PREFACE. THE Author has entered in the present volumes, a department of literature in which he has not before appeared. With what success he has done so, the public alone are competent to decide. He deems it right to mention, that several of the articles were written for a periodical in the north of Scotland. This fact will account for the local allusions which will be occasionally perceived in the volumes. It is with a melancholy gratification that the Author looks back on the scenes and circumstances he has, in the articles in question, endeavoured to describe. The various localities to which he has alluded are endeared to his mind |