poem of the 'Sugarcane' (published in 1764), which Shenstone thought capable of being rendered a good poem; and the arguments in which, Southey says, are 'ludicrously flat and formal.' One point is certainly ridiculous enough; he very poetically,' says Campbell, dignifies the poor negroes with the name of "swains." Grainger died in the West Indies. Ode to Solitude. O Solitude, romantic maid! Plumed Conceit himself surveying, Sage Reflection, bent with years, Health that snuffs the morning air, You, with the tragic muse retired, You taught the rocks her loss to mourn, Where never sunburnt woodman came, Till the tuneful bird of night From the neighbouring poplar's height, With you roses brighter bloom, Man's not worth a moment's pain, Where the bat incessant flits, JAMES MERRICK. JAMES MERRICK (1720-1769) was a distinguished classical scholar, and tutor to Lord North at Oxford. He entered holy orders, but was unable to do duty, from delicate health. Merrick wrote some hymns, and attempted a version of the psalms, with no great success. We subjoin an amusing and instructive fable by this worthy divine: The Chameleon. Oft has it been my lot to mark Two travellers of such a cast. 'Hold there.' the other quick replies; "Tis green-I saw it with these eyes, As late with open mouth it lay, And warmed it in the sunny ray; Stretched at its ease, the beast I viewed, And saw it eat the air for food.' 'I've seen it, sir. as well as you, "Tis green, 'tis green, sir, I assure ye.' 'Green!' cries the other in a fury: Why, sir, d'ye think I've lost my eyes?' "Twere no great loss,' the friend replies; For if they always serve you thus, You'll find them but of little use." So high at last the contest rose, From words they almost came to blows: When luckily came by a third; To him the question they referred: And begged he'd tell them, if he knew, Whether the thing was green or blue. 'Sirs,' cries the umpire, 'cease your The creature's neither one nor t' other. And I'll be sworn, that when you've JAMES MACPHERSON. The translator of Ossian stands in a dubious light with posterity, and seems to have been willing that his contemporaries should be no better informed. With the Celtic Homer, however, the name of Macpherson is inseparably connected. They stand, as liberty does with reason, Twinned, and from her hath no dividual being. Time and a better taste have abated the pleasure with which the poems of Ossian' were once read; but productions which engrossed so much attention, which were translated into many different languagues, which were hailed with delight by Gray, by David Hume, John Home, and other eminent persons, and which, in a bad Italian translation, formed the favourite reading of Napoleon, cannot be considered as unworthy of notice. JAMES MACPHERSON was born at Kingussie, a village in Invernessshire, on the road northwards from Perth, in 1738. He was intended for the church, and received the necessary education at Aberdeen. At the age of twenty, he published a heroic poem, in six cantos, entitled "The Highlander,' which at once proved his ambition and his inca pacity. It is a miserable production. For a short time Macpherson taught the school of Ruthven, near his native place, whence he was glad to remove as tutor in the family of Mr. Graham of Balgowan. While attending his pupil (afterwards Lord Lynedoch) at the spa of Moffat, he became acquainted, in the autumn of 1759, with Mr. John Home, the author of 'Douglas,' to whom he shewed what he represented as translations of some fragments of ancient Gaelic poetry, which he said were still recited in the Highlands. He stated that it was one of the favourite amusements of his countrymen to listen to the tales and compositions of their ancient bards, and he described these fragments as full of pathos and poetical imagery. Under the patronage of Mr. Home's friends-Blair, Carlyle and Fergusson-Macpherson published next year a small volume of sixty pages, entitled Fragments of Ancient Poetry; translated from the Gaelic or Erse Language.' The publication attracted general attention, and a subscription was made to enable Macpherson to make a tour in the Highlands to collect other pieces. His journey proved to be highly successful. In 1762 he presented the world with 'Fingal, an Ancient Epic Poem, in Six-Books;' and in 1763, 'Temora,' another epic poem, in eight books. The sale of these works was immense. The possibility that, in the third or fourth century, among the wild remote mountains and islands of Scotland, there existed a people exhibiting all the high and chivalrous feelings of refined valour, generosity, magnanimity, and virtue, was eminently calculated to excite astonishment; while the idea of the poems being handed down by tradition through. so many centuries among rude, savage, and barbarous tribes was no less astounding. Many doubted-others disbelieved-but a still greater number indulged the pleasing supposition that Fingal fought and Ossian sang.' Macpherson realised £1200, it is said, by these productions. In 1764 the poet accompanied Governor Johnston to Pensacola, as his secretary, but quarrelling with his patron, he returned, and fixed his residence in London. He became one of the literary supporters of the administration, published some historical works, and was a popular pamphleteer. In 1773 he published a translation of the Iliad' in the same style of poetical prose as Ossian, which was a complete failure, unless as a source of ridicule and personal opprobrium to the translator. He was