"Abyssinian sources of the the Nile." If this evidence does not overturn that which Mr Salt collected in Abyssinia, it at least completely neutralizes it, and leaves the testimony of Bruce unimpeached, which, I have no doubt, is completely true. It is not a little singular that a Hadje Hamed should be mentioned by two different travellers as giving such opposite accounts.. Can it be the same person? I think there is a strong probability that it is. Now surely Mr Salt must have been acquainted with Browne's Travels, especially as his patron claims Browne as his friend; and if so, was there ever any thing more unfair than the harsh conclusion which he draws, on this point, respecting Bruce's veracity? I have met with none who have formed a more correct estimate of Bruce's character, than that accurate and profound scholar Dr Vincent; and I beg leave to contrast his opinion with the pitiful jealousy (for it is nothing else) of his present assailants. "We ought "not to be ungrateful to those who explore the desert for our informa❝tion. Bruce may have offended "from the warmth of his temper; he may have been misled by aspiring to knowledge and science which he "had not sufficiently examined: but "his work throughout bears internal "evidence of veracity, in all instances “where he was not deceived himself; "and his observations were the best "which a man furnished with such "instruments, and struggling for his "life, could obtain." Periplus of Eryth, see p. 93. I have not noticed the fiftieth part that demands animadversion, in this nine guinea publication. I have not time to follow his Lordship farther at present, but I earnestly recommend him to the Edinburgh Reviewers; and if they fail to do their duty, I shall be forced to take up the pen again to administer some farther castigation to this titled Somnambulist. J. E. 131. On Shakespeare, in the chancel of the great church of Stratford upon Avon, Warwickshire. Judicio Pylium, Genio Socratem, Arte Maronem Terra tegit, Populus moeret, Olympus habet. Good friend, for Jesus sake forbear To dig the dust inclosed here; Biest be the man that spares these stones; And curst be he that moves my bones. 132. In All-Saints church, Bristol. Thomas Colston, Esq. mayor and Alderman of this City, died 16th November 1597. Death is no death, now Thomas Colston lives, Who fourscore years hath lived to his praise; A joyful life now Christ to him doth give, Who wrong'd no wight, each man commends his ways, Death him cummands to bid this world adieu, Thrice happy those who die to live a fate, *Mrs Draper was the celebrated Eliza By DEATH the bruifer was most soundly of Sterne. beat. When When Death and Skidmore first began to box, Death gave to Skidmore most tremendous knocks; And all throughout this sad, unequal battle, Death made poor Skidmore's bones to rat- Skidmore try'd hardly to recover breath, Learn hence, ye who this bloody art By Death the bruifer, you must all be bruis'd! ly apprehension, united to a singularly capacious and retentive memory.— From this seminary, his rapid progress removed to the Universities of Glasin his studies enabled him to be early gow and Edinburgh, where he continued to apply with the happiest suc cess. His fortune being but mode rate, he, in compliance with the counsels of his friends to select one of the learned professions, turned his views to the study of medicine: but his genius strongly prompting him to follow a military life, and the war then 135. In the choir of the High Church, carrying on in Flanders presenting a Glasgow. In memory Mr William Cochran, favourable opportunity for gratifying his natural tendencies, young Melville could not resist the temptation. Without, therefore, the knowledge of his friends, he privately withdrew to London, where, upon a statement of his motives and determination, he was furnished with the necessary means of carrying his projects into effect.-He accordingly repaired to the Netherlands; and early in 1744, he was ap pointed an ensign in the 25th regiment of foot, then forming a part of Memoirs of the late General MEL- the allied army. That campaign he GENER VILLE. ENERAL MELVILLE was descended from the Melvilles of Carnbee, in Fife, a branch of the ancient and noble family of his name, of which the chief is the present Earl of Leven and Melville. The original stock of this family was a Norman warrior, one of the followers of William the Conqueror, who, on some disgust he conceived at his treatment in England, withdrew into Scotland, in the reign of Malcolm Canmore, from whom he received lands in Lothian, about 1066; and branches of his family were afterwards established on lands in Angus, and Fife. General Melville's parents dying when he was very young, his guardians placed him at the grammarschool of Leven, where he soon distinguished himself by a quick and live Feb. 1810. served under Field-Marshal Wade, and all the following, up to the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748, under H. R. H. the Duke of Cumberland, parttly in the Netherlands, and partly in Britain, whither the regiment had been drawn in 1745, on account of the political troubles in the kingdom. In the end of 1746, the regiment returning to the Continent, Ensign Melville, at the battle of Lafeldt, conducted himself in such a way as to merit being selected by his colonel, (the Earl of Rothes,) to deliver to the Commander in Chief, the colours of a French regiment, taken by the 25th, on which occasion he was promoted to a lieutenantcy. His regiment, after the battie of Fontenoy, was besieged in Ath, where Lieutenant Melville narrowly escaped destruction: for the enemy directing their fire at the fortifications alone, alone, in order to spare the town, a shell from an overcharged mortar passing over the ramparts, fell in the middle of the night, when he was absent on duty in one of the outworks, on the house where he was quartered, and, piercing the roof, actually made its way through the bed he usually occupied. On the termination of the war, Lieutenant M. proceeded with his regiment for the south of Ireland; and on the passage was shipwrecked on the coast of Normandy. In 1751, being promoted to the command of a company in the same regiment, and employed in recruiting in Scotland, his unexampled success drew the notice of the commander of the forces, and he became aid de-camp to the Earl of Panmure. In 1756, he was made major of the 38th regiment, then in Antigua, where it had been stationed for half a century, since