I did not, as you may perceive, take any notice of L. Martelli, who is enumerated by Quadrio as the fourth who opened the way to tragic composition in Italy. This did not proceed from inadvertency or disrespect; for I honor the memory of Signor Martelli; but I could not, nor have I yet been able to obtain a copy of his Tullia. If you should happen to have this celebrated drama in your collection, have the goodness to favor me with a slight analysis of it, and also with a specimen, such as you think I ought to give. Have you seen the Sofonisba of Galeotto del Caretto? As I am now fitting up my library, I am anxious for the books which I am expecting: besides, I wish to collect all my materials about me before I totally devote myself to a work which I am meditating. Except the Storia della Letteratura Italiana, there is nothing I want more than La Vita del Marini and La Vita del Testi; but more particularly the latter. Have you seen the Tragedies of Signor Polidori, lately published in London? I am daily expecting a copy. This gentleman was, I believe, secretary to Count Alfieri.

MR. MALCOLM LAING TO MR. PINKERTON.

April 29th, 1799.

If you do not want the Marquis of Argyle's portrait immediately for the next number of your Portraits, I would propose to delay it till mid

summer, when I can procure at the same time whatever else you want to have copied at Newbottle. About the middle of next month I go to Harrowgate with Mr. Meason: on my return I shall reside at Mordun, near Newbottle, and can more easily than at this distance examine the pictures. But, if you need the picture for engraving, it shall be immediately procured. I have found a drawing of one Love, a physician at Glasgow, (mentioned in the European Magazine,) which was sent with an account of his life to a bookseller, to be transmitted to you, and has lain in his shop for some time. It shall be sent as soon as possible.

I have considered your proposal of continuing the portraits. There is no sale nor bookseller to be found here for such a work. Many valuable portraits might be obtained, were I to carry a painter with me on a tour next summer to some of our noblemen's seats. The expense of this might be easily computed; but I have no idea of the expense of engraving, or of the sale necessary to defray the cost of such a work. I shall inquire at the College Library for Craig's Principia, the only place where it has a chance to be found.

There is little chance of obtaining a drawing of the subterraneous caves, as no artists live near the places. I apprehend that they are the same with the Pights' houses in Orkney.* These are mostly under green hillocks, and, if sometimes intended for concealment, seem to me to have

See Vol. I. p. 231.

been often used as cellars, or subterraneous apartments under the conical duns, of which a few remain half entire in Shetland. They are demolished in Orkney; but I have observed the foundations of the circular wall around such hillocks. Unless in one instance, the cave was never above three feet high, which has persuaded the people that the pights were pigmies. It is narrow, square, or circular. You may conceive its size from this; that the roof consists of two or three large stones or slates, of a considerable thickness, supported at the ends by the side wall built up of uncemented stones, of a height to sit in, or creep through, sometimes from one apartment to the other. The green hillock which generally covers them seems to have precluded concealment, unless it had been formed by the destruction of the house on the surface, beneath which the cave was dug. At the same time, their remote situation frequently indicates that the caves, as Tacitus asserts, were for concealment.*

Such numerous detections of Ossian have occurred, that the note has already swelled to a Dis

* Mr. Laing appears here to have had in his mind the following passage in the treatise De Moribus Germanorum. "Solent et subterraneos specus aperire, eosque multo insuper fimo onerant, suffugium hiemi et receptaculum frugibus; quia rigorem frigorum iisdem locis molliunt; et, si quando hostis advenit, aperta populatur; abdita autem et defossa aut ignorantur, aut eo ipso fallunt, quòd quærenda sunt."

sertation.*

With your assistance, I am confident of rendering the detection complete. As the historical detections are derived from your Introduction, to which we are all indebted, I may transmit them next month, when finished, for your remarks. In your Introduction, Vol. II. p. 83, you observe that Moylena is in King's county, Temora in Meath, which destroys the whole poem. In the Collectanea Hibernica, Moylena, Cromla, Tura, Lubar, are placed between Loch Swilly and Loch Foyll in Ulster, Vol. III. p. 322, on the authority of O'Conor's Dissertations. This last book I can neither procure here nor in London; but, as the first edition was published before Fingal, (Campbell's Strictures, 9.) I suspect much that it supplied M'Pherson with the whole topography of his two Epic poems. If you have the book, I shall beg a few lines in explanation of this fact, particularly whether Moylena is in King's county or Ulster. That Temora was Tura in East Meath, can admit of no doubt.

* This Dissertation in Mr. Laing's History occupies more than ninety pages; and he afterwards followed it up by a splendid edition of the Poems of Ossian, in 2 vols. 8vo. in 1805, with notes and illustrations, designed to prove that the text was spurious. In the same year the Highland Society printed the Report of their Committee appointed to inquire into the nature and authenticity of the poems of Ossian, with an object diametrically opposite to Mr. Laing's; but there are few so hardy defenders of the old bard as not to allow that the advantage was on the side of Mr. Laing, whose learning, industry, and acuteness, are singularly conspicuous in this publication.

MR. PINKERTON TO MR. LAING.

Hampstead, May 5th, 1799.

I have closed my volume of Portraits, so there is no hurry; and when you return to Mordun will be time enough.

I have in the press a short list of those most wanted, which I shall send to you at Harrowgate. Is there any particular direction? Your idea of a little tour with an artist pleases me much. The engravings will cost six guineas, one with another; but, if you would undertake such a work, I should wish you to send a letter, for me to show to some London publisher. I think, if he clear all expenses and pay you one hundred guineas for fifty short lines, it would be fair.* If I could get two hundred for you, so much the better. The mere engraving would occupy two years: so you need not fear its interfering with your present publication.

* In more than one of his letters to Lord Buchan, Mr. Pinkerton has stated that he derived no profit whatever from the work on Scotish Portraits; but the following agreement, which is preserved in his correspondence, shows that he was not altogether disinterested in this respect :-

"London, Nov. 22, 1796. "I agree to give my note at twelve months to Mr. John Pinkerton, of one hundred pounds, for the drawings, and writing the lives to the same to the first volume, to be called the Scotch Gallery of Portraits,' mostly by Jameson; and, if 500 copies of the said work should be disposed of in the of four years from the time of the publication, I then agree to give Mr. Pinkerton a further sum of fifty pounds. E. HARDING.”

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