On Scottish Music.-From the same. There is a certain style of melody peculiar to each musical country, which the people of that country are apt to prefer to every other style. That they should prefer their own, is not surprising; and that the melody of one people should differ from that of another, is not more surprising, perhaps, than that the language of one people should differ from that of another. But there is something not unworthy of notice in the particular expression and style that characterise the music of one nation or province, and distinguish it from every other sort of music. Of this diversity Scotland supplies a striking example. The native melody of the Highlands and Western Isles is as different from that of the southern part of the kingdom as the Irish or Erse language is different from the English or Scotch. In the conclusion of a discourse on music, as it relates to the mind, it will not perhaps be impertinent to offer a conjecture on the cause of these peculiarities; which though it should not --and indeed I am satisfied that it will not-fully account for any one of them,' may, however, incline the reader to think that they are not unaccountable, and may also throw some faint light on this part of philosophy. Every thought that partakes of the nature of passion has a correspondent expression in the look and gesture; and so strict is the union between the passion and its outward sign, that where the former is not in some degree felt, the latter can never be perfectly natural, but if assumed, becomes awkward mimicry, instead of that genuine imitation of nature which draws forth the sympathy of the beholder. If, therefore, there be, in the circumstances of particular nations or persons, anything that gives a peculiarity to their passions and thoughts, it seems reasonable to expect that they will also have something peculiar in the expression of their countenance and even in the form of their features. Caius Marius, Jugurtha, Tamerlane, and some other great warriors, are celebrated for a peculiar ferocity of aspect, which they had no doubt contracted from a perpetual and unrestrained exertion of fortitude, contempt, and other violent emotions. These produced in the face their correspondent expressions, which, being often repeated, became at last as habitual to the features as the sentiments they arose from were to the heart. Savages, whose thoughts are little inured to control, have more of this significancy of look than those men who, being born and bred in civilised nations, are accustomed from their childhood to suppress every emotion that tends to interrupt the peace of society. And while the bloom of youth lasts, and the smoothness of feature peculiar to that period, the human face is less marked with any strong character than in old age. A peevish or surly stripling may elude the eye of the physiognomist; but a wicked old man, whose visage does not betray the evil temperature of his heart, must have more cunning than it would be prudent for him to acknowledge. Even by the trade or profession, the human countenance may be characterised. They who employ themselves in the nicer mechanic arts, that require the earnest attention of the artist, do generally contract a fixedness of feature suited to that one uniform sentiment which engrosses them while at work. Whereas other artists, whose work requires less attention, and who may ply their trade and amuse themselves with conversation at the same time, have, for the most part, smoother and more unmeaning faces: their thoughts are more miscellaneous, and therefore their features are less fixed in one uniform configuration. A keen, penetrating look indicates thoughtfulness and spirit: a dull, torpid countenance is not often accompanied with great sagacity. This, though there may be many an exception, is in general true of the visible signs of our passions; and it is no less true of the audible. A man habitually peevish, or passionate, or querulous, or imperious, may be known by the sound of his voice, as well as by his physiognomy. May we not go a step further, and say that if a man under the influence of any passion, were to compose a discourse, or a poem, or a tune, his work would in some measure exhibit an image of his mind? I could not easily be persuaded that Swift and Juvenal were men of sweet tempers; or that Thomson, Arbuthnot, and Prior were ill-natured. The airs of Felton are so uniformly mournful that I cannot suppose him to have been a merry or even a cheerful man. If a musician in deep affliction were to attempt to compose a lively air, Ì believe he would not succeed: though I confess I do not well understand the nature of the connection that may take place between a mournful mind and a melancholy tune. It is easy to conceive how a poet or an orator should transfuse his passions into his work; for every passion suggests ideas congenial to its own nature; and the composition of the poet or of the orator must necessarily consist of those ideas that occur at the time he is composing. But musical sounds are not the signs of ideas; rarely are they even the imitations of natural sounds; so that I am at a loss to conceive how it should happen that a musician, overwhelmed with sorrow, for example, should put together a series of notes whose expression is contrary to that of another series which he had put together when elevated with joy. But of the fact I am not doubtful; though I have not sagacity or knowledge of music enough to be able to explain it. And my opinion in this matter is warranted by that of a more competent judge, who says, speaking of church voluntaries, that if the organist 'do not feel in himself the divine energy of devotion, he will labour in vain to raise it in others. Nor can he hope to throw out those happy