Note 308 — POEMS 1814-1816.

[The "Caledonian Meeting," at which these lines were, or were intended to be, recited (see Life, p. 254), was a meeting of subscribers to the Highland Society, held annually in London, in support of the [Royal] Caledonian Asylum "for educating and supporting children of soldiers, sailors, and marines, natives of Scotland." "To soothe," says the compiler of the Report for 1814, p. 4, "by the assurance that their offspring will be reared in virtue and comfort, the minds of those brave men, through whose exposure to hardship and danger the independence of the Empire has been preserved, is no less an act of sound policy than of gratitude."]