MR. RUSSEL THE MINISTER.
For at least the last six years of his residence in Cromarty he was not a little popular as a preacher. His manner was strong and energetic, and the natural severity of his temper seems to have been more than genius to him when expatiating, which he did often, on the miseries of the wicked in a future state. The reader will scarce fail to remember the picture of the preacher dashed off by Burns in the Holy Fair; or to see that the poet’s arrows, however wickedly shot, came from no bow drawn at venture:—
“Black Russel is nae spairin’;
His piercing words, like Highland swords,
Divide the joints an’ marrow
His talk o’ hell, where devils dwell,
Our verra sauls does harrow
Wi’ fright that day.
“A vast unbottom’d, boundless pit,
Fill’d fou o’ lowin’ brunstane,