instantaneous thoughts which sometimes far exceed the best concerted compositions, and which the enraptured performer would gladly secure to his future use and pleasure, did they not as fleetly escape as they rise.' A man who has made music the study of his life, and is well acquainted with all the best examples of style and expression that are to be found in the works of former masters, may, by memory and much practice, attain a sort of mechanical dexterity in contriving music suitable to any given passion; but such music would, I presume, be vulgar and spiritless compared to what an artist of genius throws out when under the power of any ardent emotion. It is recorded of Lulli, that once, when his imagination was all on fire with some verses descriptive of terrible ideas, which he had been reading in a French tragedy, he ran to his harpsichord, and struck off such a combination of sounds that the company felt their hair stand on end with horror. The Highlands of Scotland are a picturesque, but in general a melancholy country. Long tracts of mountainous desert, covered with dark heath, and often obscured by misty weather; narrow valleys, thinly inhabited, and bounded by precipices resounding with the fall of torrents; a soil so rugged, and a climate so dreary, as in many parts to admit neither the amusements of pasturage nor the labours of agriculture; the mournful dashing of waves along the firths and lakes that intersect the country; the portentous noises which every change of the wind and every increase and diminution of the waters is apt to raise in a lonely region, full of echoes, and rocks, and caverns; the grotesque and ghastly appearance of such a landscape by the light of the moon. Objects like these diffuse a gloom over the fancy, which may be compatible enough with occasional and social merriment, but cannot fail to tincture the thoughts of a native in the hour of silence and solitude. If these people, notwithstanding their reformation in religion, and more frequent intercourse with strangers, do still retain many of their old superstitions, we need not doubt but in former times they must have been more enslaved to the horrors of imagination, when beset with the bugbears of popery and the darkness of paganism. Most of their superstitions are of a melancholy cast. That second-sight wherewith but disperses the clouds with which it had overspread them; it advances not the traveller one step on his journey, but conducts him back again to the spot from whence he had wandered.' some of them are still supposed to be haunted, is considered by themselves as a misfortune, on account of the many dreadful images it is said to obtrude upon the fancy. I have been told that the inhabitants of some of the Alpine regions do likewise lay claim to a sort of second-sight. Nor is it wonderful that persons of lively In 1775, DR Joseph Priestley published an imagination, immured in deep solitude, and surrounded examination of the principles of Dr Reid and with the stupendous scenery of clouds, precipices, and others, designed as a refutation of the doctrine of torrents, should dream, even when they think them- common sense, said to be employed as the test of selves awake, of those few striking ideas with which truth by the Scottish metaphysicians. The doctheir lonely lives are diversified; of corpses, funeral trines of Priestley are of the school of Hartley. processions, and other objects of terror, or of marriages In 1777 he published a series of disquisitions on and the arrival of strangers, and such-like matters of Matter and Spirit, in which he openly supported more agreeable curiosity. Let it be observed, also, that the material system. He also wrote in support the ancient Highlanders of Scotland had hardly any of another unpopular doctrine-that of necessity. other way of supporting themselves than by hunting, fish- He settled in Birmingham in 1780, and officiated ing, or war, professions that are continually exposed to as minister of a dissenting congregation. His fatal accidents. And hence, no doubt, additional horrors religious opinions were originally Calvinistic, but would often haunt their solitude, and a deeper gloom afterwards became decidedly anti-Trinitarian. His overshadow the imagination even of the hardiest native. What, then, would it be reasonable to expect from the works excited so much opposition, that he ever fanciful tribe, from the musicians and poets, of such a after found it necessary, as he states, to write a region? Strains expressive of joy, tranquillity, or the pamphlet annually in their defence! Priestley softer passions? No: their style must have been better was also an active and distinguished chemist, and suited to their circumstances. And so we find, in fact, wrote a history of discoveries relative to light and that their music is. The wildest irregularity appears in colours, a history of electricity, &c. At the period its composition: the expression is warlike and melan- of the French Revolution in 1791, a mob of outcholy, and approaches even to the terrible. And that rageous and brutal loyalists set fire to his house in their poetry is almost uniformly mournful, and their Birmingham, and destroyed his library, apparatus, views of nature dark and dreary, will be allowed by all and specimens. Three years afterwards he emiwho admit of the authenticity of Ossian: and not grated to America, where he continued his studies doubted by any who believe those fragments of High-in science and theology, and died at Northumber land poetry to be genuine, which many old people, now alive, of that country, remember to have heard in their youth, and were then taught to refer to a pretty Some of the southern provinces of Scotland present a very different prospect. Smooth and lofty hills