prefixed the life of the author to which I have already referred; scanty it is true, and somewhat inconsistent in its details, but the sole source on which we can now depend for information.

With this folio impression, although it had latterly become scarce, the reading world was content for a period of eighty years; when, in 1791, the poetical portion of our author's works was re-committed to the press at London, and appeared in a duodecimo form. Little, however, can be said for the accuracy of this edition, which deviates frequently from what may be esteemed the most authentic copy of the poems, that of 1656, and in almost every instance for the worse.

It is somewhat extraordinary, indeed, that, setting aside the commendatory verses by Johnston *, Spotswood +, Alexander ‡, Lauder, Phillips §, Mackensie, and Crawford, prefixed to the folio, the correct and tasteful eulogies of such recent writers as

· Dr. Arthur Johnston, physician to the king, and author of an exquisite piece of humour under the title of Parerga. + Archbishop of St. Andrews.

Earl of Sterling.

§ The nephew of Milton.

Warton, Pinkerton, Headley *, Park, and Neve †, should not in modern times have induced a better edition of our poet than the one just censured; especially when we recollect that the accomplished critic who closes this list has opened his Short Account of the Life and Writings of Drummond by remarking, that" among all the writers at the beginning of the last century (1600) who flourished after the death of Shakspeare, there is not one whom a general reader of the English poetry of that age will regard with so much and so deserved attention as WILLIAM DRUMMOND."

It remains only to express a hope that the many beautiful specimens which I have now given of the exquisite genius of this too much neglected bard may stimulate some person of competent talents to come forward with the view of doing justice to his merits by a correct and well-selected edition of his

we lament the

* "It is in vain," says this amiable critic, fate of many of our poets who have undeservedly fallen victims to a premature oblivion, when the finished productions of this man are little known, and still less read."-Edition by Kett, vol. i. p. xli.

+ We may add to this list the name of lord Woodhouselee, who in his Life of Kames has given us some very judicious remarks on the genius and writings of our poet.

poems; in executing which there will be found abundant room for the display of taste, and judgment, and critical acumen.

I shall now, reverting to the scenery in the vicinity of Roslin, with which this essay opened, hasten to mention, though but in a cursory manner, another poet who in the order of time has conferred celebrity on the stream of the Northern Esk -I mean ALLAN RAMSAY, who, for many years during the latter part of his life, spent a great part of every summer at the seat of his friend, sir John Clerk, of Pennycuick, a mansion situated about five miles above Roslin, on the banks of the Esk; and from the romantic neighbourhood of this place, and especially from the grounds near Woodhouselee, embosomed as it were in an opening of the Pentland hills, he appears to have drawn much of the scenery of his beautiful pastoral, The Gentle Shepherd. It would seem also that he had imbibed no little veneration for the poetic genii who had hallowed the groves of Hawthornden; for whilst he carried on the business of a bibliopolist at Edinburgh, at least in the latter part of his career, the heads of Drummond and Ben Jonson were seen exhibited on the front of his house, alike emblematic

of the literary accommodation within, and of the taste and talents of its provider. Nor have the banks of the Esk forgotten to repeat his name after those of the celebrated bards whom I have just mentioned. At Pennycuick, sir James Clerk, the son and successor of sir John, erected, almost immediately after Ramsay's death, a handsome obelisk of hewn stone to his memory, and placed on it the following inscription:

Alano Ramsay Poetæ egregio,

Qui fatis concessit VII. Jan. M.DCCLVIII.
Amico paterno et suo,
Monumentum inscribi jussit
D. Jacobus Clerk,

Anno M.DCCLIX.

Whilst at Woodhouselee, on a spot which commands an extensive view of the vale of the North Esk, a scene traversed and commemorated by the author of the Gentle Shepherd, Mr. Fraser Tytler has built a rustic seat with a marble tablet, thus consecrated to the fame of the poet.

Allano Ramsay,

et

Genio Loci,

Posuit A.F.T.

Here-midst those scenes that taught thy Doric muse
Her sweetest song, the hills, the woods, the streams,

Where beauteous Peggy stray'd, list’ning the while
Her Gentle Shepherd's tender tale of love—
Scenes which thy pencil, true to nature, gave
To live for ever-sacred be this shrine,
And unprofaned by ruder hands the stone,
That owes its honours to thy deathless name.

Yet however delightful may be the literary associations of which the stream of the Esk has to boast, as dependent on the genius of former times, still greater fame, I may venture to affirm, will in future be connected with its course, when it shall be recollected that at Auchendinny and Laswade, villages on its banks, have resided two of the most celebrated men for taste and talent of which Scotland has reason to be proud. At the former of these places, which is situated about three miles above Roslin, resides, or did reside, HENRY MACKENZIE, esq., the Addison of his country, the wellknown author of the Man of Feeling, of a great portion of the Mirror and the Lounger, and of various other productions, which for pathos and moral beauty, for chasteness of humour, purity of style, and delicacy of taste and thought, have seldom been exceeded.

Laswade has still higher pretensions; for this village, two miles below Hawthornden, could, five