The Scottish Nation: Or The Surnames, Families, Literature, Honours, and Biographical History of the People of Scotland, Volume 1

Front Cover
 

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 260 - yields ! The warbling woodland, the resounding shore, The pomp of groves, and garniture of field« ; All that the genial ray of morning gilds. And all that echoes to the song of even, All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields, And all the dread magnificence of Heaven ; 0 ! how canst
Page 510 - strong expression of sense and shrewdness in all his lineaments ; the eye alone, I think, indicated the poetical character and temperament. It was large, and of a dark cast, and glowed (I say, literally glowed) when he spoke with feeling or interest. I never saw such another eye in a head, though I have seen the most distinguished men
Page 509 - gives me more—I do not know if I should call it pleasure—but something which exalts me, something which enraptures me—than to walk in the sheltered side of a wood or high plantation, in a cloudy winter day, and hear the stormy wind howling among the trees, and raving over the plain. It is my best season for devotion
Page 243 - more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily, whether these things were so.
Page 499 - kelpies, elf-candles, dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantraips, giants, enchanted towers, dragons, and other trumpery. This cultivated the latent seeds of poetry ; but had so strong an effect on my imagination that, to this hour, in my nocturnal rambles, I sometimes keep a sharp look-out in suspicious places ; and though nobody can be more sceptical than I am in such
Page 500 - This kind of life," he says, "the cheerless gloom of a. hermit, with the unceasing moil of a galley-slave, brought me to my sixteenth year, a little before which period I first committed the sin of rhyme. You know our country custom of coupling a man and woman together as partners in the labours of harvest. In my fifteenth autumn,
Page 309 - A curious Herbal, containing five hundred Cuts of the most useful Plants which are now used in the practice of Physic, engraved on folio copperplates, after drawings taken from the Life, by Elizabeth Blackwell ; to which is added a short Description of the Plants, and their common
Page 500 - and the composition of most of my correspondents flattered my vanity. I carried this whim so far that, though I had not three farthings' worth of business in the world, yet almost every post brought me as many letters as if I had been a broad plodding son of the daybook and ledger.
Page 261 - I therefore told him the name of the Great Being who made him and all the world ; concerning whose adorable nature I gave him such information as I thought he could in some measure comprehend. The lesson affected him greatly, and he never forgot either it or the circumstance that introduced it.
Page 498 - to obviate difficulties regarding the wisdom and goodness of the Deity ; and this, in the first place, from considerations independent of written revelation, and, in the second place, from the revelation of the Lord Jesus ; and from the whole to point out the inferences most necessary and useful to mankind.

Bibliographic information