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Late one afternoon the pair set forth, well wrapped in cloaks and furnished with a formidable bottle. It rained without remission a cold, dense, lashing rain. Now and again there blew a puff of wind, but these sheets of falling water kept it down. Bottle and all, it was a sad and silent drive as far as Penicuik, where they were to spend the evening.
To the south, too, they beheld a deep-shaded amphitheatre of heather and bracken; the course of the Esk, near Penicuik, winding about at the foot of its gorge; the broad, brown expanse of Maw Moss; and, fading into blue indistinctness in the south, the wild heath-clad Peeblesshire hills.
The nephew who received the warning was Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, ancestor of Sir Walter Scott's friend. We next have a Mahatma-like tale about Cotton Mather, from Mr. Stirling, who had it from a person who had it from the doctor's own mouth. Briefly, Cotton lost his sermon as he was riding to a place where he had to preach.
"Soon after the appearance of Mr Cavendish's paper on hydrogen gas, in which he made an approximation to the specific gravity of that body, showing that it was at least ten times lighter than common air, Dr Black invited a party of friends to supper, informing them that he had a curiosity to show them. Dr Hutton, Mr Clerk of Eldin, and Sir George Clerk of Penicuik, were of the number.
Runciman was hard at work at Penicuik, painting as for his life, while all this discussion was going on, and Macpherson and his friends were striving might and main to produce an ancient manuscript anything like the published poem, and so confute and silence Johnson, Goldsmith, Burke, Garrick, and lastly Boswell, who did not even pair with the doctor on the occasion, though the question did affect Scotland.
After a time, Runciman was again back at Penicuik. Perhaps his fervour about his subject had a little cooled, or the incessant discussions in regard to it had disturbed his faith. In fact the Ossian swindle was getting to be, in common phrase, a little blown upon. His health was failing him; his mode of life had never been very careful. He fell ill; he neglected himself.
Sir James Clerk consented to the embellishment of his hall at Penicuik with a series of pictures illustrative of Ossian, by the hand of Runciman. Ossian was the rage quotations from the blind bard of Morven were in every one's mouth. True, Dr. Samuel Johnson had denounced the whole thing as an imposition 'as gross as ever the world was troubled with. Dr.
It may be worth while to mention that the incident of the supposed Praetorium actually happened to an antiquary of great learning and acuteness, Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, one of the Barons of the Scottish Court of Exchequer, and a parliamentary commissioner for arrangement of the Union between England and Scotland.
To the south, too, they beheld a deep-shaded amphitheatre of heather and bracken; the course of the Esk, near Penicuik, winding about at the foot of its gorge; the broad, brown expanse of Maw Moss; and, fading into blue indistinctness in the south, the wild heath-clad Peeblesshire hills.
Late one afternoon the pair set forth, well wrapped in cloaks and furnished with a formidable bottle. It rained without remission a cold, dense, lashing rain. Now and again there blew a puff of wind, but these sheets of falling water kept it down. Bottle and all, it was a sad and silent drive as far as Penicuik, where they were to spend the evening.
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