left my snuff-box in your cottage. Take care 

 of it. The Anstruther bards have advertised their anniversary ; I 

 forget the day. 



* The Honorable William Herbert, Dean of Manchester, died in 1S47, in his 70th year. He 

 ■was author of several volumes or translations from the Icelandic and other northern languages. 

 The poem here referred to is evidently " Helga," which was published in 1S15. 



t One of the principal Edinburgh booksellers. 



% An excusable challenge. The " Address to a Wild Deer" is one of his happiest compositions. 



§ For avery different and more serious criticism of Ossian's Poems by him, see BUickwood's 

 Mtigazine for November, 1S39. 



6* 