covered with verdure; clear streams winding through long and beautiful valleys; trees produced without culture, here straggling or single, and there crowding into little groves and bowers, with other circumstances peculiar to the districts I allude to, render them fit for pasturage, and favourable to romantic leisure and tender passions. Several of the old Scotch songs take their names from the rivulets, villages, and hills adjoining to the Tweed near Melrose; a region distinguished by many charming varieties of rural scenery, and which, whether we consider the face of the country or the genius of the people, may properly enough be termed the Arcadia of Scotland. And all these songs are sweetly and powerfully expressive of love and tenderness, and other emotions suited to the tranquillity of pastoral life. high antiquity. ABRAHAM TUCKER-DR PRIESTLEY. ABRAHAM TUCKER (1705-1774) was an English squire, who, instead of pursuing the pleasures of the chase, studied metaphysics at his country seat, and published (1768), under the fictitious name of Edward Search, a work entitled The Light of Nature Pursued, which Paley said contained more original thinking and observation than any other work of the kind. Tucker, like Adam Smith, excelled in illustration, and he did not disdain the most homely subjects for examples. Mackintosh says he excels in mixed, not in pure philosophy, and that his intellectual views are of the Hartleian school. How truly, and at the same time how beautifully, has Tucker characterised in one short sentence his own favourite metaphysical studies: The science of abstruse learning,' he says, 'when completely attained, is like Achilles's spear, that healed the wounds it had made before. It casts no additional light upon the paths of life, 788 land, Pennsylvania, in 1804. He was then in his Fieldhead, near Leeds, in 1733, son of a clothseventy-first year, having been born at Birstaldresser. As an experimental philosopher and discoverer, Priestley was of a very high class; but as a metaphysical or ethical writer, he can only be considered subordinate. He was a man of intrepid spirit and of unceasing industry. One of his critics in the Edinburgh Review-draws from his writings a lively picture of 'that indefatigable activity, that bigoted vanity, that precipitation, cheerfulof this restless philosopher.' Robert Hall has thus ness, and sincerity, which made up the character eulogised him in one of his eloquent sentences: 'The religious tenets of Dr Priestley appear to me erroneous in the extreme: but I should be sorry to suffer any difference of sentiment to diminish my sensibility to virtue, or my admiration of genius. His enlightened and active mind, his unwearied assiduity, the extent of his researches, the light he has poured into almost every department of science, will be the admiration of that period, when the greater part of those who have favoured, or those who have opposed him, will be alike forgotten. Distinguished merit will ever rise superior to oppression, and will draw lustre from reproach. The vapours which gather round the rising sun, and follow in its course, seldom fail at the close of it to form a magnificent theatre for its reception, and to invest with variegated tints, and with a softened effulgence, the luminary which they cannot hide.' *This simile seems to have been suggested by the lines of MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS. EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. are enacted to enforce good morals, or at least to prevent the ill effects of bad ones, so there are certain rules of civility, universally implied and received, to enforce good manners and punish bad ones. And indeed there seems to me to be less difference, both between the crimes and punishments, than at first one would imagine. The immoral man, who invades another's property, is justly hanged for it; and the ill-bred man, who by his ill-manners invades and disturbs the quiet and comforts of private life, is by common consent as justly banished society. Mutual complaisances, attentions, and sacrifices of little conveniences, are as natural an implied compact between civilised people as protection and obedience are between kings and subjects; whoever, in either case, violates that compact, justly forfeits all advantages arising from it. For my own part, I really think that, next to the consciousness of doing a good action, that of doing a civil one is the most pleasing; and the epithet which I should covet the most, next to that of Aristides, would be that of wellbred. Detached Thoughts. effeminate puppies, and those who never converse with Men who converse only with women are frivolous, them are bears. The desire of being pleased is universal. The desire of pleasing should be so too. Misers are not so much blamed for being misers as envied for being rich. No work was more eagerly perused or more sharply criticised than the series of Letters written by PHILIP DORMER STANHOPE, Earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773), to his natural son, Philip Stanhope, sometime envoy at the court of Dresden. The letters were never designed for publication. After the death of Mr Stanhope in 1768, it was found that he had been secretly married, and had left a widow and two children. The widow disposed of the original letters to their proper owner, Lord Chesterfield, but she preserved copies, and immediately after the death of the eminent wit and statesman, the letters were committed to the press. The copyright was sold for £1500—a sum almost unprecedented for such a work, and five editions were called for within twelve months. The correspondence began, as was stated in the preface, with the dawnings of instruction adapted to the capacity of a boy, rising gradually, by