was the King for its success, that the sheriffs of many counties were cominanded, under the penalty of twenty pounds, to compel every idle man found within their bounds to serve in these busses for reasonable wages, or suffer the pain of banishment; James IV. Parl. 4. cap. 49. This experiment was first made at Stornoway, in the Isle of Lewis; but, before they had time to know what would be the effect, the inhabitants, mistaking the design of the colony, became dissatisfied; they considered them as intruders, and, in a rage, took arms, and compelled them to leave the place. In 1603, James being called to the English throne, the herring fishery was neglected until the reign of Charles the First, nearly 38 years after. This unfortunate prince did every thing in his power to complete the plans of his ancestors; he granted a commission for appointing a general committee to manage the fishe ries, of which the following is a copy: "Our Sovereign Lord ordains a commission to be expede under his Ma James the Fifth was still more anxious than his father to encourage the herring fishery; he wished, if possible, to extend its good effects to the Western Isles. For this purpose, he sailed with five ships around the northern coast by Orkney, and at the same time employed a person to draw charts of the coast, that he might be able to fix upon proper and convenient places for harbours. These charts were completed, by the order of the King of France, in 1583, from which Mr A-jesty's great seal of the kingdom of dair drew his in 1688. Drawing charts of the coast at that early period affords us sufficient proof of James's zeal for the good of his subjects, and for the improvement of his kingdom. If he had lived longer to carry on these improvements, we have every reason to think that he would have been successful in establishing a herring fishery on the western coasts, and of introducing trade among the inhabitants, to the great advantage of the nation. Scotland at this period was in a prosperous and flourishing state, trade was carried on with other nations to a large amount,-the royal navy was considerable for that age, the fishing vessels and merchant ships were numerous ;-but the sudden and unexpected death of the King put a stop to all these excellent plans, and the civil discord of the succeeding reigns prevented the government from finishing any of them. In 1602, James the Sixth turned his attention to the fisheries, and, 60 years after his grandfather's death, attempted to complete his plans. The towns of Campbeltown, Fort William, and Stornoway, were ordered to be built for the accoinmodation of the fishermen, and for promoting trade. He promised to confer the privileges of royal burghs on all the inhabitants who should settle in them. Finding that this promise had no effect to encourage the natives to engage in the herring fishery, he sent a colony of experienced fishermen from the towns in Fife to instruct them in the art of fishing, and to encourage industry. VOL. IV. Scotland, making mention, that whereas his Majesty, by his two several charters under the great seal of his kingdoms of Scotland and England respectively, hath ordained an association to be of both the said kingdoms, comprehending Ireland under the said kingdom of England, for a general fishing within the haill seas and coasts of his Majesty's kingdoms, except such as are reserved in the said several charters; and, for the government of the said association, hath or dained that there should be a standing committee chosen and nominated by his Majesty, and his successors from time to time, of equal number of both the said kingdoms, comprehending Ireland under the kingdom of England, as said is, whereof the onehalf shall be Scotsmen and the other to be English and Irish. And his Majesty being perfectly informed of the stability and good affection of his Majesty's subjects of either of the said kingdoms after specified, to undergo the charge of the said general committee for the fishing, therefore his Majesty hath given, and by these presents gives, full power and commission to the said persons after following," &c.- (Signed) THOMAS HOPE. Besides this, in order to encourage the Company, the King agreed to purchase from them fish for the use of the army and navy; he also prohibited the importation of fish into the kingdom. Under such patronage, the Company had every prospect of success; they fixed on two fishing stations, the one in the island of Hermatra, the other in the island of Loch Madie, both of which lie near North Uist. On these islands they built houses for the accommodation of the fishermen, and for the other purposes of the establishment. But, before they had time to give the measure a full trial, the civil war began, which put an end to all their prospects of wealth from the fisheries. In 1654, some wealthy gentlemen in London began the herring fishery, and the commonwealth encouraged them to proceed, by exempting them from paying duty on salt, and other articles used in it. Stornoway in the Isle of Lewis was the place fixed on for the fishing station, and great preparations were made for