St. Clairs, or Sinclairs, the descendants of William de Sancto Clerc, son of Walderus, one of the Norman barons, who came to England with William the Conqueror. The last Roslin, as he was called, has been described by Sir Walter Scott in the following terms :—

"Some forty years ago, we remember the modern and comparatively small mansion which has been erected amidst the ruins of the old castle, inhabited by a genuine Scottish laird of the old stamp, the lineal descendant of the high race who first founded the pile, and the last male of their long line. His figure was almost the only one we recollect which carried our imagination back to the Scottish barons and warriors of antiquity, who, each lords and monarchs within their own domain, scarce knew how to pay homage. was considerably above six feet, with dark grey locks; a form upright, but gracefully so; thin flanked and broad shouldered, built, it would seem, for the business of war or the chase; a noble eye of chastened pride and undoubted authority; and features handsome and striking in their general effect, though somewhat harsh and exaggerated when considered in detail."

He

On a hill immediately above the Castle is the Chapel of Roslin, founded in the fifteenth century by William, Earl of Caithness and Orkney. Of it Mr. Britton says:

-"This building, I believe, may be pronounced unique, and I am confident it will be found curious, elaborate, and singularly interesting. The Chapels of King's College, St. George, and Henry VII., are all conformable to the styles of the respective ages when they were erected; and these styles display a gradual lightness and profusion of ornament; but the Chapel at Roslin

combines the solidity of the Norman with the minute decoration of the latest specimen of the Tudor age. It is impossible to designate the architecture of this building by any given or familiar term: for the variety and eccentricity of its parts are not to be defined by any words of common acceptation. I ask some of our obstinate antiquaries how they would apply either the word Roman, Saxon, Norman, Gothic, Saracenic, English, or Grecian, to this building?"

The entire edifice is profusely decorated with sculpture. The wreathing of flowers and foliage on one of its columns has been compared to Brussels' lace.

4

LOCAL ATTACHMENTS.

I DWELL among mine own people." Such was the reply of the woman of Shunem to the prophet Elisha, whom she had treated hospitably, and who wished on that account to intercede with the king to procure for herself, or for her family, some mark of the royal favour. The reply showed that old familiar faces and scenes were dearer than any advancement which might require a removal among strangers. The records of private life, and the annals of nations, present us with many similar examples of the power of attachment to local objects. David invited Barzillai, the Gileadite—an old man of one of the tribes beyond the Jordan-to accompany him on his return to Jerusalem, and permanently settle in his own palace. He went with him a short distance, and the king pressed him to go further, and bid a final adieu to the home of his youth; but the power of local affection was too strong to be overcome; and the Gileadite, replied, "Let thy servant, I pray thee, turn back again, that I may die in mine own city, and be buried by the grave of my father and of my mother."

The ancient Greeks were remarkable for the intensity of their attachment to country and to home. There is a well-known epigram in the "Anthology," written by Leonidas of Tarentum, occasioned by the prospect of dying away from the city and land of his birth. Taken prisoner by Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, and carried with other Tarentine captives to his court, Leonidas wrote

his own epitaph, when overtaken by a dangerous illness, which thus commences :

"Far from Tarentum's native soil I lie,
Far from the dear land of my infancy,

'Tis fearful to resign this mortal breath,

But in a stranger land 'tis worse than death;

It is not life to pass our fever'd age,

In ceaseless wand'rings on the world's wide stage."

The whole poetry and general literature of the Greeks is imbued with this feeling of strong attachment to the household hearth of their childhood. The story of the mother and daughter who killed themselves rather than be taken from their beloved Corinth, is familiar to the classical reader. Under the influence of superstition the feeling of local attachment was carried to a singular excess. Thus, a sacrifice to the gods in a strange temple, or a domestic arrangement in a foreign city, was held to be far less beneficial, or likely to prosper, than a home celebration. Hence Euripides makes Jocasta speak with horror of the marriage of her son at Argos.

The bitterness of exile to a Greek forms the subject of one of the tragedies of Sophocles-that of Philoctetes, whose story Fenelon has introduced in his " Telemachus"—and which, as told by the tragedian, is one of the most affecting representations of the misery occasioned by an apparently hopeless banishment from home and friends. Left ten years on the uninhabited island of Lemnos, but visited at length by some strangers, Philoctetes thus addresses them :

66 'Say, welcome strangers

Of what clime, what race?

Who are ye? Speak. If I may trust that garb,
Once familiar to me, ye are of Greece,

My much-loved country: let me hear the sound
Of your long-wish'd for voices——

Oh, if ye come as friends,

Speak then, and answer! hold some converse with me,
For this at least from man to man is due."

After recognising them as his countrymen, Philoctetes thus entreats one of the strangers :—

"Hear me, by the guardian god

Of the poor suppliant, all-protecting Jove--
-take me to thy home,

Or to Euboea's port, to Eta, thence

Short is the way to Trachin, or the banks

Of Sperchius' gentle stream, to meet my father,

If yet he lives."

The subject of the Odyssey is similar. Grief, occasioned by his absence from home, forms one of the prominent features in the well-drawn character of Ulysses; and from this the poem derives its highest interest. Though saved by Calypso from the fatal consequences of shipwreck on her coast-though promised the boon of immortality, on condition of being content to abide in her island—yet nothing could extinguish in the mind of Ulysses his love for his native Ithaca, and yearning desire to be restored to its fondly-remembered landscapes and people. Hence Homer tells us that again—

"To see the smoke from his loved palace rise,
With what contentment could he close his eyes!"

He represents Calypso finding him lamenting his destiny. by the sea-side, uncomforted by her attempts to divert his mind:

"Him pensive on the lonely beach she found,

With streaming eyes in briny torrents drown'd,
And inly pining for his native shore."