precepts and monition calculated to direct and guard the age of incautious youth, to the advice and knowledge requisite to form the man ambitious to shine as an accomplished courtier, an orator in the senate, or a minister at foreign courts.' Mr Stanhope, however, was not calculated to shine; he was deficient in those graces which the anxious and courtly father so sedulously inculcated; his manners were distant, shy, and repulsive. The letters in point of morality are indefensible. Johnson said strongly that they taught the morals of a courtesan and the manners of a dancing-master; but they are also character-whom she is in love with, but will not be directed by ised by good sense and refined taste, and are written in pure and admirable English. Chesterfield was, perhaps, the most accomplished man of his age; but it was an age in which a low standard of morality prevailed among public men. As a statesman and diplomatist, he was ingenious, witty, and eloquent, without being high-spirited or profound. As lord-lieutenant of Ireland for a short period, his administration was conciliatory and enlightened. The speeches, state-papers, literary essays, and other miscellaneous writings of this celebrated peer were published by Dr Maty, accompanied with a memoir, in 1774, and a valuable edition of his Letters, edited, with notes, by Lord Mahon (now Earl Stanhope), was given to the world in four volumes in 1845, and a fifth in 1853. The importance which Chesterfield attached to "good-breeding' may be seen from this passage: On Good-Breeding. A friend of yours and mine has very justly defined good-breeding to be, the result of much good-sense, some good-nature, and a little self-denial for the sake of others, and with a view to obtain the same indulgence from them.' Taking this for granted-as I think it cannot be disputed-it is astonishing to me that anybody, who has good-sense and good-nature, can essentially fail in good-breeding. As to the modes of it, indeed, they vary according to persons, places, and circumstances, and are only to be acquired by observation and experience; but the substance of it is everywhere and eternally the same. Good-manners are to particular societies, what good morals are to society in general-their cement and their security. And as laws Dissimulation, to a certain degree, is as necessary in business as clothes are in the common intercourse of life; and a man would be as imprudent who should exhibit his inside naked, as he would be indecent if he produced his outside so. Hymen comes whenever he is called, but Love only when he pleases. An abject flatterer has a worse opinion of others, and, if possible, of himself, than he ought to have. A woman will be implicitly governed by the man the man whom she esteems the most. The former is the result of passion, which is her character; the latter must be the effect of reasoning, which is by no means of the feminine gender. The best moral virtues are those of which the vulgar are, perhaps, the best judges. Chesterfield occasionally wrote vers-de-société, of which the following is the best specimen : On the Picture of Richard Nash, Esq. Master of the The old Egyptians hid their wit And please themselves with guess. Newton, if I can judge aright, All wisdom does express; Pope is the emblem of true wit, The sunshine of the mind; You'll endless pleasure find. Nash represents men in the mass, The picture placed the busts between, SIR WILLIAM BLACKSTONE. SIR WILLIAM BLACKSTONE'S Commentaries on the Laws of England, published in 1765, exhibit a logical and comprehensive mind, and a correct taste in composition. They formed the first attempt to popularise legal knowledge, and were eminently successful. Junius and others have attacked their author for leaning too much to the side of prerogative, and abiding rather by precedents than by sense and justice; yet in the House of Commons, when Blackstone was once advocating what was considered servile obedience, he was answered from his own book! The Commentaries have not been supplanted by any subsequent work of the same kind, but various additions and corrections have been made by eminent lawyers in late editions. Blackstone thus sums up the relative merits of an elective and hereditary monarchy: On Monarchy. which the history of ancient imperial Rome, and the more modern experience of Poland and Germany, may shew us are the consequences of elective kingdoms. DR SAMUEL JOHNSON. At the head of the men of letters at this timeespecially of professional authors, as exercising a more commanding influence than any other of his contemporaries, may be placed DR JOHNSON, already noticed as a poet and essayist. In 1755 Johnson completed his Dictionary, which had occupied the greater part of his time for seven years, and for the copyright of which he received £1575. Before the publication of the Dictionary he had begun the Rambler, which he carried on for two years. For two more years (1758-1760) he was engaged in writing the essays entitled The Idler, and his novel of Rasselas, published in 1759. The latter he wrote in the nights of one week to defray the expenses of his mother's funeral. The scene is laid in the east, but the author makes no attempt to portray eastern manners. It is, in fact, a series of essays on various subjects of morality and religion—on the efficacy of pilgrimages, the state of departed souls, the probability of the reappearance of the dead, the dangers of It must be owned, an elective monarchy seems to solitude, &c. on all which the philosopher and be the most obvious and best suited of any to the prince of Abyssinia talk exactly as Johnson talked rational principles of government and the freedom of for more than twenty years in his house at Bolt human nature; and accordingly, we find from