-- I am sure it excels it in
verdure, wood, and water. -- What say you to a natural bason of
pure water, near thirty miles long, and in some places seven
miles broad, and in many above a hundred fathom deep, having four
and twenty habitable islands, some of them stocked with deer, and
all of them covered with wood; containing immense quantities of
delicious fish, salmon, pike, trout, perch, flounders, eels, and
powans, the last a delicate kind of fresh-water herring peculiar
to this lake; and finally communicating with the sea, by sending
off the Leven, through which all those species (except the powan)
make their exit and entrance occasionally?
Inclosed I send you the copy of a little ode to this river, by Dr
Smollett, who was born on the banks of it, within two miles of
the place where I am now writing. -- It is at least picturesque and
accurately descriptive, if it has no other merit. -- There is an
idea of truth in an agreeable landscape taken from nature, which
pleases me more than the gayest fiction which the most luxuriant
fancy can display.
I have other remarks to make; but as my paper is full, I must
reserve them till the next occasion.
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