THE VISITOR, OR, LITERARY MISCELLANY. Original and Selected. "Some critical readers cannot imagine it possible, that any thing GREENOCK: Printed for JOHN TURNER, 8. William Street; Sold by VILLIAM BLACKWOOD, AND OLIVER AND BOYD, EDINBURGH; 1818. ΤΟ Monkbarns the Younger. My dear Monk, It has been of old an established usage to dedicate Books of Science or of Literature to some one; and though this does not now hold with regard to Periodicals, I confess I am not aware of any good and sufficient reason why it should not. Being rather disposed to admit the custom, and at the conclusion of the Volume bethinking myself whose name should follow the title-page of this second and last of the Visitor, you instantly occurred to me as being the most fit and proper person. You were the companion and confidante of our worthy friend now no more. You attended him in his latter moments, and in becoming terms you have sung his Requiem. Permit me to add another motive to the duty. In common with many others, I very much respect and admire the various and most promising talents you possess, in the exercise of which, I have no doubt you will one day greatly distinguish yourself among the literary ornaments of your country. I equally, and can perhaps with more sympathy admire and love that integrity of heart, and supreme happiness of disposition which renders you the delight of all who know you. my But, in all matters of love or friendship, how is it dear Monk, that one is ever so apt to connect with their more exulted feelings on the subject, a regard to futurity, are ever fondly rioting in some anticipated bliss?-Do we imagine ourselves more iv happy and secure, when the objects of our solicitude are placed beyond the mutations and uncertainties of time?-Or is this, shall we suppose, the voice of heaven itself, some foreboding of eternity?-Yet, so it is, that I not unfrequently in this light view the attachments we are permitted to form on this side the grave; and now that our mutual friend, he who formed the link which first bound us together, is gone; and in the fear that while following the necessary pursuits of life, we should at any time ever gain be separated, I would willingly anticipate a final meeting. We know that all around us, that we ourselves are perishable-Yon sky so beautiful from the rays of the declining Sun-the moon now rising in all its fullness from the East, soon to illuminate the scene-every object which has enchanted us in Nature-the eye of loveliness even, on which we have so intensely gazed together, and whose benignant smiles so forcibly reminded one of heaven itself, all must perish; and we "Bleake and bare" must “stande—eache pleasure gone, Lyke yonne olde leaflesse Oake, or that cold stone." per But we know too, that beyond this, there is another existence, where all that is morally lovely, all that we have ever imagined as necessary to the fection of man, shall find a permanent abode. From this let us snatch a beam that may brighten the shadows even of the tomb-there we shall hope to meet at last, without the fear of separation, and that the intimacy, here begun, shall live and flourish in all the brightness and the verdure of immortality! Accept then, my dear Monk, of this simple and unaffected expression of regard and esteem, from thy right trusty friend and wellwisher, THE PUBLISher. Greenock, 12th December, 1818. |