and
literary men, who appear to us to compose the first rank of writers.
Without mentioning their Ossian, Thompson and Burns, we may enumerate
their prose writers, such as Hume, and the present association of
truly learned and acute men, who write the _Edinburgh Review_. A
Scotchman may be allowed to show pride at the mention of this
celebrated work. As it regards America, this northern constellation of
talent, shines brightly in our eyes. The ancient Greeks, who once
straggled about Rome and the Roman empire, were not fair specimens of
the refined Athenians.

Our peasantry, settled around our own frontier, and around the shores
of our lakes, have a notion that the Scotch Highlanders were, not long
since, the same kind of wild, half-naked people compared with the true
English, that the _Choctaws_, _Cherokees_, _Pottowatomies_ and
_Kickapoo Indians_ are to the common inhabitants of these United
States; and that less than an hundred years ago, these Scotchmen were
in the habit of making the like scalping and tomahawking excursions
upon the English farmer, that the North American savage makes upon the
white people here. This is the general idea which our common people
have of what Walter Scott calls "_the border wars_." Some of them will
tell you that the Scotch go half naked in their own country--wear a
blanket, and kill their enemies, with a knife, just like Indians. They
say their features differ from the English as much as theirs do from
the Indian. In a word, they suppose the Scotch Highlanders to be a
race who have been conquered by the English, who have taught them the
use of fire arms, and civilized them, in a degree, so as to form them
into regiments of soldiers, and this imperfect idea of the half savage
_Sawney_ will not soon be corrected; and we must say that the general
conduct of this harsh and self-interested race towards our prisoners,
will not expedite the period of correct ideas relative to the
comparative condition of the Scotch and English. The Americans have
imbibed no prejudice against the Irish, having found them a brave,
generous, jovial set of fellows, full of fun, and full of good, kind
feelings; the antipodes of Scotchmen, who, as it regards these
qualities, are cold, rough and barren; like the land that gave them
birth.

We moved from Portsmouth to the _Nore_ or Noah, for I know not the
meaning of the word, or how to spell it. The place so called is the
mouth of the river Thames, which runs t