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THE

Scots Magazine,

AND

EDINBURGH LITERARY MISCELLANY,

For JULY 1815.

Description of MINTO HOUSE. THIS elegant mansion is situated in the parish of Minto, and county of Roxburgh.

Its situation is on a rising lawn, on the west bank of the river Teviot, from which there is a most beautiful and extensive prospect over the adjacent country, and along the delightful yale of the Teviot, for several miles.

Only a small part of the former building remains, to which the present handsome edifice has been lately attached, from a plan by that eminent architect, Mr Elliot.

At a short distance to the north of the house, a series of romantic rocks, completely covered with the most luxuriant trees and shrubs, rise precipitously from the vale of the Teviot, which are intersected by enchanting walks, cut in the solid rock.

S.

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A rhapsody of words." I wonder not that his son Lorenzo Young, as they call him, is prodiwas an infidel. The " great " Dr giously great in the outre style; and of readers, commonly titled by modern yet he is admired by the multitude authors "the respectable public!"

thusiast of this country, the Reverend In my opinion, our celebrated enMr Ralph Erskine, in his Riddles,

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* However famous this enthusiast might have been in the last century, his name has

Criticism on Young's Night Thoughts. not descended to posterity with equal cele

By the late Lord Gardenstone.

TO THE EDITOR.

SIR,
THE following remarks on Dr

Young's Night Thoughts were written by the late Lord Gardenstone. His Lordship was certainly prejudiced against the "Poet of the Night," yet I think it will not be unacceptable to your readers to see the opinion of one, indubitably pos

brity.

"Ralph Erskine was born at Roxburgh, 1682, and educated at Edinburgh. He was minister of Dunfermline, Fifeshire, 1711, and was deposed 1734, for joining the seceders. He died 1751, aged 69. His works were published in 2 vols. fol. consisting of a political treatise, gospel sonnets, and above 200 sermons."

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Lempriere's Universal Biography.

I have never had an opportunity of seeing this reverend gentleman's works; but from the enumeration of his productions, I imagine that he was the author of the "Riddles" mentioned in the text.

is less extravagant. I am sure, that he should at least be more amusing and tolerable, either to believers or infidels, than Dr Young in his woeful " Night Thoughts." I know no rule of criticism so just, so material, and so general, as one laid down by old Horace; "Scribendi recte, sapere est et principium et fons."

I shall examine the Night Thoughts by this rule, after first inserting a few specimens of Ralph's Riddles.

"I'm here and there and every where! "And yet I'm neither here nor there. "I'm school'd, though never at a school; "I'm wise, and yet a natural fool! "I'm poor, and yet I nothing want! "I'm both a Devil and a Saint!

I could quote from the Night Thoughts many similar passages of subtile and fantastical antithesis; but I am afraid that the bulk of readers would take them for charming poetry. Those who can distinguish quaintness and affectation from true sublimity, will find such passages in every page-nay, almost in every line. However, I shall hazard some specimens which seem to resemble Ralph's Riddles very much.

"All knowing, all unknown, and yet well known!

"Near, though remote! and though unfathom'd, felt!

"And though invisible, for ever seen!— "Know this, Lorenzo, (seem it ne'er so

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"Oh love of gold! Thou meanest of amours! 1. 349. "Are passions, then, the pagans of the soul? "Reason alone baptis'd? alone ordain'd "To touch things sacred?

"On such a theme 'tis impious to be calm; "Passion is reason; transport temper here! I. 629. "Devotion, when lukewarm, is undecout.— "Lorenzo! hast thou ever weigh'd a sigh? "Or studied the philosophy of tears?

Night 5. 1. 516. "Death's dreadful advent is the mark of man, "And every thought that misses it is blind. "Revere thyself; and yet thyself despise ! Night 6. 1. 128.

"Man's misery declares him born for bliss; "His anxious heart asserts the truth I sing, "And gives the sceptic in his head the lie. Night 7. 1. 160. Man's heart eats all things, and is hungry still;

"More, more! the glutton cries.

Ibid. 1. 123. "The world's all title page, there's no contents;

"The world's all face; the man who shews

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NIGHT FOURTH.

"A much indebted muse, O Yorke! intrudes,

"Amid the smiles of fortune and of youth; "Thine ear is patient of a serious song.

"How deep implanted in the breast of man "The dread of death! I sing its sov'reign

cure.

