who was likewise a
Writer to the Signet, was employed in a legal process, which required _a
diligence_ to be executed against one of the clan Frazer. A design to
waylay and murder the official employed in the _diligence_ had been
concerted. This came to the knowledge of a clergyman who ministered in a
parish chiefly inhabited by the Lovat tenantry. The minister, afraid of
openly divulging the design, on account of the unsettled nature of his
flock, begged an immediate visit from his friend, Mr Morrison, who
speedily returned to Perthshire with information to the laird of
Delvine. The Frazers found the authority of the law supported by a
sufficient force; and Mr Morrison was rewarded by being presented,
through the influence of the laird of Delvine, to the parish of Petty.
Amidst professional engagements discharged with zeal and acceptance,
Morrison found leisure for the composition of verses. Two of his lyrics
are highly popular among the Gael; one of them we offer as a specimen,
and an improved version of the other will afterwards appear in the
present work. Mr Morrison died in November 1774.

MY BEAUTY DARK.

The heroine of this piece was a young lady who became the author's wife,
upon an acquaintance originally formed by the administration of the
ordinance of baptism to her in infancy.

My beauty dark, my glossy bright,
Dark beauty, do not leave me;
They call thee dark, but to my sight
Thou 'rt milky white, believe me.

'Twas at the tide of Candlemas,[160]
Came tirling at my door,
The image of a lovely lass
That haunts me evermore.

Beside my sleeping couch she stood,
And now she mars my rest;
Still as I try the solemn mood,
She hunts it from my breast.

At lecture and at study
That ankle white I span,
Its sandal slim, its lacings trim,--
A fay I seem to scan.

Thy beauty 's like a drift of spray
That dashes to the side,
Or like the silver-tail'd that play
Their gambols in the tide.

As heaps of snow on mountain brow
When shed the clouds their fleece,
Or churn of waves when tempest raves,
Thy swelling limbs in grace.

Thy eyes are black as berries,
Thy cheeks are waxen dyed,
And on thy temple tarries
The raven's dusk, my pride!

Gives light below each slim eye-brow
A swelling orb of blue,
In April meads so glance the beads,
In