the public. The Author of these Memoirs makes no pretensions to philological learning; yet presumes to allege, that it is impossible to investigate the filiation of any language or leading dialect, without a competent knowledge of all those which are geographically and historically connected by neighbourhood or colonization. Philologists have generally confined their researches to one or two favourite languages, from which they endeavour to deduce the roots of that which is the object of their investigation. Mr MURRAY appears to have chosen a wider field, by securing a previous knowledge of all the sources of derivation, and their intermediate steps; and much curious information may be expected from his labours.

We have already inserted the high sense which Mr MURRAY still retains of the character and talents of his departed friend Mr THOMAS SMELLIE; whose untimely fate he very feelingly and elegantly deplored in the following elegiac stanzas, which were composed immediately after the melancholy event. Having been originally printed on a loose sheet, their intrinsic poetical merit, and the occasion of their composition, call irresistibly for their insertion in this place.

ELEGY

ON

MR THOMAS SMELLIE,

FOURTH SON OF THE LATE MR WILLIAM SMELLIE,

F. R. S. & F. A. S.

Ostendent terris HUNC tantùm fata, nec ultrà
Esse sinent.

ANEID, Lib. vi. 870.

GRAY weeping vaults, and lonely mould'ring domes,
From whose dim walls the very sculptures die;
In whose cold, dark, and ever silent wombs
The dear, the good, the great, the honour'd lie!

Thou hear'st not, object of my bursting heart!
O first to hear when sorrow was the theme,

Ere swiftly flew the sure unerring dart

That bade my bliss be like a morning dream!

Fair faithless hopes, by fond illusions fed,

How soon you've past, unconstant and unkind!
The grass is waving on thy lowly bed,

And I am solitary here behind.

How oft deluded Expectation said

"Long be the light of Friendship's holy flame";
A thousand happy scenes she then pourtray'd
In dreams of future years and future fame.
T

VOL. I.

But, like a keen and all-subduing blast,
That wastes the harvest ere the harvest day,
Thy heavy death o'er expectation past,
And all my happiness fled far away.

The morn arises in her orient Moom ;

I feel no joy at her approaching light:
And darkness falling, with its dreary gloom,
No longer brings the comforts of the night.

Now clos'd that сус whose brightest beams have stone:
No tears can animate the lifeless clay:

No grief can 'wake to life the crumbling bone,
Nor give the faded form again to day.

Cold, envious Grave! within thy barren breast
The early ray of genius sank and died,
And all the virtues in oblivion rest;

No more of friends the early hope and pride,

Nor had the morn of life her midway bound

Approach'd with him, through fields of summer's dew, Till deep and fatal darkness veil'd her round, And quench'd her azure light with midnight's hue.

At friendship's call, at pity's bursting tear,
No more thy bosom feels the generous glow;
Nor melts that heart when misery's form is near,
That ever keenly felt a brother's woe.

Dark winter's storms, and April's faithless gales,
And gay green Summer, with her flow'ry head,

And Autumn, waving o'er her golden dales,

Shall waft no pleasure to thy silent bed.

Ah! never dawns all-blest Remembrance there,
Nor young Sensation beams in living light;
Destruction's banners fan the mortal air,

And all is horror there, and all is night!

Why gone so soon? With undivided race,

Our faithful steps had trac'd the painful way;
To the cold grave had mov'd in equal pace!
But thou art gone before th' appointed day!

Too good, too dear, with ev'ry virtue blest,
Friend of my heart, for ever from me fled!
O where, in yon all-hallow'd land of rest,
Lift'st thou on high thy mild, thy honour'd heal?

Escap'd from trouble sore and wasting care,
From age's pang, and sorrow's fatal wound,
Fann'st thou, aloft, the bright ethereal air,
Where endless happiness enfolds thee round.

O! if to fields of never-fading light

A sigh may come, where peaceful spirits dwell, Return one moment to my aking sight, Then, for a little, gentle shade, farewell!

I come apace-nor long I wait behind;

Short is the journey to our kindred clay : Soon shall we meet, and parting never find, And death and sorrow vanish both away.

O'er thy green turf, each slow revolving year,
I'll heave the sigh to early merit due;
And dreary add poor friendship's sacred tear,
For ne'er was one more hapless, nor more true.

MR SMELLIES third son, JOHN, chose to become a seaman. He first sailed for two years in the merchant service from Leith, in the Bacchus, commanded by Lieutenant ELDER of the Royal Navy, brother to the late THOMAS ELDER, Esq. Lord Provost of Edinburgh, and Deputy Postmaster General for Scotland. JOHN afterwards made a China voyage, as midshipman in the Lord Macartney, commanded by Captain HAY, son of Sir JAMES HAY of Haystone, Bart. M. D. He then, in 1790, became a midshipman in the Collossus line of battle ship, commanded by the Honourable Captain CHRISTIAN; and served afterwards as masters mate in the Hind frigate, then on the Scots station, and commanded by the Honourable Captain COCHRANE, now Admiral Sir ALEXANDER COCHRANE, Knight of the Bath. This gallant admiral has atchieved, in the present war, a triumph which never before graced the annals of British naval glory:—He has not left a hostile flag in the seas of the western world! In conjunction with General BECKWITH, he has likewise completely expelled the French from the whole of their possessions in the West Indies; and is now governor of Guadaloupe, the last of these brilliant conquests. JOHN