beginning at the approaching season. But it happened soon after that Cromwell was victorious over the Scots, and his arms extended to the Western Isles, where, in revenge on Scotland, he destroyed every thing belonging to the fish ery. After the Restoration in 1661, Charles II., the Duke of York, Lord Clarendon, and some other noblemen, engaged in the herring fishery with greater spirit than ever was done before. Good laws were enacted by the parliaments of England and Scotland, for conducting the business properly; salt, and all other necessaries used in the fishery, were granted free of duty. Several Dutch families were invited to settle at Stornoway, to teach the fishermen the art of curing the herrings. In this it would appear that they had been successful, as the herrings gave general satisfaction; a barrel sold for L. 1, 10s., a high price in those days. This establishment, of all others, was the best conducted, and it continued in a flourishing state for a considerable time, until Charles became embarrassed for want of money, which obliged him to withdraw his subscription, at which the nobility were so much displeased, that the Company was soon after dissolved. In 1677, another Company was es tablished, of which the Duke of York and the Earl of Derby were extraordinary directors. This Company enjoyed all the privileges of the former, and a premium of L. 20 was promised to be paid for every new buss they should build for seven years. On this encouragement a capital of L. 12,000 was soon advanced, and it was as soon exhausted in building busses, and fitting them out. These busses were not all exclusively employed in the herring fishery, some were also employed in cod fishing, and so great was their success in the first year, that one buss alone brought home 32,000 cod fish. Such a prosperous beginning might naturally enough be supposed to have a powerful effect in inducing others to advance capital, and this would certainly have been the case, had not an unforeseen event ruined the Company. As the greater number of the busses were built in Holland, and manned with Dutch fishermen, the French, who were then at war with Holland, captured almost the whole of them on the pretence that they belonged to the Dutch. After the Revolution, another Company was formed, with a capital of L. 300,000, but it is supposed, that, through King William's partiality to the Dutch, it did not succeed. George II. in 1749, at the meeting of Parliament, recommended the propriety of encouraging the herring fishery, in consequence of which, a committee was appointed by the House of Commons to inquire into the state of the fisheries. A Company was incorporated for 21 years under the name of the Society of the Free British Fishery, with a capital of L. 500,000. With this large capital the Company expected soon to excel the Dutch in the art of fishing; in this, however, they found themselves mistaken, as this capital was yearly diminished, without bringing any dividend to the subscribers. A high bounty of L. 2, 16s. per ton was at last given by Government to prevent the Company from ruin, but without effect. Such have been the various attempts to establish a fishery on the coast of Scotland. Some of them have been frustrated by causes which it was not in the power of man to foresee nor prevent; others, by the carelessness and unskilfulness of the fishermen, and by the fraudulent practices of persons entrusted with the management of the Company's affairs. these misfortunes should not deter the British Government from using means to recover the fisheries from the Dutch But and other foreigners who enrich themselves at our expence. Might not Government employ many of those unfortunate families in the herring fishery who are obliged to leave their native country for want of employment? Few, I am persuaded, would emigrate to America, if they could find encouragement to carry on a fishing trade on their native shores. They are every way qualified by temperance and sobriety for so laborious a business. It is the opinion of many who are well skilled in the fisheries, that individual exertions, with assistance, under proper regulations, would be more successful than those of chartered companies; experience confirms this opinion in the case of the Dutch and others. If you think this narrative worth a place in your Magazine, I may perhaps continue it down to the present time, and conclude with a view of the present state of our fisheries. A. CUSTOMS AND SUPERSTITIONS OF THE ding: I shall now endeavour to follow up his lively picture with some notices respecting births and burials; without, however, dwelling on the many absurd, and sometimes unseemly, ceremonies which were practised by the "canny wives" and gossips, when attending at “ inlyings or accouch ments. Great apprehensions were formerly entertained of the malignant influence and interference of the fairies, with both mother and child. Fairies were supposed to have a peculiar anxiety to procure women capable of being wet nurses; and to exercise all their ingenuity to steal and carry them off to Fairyland for this purpose; they were