about barefooted, and the lasses, too, glowing with the pleasures of offering their hearty welcomes. I never saw a merrier sight, and to know that I was the occasion of it all, while it humbled me, made me at least as happy as they. I went to see the humble cottage where my mother forgot her pains in the joy that a man child was born to the world; and attached to it was the little chapel which, after my father left it, was no longer used as a sanctuary. There are

now in it five or six looms for the manufacture of shawls, or some other articles; but, on looking round, I at once recollected the house and the chapel, though I left it before I was five years old; and on walking to the end of the chapel, to my great surprise I found a tablet on which was painted an account of the time when I was born, and underneath was placed some lines from one of my poems, where I allude to the place of my birth and parents' death.* I had no idea, till I came to Irvine, how great a man I was. It reminded me of the saying of Dr. Johnson on Lord Mansfield, that much may be made of a Scotchman if he is caught young. My case was the reverse of this, I thought much was often made of a Scotchman when he is grown old, for I never was so much made of till I came to Scotland."

Mr. Montgomery, after citing tae lines alluded to, sat down amidst great applause.

Dr. Huie said,

"I rise for the purpose of expressing what I doubt not all who are now present feel,—the deep obligation which we owe to Mr. Latrobe and Mr. Montgomery for their company this morning; and for the interesting and important statements which they have laid before us. It is truly refreshing, Sir, once more to see amongst us our friend Mr. Latrobe, whose name has been so long associated with the missions of the United Brethren; and who, walking in the footsteps of his excellent father, has earned by his zeal, assiduity, and dis

* "Departed Days." "Sweet seas and smiling shores," &c., twenty-eight lines.

interestedness, the approbation and esteem of all who are acquainted with, and can appreciate, his labours of love. And it is still more refreshing to see amongst us that venerable bard, on whose writings we have so often dwelt with admiration and delight; whether we wandered with him over the mountain solitudes of Switzerland, or visited with him the tornado-rocked dwellings of the West Indies, the ice-bound coasts of Greenland, or the enchanting scenery of the Pelican Island; or whether, surrendering our imaginations more completely to his guidance, we permitted him to carry us back through the vista of departed ages to the World before the Flood. It is no small praise, Sir, to say of an uninspired writer, that the pleasure which we derive from his works is pure and unmingled; and yet such is the case with the poems of our friend, Mr. Montgomery. Brightly though the cup of his fancy sparkles, there is no poison in the chalice; sweet though the flowers be which he scatters around us, there is no serpent underneath to sting the hand that gathers them. But high though this praise is, our honoured guest deserves a higher still. He has tuned his lyre to the loftiest theme which can engage the mind or the imagination of man; he has sung in hallowed strains the triumphs of incarnate Deity; and he has supplied us with befitting language in which to express our devotional feelings, in almost every conceivable variety of circumstances. I believe, Sir, that there is no one here who has not felt and acknowledged this-whether in teaching the lisping babe upon his knee that

"Prayer is the simplest form of speech

That infant lips can try ;'

or whether, looking forward, in an hour of grief and desolation, to the last resting-place of the mourner, he has rejoiced to think that

“There is a calm for those that weep,

A rest for weary pilgrims found;

They softly lie and sweetly sleep
Low in the ground;'

or whether, rising on imagination's wing, he has soared to the third heaven, and, overpowered by the flood of glory which has there burst upon him, has exclaimed, in tones of rapture

"What are these in bright array ?

This innumerable throng?

Round the altar, night and day,

Tuning their triumphal song?'

It is not only as a poet, then, but as a Christian poet-and not as a Christian poet merely, but as the first Christian poet of the day-the Cowper, as he has been well termed, of the nineteenth century—that, in the name of this meeting and of my fellow-citizens, I bid Mr. Montgomery welcome, thrice welcome, to Edinburgh; and express a hope, that although this be his first, it will not be his last visit to the metropolis of his native land. But, Sir, I must not forget that we are met here for a higher and a holier purpose than to render honour to man for what the grace and the Spirit of God have enabled him to do."

The learned gentleman then proceeded at considerable length, and in an eloquent strain, to set forth the character and claims of the missionary cause, particularly as identified with the visit of the Moravian deputation to Scotland.

After the breakfast, the deputation went to hold a missionary meeting at Dalkeith. On their way thither, they visited the scene which is not more strikingly embellished with natural beauties than endeared to the feelings of every well-read British poet, as having once been the residence of Drummond; a gentleman of that name being still the owner of Hawthornden, and who kindly gave Montgomery an order to see the grounds and the house. The poet was likewise gratified with a brief visit to Roslin Castle, the picturesque ruins of which are so rich in exquisite specimens of

Gothic architecture, and have so often afforded a subject for the painter or the poet. On that day another meeting was held at Haddington, the residence of some of the oldest friends of the missions in Scotland, including members of the East Lothian Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. A sermon at the Rev. Mr. French's church, on the evening of the ensuing Lord's day, closed the services of the deputation in Scotland, in the course of which about 600l. were collected.

SCOTTISH RECEPTION OF MONTGOMERY. 75

CHAP. LXXXVII.

1841.

SCOTTISH DESCRIPTION OF MONTGOMERY'S PERSONAL APPEARANCE. — DEPUTATION RETURNS TO ENGLAND.- ILLIDGE'S PORTRAIT OF MONTGOMERY.-LETTERS TO AND FROM DR. HUIE.

SEVENTIETH ANNI

ΤΟ GEORGE BENNET.

CENTENARY CELEBRATION OF THE MORAVIAN MISSIONARY SOCIETY. -SUDDEN DEATH OF MR. BENNET. LECTURES AT BIRMINGHAM.— LETTER TO MR. HOLLAND. TO DR. HUIE.

WE consider no apology necessary for having given at considerable length the particulars of an occurrence so material in the life of Montgomery, as the only visit which he ever paid to the land of his birth: nor have we hesitated to mingle with the substance of this narrative various details more or less connected with that missionary cause, the success of which the poet had always, as we have seen, so much at heart, and to the prospect of promoting whose interests he owed the gratification of a tour which would probably otherwise never have been undertaken; while Scotland had thus an opportunity, which was generously caught, of doing honour to the national character in thus acknowledging the talents of one of her distinguished and most meritorious sons.

Before, however, we take, with our tourists, a final leave of North Britain, we wish to record one other item in that catalogue of kindnesses already so prolix.*

* He wrote but few letters during his absence in Scotland, and these mostly to Miss Gales; they are filled with details of pro