INTRODUCTORY VERSES. Grief's sharpest thorn hard pressing on my breast, The sullen gloom, sweet Philomel, like thee. YOUNG. Go, artless records of a life obscure, And tell the proud, the busy, and the gay, Oh ye, Ye dear companions in life's thorny way, 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 |