"Why start at death? Where is he? Death arriv'd

"Is past; not come, or gone; he's never here. "Ere hope, sensation fails; black-boding man "Receives, not suffers, death's tremendous blow.

"The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave;

"The deep damp vault, the darkness, and the worm;

These are the bug-bears of a winter's eve, "The terrors of the living, not the dead.

From this the writer runs wild, and continues, with very slight and transient lucid intervals, to the end of the poem.

MONTHLY MEMORANDA IN NATURAL

HISTORY.

July. DIFFERENT appearances in the rocks which compose Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Craigs have been founded on as supporting certain doctrines connected with the Huttonian Theory of the Earth. In the midst of the trap tuff which constitutes the middle part of the hill, an insulated piece of siliceous sandstone occurs, in a highly-inclined position. It is conceived by the Huttonians that this trap-tuff is analogous to a brecciated lava, and that the piece of sandstone is a fragment which has been forced from the rocks below, and carried into its present situation by the tuff when in a state of fusion *. At the south-east extremity of the perpendicular face of rock which constitutes Salisbury Craig, and not far from the new powder-magazine, similar appearances were brought to light in the course of quarrying stones for the roads. The supposed involving

Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory,

p. 299.

rock is here pure whinstone or greenstone, and the portions of sandstone considered as having been involved, remain nearly in a horizontal position. Application, we understand, was made by gentlemen whose zeal is highly commendable, that this part of the rock should be preserved; and orders were accordingly issued to that effect.

Almost immediately below the spot now alluded to, and in contact with the greenstone, is a thin bed of siliceous limestone; below this is a bed of slate-clay; and then, still proceed. ing downwards, a thick bed of sandstone. These have long been partially visible; but of late the sandstone has been worked to some extent for building-stones; and in the course of the quarrying operations, a very excellent section of the beds of rock has been produced.

In this section is very well displayed the "basaltic rock resting on arenacious or marly strata," and these at the line of junction, resembling

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a kind of petrosilex, or even jasper*" appearances which have furnished an argument to the Huttonians, which we do not here mean to controvert, as a more interesting phenomenon claims attention.

At the north-western extremity of the section, some small branched veins from the bed of siliceous limestone are to be observed passing diagonally, (the marly strata), through the bed of sandstone. The bed of slate-clay of slate-clay, down to the great bed bles a band or ribbon stretched along is of a bluish-grey colour, and resemthe quarry by passing the eye anation, the small veins, being of a diflong this band to the N. W. termiferent colour, are readily seen. They consist of sandstone-of a mineral which all parties have regarded as originally formed in the humid way, and which certainly gives 66 no indication of having ever possessed fluidity"

*Illustrations &c. P. 300.

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dity from fusion. The exposed situation and the crumbling and perishable nature of the rock in which it is situated, render it probable that this appearance will soon be swept aBut we understand that a correct sketch has been made of it; and this notice may perhaps induce some of the geologists of Edinburgh to visit the spot while every thing remains entire.

way.

cumulations of branches and leaves, carried down from the surrounding hills, is a question. Professor Davy is of opinion, that in many places. where forests had grown undisturbed, the trees on the outside of the woods grew stronger than the rest, from their exposure to the air and sun; and that, when mankind attempted to establish themselves near these forests, they cut down the large trees on According to the views of Werne- their borders, which opened the interrians, there is nothing very remark- nal part, where the trees were weak able in finding partial layers of sand and slender, to the influence of the stone, either inclined or horizontal, wind, which, as is commonly to be in the midst of beds of greenstone or seen in such circumstances, had imtrap-tuff, which they consider as stra- mediate power to sweep down the tified rocks, and of contemporaneous whole of the internal part of the foformation with the sandstone. In rest. The large timber obstructed point of fact, beds of greenstone and of the passage of vegetable recrement, sandstone alternate several times in and of earth falling toward the rivers; Salisbury Craigs, although these al- the weak timber in the internal part ternations are not readily perceived, on of the forest, after it had fallen, soon account of the extensive talus. It is, decayed, and became the food of fuhowever, rather difficult to imagine ture vegetation. Mr Kirwan obhow a Plutonist can account for veins serves, that wherever trees are found of sandstone (which he admits to be a in bogs, though the wood may be stratified rock) traversing sandstone perfectly sound, the bark of the timitself, as in the quarries at Albany ber has uniformly disappeared, and Street; or, as in this case, traverthe decomposition of this bark forms sing slate-clay or argillaceous shistus, a considerable part of the nutritive another stratified rock. N. substance of morasses: notwithstandCanonmills, July 29. 1815. ing this circumstance, tanning is not to be obtained in analysing bogs; their antiseptic quality is however indisputable, for animal and vegetable substances are frequently found at a great depth in bogs, without their seeming to have suffered any decay: these substances cannot have been deposited in them at a very remote period, because their form and texture is such as were common a few centuries ago. In 1786 there were found, 17 feet below the surface of a bog in Mr Kir. win's district, a woollen coat of coarse, but even, network, exactly in the form of what is now called a Spencer. A razor, with a wooden handle, some iron heads of arrows, and large wooden bowls, some only half made, were also found, with the remains of turn