history Court, or in the club. The habitual melancholy that, in the infancy and first rudiments of almost every of Johnson is apparent in this work-as when he state, the leader, chief-magistrate, or prince hath usually been elective. And if the individuals who compose that nobly apostrophises the river Nile: Answer, state could always continue true to first principles, unin- great Father of waters! thou that rollest thy fluenced by passion or prejudice, unassailed by corrup-floods through eighty nations, to the invocations tion, and unawed by violence, elective succession were of the daughter of thy native king. Tell me if as much to be desired in a kingdom as in other inferior thou waterest through all thy course, a single communities. The best, the wisest, and the bravest habitation from which thou dost not hear the man would then be sure of receiving that crown which murmurs of complaint.' When Johnson afterhis endowments have merited; and the sense of an wards penned his depreciatory criticism of Gray, unbiassed majority would be dutifully acquiesced in by and upbraided him for apostrophising the Thames, the few who were of different opinions. But history adding coarsely, 'Father Thames has no better and observation will inform us that elections of every kind, in the present state of human nature, are too means of knowing than himself,' he forgot that he frequently brought about by influence, partiality, and had written Rasselas. artifice; and even where the case is otherwise, these practices will be often suspected, and as constantly charged upon the successful, by a splenetic disappointed minority. This is an evil to which all societies are liable; as well those of a private and domestic kind, as the great community of the public, which regulates and includes the rest. But in the former there is this advantage, that such suspicions, if false, proceed no further than jealousies and murmurs, which time will effectually suppress; and, if true, the injustice may be remedied by legal means, by an appeal to those tribunals to which every member of society has (by becoming such) virtually engaged to submit. Whereas, in the great and independent society which every nation composes, there is no superior to resort to but the law of nature; no method to redress the infringements of that law but the actual exertion of private force. As, therefore, between two nations complaining of mutual injuries, the quarrel can only be decided by the law of arms, so in one and the same nation, when the fundamental principles of their common union are supposed to be invaded, and more especially when the appointment of their chief magistrate is alleged to be unduly made, the only tribunal to which the complainants can appeal is that of the God of battles; the only process by which the appeal can be carried on is that of a civil and intestine war. A hereditary succession to the crown is therefore now established in this and most other countries, in order to prevent that periodical bloodshed and misery In 1765 appeared Johnson's edition of Shakspeare, containing little that is valuable in the way of annotation, but introduced by a powerful and masterly preface. In 1770 and 1771 he wrote two political pamphlets in support of the measures of government, The False Alarm, and Thoughts on the Late Transactions respecting the Falkland Islands. Though often harsh, contemptuous, and intolerant, these pamphlets are admirable pieces of composition-full of nerve and controversial zeal. In 1775 appeared his Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland; and in 1781 his Lives of the Poets. It was the felicity of Johnson, as of Dryden, to improve as an author as he advanced in years, and to write best after he had passed that period of life when many men are almost incapable of intellectual exertion. The Dictionary is a valuable practical work, not remarkable for philological research, but for its happy and luminous definitions, the result of great sagacity, precision of understanding, and clearness of expres sion. A few of the definitions betray the personal feelings and peculiarities of the author, and have been much ridiculed. For example, 'Excise,' which-as a Tory hating Walpole and the Whig excise act―he defines, ' A hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged, not by the common judges of property, but by wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid.' A pension is defined to be an allowance made to any one without an equivalent. In England, it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state-hireling for treason to his country. After such a definition, it is scarcely to be wondered that Johnson paused, and felt some 'compunctious visitings,' before he accepted a pension himself! Oats he defines, 'A grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.' This gave mortal offence to the natives of Scotland, and is hardly yet forgiven; but the best reply was the happy observation of Lord Elibank: Yes, and where will you find such horses and such men?' The Journey to the Western Isles makes no pretension to scientific discovery, but it is an entertaining and finely written work. In the Highlands, the poetical imagination of Johnson expanded with the new scenery and forms of life presented to his contemplation. His love of feudalism, of clanship, and of ancient Jacobite families, found full scope; and as he was always a close observer, his descriptions convey much pleasing and original information. His complaints of the want of woods in Scotland, though dwelt upon with a ludicrous perseverance and querulousness, had the effect of setting the landlords to plant their bleak moors and mountains, and improve the aspect of the country. The Lives of the Poets have a freedom of style, a vigour of thought, and happiness of illustration, rarely attained even by their author. The plan of the work was defective, as the lives begin only with Cowley. Some feeble and worthless rhymsters also obtained niches in Johnson's gallery; but the most serious defect is the injustice done to some of our greatest masters in consequence of the political or personal prejudices of the author.