Loch.  Down, soothless insulter!  I trust not the tale: 
      For never shall Albin a destiny meet
      So black with dishonor, so foul with retreat. 
      Though my perishing ranks should be strewed in their gore,
      Like ocean weeds heaped on the surf-beaten shore,
      Lochiel, untainted by flight or by chains,
      While the kindling of life in his bosom remains,
      Shall victor exult, or in death be laid low,
      With his back to the field and his feet to the foe! 
      And leaving in battle no blot on his name,
      Look proudly to heaven from the deathbed of fame.

Notes.—­Lochiel was a brave and influential Highland chieftain.  He espoused the cause of Charles Stuart, called the Pretender, who claimed the British throne.  In the preceding piece, he is supposed to be marching with the warriors of his clan to join Charles’s army.  On his way he is met by a Seer, who having, according to the popular superstition, the gift of second-sight, or prophecy, forewarns him of the disastrous event of the enterprise, and exhorts him to return home and avoid the destruction which certainly awaits him, and which afterward fell upon him at the battle of Culloden, in 1746.  In this battle the Highlanders were commanded by Charles in person, and the English by the Duke of Cumberland.  The Highlanders wore completely routed, and the Pretender’s rebellion brought to a close.  He himself shortly afterward made a narrow escape by water from the west of Scotland; hence the reference to the fugitive king.

Albin is the poetic name of Scotland, more particularly the Highlands.  The ironbound prisoner refers to Lochiel.

LIV.  ON HAPPINESS OF TEMPER. (215)

Oliver Goldsmith, 1728-1774.  This eccentric son of genius was an Irishman; his father was a poor curate.  Goldsmith received his education at several preparatory schools, at Trinity College, Dublin, at Edinburgh, and at Leyden.  He was indolent and unruly as a student, often in disgrace with his teachers; but his generosity, recklessness, and love of athletic sports made him a favorite with his fellow-students.  He spent some time in wandering over the continent, often in poverty and want.  In 1756 he returned to England, and soon took up his abode in London.  Here he made the acquaintance and friendship of several notable men, among whom were Johnson and Sir Joshua Reynolds.  “The Traveler” was published in 1764, and was soon followed by the “Vicar of Wakefield.”  He wrote in nearly all departments of literature, and always with purity, grace, and fluency.  His fame as a poet is secured by the “Traveler” and the “Deserted Village;” as a dramatist, by “She Stoops to Conquer;” as a satirist, by the “Citizen of the World;” and as a novelist by the “Vicar of Wakefield.”  In his later years his writings were the source of a large income, but his gambling, careless generosity, and reckless extravagance always kept him in financial difficulty, and he died heavily in debt.  His monument is in Westminster Abbey. ##