Page:Scotish Descriptive Poems - Leyden (1803).djvu/153

 in which he introduces the fine passage which describes invisible hunting; a superstition of which many traces still remain in the Highlands of Scotland. "I am sure," says he, "I shall not be blamed for quoting from (Albania) a poem little known, the following very picturesque lines; which may show, that what in history or philosophy would make but an aukward figure, may sometimes have a very charming effect in poetry ." To the taste of the ingenious author of "," the preservation of Albania must be attributed. To him the present editor is indebted for the copy he has used in this edition, which seems once to have belonged to Lord Pitsligo. The energy and poetical spirit displayed in the lines quoted by Beattie, has excited the attention of some later writers. Dr. Drake observes, that "the singular, yet pleasing tradition, of the souls of the deceased pursuing the chase upon their native hills, is no where described with more spirit and effect than in some noble lines quoted by Dr. Beattie, in his Essay on Poetry and Music, from a work now neglected and unknown ." The poem itself has also been quoted with much approbation by Walter Scott, in his The Minstrelsy of the Scotish Border.

The exhibits a manly and liberal spirit of poetry, combined with fluent and vigorous versifica-