-To Milton he is strikingly unjust, though his criticism on Paradise Lost is able and profound. Gray is treated with a coarseness and insensibility derogatory only to the critic; and in general, the higher order of imag; inative poetry suffers under the ponderous hand of Johnson. Its beauties were too airy and ethereal for his grasp too subtle for his feelings or understanding. From the Preface to the Dictionary. It is the fate of those who toil at the lower employments of life to be rather driven by the fear of evil than attracted by the prospect of good; to be exposed to censure without hope of praise; to be disgraced by miscarriage, or punished for neglect, where success would have been without applause, and diligence without reward. Among these unhappy mortals is the writer of dictionaries; whom mankind have considered, not as the pupil, but the slave of science, the pioneer of literature, doomed only to remove rubbish and clear obstructions from the paths through which learning and genius press forward to conquest and glory, without bestowing a smile on the humble drudge that facilitates their progress. Every other author may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach, and even this negative recompense has been yet granted to very few. In hope of giving longevity to that which its own nature forbids to be immortal, I have devoted this book, the labour of years, to the honour of my country, that we may no longer yield the palm of philology, without a contest, to the nations of the continent. The chief glory of every people arises from its authors: whether I shall add anything by my own writings to the reputation of English literature, must be left to time; much of my life has been lost under the pressures of disease; much has been trifled away; and much has always been spent in provision for the day that was passing over me; but by my assistance, foreign nations and distant ages gain I shall not think my employment useless or ignoble, if, access to the propagators of knowledge, and understand the teachers of truth; if my labours afford light to the repositories of science, and add celebrity to Bacon, to Hooker, to Milton, and to Boyle. When I am animated by this wish, I look with pleasure on my book, however defective, and deliver it to the world with the spirit of a man that has endeavoured well. That it will immediately become popular, I have not promised to myself; a few wild blunders and risible absurdities, from which no work of such multiplicity and harden ignorance into contempt; but useful diliwas ever free, may for a time furnish folly with laughter, gence will at last prevail, and there never can be wanting some who distinguish desert, who will consider that no dictionary of a living tongue ever can be perfect, since, while it is hastening to publication, some words are budding and some falling away; that a whole life cannot be spent upon syntax and etymology, and that even a whole life would not be sufficient; that he whose design includes whatever language can express, must often speak of what he does not understand; that a writer will sometimes be hurried by eagerness to the end, and sometimes faint with weariness under a task the mine; that what is obvious is not always known, which Scaliger compares to the labours of the anvil and and what is known is not always present; that sudden fits of inadvertency will surprise vigilance, slight avocations will seduce attention, and casual eclipses of the mind will darken learning; and that the writer shall often in vain trace his memory at the moment of need for that which yesterday he knew with intuitive readiness, and which will come uncalled into his thoughts to-morrow. In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much likewise is performed; and though no book was ever spared out of to know whence proceeded the faults of that which it tenderness to the author, and the world is little solicitous condemns, yet it may gratify curiosity to inform it, that the English Dictionary was written with little assistance of the learned, and without any patronage of the great; not in the soft obscurities of retirement, or under the shelter of academic bowers, but amid inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow. It may repress the triumph of malignant criticism to observe, that if our language is not here fully displayed, I have only failed in an attempt which no human powers have hitherto completed. If the lexicons of ancient tongues, now immutably fixed, and comprised in a few volumes, be yet, after the toil of successive ages, inadequate and delusive; if the aggregated knowledge and co-operating diligence of the Italian academicians did not secure them from the censure of Beni; if the embodied critics of France, when fifty years had been spent upon their work, were obliged to change its economy, and give their second edition another form, I may surely be contented without the praise of perfection, which if I could obtain in this gloom of solitude, what would it avail me? I have protracted my work till most of those whom I wished to please have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage are empty sounds. I therefore dismiss it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise. Reflections on Landing at Iona. We were now treading that illustrious island which was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence |