Galli priorem libertatem. Defe rent illos ceteri Germani, tanquam nuper Ufipii reliquerunt. Nec quidquam ultra formidinis, vacua caftella, fenum coloniæ, inter male parentes injufte im perantes, ægra municipia dif cordantia. Hic dux, hic exercitus. Ibi tributa & metalla, & ceteræ fervientium pœnæ : quas in æternum, proferre, aut ftatim ulcifci, in hoc campo eft. Proinde ituri in aciem & majores veftros, &pofteros cogitate.

rified with an idle fhew, and the glitter of filver and gold, which can neither protect nor wound. In the very ranks of the enemy we shall find our own bands. The Britons will acknowledge their own caufe. The Gauls will recollect their former liberty. The Germans will defert them, as the Unipii have lately done. Nor is there any thing formidable behind them: ungarrifoned forts; colonies of invalids; municipal towns diftempered and diftracted between unjust maflers and illobeying fubjects. Here is your general; here your army. There, tributes, mines, and all the train of fervile punishments; which whether to bear eternally, or inflantly to revenge, this field must determine. March then to battle, and think of your ancestors, and your pofterity.

After relating the circumftances of Agricola's death, he thus addreffes himself to his manes:

Tu vero felix Agricola non vitæ tantum claritate, fed etiam opportunitate mortis. Ut perhibent. qui inter fuerunt noviffimis fermonibus tuis, conftans & libens fatum excepifti, tanquam pro virili portione innocentiam principi donares. Sed mihi filiæque, præ ter acerbilalem parentis erepti, auget mafitiam, quod affidere valetudini, fovere deficientem, fatiare vultu, complexu, non contigit: excepiffemus certe mandata vocefque, quas penitus animo figeremus. Nofter bic dolor, nof trum vulnus: nobis tam longa abfentiæ conditione ante quadriennium amiffus es. Omnia fine du bio, optime parentum, affidente amantiffima uxore, fuperfuere honori tuo: paucioribus tamen lachrymis compofitus es, & novifima in luce defideravere aliquid oculi tui.

Si

Happy, O Agricola! not only in the fplendor of your life, but in the seasonableness of your death. With refignation and cheerfulness, from the teftimony of those who were prefent in your last moments, did you meet your fate, as if ftriving to the utmost of your power to make the emperor appear guiltlefs. But to myself and your daughter, befides the anguifht of lofing a parent, the aggravating affliction remains that it was not our lot to watch over your fick bed, to comfort your decay, and to fatiate ourselves with beholding and embracing you. With what attention fhould we have received your last inftructions, and engraved them on our hearts! This is our forrow; this is our wound: to us you were loft four years before by a tedious abfence. Every thing, doubtlefs, oh beft of parents! was adminiftered for your comfort and honour, while a most affectionate wife fat befide you; yet fewer tears were fhed upon your bier, and in the laft light which your eyes beheld, fomething was ftill wanting.

non

Si quis piorum manibus loeus; fi, ut fapientibus placet, cum corpore exftinguuntur magne anima; placide quiefcas, nofque domum tuam ab infirmo defiderio, & muliebribus lamentis ad contemplationem virtutum tuarum voces, quas neque lugeri, neque plangi fas eft.

wanting. If there be any habitation for the shades of the virtuous; if, as philofophers fuppofe, exalted fouls do not perish with the body, may you repofe in peace, and reclaim your surviving household from vain regret and feminine lamentations, to the contemplation of your virtues, which allow no place for mourning or complaining.

In the preceding quotation, we have marked in Italics thofe parts in which the expreffion appears to us to be inadequate or feeble. A few other inftances, of the fame kind, we have obferved, the moft material of which are the following:

Page 16. Satis conftat, ni velox ingenio, mobilis pœnitentia, &c. The defign was rendered abortive by his natural verfatility of temper.' Page 32. Magnum et incertum terrorem faceret- in order to excite an extenfive and divided terror. Ibid. Clari bello, ac fua quifque decora geftantes: renowned in war, and boafting their feveral honours.' Page 49. Non contumacia, neque inani jactatione libertatis, famam fatumque provocabat : • He did not think it neceffary, by a contumacious fpirit, or a vain oftentation of liberty, to provoke bis fate or urge his fame.