also accused of stealing unchristened children, and leaving urchins in lieu. For this reason, a child was always considered in imminent danger until baptized, and was spoken of as being uncanny, as its presence rendered the house liable to the visits of these unearthly intruders. To prevent their machinations, it was common for both mother and child to be watched; still the deed was often accomplished if the SCOTTISH PEASANTRY, AT BIRTHS drowsy centinel happened to sleep for AND BURIALS. MR EDITOR, HAVING read with much interest the communications of some of your former correspondents upon the popular customs and superstitions of Scotland, (particularly those from Clydesdale and the How of Angus,) I have been induced also to draw up a few pages of a similar description, for the honour of my native district, which I now transmit for your instructive Miscellany; and which, if approved of, I shall follow up with a second and concluding_article.-You and your readers will, I trust, pardon defects of style, as I am not in the habit of writing for the press; my only object is to assist in preserving those peculiar traits of our national character and customs which are so speedily wearing out under the allpervading influence of commerce and civilization, but which, however rustic or ridiculous, we still love to associate with many pleasing and delightful remembrances. Your Angus-shire correspondent has given, in a late Number, an excellent description of a Scotch Penny Wed a moment on her post. Among the many extraordinary stories of this kind, which I have heard related by an old nurse, were the following: In the olden times, when it was the fashion for gentlemen to wear swords, the Laird of Balmachie went one day to Dundee, leaving his wife in the straw; riding home in the twilight, he had occasion to leave the high road, when crossing through between some little romantic knolls, called the Cur-hills, in the neighbourhood of Carlungy, he encountered a troop of fairies supporting a kind of litter, upon which some person seemed to be borne. Being a man of dauntless courage, and, as he said, impelled by some internal impulse, he pushed his horse close to the litter, drew his sword, laid it across the vehicle, and in a firm tone exclaimed, "In the name of God, release your captive!" The tiny troop immediately disappeared, dropping the litter on the ground. The laird dismounted, and found that it supported his own wife, dressed only in her night clothes. Wrapping his great coat around her, he placed her on the horse before him, and having scarcely two miles to ride, arrived safely at home. Placing her in another room, under the care of an attentive friend, he immediately went to the chamber where he had left her in the morning, and there to appearance she still lay, very sick of a fever, incident to women in her situation, and here termed a weed. She was fretful, discontented, and complained much of having been neglected in his absence, at all which he affected great concern, and pretending much sympathy, insisted upon her rising to have her bed made. She was unable, but the laird was peremptory, and having ordered a large wood fire to warm the room, he lifted the impostor from the bed, and bearing her across the floor, as if to a chair, which was previously prepared, he threw her on the fire, from which she bounced up like a skyrocket, went through the ceiling, and out at the roof of the house, leaving a hole among the slates. He then brought in his own wife, a little recovered from her alarm, who told, that sometime after sunset, the nurse having left her for the purpose of preparing a little caudle, a multitude of elves came in at the window, thronging like bees from a hive; that they filled the room and even the bed, from which she was lifted, carried out at the window, and she recollected nothing farther, till she saw her husband standing over her on the Cur-hills, at the back of Carlungy. The hole in the roof, by which the female fairy made her escape, was mended, but could never be kept in repair, as a tempest of wind happened always once a year, which uncovered that particular spot, without injuring any other part of the roof. ed," Lord preserve us!" upon which Janet told also of a beautiful girl, with a skin so purely white and transparent, that her veins appeared through it like silver streams, and her cheeks like "the bonnie blushing rose leaf.” She was famed all over the country under the appellation of " the Beauty of Balumbie;" being envied by her own sex, and caressed by the other, she, in an unguarded hour, fell a victim to the arts of some rustic Lovelace, before the close of her 15th year, Respecting the kidnapping of and was delivered of a child, lovely as children, the same creditable cld wo- its mother. Her conduct gave so man told, that, upon one occasion, great offence to an old maiden aunt, when she was a hafflin' cummer, about with whom she lived, that the poor sixteen years of age, she was left with erring girl was expelled from her the charge of an unchristened wean house, and obliged to live by herself during the night; while watching, in