stanza. It seems hard to guess what Sir Alexander could have
meant by presenting Dr. Johnson with such lines; which
are really little better than the nonsense verses of a school-
boy."

Viator, o qui nostra per æquora
Visurus agros Skiaticos venis,
En te salutantes tributim

Undique conglomerantur oris

Of SIR JAMES MACDONALD, Bart.

Who, in the flower of youth,

Had attained to so eminent a degree of knowledge
In mathematics, philosophy, languages,

And in every other branch of useful and polite learning,
As few have acquired in a long life

Wholly devoted to study:

Yet to this erudition he joined,
What can rarely be found with it,
Great talents for business,
Great propriety of behaviour,
Great politeness of manners!

His eloquence was sweet, correct, and flowing;
His memory vast and exact;

His judgment strong and acute;
All which endowments, united

With the most amiable temper
And every private virtue,

Procured him, not only in his own country,
But also from foreign nations,

The highest marks of esteem.
In the year of our Lord

1766,

The 25th of his life,

After a long and extremely painful illness, Which he supported with admirable patience and fortitude, He died at Rome,

Where, notwithstanding the difference of religion, Such extraordinary honours were paid to his memory, As had never graced that of any other British subject, Since the death of Sir Philip Sydney.

The fame he left behind him is the best consolation
To his afflicted family,

And to his countrymen in this isle,
For whose benefit he had planned
Many useful improvements,
Which his fruitful genius suggested,
And his active spirit promoted,
Under the sober direction

Of a clear and enlightened understanding.

Reader, bewail our loss,

And that of all Britain.

In testimony of her love,

And as the best return she can make
To her departed son,

For the constant tenderness and affection
Which, even to his last moments,
He showed for her,

His much afflicted mother,

The LADY MARGARET MACDONALD,

Daughter to the Earl of Eglintoune,

Erected this monument,

A. D. 1768.

This extraordinary young man, whom I had the pleasure of knowing intimately, having been deeply regretted by his country, the most minute particulars concerning him must be interesting to many. I shall therefore insert his two last letters to his mother, Lady Margaret Macdonald, which her ladyship has been pleased to communicate to me.

Sir James Macdonald to Lady Margaret.

"Rome, 9th July, 1766.

"MY DEAR MOTHER, Yesterday's post brought me your answer to the first letter in which I acquainted you of my illness. Your tenderness and concern upon that account are the same I have always experienced, and to which I have often owed my life. Indeed it never was in so great danger as it has been lately; and though it would have been a very great comfort to me to have had you near me, yet perhaps I ought to rejoice, on your account, that you had not the pain of such a spectacle. I have been now a week in Rome, and wish I could continue to give you the same good accounts of my recovery as I did in my last; but I must own that, for three days past, I have been in a very weak and miserable state, which however seems to give no uneasiness to my physician. My stomach has been greatly out of order, without any visible cause; and the palpitation does not decrease. I am told that my stomach will soon recover its tone, and that the palpitation must cease in time. So I am willing to believe; and with this hope support the little remains of spirits which I can be supposed to have, on the forty-seventh day of such an illness. Do not imagine I have relapsed; I only recover slower than I expected. If my letter is shorter than usual, the cause of it is a dose of physic, which has weakened me so much to-day, that I am not able to write a long letter. I will make up for it next post, and remain always your most sincerely affectionate J. MACDONALD."

son,

He grew, however, gradually worse; and on the night before his death he wrote as follows from Frescati:

"MY DEAR MOTHER, Though I did not mean to deceive
you in my last letter from Rome, yet certainly you would have
very little reason to conclude of the very great and constant
danger I have gone through ever since that time. My life,
which is still almost entirely desperate, did not at that time
appear to me so, otherwise I should have represented, in its
true colours, a fact which acquires very little horror by that
means, and comes with redoubled force by deception. There
is no circumstance of danger and pain of which I have not had
the experience, for a continued series of above a fortnight;
during which time I have settled my affairs, after my death,
with as much distinctness as the hurry and the nature of the
thing could admit of. In case of the worst, the Abbé Grant
will be my executor in this part of the world, and Mr.
Mackenzie in Scotland, where my object has been to make
you and my younger brother as independent of the eldest as
possible."

No. IV.

MEMOIRS OF HIS OWN LIFE, BY THE LATE
GENERAL MACLEOD,

(Referred to in p. 193, and several subsequent notes.)

[1785.]

"HAVING often been highly entertained and instructed by
the perusal of memoirs of men who have lived in an interesting
period, and who have borne some part in the transactions of
their time, a thought has for some time possessed me of leaving
to my family and friends an account of myself, and of those
affairs in which I have been, or may hereafter be, engaged.
My chief design, if I shall live to execute it, is to make my
son acquainted with his father, to inform him of the rank and
situation in which I found the family, which he should think
himself born to raise and advance, and to encourage him, by
my example, to persevere in the design of acquiring that