a livelihood at home, Macneill, for the fourth time, took his departure from Britain.  Provided with letters of introduction to influential and wealthy persons in Jamaica, he sailed for that island on a voyage of adventure; being now in his thirty-eighth year, and nearly as unprovided for as when he had first left his native shores, twenty-four years before.  On his arrival at Kingston, he was employed by the collector of customs, whose acquaintance he had formed on the voyage; but this official soon found he could dispense with his services, which he did, without aiding him in obtaining another situation.  The individuals to whom he had brought letters were unable or unwilling to render him assistance, and the unfortunate adventurer was constrained, in his emergency, to accept the kind invitation of a medical friend, to make his quarters with him till some satisfactory employment might occur.  He now discovered two intimate companions of his boyhood settled in the island, in very prosperous circumstances, and from these he received both pecuniary aid and the promise of future support.  Through their friendly offices, his two sons, who had been sent out by a generous friend, were placed in situations of respectability and emolument.  But the thoughts of the poet himself were directed towards Britain.  He sailed from Jamaica, with a thousand plans and schemes hovering in his mind, equally vague and indefinite as had been his aims and designs during the past chapter of his history.  A small sum given him as the pay of an inland ensigncy, now conferred on him, but antedated, sufficed to defray the expenses of the voyage.

Before leaving Scotland for Jamaica, Macneill had commenced a poem, founded on a Highland tradition; and to the completion of this production he assiduously devoted himself during his homeward voyage.  It was published at Edinburgh in 1789, under the title of “The Harp, a Legendary Tale.”  In the previous year, he published a pamphlet in vindication of slavery, entitled, “On the Treatment of the Negroes in Jamaica.”  This pamphlet, written to gratify the wishes of an interested friend, rather than as the result of his own convictions, he subsequently endeavoured to suppress.  For several years, Macneill persevered in his unsettled mode of life.  On his return from Jamaica, he resided in the mansion of his friend, Mr Graham of Gartmore, himself a writer of verses, as well as a patron of letters; but a difference with the family caused him to quit this hospitable residence.  After passing some time with his relatives in Argyllshire, he entertained a proposal of establishing himself in Glasgow, as partner of a mercantile house, but this was terminated by the dissolution of the firm; and a second attempt to succeed in the republic of letters had an equally unsuccessful issue.  In Edinburgh, whither he had removed, he was seized with a severe nervous illness, which, during the six following years, rendered him incapable of sustained physical