been for a
week, I found yours of the 14th, which had surely loitered by the
way. I thank you most cordially for your present. I meet with
little poetry nowadays that touches my heart; but your
translations excite mingled emotions of pity and terror,
insomuch, that I would not wish any person of weaker nerves to
read William and Helen before going to bed. Great must be the
original, if it equals the translation in energy and pathos. One
would almost suspect you have used as much liberty with Buerger as
Macpherson was suspected of doing with Ossian. It is, however,
easier to _backspeir_ you. Sober reason rejects the machinery as
unnatural; it reminds me, however, of the magic of Shakespeare.
Nothing has a finer effect than the repetition of certain words,
that are echoes to the sense, as much as the celebrated lines in
Homer about the rolling up and falling down of the stone: _Tramp,
tramp! splash, splash!_ is to me perfectly new; and much of the
imagery is nature. I should consider this muse of yours (if you
carry the intrigue far) more likely to steal your heart from the
law than even a wife. I am, Dear Sir, your most obedient, humble
servant,

JO. RAMSAY.

OCHTERTYRE, 30th November, 1796.

Among other literary persons at a distance, I may mention George
Chalmers, the celebrated antiquary, with whom he had been in
correspondence from the beginning of this year, supplying him with
Border ballads for the illustration of his researches into Scotch
history. This gentleman had been made acquainted with Scott's large
collections in that way by a common friend, Dr. Somerville, minister
of Jedburgh, author of the History of Queen {p.235} Anne;[130] and
the numerous MS. copies communicated to him in consequence were
recalled in the course of 1799, when the plan of the Minstrelsy began
to take shape. Chalmers writes in great transports about Scott's
versions; but weightier encouragement came from Mr. Taylor of Norwich,
himself the first translator of the Lenore.

[Footnote 130: Some extracts from this venerable person's
unpublished Memoirs of his own Life have been kindly sent to
me by his son, the well-known physician of Chelsea College,
from which it appears that the reverend doctor, and, more
particularly still, his wife, a lady of remark