respect to one's auditors, to use upon this subject terms either
of mystification or of obscure or indirect allusion. The clouds
have been dispelled; the DARKNESS VISIBLE has been cleared away;
and the Great Unknown--the minstrel of our native land--the
mighty magician who has rolled back the current of time, and
conjured up before our living senses the men and the manners of
days which have long passed away--stands revealed to the hearts
and the eyes of his affectionate and admiring countrymen. If he
himself were capable of imagining all that belonged to this
mighty subject--were he even able to give utterance to all that,
as a friend, as a man, and as a Scotsman, he must feel regarding
it--yet knowing, as he well did, that this illustrious individual
was not more distinguished for his towering talents than for
those feelings which rendered such allusions ungrateful to
himself, however sparingly introduced, he would, on that account,
still refrain from doing that which would otherwise be no less
pleasing to him than to his audience. But this his Lordship,
hoped he would be allowed to say (his auditors would not pardon
him were he to say less), we owe to him, as a people, a large and
heavy debt of gratitude. He it is who has opened to foreigners
the grand and characteristic beauties of our country. It is to
him that we owe that our gallant ancestors and the struggles of
our illustrious patriots--who fought and bled in order to obtain
and secure that independence and that liberty we now enjoy--have
obtained a fame no longer confined to the boundaries of a remote
and comparatively obscure nation, and who has called down upon
their struggles for glory and freedom the admiration of foreign
countries. He it is who has conferred a new reputation on our
national character, and bestowed on Scotland an imperishable
name, were it only by her having given birth to himself. (Loud