its removal from Gibraltar. That island had often been made a receptacle for offenders, from regiments at home; and thus its military force had long been composed of the most disorderly troops. By the indefatigable zeal of the new major, and from the perfect conviction he was able to inspire into the men, that he had their welfare, and that alone, at heart, he at length, with the assistance of most of the other officers, succeeded in rendering the 38th regiment one of the most orderly in the service: and detachments from it accompanied him in the attack on Martinique, as also on the invasion of Guadaloupe, where Major M. commanded the Tight infantry, at the advanced posts. In one of the skirmishes, which were constantly successful, during an attack, after a night's march, and the surprize of a post very close to the French camp, the major was entering a house just abandoned by the enemy, when it exploded, and he was blown to a considerable distance, and taken up for dead. From the immediate effects of this accident he soon recovered: but to the same cause must be attributed the decay of sight, with which, in his latter years, he was afflicted, and which at last ended in total irremediable blindness. In recompence for his ser vices in Guadaloupe, Major M. was directed by the commander of the forces, (General Barrington,) to succeed Lieutenant Colonel Debrisey, in the defence of Fort Royal, which he held until the reduction of the island, when, in addition to the government of that fort, he was appointed lieutenant-governor of the island of Guadaloupe, and its dependencies, with the lieutenant-colonelcy of the 63d regi ment. Brigadier-general Crump, who was made governor of the new colony, dying in 1760, Lieutenant-colonel M. succeeded to the government, with the command of the troops. In this situation he exerted himself to the utmost, and was at very considerable expense, in order to impress the new French subjects with favourable notions of the justice and liberality of the British government. In this attempt he was so successful, not only in the colony immediately under his command, but in Martinique, and the other neighbouring French islands, that a secret correspondence was established with the leading people amongst the enemy, which in a great measure produced the speedy surrender of those islands to the British arms. Although a governor in chief from England had arrived in Guadaloupe, and Lieutenant-colonel M. had not only received his Majesty's leave to repair to Europe for the benefit of his health. but was at the same time promoted to the rank of colonel in the army, still resisting very tempting invitations to return home, he preferred to remain even as second in command, in the view of accomplishing his great object-the acquisition of the French colonies which, from the intercourse he he had now opened with them, must have suffered much interruption from his absence. In pursuance of these projects, Colonel M. proceeded as second in command, with Brigadier-general Lord Rollo, against Dominica, which was surprised and taken with very little loss. This expedition was concerted and conducted with so much skill and caution, that the island had surrendered before the French governor of Martinique was informed of the attack, although these islands are within sight of each other; and the importance of Colonel M.'s service in the attack, as well as in the previous arrangements with certain inhabitants, were publicly acknowledged by Admiral Sir James Douglas, and Brigadier-general Lord Rollo, the two commanders of the expedition. In the beginning of 1762, Colonel M. commanded a division in the attack under General Monkton, on Martinique; and notwithstanding severe illness, was present in the successful assault of the hill and battery of Tortenson. The British had, how ever, obtained possession of a very small portion of the island, when a small party arriving at a certain spot in the interior, one of three agreed upon in Colonel M.'s correspondence with the principal inhabitants for that purpose, a general defection with a cry of capitulation took place; so that the French governor was compelled to capitulate at a moment, when almost the whole island, with St Pierre, the capital, and several important for tifications in all the fortresses in the mountains, were still in his possession and which, if at all reducible by the British forces in the island, must have been carried with a very great loss of troops. This rapid conquest was the more important, as, within a few days after the surrender, a French squadron, with a great body of troops, appeared off Martinique ; but on learning the fate of the colony, the commander, without attempting its relief, immediately returned to St Domingo. On the fall of Martiniqué, the remaining French islands, St Lucia, St Vincent, Grenada, the Grenadines, and Tobago, submitted to a summons, receiving conditions equally liberal with those granted to Martinique. No sooner had the conquest of Martinique been effected, than Colonel Melville returned to his post in Guadaloupe, to avoid intercourse with the persons by whose means the defection of Martinique had been brought about and it is remarkable that, although on the, restoration of that, and some other islands to France, when the most rigid enquiry was instituted respecting the correspondence with the British, of whose existence little doubt was entertained by the French government; yet of all the persons suspected and even punished on the occasion, not one of those actually connected with Colonel Melville was even so much as hinted at. The conquest of the French islands, the great object of Colonel Melville's anxiety, being now accomplished, he repaired to England, where he found his services and general conduct highly approved; although, in fact, the measures he had privately followed to bring about the splendid success already stated, could not, for the sake of the persons implicated, be either publicly known or acknowledged: nor was the secret ever divulged.— Many years afterwards, when General Melville was employed on a mis sion to the court of Versailles, application was made to him from a very high quarter, to learn whether certain persons, whose names were mentioned, were in any way connected with his projects in Martinique, &c. and upon his declaration that they were totally unknown to him, those persons, or their surviving relations, were instantly relieved from the obloquy and losses they had till that time en |