It does not go back to antiquity, or look forward to succeeding ages. The cares of life increase, and the actions of other times no longer amuse. Hence it is, that the taste for their ancient poetry is at a low ebb among the highlanders. They have not, however, thrown off the good qualities of the ancestors. Hospitality still subsists, and an uncommon civility to strangers.
Friendship is inviolable, and revenge less blindly followed than formerly.
The arrangement of the words in the original is imitated, and the inversion of the style observed. As the translator claims no merit from his version, he hopes for the indulgence of the public where he fails. He wishes that the imperfect semblance he draws, may not prejudice the world against an original, which contains what is beautiful in simplicity, and grand in the sublime. The two nations retained separate parliaments, however, until 1707, when the Act of Union integrated them into one country with one government. Many Scots, particularly the Highlanders, resented the loss of control over their own affairs.