MEMOIRS OF THE PROGRESS OF MA-
NUFACTURES, CHEMISTRY, SCIENCE,
AND THE FINE ARTS.

IN the Second Report of the Com-
missioners on the Bogs of Ireland,
it is stated that three distinct growths
of timber, covered by three distinct
masses of bog, are discovered on ex-
amination. But whether these mo-
rasses were at first formed by the de-
struction of whole forests, or merely
by the stagnation of water in pla-
ces where its current was choked
by the fall of a few trees, and by ac-

Illustrations, p. 26.

Scots Magazine for May 1815.

ing-tools; these were obviously the wreck of a workshop, which was probably situate on the borders of a foest. The coat was presented by him to the Antiquarian Society. These circumstances.countenance the supposition that the encroachments of men upon forests destroyed the first barriers against the force of the wind, and that afterwards, according to Sir H. Davy's suggestion, the trees of weaker growth, which had not room to expand, or air and sunshine to promote their increase, soon gave way to the elements.

There has lately been discovered, in the vast territories of the governments of Koliwan and of Tobolsk, a quantity of ancient Tartar monuments, among the tombs of a former people. These articles consist of metal vases, coins, jewels, &c. many of them are adorned with human figures and hieroglyphics.

In the county of Sutherland, in Scotland, a pit of coal was discovered about two or three years ago, contrary to the opinion of many who supposed that no coal was to be found north of the Tay. This coal has been wrought to a considerable extent, but time has shown that it seems to possess one property peculiar to itself. The refuse coal, of which a large quantity had been left to accumulate near the mouth of the pit, after having been exposed to the air for a considerable time, took fire of its own accord, and continued in a state of combustion till the whole was consumed. At present they have ceased to work the pit, partly on account of this peculiar property of the coal, but chiefly that they may have time to clear away the refuse on the surface. They do not despair of opening the pit again, and of discovering a mode of preventing the deflagration and, preparatory to the recommencement of working it, they are sinking shafts in the direction in which they intend to proceed.

-LITERARY INTELLIGENCE.

A NEW translation of the Books of Moses is announced for publication at Freyberg, divided into two historical books, and three books of laws:

1. A book containing the history of the times anterior to Moses.

2.

his own time.

4.

5.

-

the history of

3. The code of moral laws. of religious laws. of civil laws. Each of these books will be accompanied with proper documents. The whole to form 3 vols. 8vo.

Dodsley's Annual Register, for 1814, will be ready for publication in a few weeks.

Mr Linley is preparing an edition of the Dramatic Songs of Shakspeare, the music partly that of the old masters and partly his own.

Dr Alphonsus Lercy, of Paris, has published an Essay on certain Diseases of Men, which he traces to the Oxen on which they had fed; and he establishes the doctrine generally, that many diseases with which mankind are afflicted are communicated by the flesh of animals, who are more or less diseased at the time they are killed.

In the state of PENSYLVANIA, west of the Allegany mountains, there are about 200,000 inhabitants; 101 Presbyterian churches, and 57 ministers; two Methodist circuits, in which are employed 12 itinerant preachers.In the state of OHIO, containing a population of more than 330,000, there are 78 Presbyterian or Congregational churches, and 49 ministers; between 20 and 30 Methodist preachers, employed in different circuits; 10 or 12 Baptist societies; several societies of Friends or Quakers; considerable numbers of a sect called New Lights; a few Halcyons; a few Swedenburghers; and many Univer salists and Deists. In the state of VIRGINIA,

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