In the two following paffages we apprehend the fenfe is miftaken :

་

Page 7. Uti longe à luxuria, ita famæ proprior: by no means approaching to extravagance, yet not inattentive to his honour." Page 54. forma mentis æterna, quam tenere et exprimere non per alienam materiam et artem, fed tuis ipfe moribus poffis: The form of the mind is eternal, and not to be retained or expreffed by any foreign matter, or the artift's fkill, but by the manners of the furvivors.' The idea, in the former paffage seems to be, that in proportion as Agricola difregarded the luxuries of external pomp his fame increased. In the latter, that the mind of Agricola could not be preserved by the fkill of the artist, or reprefented by any material refemblance, but would be perpetuated as long as the remembrance of his character remained with furvivors.

However, notwithstanding a few negligences of this kind, this tranflation has, on the whole, no fmall fhare of merit. And we cannot help expreffing a wifh, that the Author would attempt, what his preface feems to intimate that he has fome thoughts of, an English verfion of all the works of Tacitus.

Mr. Aikin, in his preface, further fays, that, thinking it rather difgraceful to the ftate of literature and the arts in this country, that our northern neighbours fhould, for feveral years paft, have borne away, almoft unrivalled, the honour of printing elegant editions of the claffics, his purpose in this small

volume is to give a specimen of this well directed fpecies of ornament. Concerning this part of the defign, it is fufficient to remark, that the execution does honour to the Editor, and credit to the Printer.

E.

ART. XIII. Dr. JOHNSON's Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland concluded. See our last.

LL travel,' fays our reflecting and philofophizing Ram

'A bler, has its advantages. If the paffenger vifits better

countries, he may learn to improve his own, and if fortune carries him to worfe, he may learn to enjoy it." One of thefe advantages may, indeed, be moft comfortably drawn from this furvey of a cluster of islands, of which it is confeffed, that they have not many allurements, but to the mere lover of naked nature. For, the inhabitants are thin, provisions are scarce, and defolation and penury give little pleasure.'

As the enjoyment of this fatisfaction may, however, (to the national English Reader) be mingled with fome degree of malignant exultation, we do not, at prefent, feel fo much defire to gratify him, as to pafs on, directly, to matters of higher curiofity.-Befides, with regard to thofe circumftances of defcription, which chiefly ferve but to mark the natural disparity between the southern and northern parts of our island, enough of them are to be found in the former part of this article.

The public attention hath been much excited by the altercations to which this work hath given birth, concerning the Earfe language, and our Author's opinion as to the originality and authenticity of Offian's Poems, as published by the ingenious Mr. Macpherson. We fhall therefore preextract what the learned traveller has inferted, on that subject, in the work before us.

The doctor premifes an acknowledgment that as he underftands nothing of the Earfe, he cannot fay more of it than he has been told. On this foundation, he ventures to pronounce it the rude speech of a barbarous people, who had few thoughts to express, and were content, as they conceived grofsly, to be grofly understood.' He proceeds:

After what has been lately talked of Highland Bards, and Highland genius, many will ftartle when they are told, that the Earfe never was a written language; that there is not in the world an Earfe manufcript a hundred years old; and that the founds of the Highlanders were never expreffed by letters, till fome little books of piety were tranflated, and a metrical verfion of the Pfalms was made by the Synod of Argyle. Whoever therefore.now writes in this language, fpells according to his own perception of the found, and his own idea of the power of the letters. The Welsh and the Irish are cultivated

tongues.

tongues. The Welsh, two hundred years ago, infulted their English neighbours for the inftability of their Orthography; while the Earfe merely floated in the breath of the people, and uld therefore receive little improvement.

