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PREFACE.
tue owe so much, can amidst all his literary honours be pleased with what I have been able to write.
May I be permitted to say that the success of this book has exceeded my warmed hopes. When I first ventured to send it into the world, I fairly owned an ardent desire for literary fame. I have obtained my desire: and whatever clouds may overcast my days, I can now walk here among the rocks and woods of my ancestors, with an agreeable consciousness that I have done something worthy.
Auchinleck, Ayrshire,
29 October, 1768.