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INTRODUCTORY VERSES.

Grief's sharpest thorn hard pressing on my breast,
I strive with wakeful melody to cheer

The sullen gloom, sweet Philomel, like thee.

YOUNG.

Go, artless records of a life obscure,
Memorials dear of loves and friendships past,
Of blameless minds from strife and envy pure ;
Go, scatter'd by Affliction's bitter blast,

And tell the proud, the busy, and the gay,
How rural peace consumes the quiet day.

Oh ye,
whom sad remembrance loves to trace,
Look down complacent from your seats above,
Regard with soft compassion's melting grace,
The simple offering of surviving love:
For, while I fondly think ye hover near,
Your whisper'd melody I seem to hear.
A

Ye dear companions in life's thorny way,
Who see your modest virtues here display'd,
Forgive, for well you know the unstudied lay,
Was only meant to soothe the lonely shade.

But, when the rude thorn wounds the songster's breast,

The lengthen'd strains of woe betray her secret nest.

HIGHLANDERS:

OR

SKETCHES

OF

HIGHLAND SCENERY & MANNERS:

WITH

SOME REFLECTIONS

ON

EMIGRATION.

WRITTEN DURING THE AUTHOR'S RECOVERY FROM A

LONG ILLNESS, IN SPRING 1795.

IN FIVE PARTS.

A 2

THE HIGHLANDERS:

PART FIRST.

ARGUMENT.

Complaints of Languor and Solitude, rendered more melancholy by the gloomy season. Return of Spring. Restored Health. Consequent joy and gratulation. Aspect of Nature on the late appearance of Spring in the Northern Climate. Disappointment and concern at the Depopulation of the neighbouring glens. Apostrophe to the Spirit of Malvina. Parallel betwixt the degenerate race succeeding the Fingalian Heroes, and the mechanical and frigid people who replace the Highlanders, driven to emigrate. Contrast betwixt that Life in which the frame is enervated by Sloth and Luxury, the mind unhinged by visionary systems of Philosophy;—and that wherein the Contemplation of Nature, and early babits of Piety, have produced Patience, Fortitude, and every manly Virtue :-Exemplified in the opposite characters, and illustrated by two correspondent similes, the Swallow and the Lark. The Author solicits the attention of the Reader to a picture of deep and peculiar distress.

"Where Winter lingering chills the lap of May."

GOLDSMITH,

FAR
AR to the North the howling tempest drove,
Light od❜rous buds perfum'd the birchen grove,

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