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Script or notes for a lecture about Dr. Smith's 'Seann Dàna' ('Old Poems').

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This poem appears to be unpublished. It is presumably an epitaph to his wife Catherine (or Kathleen) Hall who died in 1745. It is written in a very neat cursive hand, somewhat neater than the other poems.

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Manuscript poem entitled "A Prious Epigram on Ch_ h_n". First and last lines: "Cease Criticks! Cease vour weak impertinence / Who blame a G-—n blae a providence" … "Submiss obey” for one Disposing Care / Made him a Dull Dalrymple made so fair & Hamilton so bright".

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Manuscript poem entitled "Chloe’s Picture, Writ in ye Isle of Arran by M. W. Wallace". First and last lines: "As Pleasure’s richest Cup I fil'd w[i]t[h] wine / Mellifluous silling from that Source divine" ... "To Cyprus Isle, none ever came so fair / Tho late I hung up both my Hepburns there."

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A manuscript poem entitled "Escap’t old age unblemish’t and Uncloy’d And what Heaven gave of youth with worth enjoy’d / Mrs Colquhoon". Similar to his published poem entitled "Epitaph on Mrs Colquhoun of Luss", however, only the first two and final four lines are the same or similar, otherwise the two poems differ significantly.

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Manuscript poem entitled: "Hamlet.”, written early in 1746 and inserted anonymously in the Scots Magazine for June of the same year. Published in Hamilton's Poems (1760) under the title "A Soliloquy. In Imitation of Hamlet.”

This transcription of the poem is annotated at the end: "This very incorrect but as it only existed in my Memory I send it you — Tell Vertue for itself begins to move / And servile Fear replies melts into filial Love”.

Scope and Contents Manuscript poem entitled: "Horace Ode 17 / To James Craig”. Published title (1850): "Horace, Book II., Ode XVII., Imitated. Inscribed to Mr James Craig". Note to the 1850 edition: "This Ode we print from the manuscript volume, it never having been before published."There are some small differences between the present manuscript and the published version. Here are a few examples: "Thy gents of his charge afraid", in this manuscript becomes "Thy genius...

Scope and Contents Manuscript poem entitled "Interview between two fair Warriours at the Edinburgh Assembly in Imitation of Glaucus and Diomede". This text was later published under the title: "Interview of Miss Dalrymple and Miss Suttie between the Pillars at the Edinburgh Assembly. In Imitation of Homer’s Iliad, Book VI." The 1850 published poem is approximately double the length. However, the blank page and docket title indicate that this version was considered complete at the time of...

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This manuscript poem entitled: "Minch Muir in Swift's Stile" appears to be unpublished and unrecorded.

First and last lines:

"I Climbd the painfull Steep where Minch muir Shrouds / His Hoary Temples in Surrounding Clouds / Foggs Rise Eternall from his Dampfed Springs / Blew plague pale ffamine Load their Sable wings"

...

"While Mercury o’erflows her Toothless Chops / All this is Paradice to Minch muir Tops".