Biggar and the House of Fleming

SUNNYSIDE AND CANDY. 109
donable in a sentimental poet, he adds, ' If, by ill luck, a critical
reader should lay his hands on them, and find his delicacy
shocked in the perusal, he is very welcome to throw the book
in the fire, and damn the author for a blockhead.'
The author, to judge from his poetical effusions, was cer-
tainly not entitled to be characterised as a blockhead.
Throughout his whole book he manifests much refined and
correct sentiment, a warm appreciation of rural scenery, a
high admiration of beauty and virtue, a devoted attachment
to friendship and love, and a lively interest in the welfare and
freedom of his fellow-men. At the time he wrote, the culti-
vation of poetry had sunk to a low ebb. The poetic race had
become infected with a strained and sickly sentimentalism.
They had forsaken the paths of nature, and took delight in
little else than weaving a succession of tawdry garlands for the
brows of some feigned goddess, under the name of Melinda,
Narcissa, Delia, &c. Our author did not escape the mannerism
and defects of his times ; but he frequently rises above them,
and sings with a true, if not a very exalted note. His de-
scriptive powers were considerable. Take as a specimen an
extract from a poem " On Solitude," written in a beautiful
wild glen near Fort Augustus : —
" See the river winds along
The wild and tufted hills among ;
Placid now it flows, and deep,
Now it thunders down the steep ;
With violence dashed, it foams and roars,
And falling, shakes the lofty shores;
And rocks and billows rave around,
And woods and hills repeat the sound."
His appreciation of the varied aspects of the year is manifested
in many of his productions. For instance, he thus refers to
spring, and the feelings which it excites, in an Elegy to Nar-
cissa : —
" In pride of youth exults the jovial year,
Again the groves put on their robes of green,
Again the pleasant woodland song we hear,
And Nature in her fairest form is seen.
" Along the banks of the wild warbling stream,
With many an herb adorned, and fragrant flower,