The Scottish Nation: Or, The Surnames, Families, Literature, Honours, and Biographical History of the People of Scotland, Volume 1

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A. Fullarton & Company, 1877 - Heraldry

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Page 142 - Arbuthnot was a man of great comprehension, skilful in his profession, versed in the sciences, acquainted with ancient literature, and able to animate his mass of knowledge by a bright and active imagination; a scholar with great brilliance of wit, a wit who, in the crowd of life, retained and discovered a noble ardour of religious zeal.
Page 489 - In my infant and boyish days, too, I owed much to an old woman who resided in the family, remarkable for her ignorance, credulity, and superstition. She had, I suppose, the largest collection in the country of tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies, brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, elf-candles, deadlights, wraiths, apparitions, cantraips, giants, enchanted towers, dragons, and other trumpery.
Page 233 - Thou hast tasted of prosperity and adversity; thou knowest what it is to be banished thy native country, to be over-ruled, as well as to rule, and sit upon the throne; and being oppressed, thou hast reason to know how hateful the oppressor is both to God and man...
Page 491 - He was the only man I ever saw who was a greater fool than myself, where woman was the presiding star; but he spoke of illicit love with the levity of a sailor, which hitherto I had regarded with horror. Here his friendship did me a mischief; and the consequence was, that soon after I resumed the plough, I wrote the Poet's Welcome.
Page 256 - All that the genial ray of morning gilds, And all that echoes to the song of even, All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields, And all 'the dread magnificence of heaven, O how canst thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven ! X.
Page 490 - You know our country custom of coupling a man and woman together as partners in the labors of harvest. In my fifteenth autumn, my partner was a bewitching creature, a year younger than myself. My scarcity of English denies me the power of doing her justice in that language, but you know the Scottish idiom: she was a "bonnie, sweet, sonsie lass.
Page 499 - There is scarcely any earthly object gives me more — I do not know if I should call it pleasure — but something which exalts me, something which enraptures me — than to walk in the sheltered side of a wood, or high plantation, in a cloudy winter-day, and hear the stormy wind howling among the trees, and raving over the plain.
Page 314 - Strahan, however, had sent one of the sermons to Dr. Johnson for his opinion ; and after his unfavourable letter to Dr. Blair had been sent off, he received from Johnson on Christmaseve, a note in which was the following paragraph :
Page 463 - Truth, its Manifest; or, a Short and True Relation of divers main passages of things (in some whereof the Scots are particularly concerned), from the very first beginning of these unhappy Troubles to this day.
Page 270 - He was a fellow of the royal societies of London and Edinburgh, and a member of some other learned bodies.

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