more successful as a politician. A pamphlet of his in defence of the taxation of America, and another on the opposition in parliament in 1779, were much applauded. He attempted, as we have seen from his manuscripts, to combat the Letters of Junius, writing under the signatures of Musæus,' ‘Scævola,' &c. He was appointed agent for the Nabob of Arcot, and obtained a seat in parliament as representative for the borough of Camelford. It does not appear, however, that, with all his ambition and political zeal, Macpherson ever attempted to speak in the House of Commons. In 1789 the poet, having realised a handsome fortune, purchased the property of Raitts, in his native parish, and having changed its name to the more euphonious and sounding one of Belleville, he built upon it a splendid residence designed by the Adelphi Adams, in the style of an Italian villa, in which he hoped to spend an old age of ease and dignity. He died at Belleville, on the 17th of February 1796. The eagerness of Macpherson for posthumous distinction was seen by some of the bequests of his will. He ordered that his body should be interred in Westminster Abbey, and that a sum of £300 should be laid out in erecting a monument to his memory in some conspicuous situation at Belleville. Both injunctions were duly fulfilled; the body was interred in Poets' Corner, and a marble obelisk, containing a medallion portrait of the poet, may be seen gleaming amidst a clump of trees by the roadside near Kingussie. The fierce controversy which raged for some time as to the authenticity of the poems of Ossian, the incredulity of Johnson, and the obstinate silence of Macpherson, are circumstances well known. There seems to be no doubt that a great body of traditional poetry was floating over the Highlands, which Macpherson collected and wrought up into regular poems. It would seem also that Gaelic manuscripts were in existence, which he received from different families to aid in his translation. One of these has been preserved in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. It refers to a dialogue between Ossian and St. Patrick on Christianity—a fact which Macpherson suppressed, as his object was to represent the poems as some centuries older. The Irisn antiquaries have published many of these Celtic fragments, and they appear to have established a good claim to Ossian. The poetry was common equally in Ireland and in the Highlands of Scotland, varied to suit localities, or according to the taste, knowledge, and abilities of the reciter. The people, the language, and the legends were the same in both countries. How much of the published work is ancient, and how much fabricated, cannct now be ascertained. The Highland Society instituted a regular inquiry into the subject; and in their report the committee state that they have not been able to obtain any one poem the same in title and tenor with the poems published.' The ancient tribes of the Celts had their regular bards, even down to a comparatively late period. A people like the natives of the Highlands, leading an idle inactive life, and doomed from their climate to a severe protracted winter, were also well adapted to transmit from one generation to another the fragments of ancient song which had beguiled their infancy and youth, and which flattered their love of their ancestors. No person, however, now believes that Macpherson found entire epic poems in the Highlands. The original materials were probably as scanty as those on which Shakspeare founded the marvellous superstructures of his genius; and he himself has not scrupled to state, in the preface to his last edition of Ossian, that 'a translator who cannot equal his original is incapable of expressing its beauties.' Sir James Mackintosh has suggested, as a supposition countenanced by many circumstances, that, after enjoying the pleasure of duping so many critics, Macpherson intended one day to claim the poems as his own. 'If he had such a design, considerable obstacles to its execution arose around him. He was loaded with so much praise, that he seemed bound in honour to his admirers not to desert them. The support of his own country appeared to render adherence to those poems, which Scotland inconsiderately sanctioned, a sort of national obligation. Exasperated, on the other hand, by the perhaps unduly vehement, and sometimes very coarse atttacks made on him, he was unwilling to surrender to such opponents. He involved himself at last so deeply, as to leave him no decent retreat.' A somewhat sudden and premature death closed the scene on Macpherson; nor is there among the papers which he left behind him (which the editor of this work has had an opportunity of inspecting) a single line that throws any light upon the controversy. Wordsworth has condemned the imagery of Ossian as spurious. In nature everything is distinct, yet nothing defined into absolute independent singleness. In Macpherson's work it is exactly the reverse; everything that is not stolen, is in this manner defined, insulated, dislocated, deadened-yet nothing distinct. It will always be so when words are substituted for things.' Part of this censure may perhaps be owing to the style and diction of Macpherson, which have a broken abrupt appearance and sound. The imagery is drawn from the natural appearances of a rude mountainous country. The grass of the rock, the flower of the heath, the thistle with its beard, are, as Blair observes, the chief ornaments of his landscapes. The desert, E. L. v. iv.-4 |