particularly investigated the evidence of the mysterious faculty ascribed to the Highlanders, of seeing spectres, or visions, which represent an event actually passing at a distance, or likely to happen at a future day; from a strong desire to authenticate the manifestation of a supernatural agency. The enquiry did not "advance his curiosity to conviction;" and he "came away at last only willing to believe." The touches of his pencil, in delineating the sublime features, of the mountain-scenery, are rendered attractive, by superadding the more vivid hues of fancy to the colours of nature. "The hills exhibit very little variety, being almost wholly covered with dark heath. What is not heath is nakedness, a little diversified by now and then a stream rushing down the steep. An eye accustomed to flowery pastures and waving harvests, is astonished and repelled by this wide extent of sterility. The appearance is that of matter incapable of form, or usefulness, dismissed by Nature from her care, and disinherited of her favours; left in its original elemental state, or quickened on

ly with one sullen power of useless vegetation. Regions, mountainous and wild, thinly inhabited and little cultivated, make a great part of the earth; and he that has never seen them must live unacquainted with much of the face of nature, and with one of the great scenes of human existence." Among the eloquent passages which dwell on the memory, the reflection that introduces the account of Icolmkill, "once the luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans and roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge, and the blessings of religion," is remarkable for its piety, pathos, and sublimity. "To abstract the mind from all local emotion would be impossible, if it were endeavoured; and would be foolish, if it were possible. Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses, whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me, and from my friends, be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us, indifferent and unmoved, over any ground which has been

dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That man is little to be envied, whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona."

As a political writer, his productions are more distinguished by subtlety of disquisition, poignancy of sarcasm, and dignity and energy of style, than by truth, equity, or candour. He makes much more use of his rhetoric than his logic, and often gives his reader high-sounding declamation instead of fair argument. In perusing his representations of those who differed from him in opinion, we are sometimes inclined to assent to a proposition of his own, that there is no credit due to a rhetorician's account either of good or evil.” Many positions are advanced in nervous language, and highly-polished periods, which are inconsistent with the principles of the British Constitution, and repugnant to the rights of the American colonies. He over-heated his mind by party-attachment, and adopted many arbitrary sentiments, which no felicity of lan

guage can excuse; and directed many illiberal invectives against his opponents, for which no exuberance of wit can atone. Hostile alike to aristocratic associations and popular remonstrances, he substitutes ridicule in the place of truth, and violates, by rancour and abuse, the reciprocal civilities of literary warfare. These observations apply to his Political Tracts, written in support of Government; with the exception of his pamphlet on the Transactions respecting Falkland's Islands; which, though controvertible in a political view, contains a dissuasive from offensive war, that combines, with irresistible force, the utmost energies of reason and eloquence. It must always be regretted that so eminent a Christian moralist, and an undoubted friend to the common rights of mankind, should have manifested so strong a propensity to defend arbitrary principles of government. But, on this subject, the strength of his language was not more manifest than the weakness of his arguments. In apology for him, it will be admitted, that he was a high-flown Tory

from principle; and that, though the efforts of his pen were sometimes directed by men in power, most of what he wrote was strictly conformable to his real sentiments.

As an epistolary writer, his compositions are to be estimated by his own discriminating idea of the appropriate attributes of "the epistolic style." "Some, when they write to their friends, are all affection; some are wise and sententious; some strain their powers for effects of gravity; some write news; and some write secrets; but to make a letter without affection, without wisdom, without gravity, without news, and without secrets, is doubtless the great epistolic style. There is a pleasure in corresponding with a friend, where doubt and mistrust have no place, and every thing is said as it is thought. These are the letters by which souls are united, and by which minds, naturally in unison, move each other as they are moved themselves." Such are the characteristics of his Letters to Mrs Thrale. Some are grave, some gloomy, some pathetic, some sententious, and others are

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