Page:Scotish Descriptive Poems - Leyden (1803).djvu/26

 discrimination of minute and local peculiarities of manners, and the individual forms of expression adapted to these, that its most exquisite efforts must be lost on those who are not familiar with the various shades of dialect. In the sixteenth century, while Scotland had yet a capital, and while its language had not yet dwindled into a vulgar dialect, the Scotish poets excelled particularly in humour. Has this quality, therefore, vanished with the dignity of our popular dialect, or has its source been exhausted by our predecessors? What Scotsman, familiar with the popular language and manners of his country, will for a moment admit the supposition; will not immediately perceive that it is contradicted by numerous instances in his own experience? In the last century, the poets Ramsay, Ross, Ferguson, and Burns, all excelled in this versatile and almost indescribable quality. In novel writing, Smollett possessed it in an eminent degree. But it is true, that in polite companies a Scotsman is prohibited, by the imputation of vulgarity, from using the common language of the country, in which he expresses himself with most ease and vivacity, and, clothed in which, his earliest and most distinct impressions always arise to his own mind. He uses a species of translation, which checks the versatility of fancy, and restrains the genuine and spontaneous flow of his conceptions. Mr. Wilson's humour, as well as his dialect, was