Books and other items printed in Gaelic from 1871 to 1900 > Cunntas air boidhicheadan Ceann-Lochearn agus Edinample, or, A description of the beauties of Edinample and Lochearnhead

Preface To The First Edition.
The present publication of these singular
Sketches may be ascribed to one of those
happy accidents, to which the world is of¬
ten indebted for the most important bene¬
fits. It was for the Public, indeed, that they
were originally composed. But remote as
their Author was from the capital, and in¬
adequate as were his means to the expense
of printing them, he might have remained
long in obscurity, or his fame, at the best,
might never have travelled beyond the nar¬
row circle round which his manuscripts
could be conveyed; and thus the literary
world must have been denied the pleasure
which these inimitable productions cannot
fail to impart. Fortune, however, had de¬
termined that he should not long, like the
plovers which he scared upon the heath,
‘sing his wild notes to the listening waste'
alone, or, like the native flower on his hills,
exhale ‘his sweetness to the desert air,’