a small hovel, afforded by the kindshe was all at once seized with a su- ness of a neighbour. She was so far pernatural drowsiness, and dropt recovered as to be able to walk out asleep; something tapped her on the with her child, of which she appeared shoulder, which awaked her, and look- remarkably fond; one day she did ing up, she saw a wee woman clad in not appear, and her door continued green, rocking the cradle with her shut; her neighbours began to be foot, and very busy untying the child, alarmed, they lifted the latch, and which she had nearly accomplished, found the door fast; upon endeavourwhen Janet, in great affright, exclaiming to enter, they saw a hole in the roof, by which they gained access into the house, for there was no window that would admit them. When within, they found the door barred on the inside; the infant dead in the bed, with the appearance of having been strangled; no mother there, and her clothes lying by her bed-side, as if she had put them off upon going to sleep. Strange and various were the conjectures about her most extraordinary disappearance. One party maintained that she had become insane, murdered her child, and made her escape by the roof; for, from the construction of the windows, and the door being fastened on the inside, all egress any other way was impossible. Another, and by far the most numerous party, most firmly believed, that she had been carried to Fairyland, as it was known that she had taken no clothes with her, and had never been heard of, either dead or alive. About seven years after, she returned to the village, late of an evening; and related that she and her child (as she supposed) were carried away from her own house, in what manner she could not tell; but that she recollected of being borne through the air to the back of the hill of Duntrune; that, as they passed, there was light in the house of Duntrune, and some of the fairies expressed a fear of being discovered by the lady, who, it seems, had power over them; but another answered, that Puck had given one of the maids a colic, and the lady was attending her in a low room on the other side of the house. That they then entered the hill, and came to a grand palace, the particulars of which she was not at liberty to describe. That she continued to nurse the boy, whom she still imagined her own, and had since that time nursed other six to the King and Queen of Fairyland; the milk having never left her breast until about a month before her return, when she understood, from overhearing a private conversation, that she would have no more milk till she was again a mother. It was therefore privately agreed upon among the fairies that she should be allowed to return to earth, when they would contrive to lead her into such temptations among her old acquaintance, as she should not be able to resist. In the mean time, they knew that she would not depart and leave the 11 boy whom she believed to be her own; but, continuing their conversation, she discovered that it was no child of her's that she had so fondled and adored. According to her account, she passed a night of dreadful anxiety for the fate of her own child, but was somewhat relieved when they told her next morning that she would be permitted to revisit the earth, upon being sworn not to reveal the secrets of her present abode. Being now returned, fully aware of the danger to which she was exposed, and the snares that would be laid for her, she was determined, by the grace of God, to resist them all; for she was better armed than the fairy people were aware of, or in any degree suspected; for, while in that country, she had received a box of very fine scented ointment, with which she was instructed to anoint the eyes of her nurslings, under pretence that they were tender, but was cautioned not to permit it to touch her own, for it had the quality of making mere mortals blind. Notwithstanding this admonition, impelled by that curiosity natural to her sex, she determined upon running the hazard, and, accordingly, one day touched one of her eyes with the ointment. The pain was so excessive, that she firmly be lieved the prediction of the fairies was about to be fulfilled; but it abated, and she soon discovered that she could see many things in Fairyland which were before invisible. Ever since her return, she always saw the fairies when they chose "to walk the earth,” although invisible to others. She had lived thus, courted and caressed, always "wooed but never won," and many a time saw the fairies mingling in the affairs of men, when one day, happening to be in a fair, she met King Oberon in a juggler's booth. Less upon her guard than usual, she asked him how he did, and was proceeding to inquire after her infant charge, (for whom she still acknowledged having an attachment,) when Oberon asked her how she knew him, as he did not think she could have seen him. She unthinkingly replied, that she saw him with her left eye. Upon which he blew something like dust into it, and blasted its sight for ever. The hapless girl returned from the fair, with one eye minus, and her future views of Fairyland and its |