Ossian Collection > Selections from the Gaelic bards

VUl PREFATORY NOTICE.
hand of death stayed him, so that he returned not to the old paths.
It may be said that in what was but an interlude in the great
game of life, for which he had trained himself with rare patience
and fortitude, he sank upon his shield. In this volume, hastily
prepared, we have at once his salutation and farewell : Moriturus
nos salutat.
"We looked for his speaking to us from the heart of English
Literature, with which few men of his years stood in such close
relationship of thought and feeling. Old letters are beside me
still, indicating a genuineness of discipleship to the leaders of
thought in English speech, from Chaucer to Wordsworth and
Tennyson, such as warranted the hope that he would, one day,
himself become a master, the influence of whose teaching wovild
be felt.
"He wrote much (that must still be accessible) during the years
in which his reading was most extensive and his plans were being
matured. Even his letters alluding, as they do, from time to time,
to the subjects on which he was engaged, are themselves full of
critical notices and discussions of points of literary interest, with
sonnet or song, or stanza in heroic verse, interspersed by way of
offset to the prose, many of which are worthy of being recast in a
form of greater permanence. Must we despair of seeing a selection
made from these remains by a kindly and discriminating hand?
I cannot but believe that some such selection would amply justify
the expectations of his friends, if it would also embitter the
poignancy of their regTets. Feelings of regret are already strong
in the breasts of those who knew him best; — they feel that his
sun went down, not while it was yet day, but before the radiant
promise of the morning had broadened into noon. They could
wish that years had permitted him to vindicate his devotion to
letters, and his choice of a secluded and studious life, as well
as to prove to a wider circle, than that of friends, that he had
rightly estimated his powers and understood his mission. Some
of those who began life with him, may have made more of it in a
way, and succeeded better in the world, as the world goes. Some,
no doubt, regarded him as unpractical, dreamy, perhaps even