Rev. William Cameron, minister and author: volume of manuscript poems Manuscript volume containing poems by William Cameron, poems dated between 1774 and 1797. Leaves numbered 1 to 136, plus 5 unnumbered pages at the end. Title on page 1: 'Poems On Various Subjects'. No author stated; an ornament below the title has possibly been converted from 'By'. Also on the titlepage an invocation to the Muses from Virgil's Georgics (this corresponds to the title-page of the 1780 edition). The manuscript seems to be Cameron's original. The handwriting appears identical to that of his letters to James Beattie, and some of the poems have corrections and additions. For instance the poem 'An Adieu to the Marischal College of Aberdeen' has the original first line scored out and a new first line added. This new first line is the one that appears in the printed edition. Evidently there were originally two manuscript volumes of poems. This manuscript has two lists of contents at the start; the first one shows all the poems (with attribution to volume 1 or volume 2), the second one the poems in the present volume. Those shown as in the other volume (described as volume 2) are three longer poems and several fables. The printed edition of 1780 includes poems from both manuscript volumes; the present manuscript contains poems not in either of the printed editions. In the foreword to the 1780 edition, after a discussion of the poem Panana, the author writes: 'Most of the other pieces in this small Miscellany were also written some years ago, without any design of ever being published. They are only a part of a larger collection of poems, which has been lately read by several persons of the most approved taste and judgment, who advised me to give a specimen of them to the Public. If the one now offered meet with any indulgence or approbation, considered as the first essays of youth, I shall be encouraged to think that what remains unpublished is entitled to equal honour.' c 1774 - c 1797