erected, in which English only is taught, and there were lately fome who thought it reasonable to refuse them a verfion of the holy fcriptures, that they might have no monument of their mother tongue.

That their poverty is gradually abated, cannot be mentioned among the unpleafing confequences of fubjection. They are now acquainted with money, and the poffibility of gain will by degrees make them induftrious. Such is the effect of the late regulations, that a longer journey than to the Highlands must be taken by him whofe curiofity pants for favage virtues and barbarous grandeur.'.

It affords us much pleasure to find that thofe fequeftered islands of the North are not deftitute of lettered clergymen : among whom our author makes very honourable mention of Mr. Macqueen, minister of a parish in Sky. But we shall now leave this island, to attend the travellers to Raafay, where the reception they meet with is confeffed to have exceeded their expectation, and is related by the learned author even in terms of amazement.

We found, fays he, nothing but civility, elegance, and plenty. After the ufual refreshments, and the ufual converfation, the evening came upon us. The carpet was then rolled off the floor; the musician was called, and the whole company was invited to dance, nor did ever fairies trip with greater alacrity. The general air of feftivity, which predominated in this place, fo far remote from all thofe regions which the mind has been ufed to contemplate as the manfions of pleasure, ftruck the imagination with a delightful furprize, analogous to that which is felt at an unexpected emerfion from darkness into light.

When it was time to fup, the dance ceafed, and fix and thirty perfons fat down to two tables in the fame room. After fupper the ladies fung Erfe fongs, to which I liftened as an Englifh audience to an Italian opera, delighted with the found of words which I did not understand.

I inquired the fubject of the fongs, and was told of one, that it was a love fong; and of another, that it was a farewell compofed by one of the islanders that was going, in this epidemical fury of emigration, to feek his fortune in America, What fentiments would rife, on fuch an occafion, in the heart of one who had not been taught to lament by precedent, I fhould gladly have known; but the lady, by whom I fat, thought herfelf not equal to the work of tranflating.'

Raafay is the property of a gentleman of the name of Macleod, in whofe house it was that the travellers were thus elegantly entertained. It is an ifland of confiderable extent, but its greatest ornament is the proprietor and his family.

Such a feat of hofpitality, concludes our author, amidst the winds and waters, fills the imagination with a delightful.

con

contrariety of images. Without is the rough, ocean and the rocky land, the beating billows and the howling ftorm within is plenty aud elegance, beauty and gaiety, the fong and the dance. In Raafay, if I could have found an Ulyffes, I had fancied a Phœacia.'

While the travellers were yet in Raafay, Macleod, the chief of the clan, was paying a vifit at the laird's house, and by him they were invited to his feat at Dunvegan, in the Isle of Sky; whither they embark in a ftout boat with fix oars, the property of their late hofpitable landlord. At Kingsburgh, they are entertained by Mr. Macdonald, and his lady Flora Macdonald, a name, fays our author, that will be mentioned in hiftory, and if courage and fidelity be virtues, mentioned with honour. He adds, that he is a woman of middle ftature, foft features, gentle manners, and elegant prefence, Their reception at Dunvegan was fimilar to what they had met with at Raalay. Every thing is conducted with elegance, and Sky upon this vifit is celebrated for the fame liberal hospitality which had diftinguished the neighbouring ifland. At Dunvegan, fays our author, I had tafted lotus, and was in fome danger of forgetting that I was ever to depart, till Mr. Boswell fagely reproached me with my fluggishness and foftness. I had no very forcible defence to make; and we agreed to purfue our journey.' At their departure from Dunvegan, Macleod accompanies them to Ulinifh, where they are entertained by the sheriff of the island. They are likewife attended by Mr. Macqueen, who fhews them every thing that is worthy of ob. fervation, and which the author defcribes. Their next stage is Talifker in Sky, the feat of colonel Macleod, an officer in the Dutch fervice. Here they meet with Mr. Maclean, the eldeft fon of the laird of Col, who proves an agreeable companion and useful guide, in their further progress among the Hebrides.

The remainder of the narrative refpe&ting Sky is employed in obfervations on the natural history and political state of the We fhall, ifland, for which we refer our readers to the work. however, extract a part of what he advances on the subject of difarming the Highlanders.

The laft law, by which the Highlanders are deprived of their arms, has operated with efficacy beyond expectation. Of former ftatutes made with the fame defign, the execution had been feeble, and the effect inconfiderable. Concealment was undoubtedly practifed, and perhaps often with connivance. There was tenderness, or partiality, on one fide, and obftinacy on the other. But the law, which followed the victory of CulJoden, found the whole nation dejected and intimidated; in

formations

formations were given without danger, and without fear, and the arms were collected with fuch rigour, that defpoiled of its defence.

every

house was

To difarm part of the Highlands, could give no reasonable occafion of complaint. Every government must be allowed the power of taking away the treafon that is lifted against it. But the loyal clans murmured, with fome appearance of justice, that after having defended the king, they were forbidden for the future to defend themselves; and that the fword fhould be forfeited, which had been legally employed. Their cafe is undoubtedly hard, but in political regulations, good cannot be complete, it can only be predominant.

Whether by difarming a people thus broken into feveral tribes, and thus remote from the feat of power, more good than evil has been produced, may deferve inquiry. The fu preme power in every community has the right of debarring every individual, and every fubordinate fociety from felf-defence, only because the fupreme power is able to defend them; and therefore where the governor cannot act, he must trust the fubject to act for himself. Thefe islands might be wafted with fire and fword before their fovereign would know their diftrefs. A gang of robbers, fuch as has been lately found confederating themselves in the Highlands, might lay a wide region under contribution. The crew of a petty privateer might land on the largest and most wealthy of the iflands, and riot without controul in cruelty and wafte. It was obferved by one of the chiefs of Sky, that fifty armed men might, without resistance, ravage the country. Laws that place the fubjects in fuch a ftate, contravene the first principles of the compact of authority: they exact obedience, and yield no protection.

