Lift up their heads in flow'ry prospect fair,
And wave exuberant to the morning air;
When lo! a frost from the high heaven invades
The tender plant, and withers all its shades:
It droops all febrile from its genial bed,

A heap of ruin quite defaced and dead. (h)

Not long time has elapsed since cultivation was introduced into this country, cattle rearing and hunting formed their only employment and support. As they depended for part of their food on the chace, they became dexterous in springing and securing game. Thus the produce of their own country rendered them independent, until luxury found admittance, and with her consort effeminacy banished their felicium.

Their battles were fierce and severe, as their souls glowed with a passion for military fame. Let us but take a survey of the Celtic warriors, as they are pourtrayed by the Fingalian hero, and it will not be improper to adopt the beautiful and pathetic language of that bard. Here we are led to a beautiful and elegant passage, from an idea that a once cotemporary warrior, who, after having closed his mortal career, roving at large through the immortal space, thinks on him, here he breaks out in rapture, on the idea that his friend recollects and speaks of him to the conclave of ghosts in the shades:

"And dost thou remember, Ossian? The battles of our youth were many; our swords went together to the field. They saw us coming like two rocks; and the sons of the stranger fled. There come the warriors, they said; and

their steps are in the paths of the vanquished."

This small passage shews the magnanimity of the ancient Celts; and one or two more passages will not be amiss, as the sensibility and tenderness of soul are finely described, of those hardy sons of the mountains, and part of their threnody, or

(4) Homer's Iliad, Book XVII.

final wish when the approach of old age unbraces the sinews, and the world has no more charms for them:

"And fallest thou, son of my fame! and shall I never see thee, Oscar? When others hear of their sons, I shall not hear of thee. The moss is on the stones of his tomb, and the mournful wind is there. The battle shall be fought without him; he shall not pursue the dark brown hinds.

"Olay me, ye that see the light, near some rock of my hills; let the thick hazels be around, let the rustling oak be Green be the place of my rest; and let the sound of

near.

the distant torrent be heard." (i)

As to the origin of the primitive inhabitants, I can advance nothing; many able pens have written on the subject, and what were the consequences? nothing but criticism on criticism has ensued, that involves the mind in a labyrinthian maze, from whence there is no possibility of finding the real path.

Buchanan and Monypennie have traced their origin up to the principal postdiluvian families, and what then? They echoed the song of the monkish historians who wrote long prior to them, and when the nation was totally enveloped with an umbrian darkness and ignorance, and education was confined within the gloomy walls of the cloister, and whatsoever was there written, was held in as great estimation as the volumes of the divine law, so that many fabulous legends were detailed to the infant world, and too many ambidexter tricks played off admirably, and a number of false miracles said to have been wrought, and all know that wonder is the effect of novelty upon ignorance. Thus let us look back but to the beginning of the twelfth century, and there we will find every annal of history immured within their convents, as every science whatever were only known and used there, and were prohibited from being taught or used without the walls, by a bull from Pope Victor II. dated 1131.

(i) Duff's Critical Observations, 1770.

I know this will be called acrid; I know

"Twill be counted heresy, nay deism, by the pseudo saints
Who make wry faces, groan, cant, pray, and so
Impose on man. I hate hypocrisy, and I know the grants
Of the pure doctrine to the church below;

I know too well by pride, leagues, councils, covenants;
The churches have made a right bad purchase,

And on the whole have stamp'd the name disgrace. (k) But averting from every polemical branch, and pursuing with candour the historical chain, we must acknowledge that we ultimately stand indebted to those monks for most of our annals, as every cloister was bound to keep a historical register of all the remarkable events in the nation; and at the end of every reign those registers were compared, and formed into a volume, and although blended with a strong tincture of superstition, yet they served as a lamp to aid our researches, and hence the many monkish histories found in our libraries. But on the other hand, while comparing these histories, we are surprised at the discordance, on events even of importance, and the dates are greatly varied, so that we know not whom we can credit, as every writer vouches his works for truth.

