principal parts of the Levant: should they be accompanied with a few
casual notes _of my own_, I trust the work will not be less acceptable
to you on that account."

It must be obvious, after this declaration, that the _Tour_ set forth so
conspicuously in the title-page, was not written by Swinney. Now the
"Itinerary" which follows is advowedly "wrote by _the author of the
preceding account_," and this brings the reader and the work itself to "The
End!"

The truth I suspect to have been this:--Swinney was not prudent and was
poor, and raised money occasionally, after the miserable fashion of the
time, by publishing books on subscription, and receiving subscriptions in
anticipation of publication.

About this time, from 1767 to 1769, he published a _Sermon_; _The Ninth
Satire of Horace_, a meaningless trifle of a hundred lines, swollen, by
printing the original and notes, into a quarto; a volume of _Fugitive
Pieces_; and the first canto of _The Battle of Minden, a Poem in three
Books, enriched with critical Notes by Two Friends, and with explanatory
Notes by the Author_. Of the latter work, as of the _Tour_, I have never
seen but one copy, a splendid specimen of typography, splendidly bound,
containing the first and second canto. Whether the third canto was ever
published is to me doubtful; some of your correspondents may be able to
give you information. My own impression is that it was not, and for the
following reasons.

Swinney, it appears, had received subscriptions for the work, and promised
in his prospectus _a plan of the battle_, and _portraits_ of the heroes,
which the work does not contain. "However, to make some little amends" to
his "generous subscribers," Swinney announces his intention to present them
with "_three_ books instead of _one_."

The first book is dedicated to Earl Waldegrave, who commanded "the six
British regiments of infantry" on the "ever memorable 1st August, 1759,"
and a note affixed states that "Book the Second" will be published on 1st
January, and "Book the Third" on 1st of August.

But the public, as Swinney says, were kept "in suspense" almost three years
for the second book, which was not published until 1772; and in the
dedication of this second book, also to Earl Waldegrave, Swinney says:

"Doubtless many of my subscribers have thought me very unmindful of the
promise I made them in my printed proposal, in which I undertook to
publish my poem out of h