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Dr. Robertson accordingly prepared a volume of his Sermons, which was published in 1790, and a second in the following year. They are in general elegant and perspicuous, but occasionally burst into passages of the declamatory kind, which, however, are perhaps not unsuitable to the warmth of pulpit oratory. They have been uncommonly successful, the fifth edition having made its appearance in 1807. He left several other manuscripts which were once intended for publication. Among these are his Lectures on History, and three or four tragedies.

In 1805, a new edition of his poems was published at Edinburgh and London, to which a Life is prefixed by an anonymous writer. From this the facts contained in

5 the present more succinct sketch have been borrowed.

Logan deserves a very high rank among our minor poets. The chief character of his poetry is the pathetic, and it will not perhaps be easy to produce any pieces from the whole range of English poetry more exquisitely tender and pathetic than The Braes of Yarrow-The Ode on the death of a young Lady, or A Visit to the Country in Autumn-The Lovers, seems to assume a higher character; the opening lines, spoken by Harriet, rise to sublimity by noble gradations of terrour, and an accumulation of images which are, with peculiar felicity, made to vanish on the appearance of her lover. In the whole of Logan's poems, are passages of true poetic spirit and sensibility. With a fancy so various and regulated it is to be regretted, he did not more frequently cultivate his talents. The episode of Levina, among the pieces attributed to him, indicates powers that might have appeared to advantage in a regular poem of narration and description. His sacred pieces are allowed to be of the inferior kind, but they are inferior only as they are not original; he strives to throw an air of modern elegance over the simple language of the East, consecrated by use and devotional spirit; and he fails where Watts and others have failed before him, and where Cowper only has escaped without injury to his general character.

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THE REV? THOMAS WARTON.

Engraved by WTM Holl, from a RPicture by Air Joshua Reynolds.

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