inspiration of nature amidst the clouds of Loch-nagarr, and
afterwards poured the light of his genius over those lands of the sun
where his descending orb set--

"Not as in northern climes obscurely bright,
But one unclouded blaze of living light."

Scotland, my lord, may well be proud of such men, but she can no longer
call these exclusively her own; their names have become household words
in every land. Mankind claims them as the common inheritance of the
human race. Look around us, and we shall see on every side decisive
proofs how far and wide admiration for their genius has sunk in the
hearts of man. What is it that attracts strangers from every part of the
world into this distant land, and has more than compensated a remote
situation and a churlish soil, and given to our own Northern Isle a
splendour unknown to the regions of the sun? What is it which has
brought together this mighty assemblage, and united the ardent and the
generous from every part of the world, from the Ural mountains to the
banks of the Mississippi, on the shores of an island in the Atlantic? My
lord, it is neither the magnificence of our cities, nor the beauty of
our valleys, the animation of our harbours, nor the stillness of our
mountains; it is neither our sounding cataracts, nor our spreading
lakes; neither the wilds of nature we have subdued so strenuously, nor
the blue hills we have loved so well. These beauties, great as they are,
have been equaled in other lands; these marvels, wondrous though they
be, have parallels in other climes. It is the genius of her sons which
has given Scotland her proud pre-eminence; this it is, more even than
the shades of Bruce, of Wallace, and of Mary, which has rendered her
scenes classic ground to the whole civilized world, and now brings
pilgrims from the most distant parts of the earth, as on this day, to
worship at the shrine of genius.

"Yet Albyn! yet the praise be thine,
Thy scenes with story to combine;
Thou bid'st him who by Roslin strays
List to the tale of other days.
Midst Cartlane crags thou showest the cave,
The refuge of thy champion brave;
Giving each rock a storied tale,
Pouring a lay through every dale;
Knitting, as with a moral band,
Thy story to thy native land;
Combining thus the interest high
Which genius lends to beauty's eye!"

But, my lord, the poet who conceived those beautiful lines, has himself
done more than all