When a language begins to teem with books, it is tending to refinement; as thofe who undertake to teach others must have` undergone fome labour in improving themselves, they let a proportionate value on their own thoughts, and wish to enforce them by efficacious expreffions; fpeech becomes embodied and permanent; different modes and phrafes are compared, and the beft obtains an establishment. By degrees one age improves upon another. Exactness is firft obtained, and afterwards elegance. But diction, merely vocal, is always in its childhood. As no man leaves his eloquence behind him, the new generations have all to learn. There may possibly be books without a polished language, but there can be no polished language without books.

That the Bards could not read more than the rest of their countrymen, it is reasonable to fuppofe; becaufe, if they had read, they could probably have written; and how high their compofitions may reasonably be rated, an inquirer may best judge by confidering what ftores of imagery, what principles of ratiocination, what comprehenfion of knowledge, and what delicacy of elocution he has known any man attain who cannot read. The ftate of the Bards was yet more hopeless. He that cannot read, may now converfe with those that can; but the Bard was a barbarian among barbarians, who, knowing nothing himself, lived with others that knew no more.

There has lately been in the Islands one of these illiterate. poets, who hearing the Bible read at church, is faid to have turned the facred hiftory into verfe. I heard part of a dialogue, compofed by him, tranflated by a young lady in Mull, and thought it had more meaning than I expected from a man totally uneducated; but he had fome opportunities of knowledge; he lived among a learned people, After all that has been done for the inftruction of the Highlanders, the antipathy between their language and literature fill continues; and no man that has learned only Earfe is, at this time, able to read.

The Earfe has many dialects, and the words used in some Islands are not always known in others. In literate nations, though the pronunciation, and fometimes the words of common speech may differ, as now in England, compared with the South of Scotland, yet there is a written diction, which pervades all dialects, and is understood in every province. But where the whole language is colloquial, he that has only one part, never gets the reft, as he cannot get it but by change of refidence.

In an unwritten fpeech, nothing that is not very fhort is transmitted from one generation to another. Few have opportunities of hearing a long compofition often enough to learn it; or have inclination to repeat it, fo often as is neceffary to retain it; and what is once forgotten is loft for ever. I believe there cannot be recovered, in the whole Earfe language, five hundred lines of which there is any evidence to prove them a hundred years old. Yet I hear that the father of Offian boasts of two chefts more of ancient poetry, which he suppresses, because they are too good for the English.

He that goes into the Highlands with a mind naturally acquiefcent, and a credulity eager for wonders, may come back with an opinion very different from mine; for the inhabitants knowing the ignorance of all ftrangers in their language and antiquities, perhaps are not very fcrupulous adherents to truth; yet I do not fay that they deliberately speak ftudied falfehood, or have a fettled purpose to deceive. They have inquired and confidered little, and do not always feel their own ignorance. They are not much accustomed to be interrogated by others; and feem never to have thought upon interrogating themselves; fo that if they do not know what they tell to be true, they likewise do not diftinctly perceive it to be falfe.

'Mr. Boswell was very diligent in his inquiries; and the refult of his investigations was, that the answer to the second queftion was commonly fuch as nullified the answer to the firft.

"We were a while told, that they had an old translation of the fcriptures; and told it till it would appear obftinacy to inquire again. Yet by continued accumulation of questions we found, that the tranflation meant, if any meaning there were,. was nothing else than the Irish Bible.

"We heard of manufcripts that were, or that had been in the hands of fomebody's father, or grandfather; but at last we had no reason to believe they were other than Irish. Martin mentions Irish, but never any Earse manufcripts, to be found in the 1flands in his time.

I fuppofe my opinion of the poems of Offian is already dif covered. I believe they never exifted in any other form than that which we have seen. The editor, or author, never could fhew the original; nor can it be fhewn by any other. To revenge reasonable incredulity, by refufing evidence, is a degree of infolence, with which the world is not yet acquainted; and ftubborn audacity is the laft refuge of guilt. It would be easy to fhew it if he had it; but whence could it be had! It is too long to be remembered, and the language formerly had nothing written. He has doubtless inserted names that circulate in popular stories, and may have tranflated fome wandering ballads, if any can be found; and the names, and fome of the images