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NOTES BY THE EDITOR.

PRELIMINARY DISSERTATION.

P. 19. l. 4. All Wilson's publications seem to have escaped the notice of the Reviewers, except the Dramatic Essay, 1760, which was noticed in the following terms by the Monthly Reviewer, who commends the author's modesty for terming his production an Essay rather than a Drama.—"The author of this poetical essay has kept very close to the history, having added little of the circumstances of the story, beside a number of moral sentiments, judiciously interspersed, and generally well expressed; the piece being, indeed, unequally written; some parts of it presuming more in favour of the author's genius, than other parts of it are able to support. The verse is not poetry; and the ear of the English reader will frequently be offended with the sounds of certain Scoticisms, which should never presume to make their appearance on this side the Tweed[1]."

Hume of Godscroft, in a copy of verses on the event which is the subject of this drama, and which are


  1. Monthly Review, Vol. XXIII. p. 526.