It affords a generous and manly pleafure to conceive a little nation gathering its fruits and tending its herds with fearless confidence, though it lies open on every fide to invafion, where, in contempt of walls and trenches, every man fleeps fecurely with his sword befide him; where all on the first approach of hoftility came together at the call to battle, as at a fummons to a feftal fhow; and committing their cattle to the care of those whom age or nature has difabled, engage the enemy with that competition for hazard and for glory, which operate in men that fight under the eye of thofe, whole diflike or kindness they have always confidered as the greatest evil or the greatest good.

This was, in the beginning of the prefent century, the ftate of the Highlands. Every man was a foldier, who partook of national confidence, and interefted himself in national honour. To lose this spirit, is to lose what no small advantage will compenfate.

It may likewife deferve to be inquired, whether a great nation ought to be totally commercial whether amidst the uncertainty of human affairs, too much attention to one mode of

hap

Happiness may not endanger others? whether the pride of riches must not fometimes have recourfe to the protection of courage? and whether, if it be neceffary to preferve in fome part of the empire the military fpirit, it can fubfift more commodiously in any place, than in remote and unprofitable provinces, where it can commonly do little harm, and whence it may be called forth at any fudden exigence?

It must however be confeffed, that a man, who places honour only in fuccefsful violence, is a very troublesome and pernicious animal in time of peace; and that the martial character cannot prevail in a whole people, but by the diminution of all other virtues. He that is accustomed to refolve all right into conqueft, will have very little tenderness or equity. All the friendship in fuch a life can only be a confederacy of invafion, or alliance of defence. The ftrong must flourish by force, and the weak fubfift by ftratagem.

Till the Highlanders lot their ferocity, with their arms, they fuffered from each other all that malignity could dictate, or precipitance could act. Every provocation was revenged with blood, and no man that ventured into a numerous company, by whatever occafion brought together, was fure of returning without a wound. If they are now expofed to foreign hoftilities, they may talk of the danger, but can feldom feel it. If they are no longer martial, they are no longer quarrelsome. Mifery is caused for the most part, not by a heavy crush of difafter, but by the corrofion of lefs vifible evils, which canker enjoyment, and undermine fecurity. The vifit of an invader is neceffarily rare, but domeftic animofities allow no ceffation.'

The philofophical traveller difcourfes at confiderable length of the Second Sight, a preternatural faculty faid to be poffeffed by fome of the inhabitants of the northern islands, and with refpect to which our author feems not to be entirely sceptical. In a fubfequent paffage, he directly contraverts the authenticity of the poems of Offian, upon the ground of nothing having ever been written in the Erfe language prior to two centuries backwards, and the impoflibility of their being preferved by oral communication to that period.

On leaving Sky the travellers afterwards vifit Coll, Mull, Ulva, Inch, Kenneth, Icolmkill, and other leffer iflands, to which they were conducted by Mr. Maclean, the young gentleman abovementioned, who has fince been unfortunately drowned on that coaft. Their progrefs through the Hebrides is related in the most entertaining manner; and the author never fails to enliven his narration with a lively description of the islands, the manners and cuftoms of the inhabitants, and traditional anecdotes. From the island of Icolmkill, the laft of the Hebrides which they vifited, they are wafted to the con

tinent of Scotland, and return by the way of Inverary, Lock Lomond, and Achinleck to Edinburgh, where the business of the feffion required Mr. Bofwell's attendance; and, after paffing fome days with men of learning, or with women of elegance, the learned writer fet out for London, from which he had been abfent almoft four months.

A bare defcription of the Hebrides would prove a very jejune and uninterefting work. To render it agreeable as well as inftructive, it is neceffary that the writer fhould prefent us with more than a fuperficial account of the feveral islands, and that he investigate the remote fources of the genius and character of the inhabitants. Such an enquiry can only be conducted by a perfon who is converfant in moral fpeculations, and is endowed with intellectual penetration capable of tracing the peculiarities of manners and action, through their various mo difications, to the univerfal principles of human nature. the learned author of this Journey every talent was united which could gratify the most inquifitive curiofity, or give elegance and dignity to narration: and the work which he has now prefented to the public is, therefore, the moft perfect account of the Western Islands that we have feen; though it must be confeffed that there are fome paffages which rigid criticifm might cenfure-But fuch flight imperfections ought to be overlooked in works of uncommon merit.

In

VII. A Difcourfe on the Torpedo, delivered at the Anniversary Meeting of the Royal Society, November 30, 1774. By Sir John Pringle, Bart. 410. s. 6d. Nourse.

IN N the prefent Difcourfe, fir John Pringle has very properly adopted the method which he used in a former speech on a fimilar occafion, of giving a hiftorical detail of the several opinions that have been entertained from the earliest times, refpecting the extraordinary quality of the torpedo, till the nature of this animal has been fo fully elucidated by the late experiments of Mr. Walth. to whom the annual prize medal of the Royal Society has been adjudged on thar account.→ Speaking of Ariftotle's Oavuzoia 'Аx8sind, or Wonderful Relations, a work which is now loft, fir John obferves, Had the great Stagirite heard, that, to understand by what principles the torpedo acted, a naturalift from Britain had travelled through Gaul to the Atlantic ocean, and on that coaft had made a hundred experiments upon that fifh, and with fuc

cefs,