Mr. Ruddiman enters next the list, in his answer to the Rev. G. Logan, the defender of Buchanan, where he, Mr. Ruddiman, asserts that many of the writings of Boethius, Fordun, Buchanan, &c. are spurious, and the offspring of wandering imaginations, and that the first thirty of our Scottish sovereigns were Utopian monarchs, i. e. the children of fancy.

This elevated country is cold and sterile, and but rarely repays the peasants toil; yet the natives are robust, generous, brave, and humane.

Where Caledonia's western mountains rear

Their lofty summits, crowned with lasting snow,

(k) Parody on stanza XIV. of Byron's Vision of Judgment..

There lives-ah, no! say rather languishes, a race,
Whose bosoms (undebas'd by vice's train)
-Boast each affection that ennobles man.
Yet they are doom'd to till a cheerless soil,
Which sparely feels the sun's enlivening ray,
Too oft to see their labor's meed destroyed

By dearth-producing storms. To these dire ills,
To rigorous clime, and inauspicious skies,
Oppression, baleful, with an hell-born soul,

Adds wretchedness more dire. Her schedule base
(Where mammon and injustice are colleagued,)
With supercilious air she wide unfurls,
And thence confirms her arbitrary claim;
Unheard pleads poverty and honest truth :
Expostulating reason's voice is lost,

And delug'd fields upbraid and preach in vain. (7) Yet bleak as these mountains are, they are esteemed a fastness by these hardy sons, who would not quit them for the low country, with all its luxuries, but when forced by exigency; and then they leave their home with reluctance, and mourn for those scenes of rural enjoyment, and the friends left behind,

May be to return to Lochaber no more.

And should any stranger dare to invade their territory with a hostile intention, that stranger pays for his temerity, for on his approach the slug-horn is sounded, and the clans assemble to a man at the rendezvous, to defend

Their wives and darling native home.

But let us descend down to the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century, and we will find their ardour for military fame not diminished, and their favour for their natal soil not abated.

When the invasion of Scotland was threatened by the French army, the Strathdon men formed a volunteer asso

(1) Rev. L. Booker's Picture of the Highlands, 1787.

C

ciation, commanded by Alexander Forbes, Esq. of Inverernan, to defend their country from a foreign foe.

O fear not to lead us, O doubt not our valour;

Like rocks we will stand on the field of the brave,
Nor yield to the foe, till the fields change their colour ;
And our veins are run dry at the mouth of the grave.
Strathden men are patriots, nor shrink from the danger;
Our claymores have reek'd with the blood of the foe;
Our hills clad with cairns still point to the stranger,

Where victory was gain'd and intruders laid low.
O come, then, descendant of Brux, noble, daring;
Thou Forbes, the chief of our fastnesses bare:
Come to thy children, whose bosoms are baring,
Whose souls love, obedience, and trust still declare.
Our clans are all ready, array'd in their tartan;

Loud, loud swells the pibroch o'er mountain and glen ;
Pale look the invaders like cowardice starting,
Aware of the valour reigns in Highland men.
Behold we are ready, our skeans unsheathed;
Our slogan is loanach, a sound we revere :
Should a dastard be found with dire infamy wreathed,
We his name from our lists indignant will tear.
We pant for the battle, embracing each other,
Like lions at fetters enraged we cry;

We'll rush on the tyrants, we'll stand to a brother;

With Forbes we'll conquer, with Forbes we'll die. (m) After having made this short digression, we will return and view the Don, which is expanded, and appears more majestic, by the many tributary springs falling from the hills on either side.

On one hand is seen a few straggling cottages in the distance, and a more luxuriant prospect opens to the eye;rustics moving forward and backward to and from their diurnal toil, with health and cheerfulness depicted on every coun

(m) Parody on Kennedy's Wallace's invitation to Bruce.