Ossian Collection > Journal of a tour in Scotland in

INTRODUCTION xliii
as a cynical humorist, and called "The
Walking Library."^ Southey had travelled,
when young, in Spain and Portugal, and
written largely on both ; allusions to these
countries, their scenery and institutions, are
common. A "square" is often a plaza
(Spanish), resting-places remansos (Spanish),
a country-house a quinta (Portuguese) ; an
old dirk, yam (as in Brazil). At Edinburgh he
buys some French books of South American
Travel.^ Southey, again, who as a schoolboy
had planned a series of epics on the historic
mythologies, and had largely carried them
out, was a curious student of modern forms
of religious belief, however unlike that to
which he was, as a sound English Churchman,
attached. He had written an excellent Life
of Wesley. He talks with his Dundee book-
seller, not about Claverhouse but about the
" Glassites," a sect numerous in that town.
At Montrose he buys a pamphlet about
the religious visionary, Joanna Southcote,
and Erskine's Gospel Sonnets. ^ He relished
the humours of Celtic Bibliolatry ; — the
Chieftain of the House of Grant who
supported the antiquity of his clan by
quoting Gen. vi. 4 : " Now there were Grants
1 P. 111. 2 P. 12. 3 p. 61.