where happier in his defence of Camoens, than in the manner in which he repels the charge of indecency, fulminated with such confidence by Voltaire, that according to him, no nation, except the Portuguese and Italian, could tolerate the scenes described in the Lusiad. "Not to mention Ariosto," says Mickle, "whose descriptions will often admit of no palliation, Tasso, Spenser, and Milton, have always been esteemed as the chastest of poets; yet, in the delicacy of warm description-the inartificial modesty of nature-none of them can boast the continued uniformity of the Portuguese poet. Though there is a warmth in the colouring of Camoens, which even the genius of Tasso has not reached; and though the island of Armida is evidently copied from the Lusiad; yet those, who are possessed of the finer feelings, will easily discover an essential difference between the love scenes of the two poets-a difference greatly in favour of the delicacy of the former. Though the nymphs, in Camoens, are detected naked, in the woods and in the streams, and though desirous to captivate, still their behaviour is that of the virgin who hopes to be the spouse. They act the part of offended modesty : even when they yield, they are silent; and behave in every respect like Milton's Eve, in the state of innocence, who

"what was honour knew-"

And who displayed

"Her virtue and the conscience of her worth, That would be wooed, and not unsought be won."

To sum up all, the nuptial sanctity draws its hallowed curtains, and a masterly allegory shuts up the love scenes of Camoens."

"In a word," he adds, "so unjust is the censure of Voltaire; a censure which never arose from a comparison of Camoens with other poets, and so illgrounded is the charge against him, that we cannot but admire his superior delicacy; a delicacy not even understood in his age, when the grossest imagery often found a place in the pulpits of their most pious divines. We know what liberties were taken by the politest writers of the Augustan age; and such is the change of manners, that Shakespeare and Spenser might, with justice, appeal from the judgement of the present, when it condemns them for indecency. Camoens, however, may appeal to the most polished age; let him be heard for himself; let him be compared with others of the first name, and his warmest descriptions need not dread the decision." Let the comparison, however, we may add, be made in the version of Mickle, in which the fire of Camoens will be found to burn so pure, that he might almost say,--Virginibus puerisque canto.

M. M.

DR. GEDDES.

ALEXANDER GEDDES was born in the year 1737. He was the son of a small farmer at Arradowl in the parish of Ruthven and county of Banff, and of Janet Mitchell, a native of Nether Dallachy in the parish of Bellay. His parents were of the Roman Catholic religion, and, among the few books which they possessed, the most rare to persons of their denomination, was a copy of the vulgar English bible. As soon as young Geddes had been taught to read, by a village schoolmistress of the name of Sellar, he took great delight in perusing this family bible, and before he had reached his eleventh year, he is said to have known all its history by heart.

The Laird of Arradowl having engaged a student from Aberdeen, of the name of Shearer, to be domestic tutor to his two sons, he looked about among his neighbours for two or three boys of the most promising parts, who might be admitted to a gratuitous participation in the lessons given to his sons-a noble example, well worthy of imitation by men of opulence in every village throughout the kingdom. Geddes was one of three on whom his generous selection fell; and a second was his cousin, John Geddes, afterwards Bishop of Marrocco, or titular Bishop of Dunkeld.

At the age of fourteen, Geddes, through the influence of the same worthy individual, was admitted

into the academy of Scalan, in the Highlands, a free Roman Catholic seminary, intended for the preparatory instruction of such young men of that persuasion as are afterwards to be qualified for holy orders in some foreign university.

Never was a seminary better fitted, by its natural situation, to be a nursery for young monks, than Scalan. It lay in a lone dell, so overtopped by lofty mountains, as to require almost as perpetual a use of the lamp, as the subterranean cell of Demosthenes. Of the gloom in which it was involved, an idea may be formed from the following reply of Geddes, to one of his fellow students, who had obtained leave to pay a visit to his friends at a distance, and who asked him if he had any commands he could execute? Pray, be so kind," replied Geddes, " as to make particular enquiries after the health of the SUN: fail not to present my compliments to him, and tell him, I still hope I shall one day be able to renew the honour of a personal acquaintance with him."

In this seminary, he added, to a knowledge of the bible in the vulgar English, a knowledge of it in the vulgar Latin; but beyond this, he appears to have gained little by seven years' long exclusion from the light.

On attaining the age of twenty-one, Geddes was removed to the Scotch College at Paris, of which the worthy Mr. Gordon was then principal. Here he completed his knowledge of the Latin language, and added a competent acquaintance with the Hebrew, Greek, French, Spanish, German, and Low Dutch. School divinity and biblical criticism were, however, the chief objects which occupied his attention. He

had now an opportunity, of which he assiduously availed himself, of enriching his knowledge of the bible, by a close acquaintance with the originals; and was soon able to mark where the difference lay, between the Latin of St. Jerome, and the English of King James's translators. "I had both versions," says he, "constantly before me; and I now discovered the cause of the great difference between them. The study of the English translators, I found, had been to give a strictly literal version, at the expense of almost every other consideration; while the author of the Vulgate had endeavoured to render his originals equivalently into such Latin as was current in his age. If ever I translate the bible, said I, then it must be after this manner." The scheme of a new translation of the bible had in fact already taken full possession of his mind. The partiality which he had accidentally acquired under his father's roof, for the study of its sacred pages, had been so nursed and strengthened by every circumstance in his subsequent education, that it was now become the master passion, from which all the rest of his life was fated to take its complexion and character.

After an absence of six years, he returned to Scotland, in 1764. He was immediately ordered by his ecclesiastical superior to fix his residence at Dundee, as an officiating priest to the Catholics of the district of Angus. But he was scarcely settled here, when the Earl of Traquair, a Catholic nobleman, invited him to become an inmate in his family; and to his Lordship's seat, on the pastoral banks of the Tweed, he accordingly removed in May, 1765. Here," says he, "I had plenty of time and a tolerable